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 EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT 
 
 BOARD S PUBLIC CHARITIES 
 
 STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 F on 1871 
 
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD. 
 
 THOS. L. KANE, 
 G. DAWSON COLEMAN, 
 GEO. L. HAKRISON. 
 HIESTRR CLYMER. 
 WILLIAM BAKEWELL. 
 
 (;E(). I. HAKKiS(JN. 
 
 WILMER WORTHINGTON, 
 
 General Aginf and Secrefari/. 
 
i^LvukU4.xij/6<>"j<-vulL . 
 
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 COMPULSORY EDUCATION, 
 
 EXTRACT FEOM THE REPORT 
 
 BOARD OF PUBLIC CHARITIES 
 
 STATE OP PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 rOR 1871. 
 
 r liiy^ 
 
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 ,^' 
 
 COMPULSORY EDUCATION. 
 
 In the report of this Board for 1870, the last topic 
 presented was that of "neglected children." The Legisla- 
 ture was then appealed to, by the highest considerations of 
 the interest and duty of the State, to make provision for 
 their care and education. " The average of social virtue, 
 dignity and wealth," it was then said, ''is much reduced by 
 the presence of this debased and debasing ingredient. 
 And it is a problem well worthy of the gravest and most 
 patient thought of philanthropic political economists, 
 whether anything, and (if anything) what can be done for 
 the rescue of these unfortunates from their ill-starred con- 
 dition, for the protection of the community which they 
 deteriorate, and for the purity, welfare and honor of the 
 State, the mother of them all." 
 
 This evil exists in all parts of the country, but is most 
 patent and pressing in large cities and crowded communi- 
 ties. The remedy — 'what it shall be, and how it shall be 
 applied, is a subject beset with grave difficulties ; but they 
 are difficulties which must be sooner or later manfully met 
 and grappled with. The stability and welfare of the State 
 
 M72998 
 
6 
 
 and its free institutions, the interests and safety of every 
 citizen, and the weal or woe of the thousands of innocent 
 and helpless victims, are involved in the question and wait 
 upon your solution. 
 
 Th^s.'is an -eminent' y proper subject for this Board to 
 bring to' your attention, both as a " Board of Public Ghari- 
 tids/'«and;a9'bieiJaj;5 required bylaw to report on the causes 
 and 'remedies of vice and crime. 
 
 No almshouse, no hospital, no asylum or refuge for the 
 poor, the diseased, the insane, the imbecile, the inebriate 
 or the juvenile offender, is more a work of charity, than 
 would be a provision for the care and education of these 
 neglected children. No courts of justice, no prisons or 
 penitentiaries, or houses of correction, or reformatory 
 schools can tend more directly or powerfully to the dimi- 
 nution of vice and crime, than schools and homes for these 
 poor unfortunates, ever growing up in ignorance and per- 
 nicious habits, preparing to leaven our whole social condi- 
 tion, and to assist in making our laws. 
 
 ILLITERACY OP^ ADULTS. 
 
 According to the census of 1860 (the data of that for 
 
 1870 are not accessible), the number of adults who could 
 
 not read was : — 
 
 In the United States, of the whole adult popu- 
 lation, . . . . . .20 per cent. 
 
 In the United States, of the white adult popu- 
 lation, 9 " 
 
 In the United States, of the native white adult 
 
 population, 7J " 
 
 In New York, of the whole iidult population, 6 " 
 " of the native white iidult popu- 
 lation, U " 
 
In Massachusetts, of the whole adult popula- 
 tion, 7 per cent. 
 
 In Massachusetts, of the native white adult 
 
 population, } " 
 
 In Maine, of the whole adult population, . 3 " 
 " of the native white adult popula- 
 tion, f " 
 
 In Pennsylvania, of the whole adult popula- 
 tion, 6 " 
 
 In Pennsylvania, of the native white adult 
 
 population, 3J " 
 
 It is to be observed, that only the number of the adult 
 population is here referred to in each case. 
 
 Of the native white population (adult,) the number of 
 illiterate adults, less their proportion of adults who were 
 idiotic, insane, deaf and dumb, and blind, was : — 
 
 In Massachusetts, — 230 
 
 In Maine, 1,507 
 
 In Pennsylvania, 34,470 
 
 Thus the number in Pennsylvania was five to one of 
 that in Maine, in proportion to the native white population 
 of the respective States ; while in Massachusetts the re- 
 sult shows, if the returns are correct, that more than 230 
 of the idiotic, insane, deaf and dumb and blind adults must 
 have been taught to read, which is undoubtedly the fact. 
 Since 1860, great improvements have been made in the 
 constitution and working of the school system in Pennsyl- 
 vania, and it is to be presumed that the proportion of 
 illiteracy among her native white population has greatly 
 diminished. Under such circumstances, the much greater 
 proportion of illiteracy among the foreign born population, 
 though a great, is but a temporary evil. 
 
8 
 
 In reckoning the 20 per cent, of illiteracy in 1860, in 
 the whole adult population of the United States, it is to 
 be observed that the slaves were set down, according to 
 their legal status, as all untaught -to read, which was then 
 not far from the fact. 
 
 NON-ATTENDANCE OF CHILDREN AT SCHOOL. 
 
 The number of Children of the school age (from 5 to 
 15), not attending the public schools at all, was : — 
 In Massachusetts, in 1869 and 1870, . . 9 per cent. 
 
 *' average absence of pupils, 19 " 
 
 In Pennsylvania, in 1869 and 1870, . . 6 " 
 
 " average absence of pupils, .33 '* 
 
 In Philadelphia, in 1869 and 1870, . . 12 " 
 
 *' average absence of pupils, .46 " 
 
 In New York (school age 5 to 21), in 1869, 24 
 
 The number of pupils in academies and private schools, 
 in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, may about balance the 
 number in the public schools, of pupils under 5 and over 
 15 years of age. 
 
 If, then, we make due allowance for the number of 
 imbecile, insane, deaf and dumb and blind, for those taught 
 to read at home, for those detained from school by chronic 
 sickness, for those (particularly between the ages of 5 and 
 8), not yet sent to school, but who will attend hereafter, 
 and for those (particularly between the ages of 12 and 15), 
 not attending school in the given year, but who had already 
 learned to read in former years, the percentage of absolute 
 non-attendance in these two States will be reduced to a 
 very low figure, probably to not more than one or two per 
 cent., which is quite enough. And the apparent advantage 
 of Pennsylvania over Massachusetts, in the percentage, 
 may, it is not unlikely, arise from some difference in the 
 manner of making the returns. 
 
9 
 
 In Pennsylvania, the whole number of pupils registered 
 in the public schools, during the whole year, are reported. 
 In Massachusetts the highest number attending for any 
 time, that is, in the winter schools, is given. In other 
 words, in Massachusetts the highest number attending the 
 summer schools is returned, and the highest number 
 attending the winter schools; but though many pupils 
 attend in summer and not in winter, and conversely, no 
 attempt is made to give the full number of different names 
 registered at both seasons of the year. However this 
 point of comparison may be settled, any doubtful advantage 
 in this respect is more than balanced by our manifest 
 disadvantage in the average absenteeism of those actually 
 registered as pupils. 
 
 If due allowance is made for the longer period of school 
 age in New York, it will probably be found that, at least 
 outside of the city of New York, the school system of 
 that State is quite as effective in reaching the whole popu- 
 lation as that of either Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. 
 
 It is in the great cities, as is showij by the statistics of 
 Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Eeading and other large cities, 
 that the greatest proportion of neglected and uninstructed 
 children is found; and in such communities the proportion 
 is appalling. It cannot be less in Philadelphia, after all 
 such allowances as those before referred to are made, than 
 about six per cent, of the whole number of children of 
 the school age ; that is to say, about ten or eleven thousand. 
 . And the huge and unparalleled proportion of absence to 
 attendance of the pupils themselves, viz., forty-six to fifty- 
 four, is scarcely less appalling. 
 
 IGNORANCE AND CRIME. 
 
 Ignorance not only entails vice and wretchedness upon 
 the individual, and loss and expense upon the State, but 
 
10 
 
 it is a fruitful source of crime. This might be presumed 
 from the nature of the case, without facts ; but facts estab- 
 lish it. 
 
 The percentage of convicts in State prisons who were 
 unable to read on admissiori, as reported in 1868, was : — 
 In the whole United States, . . .28 per cent. 
 
 In New York, 15 " 
 
 In Pennsylvania, 16 " 
 
 In Maine, 10 " 
 
 How far the result in the nation, as a whole, may have 
 been influenced by the presence of the freedmen, it is not 
 possible for^us, at present, to determine; but it appears 
 that, even assuming all the freedmen to be illiterate, the 
 number of uninstructed convicts was nearly three to two 
 of what it should have been in proportion to the whole 
 number of the illiterate population of the United States. 
 
 To the percentage of illiterate of the whole adult popula- 
 tion, and of the adult native white population, respectively, 
 the percentage of illiterate convicts was : — 
 
 In New York, as 2 J and 10 to 1. 
 
 In Pennsylvania, . . . . as 2f and 5 to 1. 
 In Maine, as 3J and 13 to 1. 
 
 And after making the proper comparisons, it will ap- 
 pear that, if all the people in these States had learned to 
 read, the number of State prison convicts would probably 
 have been diminished just about ten per cent. 
 
 DUTY OF THE STATE. 
 
 To furnish the needful education, therefore, to her 
 neglected children, is what the State owes to them — ^is 
 what the State owes to herself. Charity requires it; 
 prudence and statesmanship command it. And, accord- 
 ingly, we shall not hesitate to proceed to consider the 
 subject in both these relations. 
 
11 
 
 But when we propose to bring our schools to bear espe- 
 cially on this unfortunate class, we are met, in .limine^ 
 with the objection that our present school system already 
 provides for the whole case ; that it offers the means of an 
 elementary education to all who choose to avail themselves 
 of its benefits. This may, in a certain sense, be true ; but 
 there are children too young to be qualified or permitted 
 to choose for themselves, and yet the choice made for them 
 determines, it may be, the happiness or misery of their 
 whole lives ; determines whether they are to be useful or 
 pernicious members of society; and shall that choice be 
 permitted which imperils not only their happiness, but the 
 welfare and existence of the State? 
 
 It is precisely those children whose parents or guardians 
 are unable or indisposed to provide them with an education: 
 It is precisely those for whom the State is most interested to 
 provide and secure it; for other children would, probably, 
 be educated, if the State did not intervene. And as for 
 the children, so far as they choose for themselves, those 
 who neglect the education offered them in the free schools, 
 preferring the pleasures and license of vagabondage and 
 truancy, are precisely those for whom such education is 
 most needed; for a desire for education is next to educa- 
 tion itself, in its good effects; and those who determine to 
 have it would, probably, obtain it, whether the State 
 offered it to them or not. 
 
 Clearly it is the duty, that is, it is the highest interest 
 of the State, to secure the education of these " neglected 
 children," if possible; and the only questions aj:e: Is it 
 possible ? and, if so. How can it be done ? 
 
 To attain the end will, of course, involve something like 
 what is called " Compulsory Education;" and against such 
 a scheme there is started at once a great variety of objec- 
 
12 
 
 tions and difficulties. Are these insuperable? "Without 
 argument it might be assumed that they are not; for 
 " where there is a will there is a way." Moreover, it is 
 demonstrated by fact that they are not insuperable ; for 
 the thing has been done ; and where it has been done, it 
 has never yet been undone or repented of. It is a notable 
 fact that no country or community that has adopted either 
 the sjrstem of public schools for all, or that has gone so far 
 as to add to it that of compulsory education, has ever re- 
 traced its steps. 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION HAS SEEK LONO 
 AND StTCCESSFUIiLY TRIED. 
 
 This system has been long established in Norway. Du- 
 ring the 400 years of the subjection of this country to 
 l)enmark, it may be said that education was much neglec- 
 ted, and ignorance threatened to become universal. Tlie law 
 rendering education compulsory was passed in 1827, the 
 agitation of which was begun in 1814, soon after the inde- 
 pendence of the country was secured ; and the enactments 
 have been, since that time, rendered more complete, par- 
 ticularly by the law of 1860. The consequence is, that 
 almost every Norwegian can read and write. The school 
 age of compulsory attendance is, for children in the coun- 
 try, from 8 to 15 years, and in the towns, from 7 to 15. 
 Regular attendance upon the common schools is enforced 
 by fines imposed upon the parents. If they persist in neg- 
 lecting the training of their children, the law stops in, re- 
 moves the children from their guardianship, and places 
 them in families where they will be conscientiously taught, 
 the expenses being collected from those who should have 
 cared for them. In Norway compulsory education was the 
 immediate result of political freedom. 
 
13 
 
 In Sweden it was an agitation of 10 years in the House 
 of Peasants, that finally constrained the government to 
 take up the subject. Then there arose a remarkable and. 
 unanimous opposition from the Bishops. Some held the 
 matter to be absolutely local, and one with which the State 
 should not meddle ; others declared that, if schools were 
 established, the people were too poor to send their children 
 properly clad ; others maintained that the education of the 
 peasantry should be of a limited character. The Bishop 
 of Lund, that seat of the ancient university, maintained 
 that popular education could not and should not be intro- 
 duced. The reply of the celebrated poet Tegner, then 
 Bishop of the Diocese of "Wexjo, was similar in spirit. To 
 the question, what should the Folk schools teach ? he an- 
 swered, " The culture of the laboring classes ought, prin- 
 cipally, to be religious ; this, if rightly imparted, includes 
 morality ; all other is to be regarded as not only needless, 
 but more hurtful than beneficial." Tegner was at that 
 time 57 years of age, and had been a Bishop about twelve 
 years. Notwithstanding the opposition of the established 
 church, in three years from the time these answers were 
 given, the present system of Folk schools had its founda- 
 tion in an act of the Diet. By the law of 1842 one such 
 school was required to be maintained in each Sochen, both 
 in the city and in the country. [See the report of the 
 United States Minister at Stockholm.] The result has 
 been that in 1868, 97 per cent, of all the children in Swe- 
 den were actually attending the Folk or higher schools, or 
 were receiving certified instruction elsewhere. Compul- 
 sory education in Sweden may be carried by law to the 
 separation of children from parents, but this has been re- 
 sorted to in but few instances, and only where the poverty 
 of the parent rendered it necessary for the parish to sujp- 
 port the child. 
 
14 
 
 . There is in Sweden a growing sentiment in favor of en- 
 forcing universal attendance, avoiding, if possible, the sepa- 
 ration of parent and child. Instruction in the Folk schools 
 is practically gratuitous. 
 
 In Prussia, also, as is well known, the system of com- 
 pulsory education has been established long enough to have 
 had its effect upon the training of a whole generation ; and 
 it is perhaps the best educated generation that has ever 
 lived, or that is anjrwhere to be found. No other people 
 have been so universally trained in the elements of learn- 
 ing and useful knowledge. This is the people that has 
 revolutionized Europe on the fields of Sadowa and Sedan ; 
 and the success of Prussia in her great contests with Aus- 
 tria and with France, has resulted far more from this edu- 
 cated intelligence of her people than from any warlike arm, 
 or any strategy or military science of her generals. 
 
 Austria has been wise enough to take a lesson from her 
 defeat, and imitating the policy of the victor, she has en- 
 tered upon a course of political and popular improvement, 
 upon a sptem of liberality and progress, which, if perse- 
 vered in, will render her a greater nation than she has 
 ever been. One of the greatest benefits yet conferred upon 
 the working classes of Austria is the general school bill 
 of 14th May, 1869, which makes national education com- 
 pulsory, and greatly elevates the standard of it In aooord- 
 ance with this law, compulsory attendance at school begins 
 with every child at the age of dz, and is continued unin- 
 terruptedly until the age of fourteen. But even then, the 
 child is only allowed to leave school on production of a 
 certified proof that he has thoroughly acquired the full 
 amount of information which this great law fixes as the 
 9ine qua rum minimum of education for every Austrian 
 citizen. Nor are any private schools tolerated by the gov- 
 
15 
 
 ernment which do not efficiently provide the prescribed 
 amount of secular instruction; although so long as this 
 condition is fulfilled, the law imposes no limit to private 
 educational establishments. 
 
 The misfortunes and miseries of France have taught her 
 the same lesson ; and it is now stated, on good authority, 
 that the French republican government has it in contempla- 
 tion to establish for that country a thorough system of 
 universal compulsory education. Had she established such 
 a system thirty years ago, the name of Sedan would have 
 remained in comparative obscurity; the myriads of her 
 )ldiery would have acquired their knowledge of German 
 "geography in a more satisfactory way than that in which 
 it was actually forced upon them, and the Paris commune 
 would either have never existed, or would not have found 
 the ignorant mob of idlers and vagabonds that were ready 
 to execute its savage decrees of vandalism and murder. 
 
 England, too, has been roused at length from her 
 lethargy. Her elementary education act was passed August 
 9, 1870. This act of a liberal progressive administration 
 has made a step towards the thorough instruction and ele- 
 vation of the masses of the English people, which an es- 
 tablished church and an aristocratic State, with all the 
 wealth of the richest country in the world at their com- 
 mand for centuries, had neglected or failed to accomplish 
 or even to undertake. This education act includes the 
 compulsory feature, and its detailed provisions, the result 
 of a most exhaustive investigation and discussion, may be 
 referred to as embodying an eminently practical effort 
 towards solving and removing the difficulties which em- 
 barrass the subject. 
 
 Thus, in Europe, the system of compulsory education 
 has been established in countries chiefly agricultural, and 
 
16 
 
 in others largely oommercial and' manufacturing ; in ooon* 
 tries with a scattered rural population, and in others witk 
 cities as large as our own ; in countries comparatively poor 
 and peaceful, and in others of tba greatest wealth and 
 wariike spirit; in countries where the distribution of 
 wealth is most equal, and in others where it is most un- 
 equal And^ wherever it has been tried, it has proved 
 successful and satisfactory ; no retrograde step has been 
 taken or even thought of. 
 
 Nor is it in Europe only that the system has be^i intro- 
 duced. Massachusetts has, for several years, been trying 
 it with some limitations, but with a constant and increasing 
 tendency towards a more stringent and absolute enforce- 
 ment of the rule, and with eminently satisfactory results. 
 Not only Massachusetts, one of our oldest States, and, 
 side by side with our own Pennsylvania, the very cradle 
 of American freedom, and where the ancient fires of liberty 
 still burn as brightly as anywhere else in our independent 
 country ; not only old Massachoaetts in the East, but 
 Nebraska in the West, one of the most youthful States in 
 the Union, where the life-blood of liberty and progreea. is 
 throbbing with fresh and boojwit energy, Nebraska htM, 
 by the framers of her ConstitutioD, sought to engraft this 
 feature upon her school system^ in her fundamental law ; 
 a provision, howe^^er, which has been made prospective, in 
 eonsequence of the rejection of die Constitution because of 
 an objectionable feature in the atlide on taxation. 
 
 The Superintendent of pubib achook in Maasachosetla 
 reports, in 1870, that the law te the tuppresaion of 
 " truancy," as applied in Boelon, is ** working satisfao- 
 torily." The city is divided into ten truant diBtricto, one 
 troant officer being aealgned to each district. These offi- 
 cers are expected to give their whole time to the invettigar 
 
m 
 
 17 
 
 ion of cases of truancy reported to them by the teachers 
 of their respective districts, and in securing the attendance 
 of absentees ; that is, of children whose names are not en- 
 
 lled in the schools, and who are, therefore, not known, 
 
 hnically, as " truants." Massachusetts, also, requires a 
 
 rtificate of a certain number of months' attendance in 
 
 hool, as a condition of the employment of children in 
 
 y manufactory. ^ 
 
 The Massachusetts Board of Education, in their report 
 of 1871, say :— 
 
 "By the present law, attendance at school for three 
 months in each year is rendered compulsory for every 
 child between the ages of 8 and 14, except in certain spe- 
 
 al cases, while the towns are required to maintain their 
 schools at least six months in each year. 
 
 " The Board recommend that the statute be changed, so 
 as to require attendance for the whole period, at least, 
 during which schools are required to be maintained, believ- 
 ing that attendance upon the schools should be compulsory 
 for the child for the same term in which the maintenance 
 of the school is compulsory for the tax-payers. Since the 
 only hope of security and prosperity for a republic rests in 
 the virtuous intelligence of its citizens, the rightfulness of 
 compulsory education is generally admitted. Salics popvli 
 auprema lex. The necessity of enforcing this right arises 
 frdm the existence in our community of a large and grow- 
 ing class of persons, not only ignorant themselves, but 
 only too willing to keep their children in ignorance for the 
 sake of the pittance which may be earned by unskilled 
 juvenile labor." 
 
 From New York comes the voice in regard to the crying 
 evil of absenteeism : " There is no remedy that I know ot 
 but compulsory attendance." The Superintendent of pub- 
 2 
 
18 
 
 lie schools declares that "the primary object of the State, 
 in bestowing free education upon its citizens, is not to benefit 
 individuals as such, but to qualify them properly for their 
 relations and duties to ejich other as members of the same 
 community." The Superintendent of the schools in Maine 
 has put the argument into this form : " The power which 
 compels the citizen to pay his annual tax for the support 
 of schools should, in like manner, fill the schools with all 
 of those for whose benefit that contribution was made. It 
 is in the light of a solemn compact between the citizen and 
 the State community. The private citizen contributes of 
 his means, under the established rule of the State, for the 
 education of the youth, with a view to protection of person 
 and security to property ; the State compelling such con- 
 tributions, is under reciprocal obligation to provide and 
 secure the complete education, for which the contribution 
 has been made. This implies the exercise of State power, 
 and involves compulsory attendance as a duty to the tax- 
 payer. The State builds prisons and penitentiaries for the 
 protection of society, and taxes society for the same. But 
 docs she stop here, leaving him who has violated the law 
 to be pursued by the community in a mass; to be appre- 
 hended by a crowd and borne by a throng to the place of 
 incarceration? No; she porBues the criminal through 
 legitimate instrumentalities, ferrets him out by the sharp- 
 est means of detection, and eventually secoreB that safety 
 and protection to society for which sfx^ioty has been taxed. 
 Now, to prevent crime, to anticipat43 aiul shut it off by 
 proper compulsory efforts in the sdiod-room, working with 
 and moulding early cliiMhood and youth ' to the principles 
 of morality and justice, and a sacred regard for truth, love of 
 country, humanity, and a univenal benevolence, sobriety, 
 industry and fmgality, chastity, moderation and temper- 
 
19 
 
 ice, and all other virtues which are the ornaments of 
 society' [cited from the Constitution of Maine], the State 
 not only has the right to inaugurate such methods as may 
 be deemed best, but is under strict obligation to do so by 
 all the means in her power." 
 
 The world is moving ! Shall Pennsylvania remain be- 
 hind ? 
 
 I 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE EVIL. 
 
 The evil to be remedied is multiform. The absentees 
 from the schools may be distributed into various classes. 
 There are absentees from the public schools, who are pro- 
 vided at least with an elementary education at home, or in 
 private or charitable institutions. Of these nothing fur- 
 ther is required but the ascertainment of this fact ; and 
 their case is then to be entirely set aside from any idea of 
 compulsion or control. 
 
 For the rest, among the absentees from the schools, are : 
 
 1. Children living in the streets, without guardianship 
 or supervision, and without employment, except such as 
 they may choose or chance to pick up for themselves. 
 
 2. Children employed in manufacturing drudgery, not 
 only in great cotton or woolen manufactories, but who are 
 crowded into cellars and garrets, and cramped and comfort- 
 less rooms ; working, for example, in manipulating tobacco, 
 and in all sorts of simple drudgery. 
 
 3. Children, in the city, kept at home by their parents 
 to run errands or help them in their daily toil, trade or 
 business; as about grocers' shops or butchers' stalls, or 
 other purely unimproving occupation equivalent to idleness, 
 at home. 
 
 4. Children in the country, kept, from their earliest 
 years, constantly employed in agricultural labors. 
 
20 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE BEMEDY PROPOSED. 
 
 It is necessary for the best interests of the State, and of 
 the children themselves, that, at least, an elementary edu- 
 cation should be secured to all these classes ; but it is not 
 equally necessary for all. For the first class it is most 
 necessary, and its importance diminishes in the order of 
 enumeration, until the last class, in which it is least impor- 
 tant. For, any honest employment, consistent with health, 
 is better than idle vagabondage; and the knowledge of 
 some trade, or of agriculture (which is the healthiest em- 
 plojrment of all for a child, both morally and physically), 
 is even more important towards making a good citizen, 
 than a knowledge of reading, writing or arithmetic. 
 
 The truant and employment laws of Massachusetts, with 
 some fuller provisions, might answer for the remedy in 
 case of the first and second classes. Of the first class, the 
 attendance at school should be required and secured abso- 
 lutely; and for those among them entirely destitute of homes 
 and means of support, proper refuges, maintenance and guar- 
 dianship should be provided at the public expense. The 
 safety of the community demands it; the economy of the 
 tax-payer requires it; for it is, in the end, the cheapest way 
 by which the case can be disposed of, and the only way 
 to make the tax already pud efifectual to accomplish its 
 object. 
 
 And it is to be remembered that, though this form of 
 the evil may be largely local, its dangerous consequences 
 and the interest in having it remedied are not local. The 
 character of great cities exerts a powerful, and often a sadly 
 controlling influence on the country, near and remote. 
 They may be fountains of blessing to a State, or they may 
 be sources of wide-spread^ corruption, nests of iniquity, 
 festering sores upon the body politic. The children that 
 
n 
 
 21 
 
 grow up neglected in the city do not always remain there. 
 They may carry the pestilential influence of their vices all 
 over the State. While, if they were rescued from ruin, 
 trained up in 'useful knowledge and moral habits, they 
 would almost certainly be found, in large proportion, dis- 
 tributed over the whole ai'ca of the State, rendering effi- 
 cient assistance in the development of its resources and 
 the elevation of its character. Their education, therefore, 
 concerns not only the city wherein they are found, but the 
 whole Commonwealth. 
 
 The safety of the State may not be so much imperiled 
 by the neglect of the second class, as of the first ; but, in 
 point of fact, an almost equal positive loss of wealth, i. e., 
 of productive labor, is incurred. Besides, it is permitting 
 outrageous cruelty to the children; and if tjie State, by 
 solemn enactment, may provide for the prevention of 
 cruelty to animals, though inflicted by the poorest man in 
 the very act of earning his daily bread, will she not pro- 
 vide for the prevention of cruelty to her own children, 
 however the necessities of the parents may seem to justify 
 or excuse it ? In these cases, the parents or employers 
 should be absolutely required, under appropriate penalties, 
 to send the children to school a certain portion of the year, 
 until they have acquired at least those rudiments of knowl- 
 edge which should be adjudged by statute to constitute 
 the minimum of an elementary education. If obedience to 
 such a law is refused, and if, from the poverty of the par- 
 ties, or from whatever cause, the penalties cannot be 
 enforced, then, as in the former case, the State should 
 interpose, and take the care and maintenance of the 
 children into its own hands. To provide for their main- 
 tenance, by compelling them to devote to manual and 
 exhausting labor that childhood which should be devoted 
 
22 
 
 to the studies and recreations of school, is, in the end, the 
 most expensive way to the State in which it could be 
 provided for. 
 
 Of the third and fourth classes, the attendance at school 
 might be required by a similar process with similar pro- 
 visions, and for similar, though at least in the fourth class, 
 not equally imperative reasons. Such is a general outline 
 of a remedy proposed for the great evil in question. But 
 it meets with many 
 
 OBJECTIONS. 
 
 1. "It would interfere wiih personal liberty." So does 
 the imposition of military service or training. So does 
 the requisition to serve on juries or to aid the sheriff in 
 the posse comitatus. So does the law abating nuisances 
 or making it penal to sell certain articles without a license. 
 If the safety and welfare of the State are sufficient 
 reasons for those interferences with personal liberty, why 
 should not the same be sufficient reasons in the other and 
 more urgent case? Indeed, we might as well admit it to 
 be a part of the personal liberty of the citizen to get drunk, 
 or go naked in the streetSi or set fire to hid house, or 
 starve his family, as to have children, and that he may 
 use them only for his own accommodation, or in mere 
 wantonness, to cast them upon the community, in vicious 
 ignorance and sottish in If the law may restrain 
 a man from cruelly beat...^ i..o horse or his mule, shall it 
 be considered an insufferable interference with his per- 
 sonal liberty to forbid his dwarfing tlie minds, debasing 
 the morals, stunting the IxxlieB and enfeebling the constitu- 
 tions of his children? Is the Stat^ more int^r*>Pt4?d in 
 the care of oxen than of men? 
 
 2. "It would be an interferenr u.* n^iiis of 
 oonscience." 
 
I 
 
 23 
 
 may be the imposition of military service, or the 
 requisition of personal aid to the sheriff; but this case 
 need involve no such interference at all, unless men have 
 a conscientious repugnance to children's being taught to 
 read and write, and to lead moral and virtuous lives, 
 instead of being left to grow up in ignorance and vice. 
 And, even as for religious -instruction, it would be to 
 assume a strange position to say, 'Hlie instructor may 
 teach the children that 'twice two are four;* he may 
 even say, 'be temperate and chaste,' but I have conscien- 
 tious scruples against his saying, 'obey the commandments 
 of Almighty God.' " Still, all formal religious instruction 
 or exercises in the schools that children are required to 
 attend, including, under that category, even the reading 
 of the Holy Scriptures, if so it is insisted upon, may be 
 confined to certain prescribed periods at the opening or 
 close of the school-day; and all children may be excused 
 from attendance at those periods, whose parents or guar- 
 dians should expressly desire it. 
 
 3. "The State is not a benevolent institution, or associa- 
 tion for moral reform." 
 
 » But the State has its almshouses; it aids in the support 
 of institutions for the deaf and dumb, the blind, the feeble- 
 minded; it aids in establishing and in sustaining houses of 
 refuge and schools of reform for. the youthful victims of 
 neglect, incorrigibility or vice. Its Legislature has its 
 standing Committee on Vice and Immorality, and has 
 constituted this commission as its "Board of Public 
 Charities." Surely it will hardly be urged as a proper 
 reason against a legal enactment, that it will do some good ; 
 that it will tend to accomplish even the highest ends of 
 benevolence and morality. But here it is the very safety 
 and welfare of the State that are appealed to, as the 
 
24 
 
 proper object of the proposed legislation. To prevent vice 
 and crime by removing their causes, and thus to prevent 
 their consequences of poverty, and misery, and shame, of 
 injury and loss to society, is quite as consistent with the 
 proper functions of the State, as to punish them after they 
 have borne their fruits. 
 
 4. " It would vastly increase the cost and burden of the 
 public schools." 
 
 If it should do so, it would still l)e only as the neces- 
 sary means of securing the ** education of the poor," for 
 which it is the constitutional duty of the Legislature to 
 provide. But it would probably not increase the cost of 
 the schools nearly so much as it might be supposed or 
 apprehended, while it might be made greatly to increase 
 their general efficiency. It is to be assumed that school 
 accommodations are already provided, sufficient for all the 
 children of school-age in the Commonwealth. But even 
 if it were necessary to reserve or supply separate schools 
 for those children who do not now attend school at all, 
 and if to these were added the incorrigibly truant, and 
 Uie unreasonably absent from the other schools, together 
 with those who, for misl)ehavior or negligence, are ex^ 
 pelled from them, it would only leave more room in the 
 other schools for the wants of an increasing population, 
 and would, in the long run, involve only a change in Uie 
 distribtition of the whole number of children. The 
 result would, in fart ^ '^nt the average attendance in 
 the other schools Wo iuuch raised; the conduct and 
 
 industry of the pupils would be improved; and, in the 
 end, the number to be provided for in the separate school 
 would be very small indeed. And as to the meagre 
 remnant of extremely do.-»tituto children, which would be, 
 we believe, continually reduced under the Bjrstem we pro- 
 
25 
 
 pose, for whom maintenance as well as instruction would 
 have to be provided, it is not easy to see how the State 
 can decline the duty of making the provision, or why, 
 while it has its numerous asylums of kindred character, 
 it should seek to decline it. We think, therefore, that the 
 expense would not bo ''vastly" increased; but whatever 
 the cost would be, it ought to be cheerfully met. 
 
 5. "It would encourage reckless marriages, and the 
 reckless idleness and wastefulness of parents." 
 
 This is the sort of objection that has been made, and 
 may continue to be made against all relief afforded to the 
 poor and wretched. There is an abuse to be guarded 
 against, but it is not to be guarded against by leaving 
 the destitute and miserable to rot and perish ; but only 
 by giving the relief in such judicious ways and degrees 
 as to avoid abuses as far as possible. The same good 
 judgment should be exercised in this case. But the ob- 
 jection is the less applicable here, because the natural and 
 proper effect of the legislation proposed would be, on 
 the whole, to diminish poverty and wretchedness, as well 
 as ignorance, vice and crime. Meantime it does not ap- 
 pear that the evil consequence alleged has actually followed 
 where education has been made universally compulsory, 
 whether in Sweden, in Norway, or in Germany. 
 
 6'. *' Merely to learn to read and write will not make 
 better citizens, or diminish crime." 
 
 Here it is to be observed, first of all, that the practical 
 alternative is not, as is often invidiously suggested, between 
 a knowledge of reading and writing on the one hand, and 
 habits of morality and religion, or a knowledge of a trade 
 on the other ; but between so much knowledge as is involved 
 in reading and writing and no education at all ; between so 
 much knowledge as that or blank ignorance, or a training 
 only in habits of vice and rrimo. 
 
26 
 
 In the second place, so far from its being true that such 
 a modicum of learning, or any amount of knowledge, is 
 naturally associated with immorality, the plain fact is, that 
 there is a natural aflBnity between knowledge and good 
 morals ; between the normal culture of the intellect and of 
 the heart; between truth and rectitude; and that a know- 
 ledge of reading and writing increases both the means and 
 the tendency to acquire both the knowledge and the habits 
 of virtue and good morals. This is the general law, and 
 the dissociation of knowledge from virtue, the perversion 
 of knowledge to the aid and development of vice and 
 iniquity, which it is true may sometimes happen, and which 
 has happened in some notorious and terrible examples, is 
 one of the most monstrous abuses known in human ei- 
 perience. 
 
 But, in the third place, it is not proposed that these 
 children should be taught to read and write to the exclu- 
 sion of all moral or religious instruction. The public 
 schools of Pennsylvania are neither immoral nor godless 
 schools. Ninety-nine in a hundred of the teachers are, 
 and would continue to be, moral, and nine-tenths of them 
 religious persons. Moral and religious instruction and 
 training would be given, radiating constantly in an un- 
 conscious influence from the person, bearing and example 
 of the teacher; from the very air and order of the school 
 room ; and in formal lessons, too, and special exercises, with 
 snch rare exceptions for weak consciences as have been 
 before referred to. Moreover, we here add, that all the 
 time, if any, besides Sundays and Saturdays, which any 
 psrents may require for their children to receive actual 
 religioins instruction from their own religious teachers, 
 woidd be freely accorded to them. The Church or the 
 Churches, and any benevolent, moral, and religious 
 
27 
 
 tions or persons, are, and will be, of course, at perfect 
 liberty to give to these neglected children, now in question, 
 not only moral and religious instruction, but as full an 
 education, in all respects, as they please. The State will 
 not interfere with them. The State, in her school system, 
 does not interfere with the Church at all. The Church is, 
 and always has been, and always will be, while the funda- 
 mental principles of our civil and social polity remain what 
 they are, at perfect liberty to educate in religion, morals, 
 and every kind of learning, all the children in the State, 
 if she will, and if she can induce them to receive her in- 
 structions. Of course the State will not, and cannot con- 
 sistently, compel the attendance of the children upon such 
 schools. The Church is at as full liberty to do all she will 
 and can, with the State system of public schools, even in- 
 cluding the feature of compulsory attendance (for this 
 feature is never applied to children who receive sufficient 
 instruction elsewhere) ; the Church has, with all this, just 
 as full and free scope for all her benevolent activities, as 
 she ever had or could have, with no State schools what- 
 ever. The Church has had her opportunity, without these 
 latter schools, falsely and slanderously styled " godless," 
 and with immense revenues and means in her hands — 
 means and revenues, in many cases, bestowed upon her for 
 this very purpose — in Spain, in Italy, in Portugal, in the 
 States of South America, and even in England ; and what 
 has been the result as to the education of the masses of 
 the poorer and of the so-called lower classes of the com- 
 munity ? In many cases, as in Sweden, she seems to have 
 been positively principled against their education. The' 
 " Church" has reason to hide her head in silent shame or 
 humble confession at her own neglect, rather than to carp 
 at the -State for its imperfect efforts to supply her lack of 
 
28 
 
 service, to remedy, as it may, the consequences of her un- 
 faithfulness. The State not only leaves the Church at 
 liberty to act for herself and in her own way, but invites 
 her, and invites all good men, to render their aid in this 
 work so fraught with beneficence towards its particular 
 objects, as well as interwoven with the necessary conditions 
 of the public welfare. And it is no small encouragement 
 to the efforts of the State in this direction, to believe and 
 expect, as we have good reason to do, that those efforts will 
 be seconded, and their expense greatly curtailed, not only 
 by the spontaneous favor of public opinion, but by the 
 systematic aid of Christian benevolence, in furnishing 
 homes and refuges, as well as a good training, to many of 
 these children of neglect and want. 
 
 In the fourth place, if by " good citizens " is meant use- 
 ful, productive members of society, it is not pretended that 
 all which is of importance to make men such is to teach 
 them to read and write ; and if the State is disposed and 
 can afford to secure to these children the knowledge of some 
 trade or handicraft alaOj so much the better. Meantime, 
 the mere knowing how to read and write tends, and power- 
 fully tends, in the right direction ; tends toward* making 
 men useful and productive citizens; tends, therefore, to 
 increase the wealth and prosperity of the State, and thus 
 to repay, and more than repay, all that it may have cost 
 Abundant evidence on this head has been collected by the 
 United States Commissioner of Education, and published 
 in his report for 1870, pp. 439-467. The following ques- 
 tions were submitted to a great number and variety of 
 competent witnesses : — 
 
 1. Have you observed a difference in skill, aptitude and 
 amount of work executed by persons you have employed, 
 arising from a difference in their education, and indepen- 
 dent of natural abilities ? 
 
29 
 
 2. Do those who can merely read and write, and who 
 merely possess those rudiments of an education, other 
 things being equal, show any greater skill and fidelity as 
 laborers, skilled or unskilled, or as artisans, than do those 
 who are not able to read and write ? and, if so, how much 
 would such additional skill, etc., tend to increase the pro- 
 ductiveness of their services, and, consequently, their 
 wages? 
 
 The answers to these questions all tend to establish the 
 point that the mere ability to read and write, by even an 
 unskilled laborer, adds, on an average, from twenty-five to 
 fifty per cent, to his value and efficiency. 
 
 Similar questions were propounded to large numbers of 
 intelligent workmen, and of observers, who were neither 
 employers nor workmen, and all with the same result. 
 
 It cannot be doubted, therefore, that the wealth of the 
 State would be greatly promoted by giving at least a rudi- 
 mentary education to those thousands of her children who 
 are now suffered to grow up in ignorance and neglect. 
 
 In the fifth place, that the merely knowing how to read 
 and write is to some extent a preservative from crime, is 
 evident from the State prison statistics already given, from 
 which it appears that if all in the State were taught to 
 read and write, the number of criminals would be dimin- 
 ished nearly ten per cent. The consequence would be a 
 great pecuniary saving, though one can hardly bring him- 
 self to mention this by the side of the immense moral gain. 
 
 7. " The evil complained of is very sHght in the rural 
 portions of the State." 
 
 If so, then all the other objections, for this case, propor- 
 tionally lose their weight ; then, its remedy could interfere 
 but little with personal liberty or the rights of conscience ; 
 it could subject the Stat© in but a slight degree to the 
 
30 
 
 charge of philanthropy ; it could coet but little, and could 
 not much encourage reckless marriages or extravagant liv- 
 ing, nor could it much increase the exposure of the State 
 schools to the charge of immorality and ungodliness, or 
 inutility and impotence. 
 
 The remedy is, doubtless, more needed in cities and 
 crowded communities than it is in sparsely settled and agri- 
 cultural portions of the country; but we think that we have 
 shown that its beneficial influences would not be confined to 
 these districts of dense population, but that they would be 
 widespread and general, and that we have also demonstrated 
 that in the less thickly settled districts it is not impracti- 
 cable, nor likely to work any evil, but rather that it will 
 be productive of good and only good, as is proved by the 
 experience of Prussia, and Sweden, and Norway, in which 
 latter country it has been in full operation for more than 
 forty years. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 From a review, therefore, of the whole case, the Board 
 cannot but earnestly recommend as a remedy for this, one 
 of the greatest, most painful and most threatening evils 
 that exist among us, the enactment of a general law of 
 compulsory education, or as near an approximation to it as 
 the Legislature, in its wisdom, shall deem expedient and 
 practicable ; any necessary increase of expenditure to be 
 met either by appropriations from tlie State Treasury or 
 by local taxation, or by both. 
 
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