Some Recent Criticisms on Our Public Schools.
A PAPER BY SAMUEL THURBER, A.M., MASTER IN THE GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASS.
Last Friday evening I addressed a class graduating from a high school in a town of Massachusetts, on their obligations as young citizens, educated at the public cost. I tried to impress upon them that the state has no internal guarantee of stability, except the stable character of its citizens. I said that states have no inherent bias towards law and order; and that only in the hearts of their people do law and order reside: that our Nation is as liable to the shocks that have been wont to cause Nations to totter and fall, as were those states that have been seen to sink and disappear. Thus I exhorted that group of boys and girls to be ever ready, with an established civic faith, for the emergencies of national life, and in this strain I closed with the lines of Whittier,
"God save the land
A careless hand
May swerve or shake ere tomorrow's noon."
Ere the noon of Saturday, travelling homeward, I met the hideous news which, flashing through the town, was plunging men's souls into an agony of suspense. The first thoughts were unendurable. The possibilities of the crisis seemed fearful. As men talked the momentous event over, I observed that more hopefulness was mingled in their mood. The American faith which, twenty years ago, we found that we possessed without knowing it, was asserting itself again. We have a tradition, a national habit of trust. We believe in our country. I saw that in various ways, because the country was surmised to be in possible danger, a purpose expressed itself to stand by her again. There is a national consciousness. This is the nation's hope, the spes patriae, which, living in the souls of her citizens, is her very soul itself, her very principle of life. That this hope shall pass down to our children is the all important question of education. It seemed to me that in the light which such a calamity throws upon the deeper interests of life, we might well consecrate ourselves anew to our work, and seriously include within the scope of our endeavor the incultation of that love of our country and that understanding of her needs, which existing as habit in the minds of her citizens, are yet on many occasions to be called into play to save her from dishonor and destruction.
