COMPULSORY EDUCATION. 389 COMPULSORY EDUCATION. As though it were possible in any case to impose education by mere force; to drive knowledge into juvenile craniums by legal blows; or to develop childhood into citizen-hood by appliances wholly external in their source, independent in their character, and invincible in their operation; or as though the laws of psychologics and physics were identical, and human intellectualism in its awakening and activity, like a vegetable in its growth or an edifice in its construction, were utterly destitute of subjective choice or coöperation. Does it comport with approved American ideas, or harmonize with sound views of American liberty to attempt the educational construction or "reconstruction" of "Young America" upon compulsory principles or by compulsory methods? Whatever may be said in favor of such a scheme elsewhere and under undemocratic forms of government, the very idea of it under the advanced system of popular self-rule here maintained, must appear preposterous. You may tax the whole property in the State in order to afford the advantages and privileges of a common school education to all the youth of the State; to afford an ample teaching force and sufficient school-room accommodation for an adequate length of time in the school age of each youth of the State. All this you may enforce by the ordinary legal sanctions. You will encounter no serious opposition or complaint. You may also establish and maintain, at State expense, Houses of Refuge, Reform Farms, and, in short, any or all rational expedients for the eradication and prevention of juvenile crime; and no infringement of personal rights or interference with the most progressive ideas of American freedom will be suspected. All right; all safe, thus far. But advance another step. Enact a law to force the million and more of schoolable youth in the State, nolens volensto be found in the school-room a certain number of months per an, num for a certain number of years of their legal minority, and what then? Nine out of every ten of them will attempt to rebel against the measure; and, what is more important, public sentiment will sustain them in the attempt. The cargo of tea cast overboard in Boston harbor could have been confiscated and sold in open market, and not allowed to go to waste. But a great principle was involved in the transaction; and hence the destruction of property, aye, even the forfeiture of life, too, was accorded with unquestioning instantaneous alacrity in order to lift up that principle and cause it to stand out with infinite distinctness through the ages. Until quite recently who ever cared, or how many ever heard anything about such people as the Orangemen? But when an intolerant mobocratic spirit is even suspected of an attempt to forbid their appearance in procession on the public streets of an American city, then their enjoyment of this common privilege in their own way instantly becomes an object of the grandest significance to the whole nation; becomes a principle which to every American is higher and dearer than any number of human lives. Telegraph wires everywhere flash with reports of the tremendous issue; and in every part of the Republic millions of patriots are ready to wade through seas of blood, if necessary, in vindication of the right. In their inmost minds and hearts the people of this land have been in the habit of thinking and feeling that their American Common School system is just as free as the very atmosphere of freedom itself. Let us not by any mistaken schemes or impracticable expedients endanger its existence, mar its symmetry, or impede its progress. It is true that evils, which to some extent are inherent and ineradicable, will of necessity continue in all organisms of human devising. But it is also true that in humanics, theoretical or practical, a just and reasonable perfection, or an approximation to it, is quite as possible of attainment as is absolute truth in any one of the exact sciences. Why is it that all the youth of the State are not reached and benefited by our Common School education? Certainly not because attendance at school is voluntary and wholly without charge to the individual pupil. What good can come of emasculating the system by removing the principle of voluntary attendance, and substituting in its stead compulsory attendance, enforcing attendance by legal penalties? Let it be granted that universal attendance of youth, each for a reasonable time, or, if you please, that universal education of youth to the extent of being able to read and write, is essential to the State's highest liberty and safety-will that fact justify enforcing the attendance of the great mass of youth who gladly attend already, and who are delighted at every step they take in the aquisition of popular learn COMPULSORY EDUCATION. 391 ing? The elective franchise, too, is conceded to be indispensably necessary to democratic freedom. Shall we therefore establish compulsory voting? Because a considerable number of persons, at times and in some localities, make a fraud of voting, or decline to vote at all; would it be a wise thing to take from the great mass of true electors all volition in the matter, and by penal statute compel them all to vote, whether they are willing to do so or not? Nobody thinks of such a remedy as this. We protect the elective franchise, but we do not place it in bonds. We remove, as far as possible, all hindrances to the freest exercise of it; but we do not force any one into its exercise. We punish frauds and crimes perpetrated against the freedom of the ballot; but we have no penalties to escape which the elector must cast his ballot. Now, very much the same policy, as it seems to me, should govern in the great matter of securing the universality of a common school education. It is just as natural that the child, when entering the threshold of its pupil age, should desire to attend school, or in some way should wish to acquire the rudiments of necessary education, as it is that the adolescent citizen, when entering the threshold of his elective franchise-age, should desire to possess and wield the ballot. And but for the fact-a fact in our civilization greatly to be deplored-that children, in so many instances, seem to be born the heirs of penury, crime and wretchedness; seem to be sired and brought forth by parents who either cannot or will not comprehend and perform the heaven appointed duties of the parental relation; in short seem, by the dire necessity of their antecedents and surroundings, to be utterly and hopelessly excluded from childhood's dearest and most sacred rights, these very unfortunates, who are now always found out of school and remaining unlettered, would be quite as anxious and enthusiastic as their more favored fellow juveniles to obtain that degree of instruction and culture which all admit to be their common right and an indispensable prerequisite to their reasonable success in life. Now the nature of the difficulty suggests the nature of the remedy. The real want of the times is not compulsory education, but the wisest and best measures for the prevention of compulsory ignorance and crime. Remove, as far as possible, all hindrances and restraints to the proper and necessary education and training of children. If practicable—and I do think it is practicable—make the opportunities of the common school as free to all as they now are to a majority of the youth. To fix upon the details of a plan for achieving this result will not be so very difficult when once we have determined the principles that are to inspire and shape the plan itself. A suggestion or two may be admissable at this stage of the investigation. 1. Let the length of time and the number of studies or topics of study necessary to complete the course of common school education required by the State, be so limited as to keep that course within the reach of all, or nearly all. When the commonwealth incurs the expense, it is more important to educate all in those things that are necessary to intelligent citizenship than it is to educate a less number in the branches of higher learning that lie outside this limit. 2. Have the course of instruction so arranged that those children who from any cause may not be able to spend more than from three to five years, or whatever be fixed upon as the minimum time required by law, in school, will, within that time, most certainly be taught the things supremely needful for them to learn. According to the interminable elaboration of grades and courses of school work proposed by some in this country, the pupil-life would require the years of Methuselah, and the child mind would mature with the startling rapidity of the century plant. Good sirs, be persuaded to come back to nature's plan; open your eyes to the vital facts of every day life; and know that the intellect of childhood, unless forced away from its normal processes, will always maintain a divine symmetry at each stage of its growth. In the adolescency, as in the maturity of mental power, with far less comprehensiveness it is true, but not with any less interval of time, the blossoms of perception are swiftly and surely succeeded by the fruits of reason. Do not eradicate; do not repress or dishearten childhood's infinite capacity for development and acquisition. Better study to understand and answer all its questions, and to lessen its difficulties and to give favoring help to all its efforts. It has not been created for naught. Its eyes are for vision; all its powers for activity. 3. Perfect the statute relating to guardianships so that every child, at least during its proper school years, shall without any peradventure be sure of a legal and practical guardian, either in the person of COMPULSORY EDUCATION. 393 its parent, or, if need be, some one loco parentis (i. e. who shall stand in the place and perform the duty of the parent). If the State is bound to protect itself and protect society by punishing crime in adults, may it not wisely protect, support and educate its deserted, helpless children, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the production and multiplication of adult criminals? 4. In all cases of children utterly destitute, let the State at once assume the care of housing, clothing, feeding and educating them to the extent absolutely needful. Why should any one be startled at the suggestion? It is much more economical, financially, and infinitely less expensive in all humanitary aspects of the case for the State to furnish homes and needed culture to its destitute children, than by omitting such care of them to be forced to maintain the superadded expenditure which in consequence thereof must be incurred in providing extra courts, workhouses, hospitals, prisons, and all other parts of that prodigious machinery by which human society is now attempting to alleviate the evils and wrongs it fosteringly or permissively perpetuates. "An ounce of preventive is better than a pound of cure." 5. The Common School jurisdictions into which the entire territory of the State is already divided, afford a base of operations, and most of the officials, necessary for ascertaining and relieving, to the extent proposed, the educational needs of all the destitute children in the State. As a supplemental measure in this juvenile training, there might be appointed in each district, a Board of School Inspectors, who should be authorized and required to ascertain, by personal examination, what children there are in the jurisdiction that have reached school age and are neglected, and to bring them before the Probate Court, or other proper tribunal, and have guardians for them appointed and qualified; and also to report such children to the proper officers of the city or township for such allowance for their maintenance as may be needed. Only a slight modification of the school laws and poor laws is needed to meet the whole case. These are only hints. The educational problem, as we approach its solution, is found to be a stupendous one. The great subject is not exhausted; nor is it the ambitious purpose of this paper to do more than contribute something towards a proper understanding and |