Presbyterian College - Pac Sac Yearbook (Clinton, SC)

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THE COLLEGIAN 13 thought and meditation. It is he who has done so much for reforming religion, it is he who knew how to give the poor child a chance. Diderot, who labored so unwearily to prepare youth by a better education for a better future, is given the credit of advocating compulsory education as a means of improving society. He regarded the individual, and wanted all to think, to choose, to follow and to do good things. Diderot said that education would show man within what limits progress is needed, furthermore it would show him how to protect him- self, and how to employ his time usefully, so as to avoid that thing which is so dangerous to all flesh and blood-idleness Diderot is right. In a well educated society, the people would be more efficient to perform their respective tasks and duties, they would be more competent to manage businesses and en- terprises. Compulsory education would give all a chance, We should love it for its fairness, and it would be as a fertilizer to the soil of civilization. In the eighteenth century, we find sovereigns devoting their attention to popular education, and as early as 1717, Frederick William I of Prussia published an edict of com- pulsory education. Consider Germany. She has compulsory education, and think you how enlightened and cultured her people are. The Germans have the reputation of being the deepest scholars, the profoundest thinkers of modern times, and this reputation seems to be traceable only to compulsory education. In Ger- many the general supervision of educational affairs is entrust- ed to a Minister of Public Institutions and this minister is aided by school boards in the several provinces, regencies, and districts of the state. Everything is exclusively under the control of the government-text books, courses of study, se- lection of teachers, everything. Germany has her school houses bountifully supplied With the apparatus requisite to instruction and sees that each and every scholar is not neglect- ed. If compulsory education be undesirable, it seems as if Germany, who has carefully tried and tested it. would reject

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12 THE COLLEGIAN pensed with. If the government can compel such citizens as are Ht for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men, to destroy the kernel and leave a shell of ignorant and helpless people, whom he can sport and juggle with at pleasure. This is starving out a city, destroying it without a struggle, and Without its knowl- edge. Most of public sentiment, nowadays, heartily agrees with Luther on compulsory education, yet it seems strange that there is such a number who hold the opposite view. Any one with a spark of sympathy, or feeling in his bosom cannot help being touched by the wretched condition of the factory chil- dren. If each and every little child were required by the government to attend school, how much would the little crea- tures be helped, benefitted and blessed! Some one will doubt- less raise the cry, How are poor, disabled widows to be sup- ported if their children be unmercifully snatched from their side and made to attend school? To such a cry let me say that there is, and always will be, a way provided. Society at large is not so cruel and heartless as to let a poor wretched widow sulferg there is always some one who graciously gives assistance, who loves to do good to the poor. Granting that this is not true, there are many poor-houses scattered the country over, and to these such parents should go. Parents owe as much as this to their children, they should be con- soled in that their offspring are being raised to a higher and nobler plane. Parents should not be so foolish as to let pride prevent them from taking refuge in poor asylums, when na- ture demands that their children receive a happy and glorious development. Luther did much to mould popular thought concerning compulsory education and his influence continues even to the present day. With his vigorous intellect he has given education such a stimulus as to set active brains to deep

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14 THE COLLEGIAN it, yet, as she continues to cling to it, it seems to be con- clusive that compulsory education is good and sound. France and England control education and they see to it that each child receives a very moderate education. If we would not be lower than our sister countries in the scale of civilization, we shall have to arouse our youths to energetic activity in intellectual lines and provide means for develop- ment. Whether it seems startling or not, thirty-nine states and territories of this United States have adopted a compul- sory attendance, and as the sentiment in favor of compulsory education is generally dominant, just a little more lapse of time will witness a compulsory education in each state and territory of this, our Union. Surely the state has the right of compelling its boys and girls to attend school. Ignorance is an evil, and it is therefore the state 's business to remove this evil in so far as it can by establishing good and comfortable school houses and compelling the attendance of each and every child. Compulsory education has produced beneficial results in both Europe and this country, and this fact alone, it seems, is enough to make each and every one give it his sanction and most hearty support. Let us not take the pessimist's view of compulsory education in saying that the difficulties of carrying it out are insuperable 5 let us rather take the optim- ist 's view of it in saying that it is good, sound and beneficial, and let us give a part of each day 's serious meditation to the problem as to how we can effect its adoption. A. R. R. '13, Q sr Q Q Ulrip to Mats It was a warm Tuesday afternoon in early June. The Professor and I were sitting alone in his study. I remember now that I was getting quite drowsy when the Professor aroused me by this statement: Let's take a. little ride in my new airship. I don 't believe you have ever seen it even,