Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/195

Popular Education brand it as ignoble. Compared with stealing rails from a freight-car, which is Tony's alternative for school attendance, it even has a dignity of its own; and the perception of this fact may be a salutary, if mortifying lesson. Judge Lindsey's picturesque likening of our antiquated school system which compels children to sit at desks, with the antiquated Chinese custom which bound little girls feet, lacks discernment. The underlying motives are, in these instances, measurably different, the processes are dissimilar, the results have points of variance.

Nobody doubts that all our Tonys, rich and poor, lawless and law-abiding, would much prefer a school that is not a school at all, "but just one big game"; nobody doubts that a great deal of desultory information may be acquired from films. But desultory information is not, and never can be, a substitute for education; and habits of play cannot be 179