Public School Education Part 1

Public School Education.

by Michael Muller.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

American fellow-citizens--America is my home! I have no other country.

After my G.o.d and my religion, my country is the dearest object of my life! I love my country as dearly as any one else can. It is this love that makes my heart bleed when I call to mind the actual state of society in our country, and the principles that prevail everywhere. It is indeed but too true that we live in a most anti-Christian age; principles are disregarded, and iniquity is held in veneration. We see nothing but confusion in religion, in government, in the family circle.

Sects spring up and swarm like locusts, destroying not only revealed religion, but rejecting even the law of nature. Fraud, theft, and robbery are practised almost as a common trade. The press justifies rebellion, secret societies, and plots for the overthrow of established governments. The civil law, by granting divorce, has broken the family tie. Children are allowed to grow up in ignorance of true religious principles, and thereby become regardless of their parents. The number of apostates from Christianity is on the increase, at least in the rising generation. Current literature is penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness, from the pretentious quarterly to the arrogant and flippant daily newspaper, and the weekly and monthly publications are mostly heathen or maudlin. They express and inculcate, on the one hand, stoical, cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or on the other, empty and wretched sentimentality. Some employ the skill of the engraver to caricature the inst.i.tutions and offices of the Christian religion, and others to exhibit the grossest forms of vice, and the most distressing scenes of crime and suffering. The ill.u.s.trated press has become to us what the amphitheatre was to the Romans when men were slain, women were outraged, and Christians given to the lions to please a degenerate populace. The number of the most unnatural crimes is beyond computation. A wide-spread and deep-seated dishonesty and corruption has, like some poisonous virus, inoculated the great body of our public men in national, state, and munic.i.p.al positions, so much so that rascality seems to be the rule, and honesty the exception. Real statesmanship has departed from amongst us; neither the men nor the principles of the olden time exist any longer.

The shameless cynicism with which the great public plunderers of our day brazen out their infamy, is only equalled by the apathy with which the public permits these robberies, and condone for them by lavishing place and power upon the offenders. "The way of the transgressor" has ceased to be "hard"--unless he be a transgressor of very low degree--and rascality rides rampant over the land, from the halls of Congress to the lowest department of public plunder.

The poet has well said that Vice, once grown familiar to the view, after first exciting our hate, next succeeded in gaining our pity, and finally was taken into our embrace.

The familiarity of the public mind with daily and almost hourly instances of public peculation and betrayal of high trusts has created this indulgent disposition, until at last the wholesome indignation, which is the best safeguard of honesty, has been diluted into a maudlin sympathy with the malefactors. And the rankness of the growth of this evil is not more startling than its rapidity. It is a new thing--a foul fungus, suddenly forced into fetid life, out of the corruptions engendered by the war. It is "a new departure" in a wrong direction--down that smooth, broad path to the devil.

We all remember the sensation which, before the war, was ever caused by the discovery of a public defaulter, and the indignation which drove him ever forth from place and country, on his detection. Punishment sure and swift was certain to seize upon him, if he dared linger after the facts were known.

A breach of trust was not then considered a joke, nor theft elevated into the dignity of a fine art, whose most eminent professors were to be regarded with envy and admiration.

Think of the clamor which was raised over the comparatively petty peculations of Swartwout, Schuyler, Fowler, and other small sinners like them, who even found the country too hot to hold them, and died in exile, as an expiation to the public sentiment they had outraged.

Yet their frauds were as molehills to the mountains which the busy hands of our public peculators have heaped up, and are daily piling higher.

Within the last ten years, where they stole cents, their successors stole by thousands and tens of thousands; and, instead of flying from punishment, flaunt their crimes and their ill-gotten wealth in the face of the community, heedless either of the arm of the law, or the more potent hiss of public scorn.

And this financial dishonesty of the times is as true of commercial as of political circles, and as patent at Washington as at New York and other cities. "Think you that those eighteen men on whom the tower of Siloam fell, were sinners above all others in Jerusalem? I tell you nay!" Think you that those six or seven on whom the axe of the public press fell, are sinners above all in New York and elsewhere? If all men that have been guilty of fraud in New York and elsewhere were to have a tower fall on them, there would be funerals enough for fifty years.

One of the saddest symptoms of degeneracy in a people is evinced by a desperate levity--a scoffing spirit such as that which inspired the French people when they denied even G.o.d, and subst.i.tuted a prost.i.tute to be their "G.o.ddess of Reason." Much of that spirit is unhappily manifesting itself in our country.

That most fearful picture of a corrupt community drawn by Curran in his description of the public pests of his day--"remaining at the bottom like drowned bodies while soundness remained in them, but rising only as they rotted, and floating only from the buoyancy of corruption"--seems, unhappily, destined to find its parallel here, unless public virtue and public indignation should awake to condemn and chastise the corruption which is tainting and poisoning the air around us.

The judgment which overtook the men of Siloam was visited on them for sins not unlike those which seem to invite a similar judgment from offended Heaven upon our modern Siloams, and is no jesting matter. Nay, in view of the many recent terrible visitations which have fallen upon different parts of our country, many voices have already been raised proclaiming them as marks of Divine wrath against national sins, perpetrated by a people who should, by their lives, testify their sense of the blessings showered upon them in more prodigal profusion than on any other nation in the annals of mankind.

That the great body of our people are corrupt, or that they at heart approve of corruption, no one will be mad enough to maintain. But they are responsible before Heaven and to posterity for the criminal apathy they manifest in their silent sanction of the corruption and crime which are fast making the American name a synonyme for theft, for brazen impudence and unblushing rascality.

In the life of a nation, as in that of an individual, there are periods which are critical; and a restoration to health, or the certainty of speedy death, depends on the way this malady is met. The crisis which now menaces the life and health of the United States cannot be far distant; for private virtue cannot long survive the death of public honor and honesty, nor private morality fail to catch the contagion of public profligacy. If the representative men of a country, those in whom its high trusts are reposed, be corrupt and shameless, they will drag down into the same mire the morals of the people they plunder and misrepresent. Indeed we want no prophet, nor one raised from the dead, to tell us the awfully fatal results. What can be done to stem the fearful torrent of evils that flood the land? We all know that when, in 1765, the famous Stamp Act was pa.s.sed in the British Parliament, on the news reaching Boston the bells were m.u.f.fled, and rang a funeral peal. In New York the "Act" was carried through the streets with a death's head bearing this inscription: "The Folly of England and the Ruin of America." So great was the opposition to the "Act," that it was repealed during the spring of 1766. This shows how quickly the evils of society can be put down if people set to work in earnest.

Now we cannot expect the people to set to work in earnest about stemming the torrent of the great evils of the land, unless they are well enlightened as to the source from which they flow. This source is princ.i.p.ally that wrong system of education introduced into this country about fifty years ago. At that time very few, perhaps, could foresee what effects it was calculated to produce. After a long trial, we can now p.r.o.nounce on it with certainty by its results. The tree, no longer a sapling, can be judged by its fruits. These fruits have been so bad that it is high time to call the attention of the public to the tree.

Now in calling attention to this tree, I wish it to be once for all distinctly understood, that whatever of a seemingly or even really harsh nature I may say in this discussion on the Public Schools, is intended and directed _solely against the system_. For those who manage or officiate in them, as teachers or otherwise, I have, I trust, all the courtesy, charity, and respect due from one citizen to another. If I offend the prejudices, convictions, or susceptibilities of any on this strangely misrepresented subject, no one can more regret it than myself; I can truly say it is not intended. All I ask of my fellow-citizens is a fair discussion on this great question of education, to look at it without prejudice, without bigotry; for if prejudice and bigotry stand in our way, they will stand in the way of the glory and stability of this country, whose future G.o.d only knows. It is the duty of all citizens to labor with a good heart, a clear mind, an earnest soul, to do all they can in building up, and strengthening, and making still more glorious this great American people.

CHAPTER II.

EDUCATION--ITS OBJECT AND NECESSITY.

The question of Education is, of all others, the most important. It has for some time back received a good deal of attention in public meetings, in newspapers, and in the pulpit. In fact it has become a question of the day. On this question, however, there is unfortunately such an amount of ignorance, prejudice, and confusion of ideas, that it is almost impossible to make the public understand it. The reason of this is, because so many follow the vague views expressed on this subject in newspapers. Many a paper is undoubtedly political, and so far partisan; and as such its editor will defend and advance what he believes to be the principles of his party. But the question of education rises above party politics; yet when you read many a paper you will find that the editor appeals to the prejudice and pa.s.sions of party in a way quite unworthy of an independent journalist, and of the grave subject under consideration. He advances principles which, at first sight, seem to be quite true; for instance: "Public School Education is necessary for our republican form of government, for the very life of the Republic." "It is an admitted axiom, that our form of government, more than all others, depends on the intelligence of the people." "The framers of our Const.i.tution firmly believed that a republic form of government could not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among the people. The State must, therefore, take all means within its power to promote and encourage popular education, and furnish this intelligence of the people through her public schools."

At first sight such principles seem to be true, and the people in general will accept them. Experience teaches that the public will accept, without question, almost any maxim or problem, provided it be formulated in such a manner as to convey some specific meaning that does not demand reflection or complex examination. For the same reason no small portion of the public will reject anything that at first sight seems to exceed the measure of their understanding. Knaves and charlatans, knowing this, impose on the public by flattering their intelligence, that they may accomplish their own ambitious and selfish ends. In this way a mult.i.tude of pernicious religious, social, and political maxims have come into vogue, especially in reference to the question of public instruction. Yet on the sound principles concerning this question of education, and on the right understanding of them, depend not only the temporal and eternal happiness of the people, but also the future maintenance and freedom, nay, even the material prosperity, of the Republic.

In the discussion of the system of education it will no longer do to use vague, unmeaning expressions, or to advance some general puzzling principles to keep the public in the dark on this important point. It is high time that the public should be thoroughly enlightened on the subject of education. Everybody is talking about education,--the advantages of education, the necessity of education; and yet almost all have come to use the word in its narrowest and most imperfect meaning, as implying mere cultivation of the intellectual faculties, and even this is done in the most superficial manner, by cramming the mind with facts, instead of making it reflect and reason. The great majority even of those who write upon the subject take no higher view.

The term _education_ comprehends something more than mere instruction.

One may be instructed without being educated; but he cannot be educated without being instructed. The one has a partial or limited, the other a complete or general, meaning. What, then, is the meaning of Education?

Education comes from the Latin "educo," and means, according to Plato, "to give to the body and soul all the perfection of which they are susceptible"; in other words, the object of education is to render the youth of both s.e.xes beautiful, healthful, strong, intelligent and virtuous. It is doubtless the will of the Creator that man--the masterpiece of the visible world--should be raised to that perfection of which he is capable, and for the acquisition of which he is offered the proper means. It is the soul of man which const.i.tutes the dignity of his being, and makes him the king of the universe. Now the body is the dwelling of the soul--the palace of this n.o.ble king; the n.o.bility of the soul must induce us to attend to its palace--to the health and strength and beauty of the body;--health, strength and beauty are the n.o.ble qualities of the body.

The n.o.ble qualities of the soul are virtue and learning. Virtue and learning are the two trees planted by G.o.d in Paradise; they are the two great luminaries created by G.o.d to give light to the world; they are the two Testaments, the Old and the New; they are the two sisters, Martha and Mary, living under one roof in great union and harmony, and mutually supporting each other.

Learning is, next to virtue, the most n.o.ble ornament and the highest improvement of the human mind. It is by learning that all the natural faculties of the mind obtain an eminent degree of perfection. The memory is exceedingly improved by appropriate exercise, and becomes, as it were, a storehouse of names, facts, entire discourses, etc., according to every one's exigency or purposes. The understanding--the light of the soul--is exceedingly improved by exercise, and by the acquisition of solid science and useful knowledge. Judgment, the most valuable of all the properties of the mind, and by which the other faculties are poised, governed and directed, is formed and perfected by experience, and regular well-digested studies and reflection; and by them it attains to true justness and taste. The mind, by the same means, acquires a steadiness, and conquers the aversion which sloth raises against the serious employments of its talents.

How much the perfection of the mind depends upon culture, appears in the difference of understanding between the savages (who, except in treachery, cunning and shape, scarce seem to differ from the apes which inhabit their forests) and the most elegant and civilized nations. A piece of ground left wild produces nothing but weeds and briers, which by culture would be covered with corn, flowers and fruit. The difference is not less between a rough mind and one that is well cultivated.

The same natural culture, indeed, suits not all persons. Geniuses must be explored, and the manner of instructing proportioned to them. But there is one thing which suits all persons, and without which knowledge is nothing but "a sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbal": this is the supernatural culture of the soul, or the habitual endeavor of man of rendering himself more pleasing in the sight of G.o.d by the acquisition of solid Christian virtues, in order thus to reach his last end--his eternal happiness. It is for this reason that our Saviour tells us: "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"--(Matt. xvi.

26.) It is, then, the _supernatural culture_, or the perfection of the soul, that is to be princ.i.p.ally attended to in education.

Now what is the perfection of soul? The perfection of each being in general, is that which renders the being better and more perfect. It is clear that inferior beings cannot make superior ones better and more perfect. Now the soul, being immortal, is superior to all earthly or perishable things. These, then, cannot make the soul better and more perfect, but rather worse than she is; for he who seeks what is worse than himself, makes himself worse than he was before. Therefore the good of the soul can be only that which is better and more excellent than the soul herself is. Now G.o.d alone is this Good--He being Goodness Itself.

He who possesses G.o.d may be said to possess the goodness of all other things; for whatever goodness they possess, they have from G.o.d. In the sun, for instance, you admire the light; in a flower, beauty; in bread, the savor; in the earth, its fertility; all these have their being from G.o.d. No doubt G.o.d has reserved to Himself far more than He has bestowed upon creatures; this truth admitted, it necessarily follows that he who enjoys G.o.d possesses in him all other things; and consequently the very same delight which he would have taken in other things, had he enjoyed them separately, he enjoys in G.o.d, in a far greater measure, and in a more elevated manner. For this reason, St. Francis of a.s.sisium often used to exclaim: "My G.o.d and my All"--a saying to which he was so accustomed that he could scarcely think of anything else, and often spent whole nights in meditating on this truth.

Certainly true contentment is only that which is taken in the Creator, and not that which is taken in the creature; a contentment which no man can take from the soul, and in comparison with which all other joy is sadness, all pleasure sorrow, all sweetness bitter, all beauty ugliness, all delight affliction. It is most certain that "when face to face we shall see G.o.d as He is," we shall have most perfect joy and happiness.

It follows, then, most clearly, that the nearer we approach to G.o.d in this life, the more contentment of mind and the greater happiness of soul we shall enjoy; and this contentment and joy is of the self-same nature as that which we shall have in heaven; the only difference is, that here our joy and happiness is in an incipient state, whilst there it will be brought to perfection. He, then, is a truly wise and learned, a truly well-educated, man, who here below has learned how to seek G.o.d, and to be united as much as possible with the Supreme Good of his soul.

He therefore imparts a good education to the soul, who teaches her how to seek and to find her own Good.

Now what is it to teach the soul to find her own Supreme Good? It is to train, to teach, to lead the child in the way he should go, leading him in the paths of duty, first to G.o.d, and secondly to his neighbor. All not professed infidels, it appears to me, must admit this definition.

But as very many believe in "Webster," or "Worcester," I give the former's definition of education: "Educate"--To instill into the mind principles of art, science, _morals_, _religion_, and behavior.

According to this definition of education, morals and religion const.i.tute essential parts of education. Indeed, the first and most important of all duties which the child must learn are his moral and religious duties; for it will, I hope, be universally admitted that man is not born into this world merely to "propagate his species, make money, enjoy the pleasures of this world, and die." If he is not born for that end, then it is most important that he be taught for what end he was born, and the way appointed by his Creator to attain that end.

Every child born into this world is given a body and soul. This soul, for which the body was created, and which will rise with it at the last day, be judged with it for the acts done in life, and be happy or unhappy with it for all eternity, is, in consequence of the "fall,"

turned away from G.o.d, and the body, no longer acting in obedience to right reason, seeks its own gratification, like any irrational animal.

Religion (from _religio_) is the means provided by a merciful G.o.d to reunite the chain broken by the sin of our first parents, and bridge over the chasm opened between man and his divine destiny. To give this knowledge of religion is the princ.i.p.al purpose of education. Without this it is mere natural _instruction_, but no education at all. It would be worse than giving, as we say, "the play of Hamlet with the part of the Prince of Denmark left out."

Religion, then, forms the spirit and essence of all true education. As leaven must be diffused throughout the entire ma.s.s in order to produce its effects, so religion must be thoroughly diffused throughout the child's entire education, in order to be solid and effective. Not a moment of the hours of school should be left without religious influence. It is the constant breathing of the air that preserves our bodily life, and it is the constant dwelling in a religious atmosphere that preserves the life of the youthful soul. Here are laid the primitive principles of future character and conduct. These religious principles may be forgotten, or partially effaced, in the journey of life, but they will nevertheless endure, because they are engraved by the finger of G.o.d Himself. The poor wanderer, when the world has turned its back upon him, after having trusted to its promises only to be deceived, after having yielded to its temptations and blandishments only to be cruelly injured and mocked, may, at last, in the bitterness of his heart, "remember the days of his youth," and "return to his father's house." So long as faith remains, however great the vice or the crime, there is something to build on, and room to hope for repentance, for reformation, and final salvation. Faith or religion once gone, all is gone. Religion is the crystal vase in which education is contained, or rather the spirit which infuses and vitalizes it. Religion is the very life of society, the very soul of a Christian State.

All nations and governments know and understand that to exclude Christian education from the schools is to exclude it from their law, legislature, courts, and public and private manners. It should, then, ever be borne in mind that religion, though distinguishable, is never separable from true civil and political science and philosophy.

Enlightened statesmanship will always accept and recognize religious education as a most valuable and powerful ally in the government of the State, or political society. The great Washington clearly a.s.serts this in his farewell address to the American people: "Of the dispositions,"

he says, "which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. Where is the security for property or for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are administered in our courts of justice? And let it not be supposed that morality can be maintained without religion." Accordingly our legislatures are opened with prayer, the Bible is on the benches of our courts; it is put into the hands of jurymen, voters, and even tax-payers; indeed, from its late use and abuse, one might think that we were living under the Pentateuch, and that the whole moral law and Ten Commandments were bound to the brows of the public or State phylacteries.

Indeed, the politics of every tribe, nation, or people, will reflect in an exact degree their moral and religious convictions and education. If these are false, the political society will be violent, disorderly, and abnormal; if true, the State is calm, prosperous, strong and happy. If these propositions be true, and I claim they are as axiomatic and undeniable as any proposition in Euclid--yea more so, for they are the maxims of inspired wisdom--how immeasurably important is a true Christian education!

And if its influence is so great in determining even the political conduct of men, it is still more necessary and powerful in forming the character of true woman--the Christian wife, mother, and daughter. The influence of Christian woman on society is incalculable. Admitting it possible, for a moment, that irreligious men might construct or direct an atheistical State, yet it would be utterly vain to build up the family, the groundwork of all organized communities, without the aid of the Christian woman. She it is who, in the deep and silent recesses of the household, puts together those primitive and enduring materials, each in its place and order, on which will rest and grow, to full beauty and development, the fair proportion of every well-ordained State. This foundation is laid in the care and rearing of good and dutiful children.

The task of the Christian mother may indeed be slow, and un.o.bserved; but G.o.d makes use of the weak to confound the strong, and this is beautifully ill.u.s.trated in the Christian woman, who is strong because she is weak, most influential when she is most retired, and most happy, honored, cherished and respected when she is doing the work a.s.signed her by Divine Providence, in the bosom of her household.

It will be admitted, then, that the education of girls demands a special culture. Generally upon mothers the domestic instruction of the children, in their infancy, mainly depends. They ought, therefore, to be well instructed in the motives of religion, articles of faith, and all the practical duties and maxims of piety. Then history, geography, and some tincture of works of genius and spirit, may be joined with suitable arts and other accomplishments of their s.e.x and condition, provided they be guided by and referred to religion, and provided books of piety and exercises of devotion always have the first place, both in their hearts and in their time.