Mental Monopoly: A Protest
MENTAL MONOPOLY: A PROTEST HERE is no truce in the bitter struggle for the X control of American schools. Mr. Mark O. Shriver, writing in this magazine during August of last year, announced...
...and that the "company in which this bill is found is absolutely and stubbornly set on the eradication of the sacred rights of parents to control the training of their children...
...that it is potentially extremely dangerous and wholly inadvisable...
...Meanwhile, there have arisen everywhere protesting groups of citizens who demand for the parent some larger jurisdiction over the child—protesting groups which are sometimes pleasantly helpful, and sometimes stern, as may be learned even yet from the files of recent dailies...
...It wishes to make its class consciousness a general civic consciousness!, Its foremost proponent has been Dallas Lore Sharp, whose plea for public education as the leveler of distinctions and groups is still the quasi-classical doctrine of those who would, above all, "Americanize...
...So much is plain therefore—unity of spirit...
...Either the child is the creature of the state, or he is not...
...The opposition was obviously well organized...
...they must have seen that day by day their initiative is paling to the spectre-like complexion of factory toil...
...J. Gresham Machen, of the Princeton Theological Seminary, that "a federal department of education, working efficiently, would be the worst kind of slavery the world has ever known," to the flashing comment of a southern woman, Mrs...
...From 1787 to 1926, the people of this country have been generally of the opinion that education is a local function," said Mr...
...It marched into Washington wearing laurel wreaths contributed by all those benignant people who have lent lustre to the fight against Catholic, Episcopalian, and Lutheran schools in Oregon...
...It is this association which has grappled to its soul the idea of the proposed educational secretariat...
...They can say for themselves that the fundamental principles of American government have been satisfactory guides for their social action...
...who have been anxious to rid the earth of sisterhoods and teaching orders...
...We have long been used to the peculiar shade of professional idealism which colors the thinking of many school teachers...
...Which way does the average teacher really want to go...
...James G. Whiteley, that "the stars in the flag stand for states—not bureaus...
...It is concerned with principles about which there must be liberty of opinion, because there can never be unanimity of opinion...
...Help of many sorts is daily being rendered by the bureau already established—help which no one attempts to minimize, but which, no matter how far extended under existing legal provisions, can never accomplish what the protagonists of the Curtis-Reed bill want to do...
...Let us resume the discussion to date...
...Now, exactly six months to the day after the appearance of this declaration, Senator Bayard of Delaware, speaking, as it happens, to the same Baltimore club which had introduced Mr...
...Small wonder that groups out to enforce a certain variety of "national consciousness" should form solidly behind such a program...
...Catholics have not often attempted to guide the current of American politics...
...In the words of its outgoing president, Dr...
...But this debate concerning education must and does find them, to a man, ready and aroused...
...No organized groups of educators, no society with patent formulae for citizenship, can prevail against the right instincts of the populace...
...The Curtis-Reed bill was, in fact, endorsed by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry long before it reached Congress...
...but such incidents as the antagonism of Senator Borah to the proposed move, as well as the detailed report of the discussion before the congressional committee that heard the so-called CurtisReed bill, reveals the fact that the forces aligned for and against the measure are not determined by geographical location...
...and who have permitted a heritage of presumably Nordic blood to overwhelm their heads...
...Squarely and uncompromisingly, the answer resides in what the superintendence of the National Educational Association has chosen to make its program of action...
...and they must know that the source of the orders they take is concentrated as never before into a few hands...
...And what does the association want...
...Therefore, harmonize them first...
...But might one not reasonably expect of an organization like the National Educational Association some dawning understanding of the interest which parents take in their most immediate enterprise ? It seems almost incredible that American teachers—who should, at least relatively, be humanists—are yearning to degrade their noble task into a specialized and isolated formula...
...Their faith in public-school education is noble, and their enthusiasm for work they are doing is commendable...
...There is no middle way because it is impossible to compromise tfie rights of parenthood...
...Mark O. Shriver, writing in this magazine during August of last year, announced that "a new federal education bill is drafted and ready for introduction...
...Randall J. Condon, of Cincinnati, Ohio, the object is to "help create a unity of spirit throughout the nation, without regard to race, religion, creed, or section...
...and guarantee this standard by a central agency which can be triumphantly dictatorial...
...Does he wish to remain a public servant...
...Now everybody will cheerfully concede to all these varied people the pleasure of their own opinions...
...the meeting of which, in Washington, was simultaneous with the introduction of the new bill...
...Thomas F. Cooney before the congressional committee...
...and the officers of which conducted the argument in its behalf before the congressional committee...
...For they, standing with numerous other important groups of their fellow-citizens, are defending a fundamental human right when they say: "The spirits of our children are treasures which we shall surrender to no bureaucracy, no clique, no monopoly of mind, while our hearts can rise to their defense...
...Shriver to the bill, finds it necessary to give warning that desperate and sinister efforts are being made to provide by federal law for a "secretary of education" whose mandate shall be final for the country at large...
...It is well that the new call to battle should find those who do not purpose tn be rubber-stamped into a certain theory of education alert and prepared...
...The Senator professes to believe that there is a cleavage of opinion between East and West concerning the matter...
...Or is he anxious to develop into a sensitive microphone...
...For 506 THE COMMONWEAL March 17, 1926 what is the meaning of this bill and of the several others which have preceded it ? The answer is not to be found in specific practical benefits to educational practice which might be conferred by the federal government...
...A variety of speakers opposing the federal educational dictatorship reinforced the statement of the Reverend John J. Burke, who, as executive-secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, voiced the conviction of a united hierarchy, that the bill "is an entirely unnecessary piece of legislation...
...What the bill calls for is already being done by the federal Bureau of Education, and what may need to be done further can be done fully and efficiently by that same bureau with additional appropriations...
...However that may be, the National Educational Association can never force through its pet law until the citizenry is asleep...
...You are unable, on the basis of some vague theory of suspension, to divide the honors between the family and bureaucracy...
...Steadily and persistently they must have observed the standardizing of their work...
...standardize the work they have to do— the work of teaching, not branches merely, but life...
...How shall the "beautiful harmony" of citizens living for the same national cause ever be realized if not through the agencies which rear the future...
...And yet there is a grave danger—the peril that may come subterraneously, in Washington lobbies where sharp-eyed minorities are always awaiting their clue for a "putsch...
...The conflict is deep, general, and abiding...
...As a result of the continued agitation for a federalized school system, American fathers and mothers are convinced as they never were before that it is their privilege to be immediately responsible for those who shall carry on their name into the future...
...The words of former President Garfield are still true—'Federalized education is contrary to the genius of our government and our people.' And there is no middle way between supervision and absolute control...
...MENTAL MONOPOLY: A PROTEST HERE is no truce in the bitter struggle for the X control of American schools...
...This stand was endorsed by practically all shades of private-school opinion, ranging from the declaration of Dr...
Vol. 3 • March 1926 • No. 19
