Presbyterian College - Pac Sac Yearbook (Clinton, SC)

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THE COLLEGIAN 11 eries and there would be more advancement. Indeed, compul- sory education would make us a more intellectual society, more capable to confront the battles of life. La Salle, one of our most noted educators, favored a gratuitous school for the poor, and if parents were unwilling to take advantage of this opportunity of instruction for their children, the rectors would give them no more assistance, hence parents were forced to make their children attend the schools. He did not think that this would be any encroachment at all on the right and liberty of parents and what a grand thing it would be for all humanity! If we are careful think- ers, we must agree with La Salle, as he is surely right and there is not much ground upon which to question him. Lepelletier, who wrote a great deal on education, re- garded obligatory education favorably. According to his system, each and every girl from five to eleven as well as each and every boy from five to twelve, was to be taken from the parents, placed in barracks, educated, and supported by the State. The boys and the girls were to receive the same education, and if parents objected to sending their offspring to school, they were to be wrested from them, if need be, by cruel force and placed in his curious boarding schools. He made perfect equality between the boys and the girls, and they were treated exactly alike. Martin Luther, the greatest of Protestant leaders, did not conceal his views on compulsory education. He express- ly stated that he who is in power has the undoubted right of providing schools and requiring parents to send their chil- dren thither. Just a little quotation, if you please, from his sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School. I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to com- pel the people to send their children to school, especially such as are promising. For our rulers are certainly bound to maintain the spiritual and secular offices and callings, so that there may always be preachers, jurists, pastors, scribes, phy- sicians, schoolmasters, and the like, for these cannot be dis-

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10 THE COLLEGIAN glance this may seem, to use Milton 's words, to require sin- ews almost equal to those which Homer gave Ulysses, but upon careful thought you will agree that a complete educa- tion is not really unattainable, and this is the kind of edu- cation which we should strive to make compulsory. Persia and Sparta, of the Oriental nations, required com- pulsory attendance and made their youths, whether or not it seemed good to them, train their bodies, so that they became remarkable for their strength, hardness, and endurance. Now both these countries aimed at a country full of soldiers, and in so aiming they made each and every individual subject to do whatever they deemed wise and necessary. The Jews, however improbable it may seem, did have a compulsory education. They did not let a favorable oppor- tunity slip by without impressing upon their youths moral and spiritual excellences, and this idea of obligatory educa- tion was current among all that people. Philip Melanchthon, Preceptor Gerinaniaef' as he has been very fittingly and appropriately cognomened, was a very ardent supporter, a very profound thinker, and a most re- markable euthusiast as regards obligatory education. This great and good man did his best, indeed his utmost, to have each and every child, Whom he loved with a fatherly affection, educated, trained and cultured. He thought-and he was right-that compulsory education would be the best means as well as the easiest means of giving spiritual, moral, and intellectual nourishment to men 's souls, and we cannot but agree with him in thinking that compulsory education will strengthen us, ennoble us, and make us more progressive. Surely, were we to have compulsory education, there would be less inclination to wicked and shameful deeds, there would be less vice 5 there would be, as it were, a newer, grander and higher plane of thought. If all our people were educated, our government would have more trained men to select from and therefore more men to guide her rudder. If we had all our people cultured, there would be more stimulus to learning, there would be more inventions, there would be more discov-

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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