Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 December 1880 — Public Schools. [ARTICLE]

Public Schools.

Baltimore American. Mr. Richard Grant White groups facte and figures to prove that the public schools, so far from increasing virtue and reducing crime have had the opposite effects. He says: “The census returns show that crime, immorality and insanity are greater, in proportion to population, in those communities which have been long under the influence of the public school system than they are in those which nave been without it.” To establish this he shows by a comparison of educational statistics in New England and in an equal population in southern states, that while the number who cannot read and write in New England is one in 312, in the southern states it is one in 12. He argues from this the proportion of crime ought to be 12 to 312 in favor of New England. There is a mathematical fallacy in this, but let that pass. He then shows by similar atattetics that the number of convicted criminals in New England is greater in proportion to population, not less, than in the southern states—in faVor of the southern states six to one. Ergo, the

public schools are the nurserus of crime; and to educate youth educates Its criminal propensities in a larger degree than its virtuous impulses. It has been well said that nothing is so false as “facts” except "figures.” More accurately stated, nothing is more misleading than statistics in the hands of one who does not understand how to use them. Accept as true the actual statistics on which Mr. White relies: there are several factors and coefficients to be introduced before an equation can be established from them. Suppose it be true that there is more crime among one hundred thousand people packed together in New’ York than among an equal number spread over the mountains of Virginia, and that the Virginians cannot read, while the New Yorkers can; would that prove that education caused the overplus of crime in New York? Would not a sounder statistician find the causes in the overcrowdings, the sufferings, the contacts suggesting crimes of one sort and the competitions of the struggle for existence suggesting crimes of another sort, the loves-and jalousies, contentions, vices and despairs of tenement-house life—would he not i look here to find the cause of crimej and not in reading and writing?' Again, the statistics that Mr. White relies on are of convicted crime. Crime unpuished and undetected does not enter into his calculations. The greater number of convicted criminals of New England by no means proves that there may not be more real criminals, though undetected, in Texas. 1 may prove better criminal law and procedure in New’ England. His figures are therefore, faulty in the failure to consider essential modifying factors, and, consequently, faulty in the inductions he draws from them. And thus, thoug he set out to prove that American pride in our public school system is foolish, and the failure of that system complete, he has not even shaken our faith in the public schools. That they have failed to educate all their pupils thoroughly is conceded. That, 1 in spite of all the advantages they offer, many dull and indolent children remain ignorant of even the elements of education must be sorrowfully confessed. • But it is one of the inconsistencies of this “brilliant” essay of. Mr. White that, while finding fault with the public schools for failing to educate, ft goes on to show that the better the education they give, the greater is the proportion of crime.