Presbyterian College - Pac Sac Yearbook (Clinton, SC)

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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,

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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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THE COLLEGIAN 15 have you? UNO, I replied, But I would like much to take a ride with you. VVell, hustle yourself into some heavy clothes, said the Professor. We will leave in half an hour. Before the half-hour had expired, I was ready and the Professor had showed me to a seat in a very cumbersome looking airship, with an air-tight apartment constructed most- ly of glass for us. Professor, said I, what kind of machine is this? It is one which I designed myself and which I hope to break the world's altitude record with, he replied. We can't start for ten minutes yet, as we haven't quite enough compressed air aboard. What is the compressed air for? I asked. You will see later, was his only reply. After a short wait, the Professor took his seat beside me and started the motor. VVe arose into the air by big circles, then started almost straight upward. Soon it was bitter cold and my nose began to bleed. You see we need the air now, the Professor said as he closed our apartment and turned on the Hair . After doing this he pulled several levers and the engines began to exhaust steadily and with great rapidity, somewhat like the purr of a cat, only faster. It seemed to me that we were falling through space only going upward in- stead of downward, we were going so fast. We had gone this way for what seemed to be hours before I gained courage enough to look back at the earth. Imagine my utter astonish- ment, when I looked downward to see that the earth, instead of looking as I had left it, had been transformed into a globe which seemed to be several miles in diameter with a great heap of snow and ice at each end and with a large body of water between them. on each side of this water was a strip of land, and about a third between the two was a long island. I knew by this that the body of water must be the Paciic Ocean, the land on one side parts of the Americas, on the oth- er side parts of Asia and Africa and the island, Australia. Around the earth and around us were many other globes of