Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/137

Rh No, the more the matter is looked into, the less reason (we believe) there will be found to congratulate ourselves on the overthrow by the state of the old system under which parents planned and contrived and economized in order to get their children taught the rudiments of knowledge. Private education, it is true, has not been entirely destroyed, for well-to-do parents—those who so generously provide public schools for the children of the poor—often prefer private schools for their own children; but it has been destroyed precisely where it used to do most good, namely, among the poor. It may be "revolutionary," but we confess we should like to see the "laissez-aller," the "go-as-you-please," if it must be called so, of private enterprise—backed as no doubt it would be by the full force of the modern pulpit—applied to the business of education, without the least help or interference from the political machine, and without any legally enforced contributions from "wealthy tax-payers." Education would then rest on a natural basis, and would have a force and a tone that now it almost wholly lacks. Instead of tending to build up social distinctions, the change would have a directly opposite effect by cultivating among even the poorest a manly self-respect. The intellectual and moral effort which it would impose upon society at large would be in itself an educative influence of the first importance, and would probably go far to arrest a growing vice of the age a tendency to frivolity. It is not by taking away objects of thought and care from the poor that we are to create a stable society; it is by giving them worthy objects of thought and care. Lastly, by leaving education to be provided for by the direct contributions of the beneficiaries, we should probably raise the general level of wages for the poorer classes, seeing that this is governed more or less in all countries by the general standard of living. At present the general standard of living among the poor does not include provision for education; but does any one who understands anything of economic laws imagine that wages have not adapted themselves to that condition? It appears, therefore, that what the rich give with one hand they take away with the other, and, as a reward for their generosity, are allowed to control in considerable measure the education of the poor. Who gains by that arrangement?

We are glad our correspondent has given us the opportunity of making these remarks. As he is evidently a man of much intelligence, we commend the whole matter anew to his consideration; and, in connection therewith, would urge him to read what Herbert Spencer has written on the subject in the fifteenth chapter of his "Study of Sociology."

, we understand, is this year to have the honor of entertaining the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the thirty-sixth annual meeting having been appointed to be held in this city, for the second Wednesday in August. There are many reasons why our people should give the Association a hospitable and hearty welcome, and spare neither effort nor money to make its visit pleasant and its meeting a success. While this is the largest city on the continent, it enjoys the unenviable distinction of being one of the very few that have never entertained the Association, although that organization is now nearly fifty years old. This is in strange contrast with the well-known liberality and intelligence of our citizens, who have been unstinted in their hospitality to numerous other bodies, with certainly no greater claims to attention; and the omission is made all the more conspicuous by the fact that several towns, not one tenth the size of New York, have already had the Association two or three times. There is,