light of burning Paris, in 1871, the poem, "A qui la faute?" "Whose is the fault?" Addressing an incendiary, caught in the very act, he says "You come from burning the Library ?" "Yes, I set fire to that." "But it is an unheard of crime!--a crime committed by yourself against yourself, infamous creature!"

Then, with impetuous, uncontrollable eloquence he recited all that books are, and all they have done and can do, for the slave, the unhappy; "for knowledge comes first to man, then comes liberty," and he portrays in impassioned words, what these treasures would have been to the man himself; at last, pausing from his tumultuous speech, he turns upon the wretch with an apostrophe that should be overwhelm ing, "Et fu détruis cela, toi!" "And you, you destroy all this!" To this terrible accusation the man, unmoved, simply replies: "Je ne sais pas lire." "I cannot read!"

In view of the facts of illiteracy and non-attendance recited, indicating a somewhat general failure on the part of the public schools to reach the school children, a failure the alarming extent of which was hitherto unknown, the advocates of such additions to, and changes in, the course of studies as will give more practical training for the work of life, resulting it is to be hoped in inducing parents to keep their children in school for longer periods, find in these fearful statements additional incentives to urge the adoption of the proposed elementary industrial art training. If so few children go to school at all, the more reason for making those few efficient workers. If a change in the studies taught will induce greater and longer attendance, never were inducements to such ends more urgently demanded.

Two plans suggest themselves, both looking primarily to the same end, viz, the longer retention of the average pupil in school. First, such a modification of the school training as shall plainly fit the child to earn more money when school days are over; secondly, and this is of course the simple result of the adoption as proposed of a progressive system of industrial training, such a course as shall plainly with each additional year of schooling add to the child's earnings after leaving school.

If the parent realizes that the boy or girl who stays in school till thirteen years of age can earn more money than the one who only stays till ten years of age; and if the child who stays till sixteen years of age earns more in proportion than the one who leaves when only thirteen: the desire will naturally be to keep the child in school as long as pos

sible so that it can earn more money for the common family, instead of, as now, to take the child out as soon as possible, so that it may earn something.

The question then turns upon its economic aspect, and is practically, how shall public school training best fit the child to become a breadwinner! First, does even so little education as only teaches the child to read, increase its earning capacity as a laborer? A series of inves tigations, embracing many kinds of labor and extending all over the United States, entered into by the U. S. Commissioner of Education in 1870, and reported at length,* seemed to demonstrate that even such scant measure of education as enables one to read print, adds sensibly to the wage earning capacity of the laborer in most kinds of labor; while ability to read and write with ease,- for it is found that as a rule it is only those who can write with ease, who read with such facility as to enjoy reading,-greatly increases the wage earning capacity. As to the fact of this last increase there was complete concurrence of testimony on the part of all the witnesses.

The great economic advantage of skilled over unskilled labor in the commonest work, such as using the shovel and the hoe, the axe and the saw, has been most clearly set forth by no less an authority than the distinguished Dr. Edward Jarvis, of Dorchester, Mass., whose convincing article on this subject was published by the U. S. Commissioner of Education in 1879.†

It was shown by a concurrence of testimony, that any substantial increase in intelligence adds to the value of the laborer, and further, it appears that gain in wage earning capacity increases in geometrical ratio, as the individual advancing from the lowest grades of unskilled laborers enters the ranks of skilled labor, and advances to its highest grades.

It may then be taken as an admitted fact that the present training in the public schools if continued for a sufficient period, adds more or less to the productive value of the pupils; since ability to read and write does increase wage earning capacity. If, then, the public school pupil has acquired the ability to read and write with ease, that pupil has gained

*In the Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1870 and referred to in the article by Dr. Jarvis in "Circular of the Bureau of Education, No. 3, 1879.

"The Value of Common School Education to Common Labor, by Dr. Edward Jarvis, of Dorchester, Mass. Circulars of Information, No. 3, 1879."

sensible addition to wage earning capacity. The question then turns upon whether the average child, who only stays five years in the school, acquires that ability.

It is, however, painfully evident that either the child does not thus acquire enough to add sufficiently to the ability to earn money, to justify the parent in dispensing with the labor of the child for any length of time, after it is large enough to be put to manual employment; or, that parents are lamentably ignorant of the fact that longer stay in school would make the children of more value as workers, thereby enabling them eventually to make larger contribution to the common fund of the family; or that, by reason of grinding poverty, the parents are wholly unable to make the present sacrifice for the future gain.

The enactment of laws for compulsory education in some communities, and the serious consideration of the adoption of similar means of enforc ing attendance on schools in others, sufficiently demonstrate the fact of a somewhat general indifference or opposition on the part of such parents to sending their children to any school; or, if the youngest are sent, to allowing them to continue long enough in school to get there any real advantage.

An incidental glance at that daily History of our own Times which is called the newspaper, curiously confirms the above; since I find quoted in the New York Tribune of March 29, 1883, the following com. ments by the Louisville Commercial on "the fact that in Kentucky, there are thousands of children who are never sent to school. These neglected children will grow up to be men and women to whom a spelling book will be as unintelligible as Phoenician hieroglyphics; they will become the heads of bookless households and the parents of hordes of other children of darkened intellects; the men among them will be voters who will be as clay in the hands of political demagogues; they will impede the enforcement of all laws by their ignorance of law; and they will hinder all improvement in the State by their persistence in their narrow views. The mere increase of the school fund will not bring these children into the schools. If the State were to build costly school houses in every district and provide first class teachers free of charge the children of the illiterate element would still remain uneducated if their parents were left to their own choice."

This writer, considering in the article from which this is quoted, as it appears, the proposed United States grant in aid of public schools as urged by Senator Blair, is clearly of the opinion that, in Kentucky at

least, there is a necessity for some form of enforced attendance on school, if all the children of the State are to be taught in the free public schools; that is to say, in other words, that the children of a community can only be reached through their parents, and that to illiterate parents as a rule, not however without striking exceptions,- for instance in the general desire manifested for schools for their children by the colored freedmen after the war; there must be other inducements than a mere desire that their children shall be taught at school to read and write. Those whose children are never sent to school are indeed one remove below those whose children are not kept in attendance long enough to secure the advantages to which they, and the community which provides the schools, are alike entitled; but it is simply a difference of degree, not of kind. To increase the value to the child of the elementary training, and thereby, to add to the inducements to the parents both to send their children to the schools, and to keep them there a sufficient time, is the design of such a change in the kind and arrangement of the studies to be taught in the public schools as is herein advocated; namely, the adoption of such a simple, elementary and progressive course in industrial art training, as will teach each child how to use its eyes and bands, so that it will be better fitted for any mechanical employment; will know how to draw and how to understand working drawings, and will be thus prepared to enter on the better paid employments of skilled laborers, instead of joining the poverty stricken masses of unskilled laborers.

The girls will the more readily learn all the mysteries of sewing and similar employments, while the boys will easily acquire the technical skill requisite in any of the mechanic arts; while all who may have a capacity for excelling in any of the so called fine arts, will have been here drilled in the preliminary study of drawing.

The subject of enforced attendance has been referred to only as proof that the non-attendance of children upon school had aroused the anxiety of citizens in many communities, which is evidence that if the plan here proposed is indeed what its advocates believe, it merits the support of all communities who desire fuller and longer attendance of the children in the schools.

It may be pertinent to remark, in passing, that whoever originated the term "compulsory education" displayed exceptional ignorance or uncommon want of tact. It is not easy to believe that this unfortunate name had an American or an English origin; since the idea it conveys S. Ex. 209-VIII

is utterly repugnant to the genius of the two kindred peoples. "Though reasons were as plenty as blackberries I would give none upon compulsion" expresses the true spirit of a free-born American or Englishman. If that spirit is to be changed by schooling, then away with schools-"potior periculosas libertatis "—better an ignorant devotion to freedom, than any cultured sycophancy to tyranny; but the fathers, who founded their free state upon education, knew well that in securing to their children the ability to read and to write, they were giving to them the most potent weapons against every form of tyranny; for he who can, for himself, understand the words of others, and can himself freely communicate his own opinions to all others, is doubly armed against oppression;-whether of bigots, despots, or demagogues.

Some earnest advocate of popular education whose zeal outran discretion, or who, perchance, was blinded by the specious maxim that "the end justifies the means," may, in his overweening desire to secure to all children the possession of these master keys of knowledge, have ignored the greater evils he was thus engendering, by calling on the supreme power of the state to force, Procrustes-like, equal instruction upou all, regardless of conditions or circumstances; for, as there are many things more precious than life, and for which the virtuous man does not hesitate to sacrifice life, so there are many virtues and qualities more valuable, and some necessities more pressing, than a school knowledge of reading and writing.

Not even for the great boon of attending a country district school, or an overcrowded city school, should a child be taught to despise its parents; nor, in the name of education, should a community, harpy like, snatch from enfeebled age or invalided poverty, their sole, if youthful supports. The worst lessons might thus be taught the child, and the cruellest tyranny exerted against the parents, under the specious pretence of concern for the child's good, and by the might of a "compulsory law!"

There is no class of legislation which should be more carefully considered, or which should contain more stringent provisions to guard against possible oppression in its execution. Paternal legislation is ever the most enervating in its influence; while often, the cruellest despotism suffered, occurs in obedience to the provisions of some law which was ostensibly enacted for the benefit of the sufferers.

It is well, when such laws are proposed, for a free people who intend to remain free, to greatly "fear the Greeks even when they come bear