AMERICA AT SCHOOL.

Manawatu Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 7979, 20 May 1904, Page 4

AMERICA AT SCHOOL.

All America is at school (says Mr H. D. Bedford, M.H.R. for Dunedin, in the course of a chatty letter on America). This fact speedily lays hold of the visitor. It is pregnant with meaning, and foretells much that might well set us, thinking. Everywhere you go men are busy learning—young men, old men, all sorts of men. The artisan is at the night school mastering the principles of his trade. The clerk is at the night school of commerce grappling with economics, commercial law and the science of book-keeping. The master of his trade, the graduate of the night school, is at an evening public lecture on some popular literary or scientific subject. All is free; a fee might bar some poor thirster after knowledge. It is positively amazing; when the day's work is over the American people go to school. You walk along the streets of New York between 9.30 and 10 o'clock in the evening, and nearly every person you meet has a satchel of books under his or her arm. Yoii see crowds pouring out from a free public lecture. The masses of the cities are being reached, taught and fired with an ambition to attain high citizenship.