Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Illinois Teacher, 1863, Vol. 9: Devoted to Education, Science, and Free Schools
Three years ago the writer made a visit to one of the finest and most complete school-houses of its size in the West. It was finished from the basement to the belf'ry in the best style of workmanship. An unusual amount of expense had been lavished upon it. The only idea of the builders seemed to be the construction in every re spect of a first-class school-building, regardless of expense. The house contained nine large rooms; the largest being a fine airy hall. As an evidence of the taste displayed, some of the rooms had hand somely-frescoed ceilings and walls. Having occasion to be in the vicinity recently, curiosity led us to enter the school-building again; but, horror of horrors! Its beauty had departed. The doors were scarred, the fastenings broken; whole rows of hat-hooks were knocked off, their remains showing where they had been; but the worst feature of the whole was the vicious, villainous writing, scribbling and cutting of the doors, walls, and black-boards. There were Object Lessons enough to contaminate a whole district. Our conclusions were that, had we children to educate, we never could send them to a place where vice and depravity were so conspicuous, so prevalent, and evidently so unrebuked. Every parent would be horrified at the idea of send ing innocent and impressible children to remain for one hour in a brothel; but in many schools it is infinitely worse, for children are in contact with palpable, shameless vice, staring them in the face at every angle and on every wall for six hours a day and for five days in a week. This ought not to be, and need not.
Of course this habitual disregard of the decencies and proprieties of life, and of the rights of others, leads to the destruction of prop erty, both public and private. It is related as a tradition that the rude mounds erected along our rivers by the aborigines in memory of their dead were visited each year for the purpose of repairing the waste caused by the frosts and rain, thus adding a yearly tribute of affection and regard to the loved and lost who had preceded them to the Spirit-land. What a contrast in the education and habits of these savages with our enlightenment.
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