Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/229

 High School Legislation In Oregon rings to ring changes upon text books used in the public schools ; it is the laboring classes who ultimately pay for teaching music and foreign languages to the thousands of people who afterwards become drones on society, lhe only republican idea in education is to teach people enough to take care of themselves and keep out of jail ; but the cunning of those whose aim is to live without work has dazzled the bone and sinew of the country into the support of a system which gives them double toil m supporting their own children as drones. * * "The conclusion is this: Give every child a good common school English education at public expense, and then stop. There have been two presidents of the United States who have received less aid than this in their school education; if any want more, let those who dance pay the fiddler. This is the cure for drones. It is the way, too, to make the public schools a public blessing instead of allowing them to develop into nurseries of imbecility and idleness." In 1880 the attacks on public high schools in general and upon the Portland high school in particular, became so severe that at the annual school meeting of that year a committee was appointed to investigate the school and report at an adjourned meeting on July 12 of the same year. As a preliminary to its investigation, the commit- tee summed up the main objections as follows : "1. The high school is not a proper part of the sys- tem of public education. "2. Foreign languages, higher mathematics ana sev- eral branches of natural science, so-called, should not be taught in the public schools. "3. Those who desire for their children an education beyond the public schools should pay for it." The committee met these objections squarely and ex- onerated the high school from various charges made against it. The very length and vigor of the report are indications of the danger in which the school had been placed by the force of the attack. 14 fourth Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of Oregon. 1880. pp. 63-72. The committee referred to consisted or