Show Getting gan an Education Difficult I Back in m The Good Old Days Days' EDITORS EDITOR'S NOTE This is the fourth article of a Thanksgiving week series by Bruce Catton staff taff writer for The Telegram and N NEA EA Service contrasting modern conditions conditions con can with those in in the good old days days' and showing the progress that we WO have to be thankful for today In this article Catton discusses the opportunities for an education in the nations nation's early days I By BRUCE CATTON CATION Most authorities agree that a a. Thanksgiving dinner isn't really a per cent affair unless there are area a number r of ot children to gather around the tle table holler holIer tor lor the drumsticks s and eat more pie than the law provides forThe for The average head of a family when he sees his children at the Thanksgiving feast counts as one of his chief blessings the fact that the they will grow up in a aland land of equal opportunity in a country that will educate ducate them th-em free o of charge and help fit them t fOr r the task o of making a living Yet in those much talked of old oki days when Thanksgiving Than g ving was supposed to mean a a. great gleat deal more than it doe does does' now that particular reason for or being thankful was ab absent absent absent ab- ab sent from lom most ost of tho the family circles in n this country Just as the wage-earner wage and his wife or the tho independent working woman got JOt an n extremely rough deal dea in those highly praised da days s 's of simplicity and contentment so did the children S S S S A century ago there was no such thing hing as an established public school s System slem The father lathel who atho wanted I h his ils s children to have even a a. decent grammar giammar school education had to toay pay ay for it and tt and pay pretty well well- out oat ot of his own pocket If he could not lot afford to the tho children were out ot of luck jn Jn In Rhode Island where of little muo children worked for 1 2 hours a a day ti n lt the textile mills the he hevery very idea of free public schools was vas denounced as monstrous Other sections of New England and most of the rest of the tho north were more liberal They had iad the famous rate Mil biU s system Stem a system that needs a hito bit of ot e explanation S S S Under the rate bill elementary schools vere cre established by towns townsand townsand townsand and cities made annual apPropriations ap- ap for tor their support But these hese appropriations were never nearly arly enough to defray expenses s 's so so the costs were met by prorating the expenses among the parents In proportion to the number of 01 chil chil- dren each had lied in Those were the days when a weekly wage of ot 9 9 was very very good pay for a workingman and and when as Hora Horace o Greeley showed a a. family of ot father mother and three children could barely barey get the Plain necessities of life for any less than that thai Under such circumstances circum circum- I stances the moderate moderato expense entailed entailed en en- tailed by the rate bill was enough to bar thousands of ot children from I school entirely vania vania also aso was t backWard backward back back- ward in the field of f education It I had nad some free schools but the law provided that a a aman man who wished to enter r his Ills child in one of them must declare himself a pauper prove it in de aH and have hate it at attest attested at- at 1 test tested d by the schoolmaster before the child could be enrolled Naturally Natu- Natu rally lally this kept most children Natu I out o or school In 1833 there were In the state 0 children who had no scho schooling ling whatever I S S S A number o of free fred schools were supported d dby by philanthropic citizens Thomas Je-fferson Je subscribed a ae 5 e ear r to to the first free school in in Washington IT He lye Witt Clinton did the he same sam in New v York In colonial days in New w En England n n. gland there was more nore support for free iree schools than during duing the half century that followed d the Declaration Declara Declara- tio tion of Independence The early held h-ekl that v each individual ual must interpret the tho Bible rIght aright on oil pain of ot eternal damnation hence they felt that It was only Lair fair to give each Ind individual vidual a a. chance by y teaching him to read But their schools not tg eo much i RICH COULD PRIVATE SCHOOLING J J hat and the the impulse was as greatly w weakened in ip later days SS S'S S The Idea of ot a universal tax tax- supported school system did not really take form in this country until until until un un- un- un til tIre tbs period between 1820 and 1860 1850 The Dha chief reason was the fact that the vast b bulk lk of the population in jn inthe th the early da days s 's was disfranchised Thus the men who re really reilly needed free schools for their children d did d not have the votes s tes to establish them the upper classes which had the votes could afford to pay private private pd- pd vate ate schools and were indifferent or openly hostile to td the free school idea But as the country developed and th tho great open regions west Df af the Alleghenies began to be filled up UI with settlers the notion that every grown man was entitled to fo the ballot baHot began gan to take hold AH AU of the new states e except Ohio and Louisiana were organized on th that t basis bails and these trese two adopter adopted It t a little later The ices iaea spread back to the eastern states and in the course of time the v voting restrictions were whittled down until the a ayer ayer- er- er age workman had the right to vote Tote S S S From Flom that moment the growth o of free schools was assured In Iri state after state laws TV Were ere passed appropriating appropriating appropriating money for lor schools and be before before be- be fore foro the Civil Chit war the tight light t was won vv on But the story of the struggle that it took to win in that fight tight gives a new light on in jn those good old days It makes it apparent apparent apparent ap ap- ap- ap parent that that era was pot not the contented happy idyllic time that we sometimes think it was wag phe average man man could the worker could not vote ote and aId h he lie could not ot educate his children The equality o of opportunity that the founders of ot the country talked about so much was wasa a good deal of ot a myth I If a a. man were poor he ho had hd little reason to hope that tt 11 children could rise above his own awn level I I TOMORROW Health conditions in the good old days days' I |