EDUCATION AND CRIME.

[Extract from the Twenty-First Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.]

The public schools, in their relations to the morals of the pupils and to the morality of the community, are attracting a large share of attention. In some sections of the country the system is boldly denounced on account of its immoral tendencies. In states where free schools exist there are persons who doubt their utility; and occasionally partisan or religious leaders appear who deny the existence of any public duty in regard to education, or who assert and maintain the doctrine that free schools are a common danger. As the people of this commonwealth are not followers of these prophets of evil, nor believers in their predictions, there is but slight reason for discussion among us. It is not probable that a large number of the citizens of Massachusetts entertain doubts of the power and value of our institutions of learning, of every grade, to resist evil and promote virtue, through the influence they exert. But, as there is nothing in our free-school system that shrinks from light, or investigation even, I have selected from the annual reports everything which they contain touching the morality of the institution. In so doing, I have had two objects in view. First, to direct attention to the errors and wrongs that exist; and, secondly, to state the opinion, and enforce it as I may be able, that the admitted evils found in the schools are the evils of domestic, social, municipal, and general life, which are sometimes chastened, mitigated, or removed, but never produced, nor even cherished, by our system of public instruction. In the extracts from the school committees' reports there are passages which imply some doubt of the moral value of the system; but it is our duty to bear in mind that these reports were prepared and presented for the praiseworthy purpose of arousing an interest in the removal of the evils that are pointed out. The writers are contemplating the importance of making the schools a better means of moral and intellectual culture; but there is no reason to suppose that in any case a comparison is instituted, even mentally, between the state of society as it appears at present and the condition that would follow the abandonment of our system of public instruction. There are general complaints that the manners of children and youth have changed within thirty or fifty years; that age and station do not command the respect which was formerly manifested, and that some license in morals has followed this license in manners.

The change in manners cannot be denied; but the alleged change in morals is not sustained by a great amount of positive evidence. The customs of former generations were such that children often manifested in their exterior deportment a deference which they did not feel, while at present there may be more real respect for station, and deference for age and virtue, than are exhibited in juvenile life. In this explanation, if it be true, there is matter for serious thought; but I should not deem it wise to encourage a mere outward show of the social virtues, which have no springs of life in the affections.

And, notwithstanding the tone of the reports to which I have called attention, and notwithstanding my firm conviction that many moral defects are found in the schools, I am yet confident that their moral progress is appreciable and considerable.

In the first place, teachers, as a class, have a higher idea of their professional duties, in respect to moral and intellectual culture. Many of them are permanently established in their schools. They are persons of character in society, with positions to maintain, and they are controlled by a strong sense of professional responsibility to parents and to the public. It has been, to some extent, the purpose and result of Teachers' Associations, Teachers' Institutes, and Normal Schools, to create in the body of teachers a better opinion concerning their moral obligations in the work of education. It must also be admitted that the changes in school government have been favorable to learning and virtue. For, while it is not assumed that all schools are, or can be, controlled by moral means only, it is incontrovertible that a government of mild measures is superior to one of force. This superiority is as apparent in morals as in scholarly acquisitions. It is rare that a teacher now boasts of his success over his pupils in physical contests; but such claims were common a quarter of a century ago. The change that has been wrought is chiefly moral, and in its influence we find demonstrative evidence of the moral superiority of the schools of the present over those of any previous period of this century. Before we can comprehend the moral work which the schools have done and are doing, we must perceive and appreciate with some degree of truthfulness the changes that have occurred in general life within a brief period of time. The activity of business, by which fathers have been diverted from the custody and training of their children; the claims of fashion and society, which have led to some neglect of family government on the part of mothers; the aggregation of large, populations in cities and towns, always unfavorable to the physical and moral welfare of children; the comparative neglect of agriculture, and the consequent loss of moral strength in the people, are all facts to be considered when we estimate the power of the public school to resist evil and to promote good. If, in addition to these unfavorable facts and tendencies, our educational system is prejudicial to good morals, we may well inquire for the human agency powerful enough to resist the downward course of New England and American civilization. To be sure, Christianity remains; but it must, to some extent, use human institutions as means of good; and the assertion that the schools are immoral is equivalent to a declaration that our divine religion is practically excluded from them. This declaration is not in any just sense true. The duty of daily devotional exercises is always inculcated upon teachers, and the leading truths and virtues of Christianity are made, as far as possible, the daily guides of teachers and pupils. The tenets of particular sects are not taught; but the great truths of Christianity, which are received by Christians generally, are accepted and taught by a large majority of committees and teachers. It is not claimed that the public schools are religious institutions; but they recognize and inculcate those fundamental truths which are the basis of individual character, and the best support of social, religious, and political life. The statement that the public schools are demoralizing must be true, if true at all, for one of three reasons. Either because all education is demoralizing; or, secondly, because the particular education given in the public schools is so; or, thirdly, because the public-school system is corrupting, and consequently taints all the streams of knowledge that flow through or emanate from it. For, if the public system is unobjectionable as a system, and education is not in itself demoralizing, then, of course, no ground remains for the charge that I am now considering.

I. Is all education demoralizing? An affirmative answer to this question implies so much that no rational man can accept it. It is equivalent to the assertion that barbarism is a better condition than civilization, and that the progress of modern times has proceeded upon a misconception of the true ideal perfection of the human race. As no one can be found who will admit that his happiness has been marred, his powers limited, or his life degraded, by education, so there is no process of logic that can commend to the human understanding the doctrine that bodies of men are either less happy or virtuous for the culture of the intellect. I am not aware of any human experience that conflicts with this view; for individual cases of criminals who have been well educated prove nothing in themselves, but are to be considered as facts in great classes of facts which indicate the principles and conduct of bodies of men who are subject to similar influences. In fact, the statistics to which I have had access tend to show that crime diminishes as intelligence increases. On this point the experience of Great Britain is probably more definite, and, of course, more valuable, than our own. The Aberdeen Feeding Schools were established in 1841, and during the ten years succeeding the commitments to the jails of children under twelve years of age were as follows:[1]

In 1842, . . . . . 30 In 1847, . . . . . 27
1843, . . . . . 63 1848, . . . . . 19
1844, . . . . . 41 1849, . . . . . 16
1845, . . . . . 49 1850, . . . . . 22
1846, . . . . . 28 1851, . . . . . 8
——
21192