Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/723

Rh came to give us his own undiluted views upon that point, he would deal somewhat trenchantly with the argument above referred to, and not altogether in the direction of the brief notice contained in his article on "Socialism."

Next, as to the transfer to the state of the "power and discretion in the matter of the education of children." This, we are told, "deserves the heartiest approval. . . as a scheme for accomplishing good through state action, in a field properly pertaining to individual initiative and enterprise." It is a little difficult to understand how a field that "properly pertains to individual initiative and enterprise" can properly be encroached upon by the state. Some explanations on this point would be very acceptable. How can it be said that the field of education properly pertains to individual initiative and enterprise if the contention, indorsed by General Walker, is correct, that "the individual members of the state would be richer, and happier, and better, if power and discretion in the matter of the education of children were taken away from the family and lodged with the Government"? It seems to us that it is altogether too soon to bestow our "heartiest approval" upon this particular "socialistic movement." General Walker himself notes that "the immediate effects of popular instruction in reducing crime are in dispute." He might also note that this doubt has arisen almost wholly since the state has taken so prominent a part in the business of education. When education was in the hands mainly of the family, an education was universally thought to be the very best gift a father could bestow upon his son. Now, that the state is forcing education upon all, the value of the article has sensibly decreased; and many are beginning to doubt, looking both at moral and at intellectual results, whether in this matter society is not working in a wrong direction. A vast amount of thought has been bestowed during the last half-century upon educational methods; and yet we seriously doubt if there was evermore dissatisfaction with the general results of popular education than there is to-day. We could refer General Walker to an article that appeared a year or two ago in one of the leading newspapers of his own city, the "Boston Herald," setting forth the difficulty a certain insurance company had in finding, among a score of graduates of the Boston grammar-schools, a single youth competent to take a junior clerkship, the only qualifications for which were fair skill in figures, good handwriting, and a certain knowledge of the rules of English composition. Is it not the fact that "commercial colleges" have sprung up all over the country to supplement the deficiencies, from a business point of view, of the public schools? And in spite of the vast disadvantage at which state competition places all private tuition, the number of private schools and academies advertised in the papers is still very great. The effect upon the home of the wide assumption of educational functions by the state has yet to be fully ascertained; but already there are grave reasons for thinking it has been far from favorable. It is no small matter to take from the family the "power and discretion in the matter of the education of children"; and before we talk of giving our "heartiest approval" to the change, we should be quite sure that it is not going to loosen the very foundations of society. Our own opinion is that education is no part of the functions of the state, and that it would be better, therefore, to leave it in the hands of the family, even though the result were to show, in the course of a few years, a larger proportion than now of that kind of illiteracy which consists in not being able to read or write. We have known illiterates of that kind who could "give points" to people who could both read and write in the matter of common sense and general information. The question is too wide a one