THE WESTERN AMERICAN
October, 1922
11
Education and Citizenship
An Interesting Discussion of a Timely Topic by one of America’s
Leading Educators
By Dr. Edward O. Sisson, Professor of Philosophy at Reed College.
spends $85,000,000 annually
O REGON
on automobiles; such is the state
sow; that if we aspire to reap national
power and beauty, freedom, humanity,
peace, true prosperity,—then we must
plough and harrow and sow with all dili
gence. Eternal vigilance is still the price
of liberty. Have we already slept on
post until the enemy has got within our
lines ?
But education for democracy must be
democratic education. There is nothing
in the soil or air of the region between
Canada and Mexico that will cause wheat
to grow from tares, or anything to thrive
without intelligent and industrious till
age. During the war we had to copy
from those masters of war policy, the
Prussians: now let us hasten back to
the Declaration of Independence and the
Bill of Rights!
To argue against the so-called, and
really miss-called “Compulsory Educa
tion” measure on constitutional grounds
is at best questionable, and possibly
hazardous: for when a genuine emergen
cy arises touching the education of future
citizens, we can permit no impediment
to the full rights of the sovereign state.
The rights of parents are sacred, indeed,
in a sense more sacred than the rights of
the state. Yet the state unhesitatingly
seizes the persons of children out of the
hands of the parents when the state
judges the parents incompetent; and it
lodges these children in institutions un
der its own hand or even under the
hands of individuals and associations in
whom the state has confidence. True the
state cannot coerce the conscience or the
will of any of its citizens: yet it will
whenever it deems necessary coerce the
body confiscate the property, and even
take the life of any of its members.
So much for the power of the state:
'but what of its duties and obligations,—
for these are in the long run infinitely
more important than.its powers./ One
of the first of the duties, and one of the
most difficult of the tasks of the demo
cratic state, is to safeguard the rights
of minorities. Demorcary is notor
iously weak at this point,, and every
friend of democracy would fain see her
wiser and stronger. Nearly a hundred
years ago that shrewd French observer,
DeTocqueville, pointed out in trenchant
style what he called the tyranny of the
majority: and it is doubtful if the Amer
ica of today, grown to such vast propor
tions, with such immense powers and
(Continued on page 18)
ment of the secretary of the Automobile
Dealers Association, based on reliable
figures.
This is a fact of the first magnitude
in the painful problem of taxes in gene
ral, and of school taxes in particular.
For the total tax bill of the state for
all purposes, national, state and local,
is $15,000,000 less than the automobile
bill; and the total cost of public schools,
including the state institutions of higher
learning, is much less than one fifth,
perhaps less than one sixth, of the auto
mobile bill.
Thus the great commonwealth of Ore
gon, consisting of you and me and all
of us, in spending a five dollar bill on
■ schools and automobiles, allots four dol
lars and seventeen cents to' cars and
eighty-three cents to education. Add to
this the fact that the whole United States
spends twice as much for tobacco and
soft drinks as it does for all kinds of
schools. What is the sense in talking
about excessive cost of schools in the
imiii in
n iiiiiiimi
i lining
face of these hard and undeniable facts ? =
We have money enough, as a total
society, to buy luxuries galore: if we
really want anything we get it. The
Republican Nominee
final question is found in Emerson’s
cogent phrase: “What wilt thou have?”
for
quoth God; “Pay for it and take it!”
The modern state will take what it
needs from its members and of its mem
||
bers: let us get this clear and hard in
our minds, especially when we talk of
laws and the constitution. Governments
have always seized the very bodies and
lives of their subjects when war called.
The modern democratic state hesi
tates as little in the final pinch as the
veriest autocracy: how long is it since
our own government took possession of
the bodies and souls of seven millions
of its most dynamic members, the young
He has Served four times
males, and sent two millions of them
to a far-off foreign soil, to fight and if
in the House of Represent
need be die? The school is the train
ing' camp of citizenship as truly
atives and has reached a
as Camp Lewis or Camp Dix was a
training camp for soldiership: the mod
position of great influence
ern democratic state, and ours as well
as any other, will do whatsoever it judges
Oregon but to the Nation.
to be right and necessary with its child
ren, and with all its children: and ulti
WHY CHANGE?
mately no constitution will bar it.
Education is the one essential indus
try of democracy; and democracy will
WHY replace him with a New and untried Man?
either pay the full price in cash and de
votion, or it will come to ruin. Would
to God that we in America could get out
of our heads the imbecile conceit that I i (Paid advertisement by Republican Congressional Committee, 1207 Yeon 1
“we are the people” or that God has
Building, Portland, Oregon)
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heads and hearts the relentless truth
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