Show THE SCHOOL QUESTION r SALT LAKE CITY Feb 17 80 Editors Herald The amendment to the School Bill offered by Mr Jaqucs and accepted by the House last Friday in the interest of the poor and which ha caused come discussion reads as follows Any pupil of a district school at the cption of his parents or guardian or at his own option if he has no parent nor guardian may confine his studies to tbe four fundament 1 branches apellinp reading writing and aritmetic The tuition fee ot any pupil by or in whose behalf such option shall be taken shall in no case exceed 1 per term in addition to his proportion of the territorial appropriation Perhaps it wculJ be impossible to present an educational measure that would be satisfactory to nil persons as some people favor one thing and other peoplo favor another thing Ihe great fault in the new school bill as it was introduced in the House was that it contained no provision pro-vision for the education of the poor not one solitary provision of that kind nor hint nor suggestion of one This waa n capital defect The bill bai the appearance of having been Rotten up by school teachers who looked at tbeir side of the question almost xclusivoly Bat the people side ol the quesion is i at least equally aa important and should not be ignored nor passed over lighlty The amendment above quoted was apparently designed to remedy this defect and in that light was the best feature of the bill in fact the redeeming redeem-ing feature of it I have heard several people mike remarks to this efiect while same people shake their heads in doubt and a few consider the amendment impracticable Anything Any-thing is impracticable to the impracticable imprac-ticable those who dont want to make a suggestion practicable It is particuarly remarkable how impracticable imprac-ticable every suggestion is to help the poor especially to help them without degrading or humbling them It has been said that there would be an invidious in-vidious distinction drawn between the SI schorl child and the 5 schoolchild school-child I think Ule of the objection There is really nothing in it Similar distinctions are quite common in everyday life and incite no epaciil remark We see them in food house furniture clothing in everything One man will wear a Si hat and another a 5 hat but aU lke to have some sort of a hat One man will live in a 1 a week house and another in a 5 a week house but alt like to have some sort of a linn e to live in One man will eit in a 1 chair and another in n 5 chair but all like to have a chair of some eott to sit in One man will go and lake al sub etantial dinner while another will not be satified with anything less than a 5 fancy dinner but all like to have a dinner of some sort I rather favor the restaurant plan of livinghaYd what you like or can afford and pay only for what you have At such n place if you want a 2oc dinner you can have it It you want a 5 dinner you can have it t You can faro according to your needs and circumstances and mean But you do not like to go without any dinner at all Neither do you want to plead poverty and beg your dinner If 1 you were really poor and hungry and n plain substantial lunch was set free for anybody you would have 10 scruples against sitting down to eat with the next man So with educs tioDone child may have a SI education edu-cation and another a 5 education and both without humiliation But it is bad for a child to have no education educa-tion and it is humiliating for him to i j obtain his education as a pauper a known and acknowledged pauper As some district schools are graded and priced your child must have u So education or none or plead poverty ajd get somebody to give him aa education ed-ucation iree He could pay for a 1 education or perhaps r 2 education but the sclncl wont let him and a 5 education the only Eort the school deals in he cannot afford To steal ha wOLt and to beg he is ashamed The result is he leaves school acd I drags himself up to manhood without m education even in tie common branchEs The territary does not attempt to ivj a free liberal education to all Soon a thing can not be tflorded and it it could would be neither necessary nor desirable But at present what the territory does appropriate ap-propriate is shared by all scbobra in ill toe district schools besides what is given to the University lisle I 1 consider neither necessary nor desirable desir-able I approve of an appropriaticn for the University to assist in ke pin p-in up high education for the comparative com-parative few who may need it in the public interest or who have special talent or ambition for euch education Leaving the University with its ap prcpriatioo whatever it might be my plan would be to devote the rest ot the territorial appropriation for educational edU-cational purpCSB to the establkhmeu and maintenance of free commo schools throughout the territory only the three RV reading writing and arithmetic to be taught in those I school As a good reader is a 1 good speller I should consider fpe ling include under the reading read-ing branch Ihese three braacbes alone well learned are a good sound common school education perhaps all that the territ jry ought K insure for the generality of schoolchildren children and I presume all that it i is well able to insure What ia a good theatrical acti He iin good reader What is a good bookkeeper He is a good penman and arithmetician arithme-tician Between the common school and the university would come the dillon ent varieties of graded schools innumerous i in-numerous branches select schools high schools academies colleges These I should leave to private enterprise enter-prise excepting that I may say that a university is a collection ol college Territorial appropriations for the well to do are needless and wasteful Bays one Would you not teach grammar in your free common schools No II Nor gsographj No Nor history No Nor botany No 1 would leach only the three fundamental branches named above But this I would doI would have the common com-mon school readers to consist almost exclusively of good sound entertaining ilustrated elementary treatises on grammar geography history biography natural history geology natural philosophy and all the various arts and sciences Sue reading would tend to destroy the appetite for useless novels These elementary books on the various departments de-partments of useful knowledge I would have read and reread until tho scholars were qut familiar with their contents co as to be actually actu-ally well rend children having a better acquaintance with all these various kinds of book knowledge than most grown up people have A wel read man is an intelligent man and a wellread child is an intelligcn child There is another reform which I should he glad to see carried into efiect in the common school I would have the bocks pen ink slates etc furnished by the schco and kept there excepting tha the copy books might be take home by the children when written full Qhia would be an immense economic advantigp for by following this plan half the number num-ber of books would be sufficient and they would last half as long again asunder as-under the present system of every child furnishing and taking care 01 its own books Thus I would have no carrying of botka ta and from school every day or twice a day There would bo no leason learning nt i home All that work would be done in the school where it ought to be Five hours a day is quite long enough for a child to be engaged in studying book learning It is long enough for an adult to devote to close study daily The rest of the day should be devoted to physical labor or recreation or both It it is not the absolute duty of the slate I believe it ia its highest interest and best policy to give a free education educa-tion in these fundamental branches to all children or as nearly free as can reasonably be afforded leaving more extended and higher education as I have said to private enterprise with the exception of a subsidy to the university This I tbink would ho far better than our present district dis-trict school system as all children would receive a plain siund education educa-tion in those branches which are the groundwork of nil achcoi education and thereby all wnuld enjoy opportunity oppor-tunity for selfdevelopment and hca thful stimulus tlereit while the I value of their future cervices to the ttito and tbe community would be I correspondingly enhanced PoiiOLASTicas |