Understandably. the extension of schooling by church parishes and congregations to even the poor was greeted as a supreme act of charity to surrounding communities. In the antebellum South where. in some States. laws had made the education of slaves a criminal offense. the attainment of an education by freed slaves was a primary goal for thousands after emancipation. Likewise. semi- and totallyilliterate immigrants coming from Europe had sacrificed nearly all that they had in order to ensure that their children had access to an education. How secure is the future of any society or culture in which countless numbers of its schoolaged children hold learning itself in contempt. perform with nonchalant mediocrity on standardized tests. physically and verbally abuse and assault those professional men and women who are in the schools to teach. and vandalize the very property that the community has set aside for the task of educating the young? Indeed. how far is such a society from the burning of its classic books and the final abandonment of a widely educated citizenry?
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immigrants