Francisco Ferrer; his life, work and martyrdom, with message written ...

His Life and Worx. .
79
THE CHILDREN WITHOUT A TEACHER
FOR
By Jaime Vidal.
a whole year the poor children of Barcelona
have been without their proper teacher; during
twelve long months the sons of the workingmen,
the sons of poverty, have been in darkest ignorance and
in danger of falling into the clutch of the religious teachers,
the faker educators, who are in charge of the corruption
of the young generation.
The Sons of the Social Revolution are begging for
their teacher; the boys of Barcelona are thirsting for
knowledge and starving for light and truth. And they
ask for their father of the "Escuela Moderna," calling
in vain for Francisco Ferrer, the great educator, the
brilliant man, so pitilessly assassinated on October 13th
for the crime of trying to regenerate the youth of Spain.
And the little boys and girls who were so splendidly
educated by the immortal Ferrer are lost in despair, crying
because of the departure of their generous benefactor
and kind teacher.
They cannot read the books of the Modern School any
more, nor take delight in beautiful histories and interesting
lessons in geography, grammar and arithmetic.
They don't go any more in vacation time with their
dear Ferrer to the country to learn the phenomena of
nature and science, to see the beauty of the scenery from
the high peaks of the Pyrenees.
They don't go any more on Sundays to the Temple
of Knowledge to hear the lectures of kindly professors,
explaining the laws of nature and the uselessness of wars
and exploitation.
The Modern Inquisition succeeded in its plans. It
wanted to stop the teaching of the Modern School because
it realized that young people were shown there the
absurdity of religion, the unjust oppression of the State,
the murderousness of militarism, and the illegal exploitation
of capitalism.
The Spanish authorities knew that Ferrer was not the
type of a popular revolutionist, but they knew he created
revolutionists for the future, and he was killed because