Happy St. Patrick's Day: With Selections from the Strangely Still Relevant "The Carnegie Libraries"

As a student of U.S. history in high school I had the pleasure of reading some of Finley  Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley essays.  Dunne used the character of Mr. Dooley with his exaggerated Irish brogue to knock fun at real issues of his day.  As I reread "The Carnegie Libraries" published in a 1906 collection, I couldn't help but think how much of that turn-of-the-century social commentary is so fitting today; one need only substitute "school reform," including the expansion of charters or the Common Core for "libry" or library:

"Has Andhrew  Carnaygie given ye a libry yet?" asked Mr. Dooley.

"Not that I know iv," said Mr. Hennessy.

"He will," said Mr. Dooley.  "Ye'll not escape him.  Befure he dies he hopes to crowd a libry on ivry man, woman, an' child in th' counthry."

......................

 "Does he give th' books that go with it?" asked Mr. Hennessy.

"Books?" said Mr. Dooley.  "What ar-re ye talkin' about?  D'ye know what a libry is?  I suppose ye think it's a place where a man can go, haul down wan iv his fav'rite authors fr'm th' shelf, an' take a nap in it.  That's not a Carnaygie libry."

...................... 

A Carnegie speech, according to Mr. Dooley, "I have been a very busy man all my life, but I like hard wurruk, an' givin' away me money is th' hardest wurruk I iver did.  It fairly makes me teeth ache to part with it.  But there's wan consolation.  I cheer mesilf with th' thought that no matther how much money I give it don't do anny particular person anny good."

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"I don't want poverty an' crime to go on.  I intind to stop it.  But how?  It's been holdin' its own f'r cinchries.  Some iv th' gr-reatest iv former minds has undertook to prevint it an' has failed.  They didn't know how.  Modesty wud prevint me agin fr'm sayin' that I know how, but that's nayether here nor there.  I do.  Th' way  to abolish poverty an' bust crime is to put up a brown-stone buildin' in ivry town in th' counthry with me name over it."

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"All I ask iv a city in rayturn f'r a fifty-thousan'-dollar libry is that it shall raise wan millyon dollars to maintain the' buildin' an' keep me name shiny....  Three cheers f'r a libry an' a bonded debt."

Some of the educational reformers are entirely generous with their money, but also sadly misguided about education and its many purposes.  States who opted for the Common Core got large federal grants; yet, that money will dry up and there will still be large bills to pay.  The school reform issues mask an underlying issue of growing poverty in the United States.  School reform will never reduce poverty in the United States.  It is a distraction.