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The enactment of a law requiring children between the
ages of 8 and 12, or 10 and 14 years to attend school six
months each year, is claimed to be a benevolent duty to the
child as well as to society. Children too young to judge for
themselves ought not to be the victims of parental cupidity
or carelessness, and thus entail upon the State the curse of
their ignorance and vice. If the State provides public edu-
cation on the principle that ignorance is a public evil; if
children have the same right to moral and mental food that
they have to bodily sustenance, then should the rights of the
young and the good order of society be secured by some equit-
able legislation.

It is argued that a law compelling attendance at school
would interfere with parental prerogative; but no parent has
a right, in law or nature, to injure a child physically, mor-
ally or mentally. If the law intervenes to prevent infanti-
cide, it certainly can intervene to prevent the destroying or
dwarfing of the intellectual existence: it ought to guard
those little ones who are in a condition more pitiable than
that of orphans.

The law of necessity also has been urged, based upon the
axiom that intelligence, and consequently education, co-ex-
tensive with the franchise, is a public necessity.

While acknowledging the force of these and similar argu-
ments, I cannot advocate a compulsory law. I prefer to de-
pend upon those influences which can be brought to bear upon
the minds and hearts of parents to convince them that in
no way can they benefit their children more than by sending
them to school. I would make the school house attractive;
place in it the accomplished and good-hearted teacher, and
draw the children by the compulsion of kindness, not of
force. To accomplish this we have agencies not yet enlisted
earnestly in the cause of popular education. The clergy of
the several denominations can do much to awaken the minds
of parents, and to encourage children to attend school. By
visits to the schools, brief lectures to the pupils, and words
of counsel to the teachers, they can aid the good cause, and
sow seed which will not fail to spring up and bear fruit.
The clergy exert a great and valuable influence, not only by
their public teachings, but in visits from house to house. If
they, from the pulpit, and in the course of pastoral duty,
will impress upon parents their duty to secure for their chil-
dren the benefits of education, if they will bring their ad-
monitions to bear upon those who keep the little ones at work
when they ought to be at school, no law of compulsion will
be needed. A sound public opinion will be developed, and
ere long parents will feel that they cannot stand before the
bar of God guiltless, unless they have done what they could
to educate their children and prepare them to be useful citi-