Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 28, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 34

A Problem for Solution.

THERE has been a great deal said, in and out of Congress, upon the question of a national system of education. There is much still being said, and there is also much that is proposed to be done. Senator Blair, and many other senators, worked diligently to secure the passage of an act by which the United States Government should assume a considerable part in the control of the public schools in all the States. Then, again, Mr. Blair proposes, and large organizations of people support, a resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States, so that thereby the national Government shall be empowered to assume complete and total charge of the education of all the children in the United States. Then, again, Senator Edmunds proposes a bill for the establishment of a national university, for the higher education of people in the United States.

In view of all these things it is proper to inquire what facilities and what qualifications the national Government has for educating the people of the United States, whether partially as proposed in the Blair bill, or totally as in the Blair amendment, or in a university course as proposed by the Edmunds bill? And happily, there is a means of answering to some extent, this interesting question.

In the discussion of the Indian Appropriation bill, which we have mentioned in THE SENTINEL, of the past two weeks, some important items are given which throw light upon this question. There are, it appears, somewhere about thirty or forty thousand Indian children in the United States. These have been adopted by the United States Government. They are not only considered, but are called, wards of the Government. The Government has assumed the responsibility of their education; and how has it discharged this responsibility? Why, it is found that so far is it from being able to educate these few Indians, itself, that it has found it necessary to let out the work by contract to about fifteen different churches; and in the debate in the Senate it was claimed that this was necessary, and the best thing the Government could do in discharging its responsibility in educating the Indians. Now if the United States Government finds itself unequal to the task of educating thirty or forty thousand Indian children, how will it be able to educate all the children of the sixty-five millions of people in the United States?

More than this, it was openly and soberly argued on the floor of the Senate, that the Government could not properly educate these Indian children without the aid of the churches. It was claimed by these senators that religion was necessary to the education of these children, and it was proper for the Government to unite with the churches in giving to the Indians such an education as only the churches can give. And this is clearly the view of the United States Senate, as is proved by the fact, that the appropriations of the past year are renewed to all the churches, with the addition of four new schools, with thousands of dollars each, to the Roman Catholic Church. This, therefore, being the view of the United States Senate in regard to the education of Indians, if any one of these educational measures proposed by Senators Blair and Edmunds, and supported by thousands upon thousands of the people in the United States—if any one of these measures should be adopted, how would it be possible to keep the national Government separate from the churches in carrying these educational enterprises into effect?