I did think about writing you a check, but now I think I’ll send you a
few copies of what one of your little members called ‘Strawberry Finn’.
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE BERKELEY LYCEUM, NEW YORK,
NOVEMBER 23, 1900
I don’t suppose that I am called here as an expert on education, for that
would show a lack of foresight on your part and a deliberate intention to
remind me of my shortcomings.
As I sat here looking around for an idea it struck me that I was called
for two reasons. One was to do good to me, a poor unfortunate traveller
on the world’s wide ocean, by giving me a knowledge of the nature and
scope of your society and letting me know that others beside myself have
been of some use in the world. The other reason that I can see is that
you have called me to show by way of contrast what education can
accomplish if administered in the right sort of doses.
Your worthy president said that the school pictures, which have received
the admiration of the world at the Paris Exposition, have been sent to
Russia, and this was a compliment from that Government–which is very
surprising to me. Why, it is only an hour since I read a cablegram in
the newspapers beginning “Russia Proposes to Retrench.” I was not
expecting such a thunderbolt, and I thought what a happy thing it will be
for Russians when the retrenchment will bring home the thirty thousand
Russian troops now in Manchuria, to live in peaceful pursuits. I thought
this was what Germany should do also without delay, and that France and
all the other nations in China should follow suit.
Why should not China be free from the foreigners, who are only making
trouble on her soil? If they would only all go home, what a pleasant
place China would be for the Chinese! We do not allow Chinamen to come
here, and I say in all seriousness that it would be a graceful thing to
let China decide who shall go there.
China never wanted foreigners any more than foreigners wanted Chinamen,
and on this question I am with the Boxers every time. The Boxer is a
patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other
people. I wish him success. The Boxer believes in driving us out of his
country. I am a Boxer too, for I believe in driving him out of our
country.
When I read the Russian despatch further my dream of world peace
vanished. It said that the vast expense of maintaining the army had made
it necessary to retrench, and so the Government had decided that to
support the army it would be necessary to withdraw the appropriation from
the public schools. This is a monstrous idea to us.
We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.
It is curious to reflect how history repeats itself the world over. Why,
I remember the same thing was done when I was a boy on the Mississippi
River. There was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public
schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said
if they stopped the schools they would not save anything, because every
time a school was closed a jail had to be built.
It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. He’ll never get fat. I believe
it is better to support schools than jails.
The work of your association is better and shows more wisdom than the
Czar of Russia and all his people. This is not much of a compliment, but
it’s the best I’ve got in stock.
EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP
On the evening of May 14, 1908, the alumni of the College of
the City of New York celebrated the opening of the new college
buildings at a banquet in the Waldorf Astoria. Mr. Clemens
followed Mayor McClellan.
I agreed when the Mayor said that there was not a man within hearing who
did not agree that citizenship should be placed above everything else,
even learning.
Have you ever thought about this? Is there a college in the whole