Here, as elsewhere, there was always a great fight at town-meetings
for these school board positions, especially when the school-book
agents became numerous, for these committees could secure from said
agents unlimited free books, and get high prices for all their
spavined horses, dried up cows, and sick pigs in return for voting for
rival text-books.
As the committees were often unequal to the task of making out a
course of study, pupils selected what studies they pleased, as
suicidal a policy as it would be if, when you were sick and went
to the physician for relief, he should point to a lot of different
medicines, and tell you to pay your money, and take your choice.
As there was a cramming machine close by called an academy, whose sole
object was to push students into Harvard College, of course the common
schools must be "crammers" for the academy, and the result was, that
we had no educational institutions whatever, and mental dyspepsia
was well-nigh universal, a smattering of everything, a knowledge of
nothing. As well might we pour food into the mouth by the peck, pound
it down with a ramrod, and expect healthful physical growth.
Hundreds of poor parents are working themselves to death to send their
children to such schools with a view to elevating them to "higher
positions" than they themselves occupy, and soon we will have none to
do the honest physical labor of life, but the world will be full of
kid-gloved hangers on for soft jobs, who regard working with the hands
to be a disgrace.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30