WISCONSIN

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

MAY, 1874.

Some Remarks on the Report of President Eliot ple anywhere to whom that rather imupon a National University.

sachusetts. Yet those two communities | forded relief, although not expressly

are by no means independent; the people of each State influence the destiny of the people in every other State.

assigned to that duty, and although relief was otherwise attainable.

Government has built many schoolA vote given in Rhode Island may de- houses in Massachusetts and elsewhere, it stroy the profits of a harvest in the valley has endowed noble universities and agriof the Mississippi. A vote given in Kan- cultural colleges in Michigan and in sas may throw Wall Street into convul- other States, although private agencies sions. A million and a half of such might have done the same. Public libvotes are in the hands of men utterly un-erty still survives. It is less than a quarable to read them. Under such circum- ter of a century since Daniel Webster stances can the nation afford to fold its looked with apprehension upon the prosarms? It may do well enough when you pect of a separate republic upon the are safe on shore, if you see a ship in the Pacific coast. The government has offing with a stone-blind crew on her helped to bind the two coasts together by decks and a tempest about to break over a railway. Perhaps it is too early to say her, merely to call on the helpless seamen what may be the effect of that measure to make sail and come into port. The upon American liberty. But it is more world will not be apt to call such listless than two hundred years since Governindifference, such obdurate selfishness, ment laid the corner-stone of Harvard blessed. But they may call it discreet, University, and it is not yet perceptible prudent, economical. If, on the contrary, that the foundations of public liberty have you are not on shore, but in the cabin of been weakened thereby. the imperiled ship, you must not expect to earn a high character for prudence even, unless you help the sightless mariners to handle the ropes, or at least show them the way to the shrouds.

Yet the president of Harvard University insists that the government of the United States must be listless. He gravely says, if the government means to dispel that mental blindness, "it saps the foundations of public liberty." So? "The habit of being helped by the government, even if it be to things good in themselves, to churches, railroads, and universities, is a most insidious and irresistible enemy of republicanism." So? "Americans maintain that government is to do nothing not expressly assigned to it to do; that it is to perform no function which any private agency can perform as well, and that it is not to do a public good, even, unless that good be otherwise unattainable."

No, no! not all Americans maintain that doctrine, thank God! Only the aboriginal Americans and the president of Harvard Univerity have as yet publicly avowed that doctrine. When Shreveport and Memphis are wasted by fever, when Ireland is wasted by famine, and Chicago and Boston by fire, Government has af

Among the aborigines of America, statesmen do very generally hold that public authority should defer to private agencies; and so their Government looks coolly on while the victim of a larceny makes reprisal on the thief, and the friends of the murdered execute vengeance on the murderer. But the prevailing opinion in American society is, that all such eccentricities as larceny and homicide, call for the admonition and instruction of the civil government. Not that private agencies cannot reach them. Government will not allow such agencies to interfere. The great teachers which Government commissions for the instruction of such learners, are courts, penitentiaries, and the gallows. Very many people believe the school-house and the university to be means of instruction quite as becoming and much cheaper. And there are some enthusiasts (?) who believe that such means, properly employed, are quite as efficient, and do not sap the foundations of public liberty any more than their more popular rivals-prisons and gibbets. Let us be tolerant of such enthusiasms, if we cannot partake of them.

"We deceive ourselves dangerously," pleads President Eliot, "when we think

of culture, all forms of belief, all colors of skin, and every shade of every color, are being poured into its lap; "a heterogeneous, rich, multitudinous population," as President Eliot aptly describes it. All have not the same influence in society, but all have the same power in the State. The vote which Emerson gives in Cambridge may be exactly compensated by the vote of some unlettered wretch in Texas who, but a few years since, was wrenched from the realm of chattledom. Has Government no duty in the premises?

or speak as if education, whether primary | of war. But she cannot escape the conor university, could guarantee republican quests of peace. The Republic does not institutions." Do we, indeed? Well, subjugate, it attracts. All styles, all grades well! Educate a people once. Not a class, but a people. And then let some cocked hat or some crowned head attempt to establish any other than republican institutions over them, and see who is dangerously deceived. But does President Eliot know of any well regulated accident insurance company willing to guarantee republican institutions where the people are not educated? Or, for that matter to guarantee stability to institutions of any kind? France and Spain will pay high for a policy, and allow the underwriters to select the institutions. England is very old. How long before she will seek insurance? The Republic is young. How long before she will offer a risk? Stable government is not possible where muscle is trained and mind neglected.

Eleven hundred years ago the greatest soldier of that age was swinging to and fro over the face of Europe, carrying conquest wherever he went, and gathering under his standards every country, all styles of civilization and all forms of barbarism to be found between the Pillars of Hercules and the Baltic sea. But Charlemagne very well knew that mere force never could weld that heterogeneous mass into anything more than the semblance of a State. He resolved to plant schools in the track of his armies, to illuminate the boundaries of his empires by a higher culture, which should distinguish it from all surrounding barbarisms, and should cement its different parts by a common learning and a common religion. Foregoing all professional and all national prejudice, the great fighter dug out of the monasteries of England teachers to help him on in his work. He actually founded some great schools. The conception was a grand one. But it was prema ture. Charlemagne found too many obstructionists. His life was too short. He died and returned to dust, and his empire crumbled almost as soon as his body. This republic is not carrying its standards abroad. It disclaims the conquests

Yes, says the president of Harvard University, Government has the plain duty of standing still, to see what will come of the shapeless, tumid mass. That he believes to be our "peculiar function." Standing with Macbeth by the cauldron into which witches threw

"Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind worm's sting,
Lizzard's leg and owlet's wing,"-

he would probably have felt that the end
of social effort was to idly await the result
of the boiling, and see what sort of stew
would come of it. Yet any rational cook
could tell him, without waiting the result
of the experiment, that unless a great deal
of seasoning was used the stew would be
a failure. And it requires no prophet to
assure us that, unless we expend a great
deal more effort in assimilating the diverse
ingredients composing this great seething
commonwealth, we shall fail to reduce
them to a homogeneous society or a stable
State. In this effort every private agency
ought to join. To it every public organ-
ization, from the school district to the na-
tion, absolutely must contribute.

Six thousand years of history testify that it is utterly unsafe to exclude great bodies of men from all participation in public affairs, no matter how ignorant they are, no matter what color they are of. Current events forcibly corroborate that testimony. But the plainest dictates of reason teach that it is always unsafe, and

sooner or later must be fatal to any State to confer power upon great bodies of men, and leave them utterly uninstructed how to use it. Society calls the mother unnatural and cruel, who gives birth to a child and exposes it, unclad and unfed, to the caprices of chance. Such conduct is indeed likely to prove fatal to the child. But what must the angels say of that State which gives birth to multitudes of citizens and leaves their great capabilities to the guidance of blind ignorance? The consequences of such insane neglect are not confined to the citizen; they will eventually overtake, and finally overwhelm the State.

HOW I KEEP MY SCHOOL-ROOM CLEAN.

BY ANNABELL LEE.

When a school-girl, I particularly disliked the days on which I was obliged to help sweep the school-room. I came from the encounter with grimy hands, dusty hair and garments, and, if my memory serves me correctly, my temper at such times was not the most angelic. When I became a teacher, I resolved to have as few regular sweeping-days as possible. I think I have found out how to keep clean without very much trouble, and my school-room is swept but once a week.

have a good laugh, and fall to work over our dinners with rare appetites.

On Friday afternoon I appoint workers for the following week, to do "general housework." They are called "house monitors." Their business is-to pass the water four times a day, go around with the hand-basin twice a day to wet all the siate-rags, sweep the vestibule when ne cessary, and once a day to wash the zinc and the front door-step. Two carry water, and are called "water monitors," and in cold weather I have a 46 fire monitor." His business is-to bring coal from the cellar, rake the fire, and empty and sift coal. This office is no sinecure, and the work is not the most fascinating in the world. Yet there is quite a rivalry to secure it, as well as the other situations, and I often have my monitors engaged for weeks ahead. They work expeditiously, and lose very little time. They study at home, so as not to miss any lessons. I sometimes give little rewards, pencils, picture-cards, etc., but all seem to take pleasure in keeping the school-room neat. I have a good scraper at the door, and every morning I put out the door-mat for the accommodation of dusty feet.

Every scholar is responsible for dirt or bits under or near his desk, and is obliged to have everything in perfect order before going out at noon or recess. No one is allowed to have catables in his desk, and the law regarding sassafras and birch, baby-wood and chestnuts, is as inexorable as that of the Medes and Persians!

I have a few careless folks. There are one or two boys that all the soap of Colgate & Co., and all the water in Delaware, could not keep clean. They bid daily defiance to combs, towels, and the soapdish. If, after line upon line and precept upon precept, they persist in coming with unkempt hair, dirty hands and clothes, I send them home to get freshened up. But my boys are generally neat, and are capital workers. They don't lean on the

Friday is my cleaning-day. When school is out at noon, I say to my little band, Now, all that want to help me work, raise hands," and I have plenty to choose from. I select two for sweeping, and two more for a reserve when the others tire; two more shake the carpets; two scrub the vestibule-closet and out-houses, and two sweep and put the cellar in order. I put on one of the girl's sun-bonnets and a big apron, and superintend the whole of it. Then we throw open the windows, dust, lay down carpets, wipe finger-marks from the white paint, and wash the zinc. I generally have the whole place fit for Queen Victoria in half an hour. Many broom-handle, and gossip and giggle, as hands make the work easy. Then we rake up the leaves and sweep the yards, and when all is nicely done we run down to the creek and wash, shake off the dust,

the little feminines do! To be sure, I have surprised more than one Highland fling on the cellar floor, when I thought the errand for coal was lengthy. I have

also had small toads brought up in the submit to any such fate. When he finds scuttle. I have seen heavy bayonet a committee-man is pursuing him from thrusts and charges with the broomhandles. I have seen the most marvelous double-shuffles executed on door-mat. But all these things don't depreciate their general usefulness, and I wouldn't give a copper for a boy who hasn't fun and whistle and dance in him.