ican people. On the other hand, these differences have frequently been exaggerated, and conclusions have been drawn from these discrepancies of character which are altogether unjustified. Opinions have been uttered which seem to imply an intrinsic superiority of the American youth over those of the rest of the world, a superiority which renders laws that are necessary for good education everywhere else, superfluous in this country. Some seem to think that restrictions are little compatible with republican institutions. Professor Edward J. Goodwin, of New York, said recently: "German children are taught to submit to authority, but our boys must be taught to govern themselves."[1] We readily admit that the principle of submitting to authority can be carried to extremes, in education as well as in political life. But we think that boys will learn to govern themselves only by submitting first to authority, as in early years they possess neither the sufficient knowledge nor the necessary strength of will to govern themselves reasonably. We fasten the young tender tree to a pole, lest it grow crooked or be bent and broken by the storm; the same is necessary, and to a much higher degree, in the case of the frail human sapling in which so many perverse inclinations are hidden which tend to foster a growth in the wrong direction. Above all, educators should not forget that there is one authority to which the youths of every country must submit unconditionally, and that is the authority of the Divine Lawgiver as expressed in the precepts of morality – and obedience is one of these precepts. The same Divine authority
- ↑ Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1901, vol. I, p. 249.
