Public School Education

by Michael Müller

The Boston Daily Herald, of October 20th, published the following as an editorial article:

"Year after year the Chief of Police publishes his statistics of prostitution in this city, but how few of the citizens bestow more than a passing thought upon the misery that they represent! Although these figures are large enough to make every lover of humanity hang his head with feelings of sorrow and shame at the picture, we are assured that they represent but a little, as it were, of the actual licentiousness that prevails among all classes of society. Within a few months, a gentleman[F] whose scientific attainments have made his name a household word in all lands, has personally investigated the subject, and the result has filled him with dismay; when he sees the depths of degradation to which men and women have fallen, he has almost lost faith in the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century. In the course of his inquiries he has visited both the well-known 'houses of pleasure' and the 'private establishments' scattered all over the city. He states that he has a list of both, with the street and number, the number of inmates, and many other facts that would perfectly astonish the people if made public. He freely conversed with the inmates, and the life-histories that were revealed were sad indeed. To his utter surprise, a large proportion of the 'soiled doves' traced their fall to influences that met them in the Public Schools; and although Boston is justly proud of its schools, it would seem, from his story, that they need a thorough purification. In too many of them the most obscene and soul-polluting books and pictures circulate among both sexes. The very secrecy with which it is done throws an almost irresistible charm about it; and to such an extent has the evil gone, that we fear a large proportion of both boys and girls possess some of the articles, which they kindly (?) lend to each other. The natural result follows, and frequently the most debasing and revolting practises are indulged in. And the evil is not confined alone to Boston. Other cities suffer in the same way. It is but a few years since the second city in the Commonwealth was stirred almost to its foundations by the discovery of an association of boys and girls who were wont to indulge their passions in one of the school-houses of the city; and not long ago another somewhat similar affair was discovered by the authorities, but hushed up for fear of depopulating the schools."

"That the devil is in the Public Schools, raging and rampant there among the pupils as well as among the teachers, no one can well doubt who has sent a little child into them, as guiltless of evil or unclean thoughts as a newly fallen snowflake, and had him come home, in a short time, contaminated almost beyond belief by the vileness and filth which he has seen, and heard, and learned there."—(Hathe Tyng Griswold, in Old and New, for March; or Boston Pilot, April 6, 1872.)

A celebrated physician of this country says in his book, "Satan in Society," as follows:

"The evils and dangers of the present system of educating and bringing up the boys and girls of our country, are too obvious to require minute description. Irreligion and infidelity are progressing pari passu with the advance guards of immorality and crime, and all are fostered, if not engendered, by the materialistic system of school instruction, and the consequent wretched training at home and on the play-ground. The entire absence of all religious instruction from the school-room is fast bearing fruit in a generation of infidels, and we are becoming worse even than the Pagans of old, who had at least their positive sciences of philosophy, and their religion, such as it was, to oppose which was a criminal offence. To those who would dispute this somewhat horrible assertion, the author would point to the published statistics of church attendance, from which it appears that of the entire population but a very small proportion are habitual church-goers. Deducting from these, again, those who attend church simply as a matter of fashion, or from other than religious motives, and there remains a minimum almost too small to be considered, abundantly sustaining our charge. The disintegration of the prevalent forms of religious belief, the rapid multiplication of sects, the increase in the ranks of intellectual sceptics, the fashionable detractions from, and perversions of, the Holy Scriptures, acting with the influences already mentioned, may well cause alarm.

"But we have not only the removal of the salutary restraints of religious influence from our popular system of education; we have the promiscuous intermingling of the sexes in our Public Schools, which, however much we may theorize to the contrary, is, to say the least, subversive of that modest reserve and shyness which in all ages have proved the true ægis of virtue. We are bound to accept human nature as it is, and not as we would wish it to be, and both Christian and Pagan philosophy agree in detecting therein certain very dangerous elements. Among the most dangerous and inevitable is the sexual instinct, which, implanted by the Creator for the wisest purposes, is, perhaps, the most potent of all evils when not properly restrained, retarded, and directed. This mysterious instinct develops earlier in proportion as the eye and the imagination are soonest furnished the materials upon which it thrives; and, long before the age of puberty, it is strong, and well-nigh ungovernable, in those who have been allowed these unfortunate occasions. The boy of the present generation has more practical knowledge of this instinct at the age of fifteen, than, under proper training, he should be entitled to at the time of his marriage; and the boy of eleven or twelve boastfully announces to his companions the evidences of his approaching virility. Nourished by languishing glances during the hours passed in the school-room, fanned by more intimate association on the journey to and from school, fed by stolen interviews and openly-arranged festivities—picnics, excursions, parties and the like—stimulated by the prurient gossip of the newspaper, the flash novels, sentimental weeklies, and magazines, the gallant of twelve years is the libertine of fourteen. That this picture is not overdrawn, every experienced physician will bear witness.

"And as for the Public School-girls, they return from their 'polishing schools'—these demoiselles—cursed with a superficial smattering of everything but what they ought to have learned—physical and moral wrecks, whom we physicians are expected to wind up in the morning for the husband-hunting excitements of the evening. And these creatures are intended for wives! But wives only, for it is fast going out of fashion to intend them for mothers—an 'accident' of the kind being regarded as'foolish'!

"We assert, then, that the present system of education, by its faults of omission and commission, is directly responsible, not, it is true, for the bare existence, but for the enormous prevalence of vices and crimes which we deplore; and we call upon the civil authorities to so modify the obnoxious arrangements of our schools, and upon parents and guardians to so instruct and govern their charges, that the evils may be suppressed, if not extinguished."

The attempt to prepare man for his duties in social life with morals and religion left out, is not only a failure, but a crime. Yes, it is not only a failure, but a crime of such magnitude, that society has already begun to suffer its consequences in a demoralization and general libertinage of the most shameful kind. This education without religion and morals is the poisoned fountain from which flows, and will flow, if not purified by adding the essential elements now omitted, the impure streams of all kinds of vice. If God is despised, governments will be trampled on; if God's law is hated, the laws of men will be violated; man will see only his own interest, his neighbor's property will only whet his appetite; his neighbor's life will be only a secondary consideration; he would, according to his creed, be a fool not to shed blood when his interest requires it; his fellow-men become imbued with his principles—anarchy succeeds subordination—vice takes the place of virtue—what was sacred is profaned—what was honorable becomes disgraceful—might becomes right—treatises are waste paper—honor is an empty name—the most sacred obligations dwindle down into mere optional practices—youth despises age—wisdom is folly—subjection to authority is laughed at as a foolish dream—the moral code itself soon becomes little more than the bugbear of the weak-minded—crowns are trampled under foot—thrones are overturned—nations steeped in blood, and republics swept from the face of the earth.

Yes, continue a little longer to educate the greater part of the community according to the present system of the Public Schools, and rest assured we shall soon have a hell upon earth—society will be stabbed to the heart by the ruffian assassin called godless Public School education—it will reel, stagger, and sink a bleeding victim to the ground, expiring, like the suicide, by the wound itself has inflicted. I truly believe that if Satan was presented with a blank sheet of paper, and bade to write on it the most fatal gift to man, he would simply write one word—"godless schools." He might then turn his attention from this planet; "godless Public Schools" would do the rest.