EDUCATION IN AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 7628, 2 June 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

EDUCATION IN AMERICA.

The Pilgrim Fathers carried with them to New Knglaud a deep persuasion that the people of the State which they went to found must be universally educated. Not otherwise could the enduring success of their great enterprise be hoped for. It was their care from the very outset to provide in such manner as circumstancea enabled them for the education of their children. The germ of a free school is to be found in each of their settlements. The records of the European countries of the time would be searched in vain for evidence of a sentiment so deeply seated, so widely prevalent, so enlightened as the New England desire that all children should be educated. Its sincerity was proved by the willingness of tho people to submit to taxation in the cause. In the early days of Connecticut one-fourth of the revenues of the colony were applied to the support of schools. Long before the Revolution, schools maintained by public funds, and free of charge to the pupils, had extended widely over the New England States. The love of education has never cooled. When the colonists gained their independence, and established themselves as an association of freemen conducting their own public affairs, a new urgency was added to the necessity that all should be educated. It was clearly Been, even then, that while ignorant men might be serviceable subjects of a despotism, only educated citizens were capable of selfgovernment. Northern America sought to build the fabric of republican institutions upon the sound and durable foundation of universal enlightenment. In the Southern States, the aristocratic tendencies which the slave system fostered were adverse to the education of the poor. The slave-owners desired submission ; their property was not improved in value, but the reverse, by education. While America was still a dependency, a question was put to the Governor of Virginia by the English Commissioners of Foreign Plantations. " I thank God," replied the Governor, " there are no free schools or printing presses, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years." The Governor's hope was more than fulfilled. The common school system was almost unknown in the South while slavery existed. It became criminal to teach a slave to read ; the poor white had no desire to learn, and no one sought to teach him. At the close of the rebellion (1865) the mass of the Southern population were as little educated as the Russian peasants are to-day. But peace was no sooner restored than the eager desire of the negroes for education was metby the generous efforts of the North. Northern teachers were quickly at work among the negro children, So soon as the means of the ruined States permitted, the common school system of the North was set up. It entailed burdens which they were ill able to bear. But these burdens have been borne with a willingness which is evidence that the South now recognises her need of education. Notwithstanding their poverty, some of the States yield for school purposes a rate of taxation larger for each member of the population than is that of England. The American people manifest a profound, and, aa recent reports indicate, an increasing interest in their system of common schools. It is not merely or chiefly tho personal advantage of the individual citizen which concerns them. It is the greatness and permanence of the State—" Free education for all is the prime necessity of re publics." Institutions which rest altogether upon popular support demand, as essential to their safety, the support of an instructed people. It was the same conviction which impressed itself upon Great Britain, when, having conceded household suffrage, she hastened to set up a compulsory and universal system of education, that the dangers likely to arise from the ignorance of the new electors might be averted. Moreover, the Americana believe firmly that without educated labor eminence in the industrial arts is unattainable. According to an estimate which has grown out of the experience of employers, the educated laborer is more valuable by 25 per cent, than his ignorant rival, Here is a source of national wealth which no wise State will disregard. It is the American theory that the State—the associated citizens—has a proprietary interest in each of its members. For the good of the community it is entitled to insist that every citizen shall become as effective as it is possible to make him : to expend public funds in order to that result is therefore a warrantable and remunerative outlay. Looking thus upon the value of public instruction, the American people have borne willingly tho heavy costs of common schools. They suffer taxation ungrudgingly at a rate which, for the smaller population of England and Wales, would amount to nine millions sterling, instead of the four millions actually expended. Nor is this the easy produce of lands set apart for educational purposes at a time when land was valueless. Many of the States wisely set apart one-sixteenth of the land to uphold their schools. But in many of the old States the appropriation was not respected. Too often, especially in the South, the endowment was applied to other uses. The revenue derived now from any description of endowment does not exceed 5 per cent, of the whole; the remainder comes from State or local taxation. At one time, in some of the States, fees were charged from the pupils. But the opinion came to be widely entertained that this charge impaired in many ways the efficiency of the system. Six or eight years ago fees were discontinued, and now the schools of the nation are free to all. The Americans witness with approbation the increase of their expenditure on education. During the ten years that preceded the rebellion this expenditure was doubled ; again, during the ten years which followed it was trebled. It has now grown to eighteen millions sterling a sum larger than all the nations of Europe unitedly expend for the same purpose. Large as it is, however, it is equal to no more than two-thirds of the sum whicli Britain still expends upon her military and naval preparations. The common school is used by all classes of the American people. At one time there existed among tho rich a disposition to have their children with others of their own social position, and many private schools sprung up to meet the demand. As the common schools have increased in efficiency, and consequently in public favor, this disposition has weakened, and private schools have decayed. Their number is much smaller than it was ten years ago, and continues to diminish. With one unhappy exception, the common school satisfies the requirements of the American people. The leaders of the Roman Catholic body perceive that its influences are adverse to the growth of their tenets, and do not cease to demand the means of educating their children apart from the children of those who hold religious belief differing from theirs. But their proposals meet no favor beyond the limits of their own denomination, and even there only partial support is given. The American Roman Catholic is more apt than his brethren in Europe to fall into the disloyal practice of independent judgment. It has not been found possible to alienate him wholly from the common school. It is of interest to inquire in what measure the American people have been requited by the success of their common school system for the vast sums which they expend on its maintenance. At first sight the statistics of the subject seem to return a discouraging reply to such an inquiry. When the census of 1870 was taken it disclosed a high percentage of illiteracy. Seventeen adult males and twenty-three adult females in every hundred were totally uneducated —numbers almost as high as those of England at the same period. But the special circumstances of the country explain these figures in a manner which relieves the common school of all blame. The larger portion of this illiteracy had its home in the Southern States and among the colored population, whose ignorance had been carefully preserved by wicked laws and a corrupted publio feeling. Again, America had received during the ten years which preceded the census an immigration of four and a half million persons. The educational condition of those strangers was low, and their presence therefore bore injuriously upon the averages which were reported. The common school must be judged by the Northern States, and among the native white population', for there only has it had full opportunity to actf. And there it has achieved magnificent

success. In the New England States there is not more than one uneducated native of ten years old and upwards in every hundred. In the other Northern States the average is scarcely so favorable. The uneducated number from two up to four in every hundred. It thus appears that the common school has banished illiteracy from the North. The native American of the Northern States is almost invariably a person who has received, at the lowest, a sound primary education. The efforts by which this result has been reached began with the foundation of each State, and have been continued uninterruptedly throughout its whole history. In the rising industrial competition of the time, it must count for much that American artisans are not only educated men and women, but are the descendants of educated parents. A nation which expends upon education a sum larger than all the nations of Europe unitedly expend ; which contents itself with an army of 25,000 soldiers ; whose citizens are exempt from tho curse of idle years laid by the governments of Continental Europe upon their young men—such a nation cannot fail to secure a victorious position in the great industrial struggle which all civilised States are now compelled to wage for existence.—' America: a history,' by Robert Mackenzie, 1882.