Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Dec 24, 1903

IT is announced that at the next Methodist general conference an effort will be made to remove the ban contained in the Methodist discipline on dancing and card playing. This is one of many things in the religious world which illustrate the tendency of the age.

THE public schools as a source of anarchy, was the singular theme of remarks made recently at a club meeting in Chicago by the principal of a Chicago school, Mr. W. H. Campbell. Mr. Campbell affirms that the public schools of Chicago are breeding places for anarchists. He is quoted as saying:—

There are coming out of the public schools to-day, a great mass of anarchists. Pupils in many of the schools in Chicago, and in my own school, hoot at the teachers when they pass by. I have even known them to follow the teachers to their boarding houses. When a body of pupils are permitted to go into a school and say that one of their teachers must not ride on street cars run by non-union carmen during a strike, and be sustained in their demand, I say that is anarchy. I do not say that anarchy is taught in the schools, but one thing we must do is to seek a remedy.

Incidents of this kind furnish arguments for those who say that the public schools breed criminals because they are “godless,” and that the proper remedy is to teach religion in the schools. But the qualities of noble manhood and womanhood can not be acquired by the youth in the way that they acquire a knowledge of the arts and sciences.