THE STATE’S PURPOSE IN
ITS EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS
(Continued from Page One)
churches and Sunday schools if it could not get
the benefit of them gratis. But all the churches
ask is to have no barriers thrown in the way of
their redemption work. That is the real dvic,
also religious, reason for forbidding an open Sun
day. The state is committing moral, and there
fore absolute, suicide when, it places barriers m
the way of the moral teaching forces which de
vote one day in seven gratis to the work of moral
and spiritual development of the state’s citizens.
From that standpoint, the forbidding of sports
and regular employment upon Sunday cannot be
interpreted as a violation of the principle of the
separation of church and state. It is nothing
short of preserving a civic defense and safeguard
to itself, and is purely a civic procedure of in
estimable value. But even the authorities haven t
the wit to recognize the real justification for any
such prohibitions as are incorporated in the Sun
day laws. There should be no religious motive
in any such prohibitions, but only the well justi
fied civic one of securing the largest benefit pos
sible from the chief protection to the moral tis
sues of the state ox community, and therefore
the chief protection to the community in every
sense.
A Choice of Alternatives.
The alternatives are God and his righteousness
or the utter abandonment of God as among the
Soviets or in the State of Tabasco, Mexico. In
Russia and in Tabasco the schools are being used
to teach atheism. Verily, the Bolshevists and the
Tabascans are wiser in their generation than is
the professedly Christian State of North Caro
lina. They propagate atheism; we not only fail
to propogate a belief in the supreme sovereignty
of God but too often throw obstacles in the way
of those who would save the morals of the state
despite its own negligence. If North Carolina is
wise it will restore God and His righteousness to
the schools as the chief goal of their activities.
All else depends upon it. The penitentiaries over
flow now as a consequence of the lack of a suffi
cient emphasis upon moral education—and the
only basis of morality is God, the author of the
moral law and of the conscience which may rec
ognize and approve it.
But, again, the spring can rise no higher than
its source. Only God-fearing teachers can ade
quately lead a child to the recognition and rever
ence of God. In that case, the state can do only
the best it can. But, surely, enough teachers who
really believe in and reverence God Almighty can
be found to fill the school rooms. If not, we
have already reached a most deplorable state of
affairs. Sect has nothing to do with this matter.
A Jew who really believes in his people’s
Jehovah is far preferable to the thoughtless and
God-profaning flapper or the brainless and
brazen scoffer at a God and of a righteousness
of which he is utterly ignorant, whatever his
church affiliations may nominally be.
The basic idea of God in his sovereignty and
as the author of truth and righteousness must be
restored, or entirely abandoned as among the Bol
sheviks and Tabascans. The earlier the choice is
made the better.
About Vocational Education.
A two-fold purpose was set forth as the goal
of the state’s educational program—economic
and social fitness or efficiency. I have undertaken
above to show that morality, vigorous, sane, and
wholesome, is the assurance of social efficiency,
and, more, that it is the chief safeguard against
crime and all other impediments to economic effi
ciency. It remains to examine the part the
schools may play in fitting, apart from curbing
immoral and therefore uneconomic tendencies,
the future citizens for economic efficiency.
The second characteristic of the good citizen
mentioned in the beginning is a vigorous and in
formed mentality. Many a moron, or even idiot,
may have the physical strength to perform labor.
But mentality is important in even the simplest
human tasks. As the complexity of the task in
creases the requisite mentality for its performance
also increases. Information of a thousand kinds
have become essential to the accomplishment of
tire work of the world. If the information de
manded in the performance of each task could
be approached directly through a study of the
task itself, the need of an almost universal
knowledge would be less demanded. But until
a child determines what his life work will be it
would be a haphazard undertaking to rely upon
vocational education for preparation for economic
efficiency.
Moreover, it is simply beyond the resources of
the state to provide equipment for training in all
WHAT THE PROFESSIONS EXPECT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
(CHARLES <;. ROSE, Former Present of the.North Carolina Bar Association,
' Fayetteville, North Carolina)
Introduction—Tlie following article is a -re
sume of an address delivered, on request, by At
torney G. G. Rose of Fayetteville, before the
Seventh Annual North Carolina Conference on
Elementary Education in session in July 1931.
At that time Mr. Rose was President of the
North Carolina Bar Association.
The address so -exactly accords with the ideas
the editor is trying to express in his article in
-.ithis issue on the week of the schools that .he
“ feels happy to have the opportunity of publishing
it as a supplement to his own effort. The article
is sirnply great. Read it, as follows :
MR. ROSE’S ARTICLE
Hon. George W. Wickersham, President of the
American Law Institute and Chairman’ of the
National Commission on Law Observance and
Enforcement, in his recent address to the Ameri
can Law Institute held in Washington, D. C.,
stated that no one who follows the current hap
penings can fail to note the existence of “a wide
spread lack of respect for law,” and “it is pain
fully evident in the rapid increase of juvenile
offenders.”
A part of the responsibility of this condition
which is sometimes called the present “crime
wave,” rests not only upon the bench and bar
and the administrative officers of the law, but
also upon the teachers of the youth of our hind.
The enactment of punitive laws and the im
prisonment of the offender will never produce
results, unless some potent action is taken, not
only to suppress crime and punish the offenders,
but also to check the evil at its very soiirce. And
it is in this latter field that the teaching profes
sion can do its most effective work. We tnust
realize that, in one sense, crime is a question of
adolescent youth. Most of you will be surprised
to know that during the decade from January 1,
1910, to January 1, 1920, our State Prison popu
lation increased from 679 to 753, or about 10 per
cent, and the State population increased 16 per
cent; but from January, 1920 to 1930, this prison
population increased from 753 to 2,257, which
is an increase of practically 200 per cent, and the
State population increased only 239 per cent.
It has been stated -upon good authority, that -not
less than eighty-five per cent of our present day
criminals are under the age of twenty-six years.
Hence, it is one of your privileges, as teachers
of the youth, to use your best efforts to' turn
their thoughts and direct their steps in lawful
paths. To accomplish this very desirable end,
there are certain fundamental principles which
should be instilled in the very nature of the pu
pils who come under your influence in the school
room. Among.these fundamentals are:
A Belief In God.
It was not a mere accident that the first words
in our English Bible are: “In the beginning God.”
The mudsill of the character of every normal,
human being is a belief in a supreme being.
Basically, man is and always has been, by his very
nature, prone to a religion. Whenever and
wherever the spade of the archaeologist turns up
the dust and the relics of bygone civilizations,
they find there mute, but positive,,evidence of the
fact that man always has believed in the existence
of and worshipped some Higher Power. This is
true whether these bygone races be the Aztecs of
Mexico, the Incas of Peru, the subjects of the
Pharoahs of early Egypt, or the Chaldees who
dwelt in the land of Ur. The historians tell us
that over the portal of< the temple of Apollo at
Delphi was written two Greek letters—-“E I.”
Plutarch, in one of his Dissertations, has trans
lated these letters to mean “Thou art.” Whether
this translation be correct or not, it is at least a
recognition of the fact that ancient Greeks be
lieved that a Higher Power controlled all Events.
Our modern scientists are reaching the conclusion
that the universe is the product of a Thinking
Mind.
the vocations. There are a few of the funda
mental or basic vocations in which equipment and
training are practicable on a large scale. First,
is agriculture, in its various phases. And I may
say right here that the agriculture teachers of the
state are doing a most valuable work. Properly
taught, agricultural science is as valuable for men
tal development as any other science, while its
ends are of immediate practicality to those of
the group who become agriculturalists. And even
those who have sufficient taste for the business to
learn it may have in that knowledge a defense
if they fail in another chosen vocation. But agri
cultural science and practice prove as distasteful
and uninteresting to some pupils as Latin or
- The inscription “In God We Trust,” whj^
appears on hU aur coins, save one, from the Lin
coln penny to the silver dollar, is and should be
no meaningless phrase, and it should form the
basis of the character of each citizen of our so
called Christian land. Mayo the day never come
when the Atheist, or the follower of the doc
trines of Sovietism, shah erase this fundamental
motto from our American coinage! This natural
belief in God should be cultivated in the child’s
conscious existence, and woven into the very
warp .and woof of the life of every pupil \n tiie
school room from the kindergarten, up.
Obedience To Law.
We are -indebted to Aristotle, that great Greek
philoaiopher, for the thought that peoples should
he governed by laws and not by fickle whims of
men. Law is impartial, it operates on basic prin
ciples, and its violation should result in punish
ment to the . offender. The laws of nature are
inexorable in their -execution, and the offender
always receives, his punishment. The human in
struments have .often signally failed in their ef
forts at the just administration of human law,
but if we are to remedy the present day evils of
crime and young criminals, there must be im
pressed upon the character of youth a deeper and
more abiding respect for the majesty of the law,
whether these be the laws of health, the statutes
of the State, or the moral code found in the Ten
Commandments, The “Thou-shalt-nats” of the
'Decalogue have never been -abrogated, amended
or repealed, and they are just as true now as
when they were promulgated by Moses, the great
Hebrew law-giver. All the pratttle of “pink pro
fessors” and the rantings of the advocates of free
and companionate marriages have not and can
not change one jet or one tittle of the majestic
principles, so plainly set forth in these familiar
•Commandments/ Ancient though they are, they
are yet just as trite to modern conditions as they
were when they were first enunciated. The vio
lation of the commandment—“The i shalt not
steal,” whether called embezzler, at, klepto,
mania, high-financing or grafting, is : ot mellowed
by the high-brow names given to at, uad it is, and
always will be, known as plain stealing. It is
your privilege as teachers to hold up before your
pupils the iniquity of stealing, and to induce them
to live under the principles and teachings of that
homely and familiar old adage that “Honesty is
the best policy.” A return to this fundamental
principle is essential to the commercial life of our
nation.
A Respect for the Rightsi of Others.
There is an old Latin legal maxim—“Sic Utere
tuo, ut ali.eno non laedas,” a free translation of
which is—“So use your own rights as not to in
jure those of another.” If this truth were
stamped upon the moral fiber of every citizen of
this country, young and old, rich and poor, it
would prevent and cure many of the evils of our
modern social life. If labor and capital, employer
and employee, labor unions and independent
-workers were to live and practice this fundamen
tal principle, many of our strikes and other trou
bles would vanish as the mist before the morning
sun. When each citizen, young and old, black
and white, Jew and Gentile, actually understands,
and lives up to his understanding, that the other
fellow has his rights and that these rights must
be respected, and that the big Ego should not use
his rights to the injury of his brother, then, and
then only, can we have the Golden Rule practiced
in our every-day life, and thereby make our land
a better place in which to live and to love.
These principles are, of course, not intended to
be exhaustive of what the legal profession exp^s
of the teachers, but if they are put into actual
practice in your school rooms and are instilled 1U
tne minds and hearts ot your pupils, it win
be long before the “crime wave” in our country
will dwindle to a mere ripple. - ' -__
geometry to others. A favorite illustration fn
mine is that you cannot teach t a hound puppy t°
point birds. But almost any Jtind'of dog may be
taught to run rabbits. That chase seems the b-ne
of departure for the breeds. And so is agricu
ture among humans. KTbre nearly everybody
can develop some degree of interest and efficiency
in agriculture than in any othfehVvocation. It |s
inbred during the ages. . Accordingly, agricultuie
furnishes the most generally adaptable vocation3
training, particularly among the rural populatl011>
of all others. In Tabasco, whose abandonmen
of Cod was mentioned above, the schools ha'e
been moved out into the fields, and a real 'oca
(Continued On Page Three)