Southern sentinel. [volume] (Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville [La.]) 1848-1858, 1851-01-25
Public Schools

We notice with gratifying pleasure that the
provision of our State law establishing public
schools, is being carried out as far as this town is
under whose management this important trust (oi
organizing schools and selecting able teachers)
has been contided. Few towns indeed can COM
pare with Plaquemine in point of good schools.
No reasonable being, who will for a moment
lay aside the prejudices which the arrogance of
wealth array against a system of public educa-
ton, but will concede, after a moments reflection
the advantages and utility of supporting free pub
lie schools by direct and discriminating taxation.
Though many are made to groan under this addi-
tional load, yet the duty we owe to p~osterity and
the future welfare of our country, forces us by a
high sense of duty to succomb to that taxation
however onerous, where the advantages to be
reapedso far counterbalances the mere dross given
in exchange for its benefits.
We were struck with the truth of the following
remarks which have emanated from the pen of
Professor Dimitry, our State Superintendent of
Public Education, in his able report to the Legis-
lature.
r"The property of the State, in some form,
educate the children of the State. 1t is not so
much the aw of nature, as the law of society,
that imposes this duty upon US. And if the
law OF society can, and do, regulate the rela-
tons of parent and child, in the domestic or
der, they may certainly direct the destiny ofthat
child, in the social scheme. The superinten-
dent of Public Education, whilst admitting the
freedom of instruction, in all its bearings, |
hopes that he is not advancing a principle of
unsound morality, when he suggests that no
parent has the right to allow his child to grow
up az a useless, if not mischevious member of |
society;--and ignorance, in d Republic, is mis-
chief in its most insidious form-the mischief
that grows quite the unquestionable right to
participate in the action of government without
ton to ~salutary ends. But should the absence
of means forbid US to educate "the young mas
who, in the course of fifteen years, will
welfare in every bearing, social and political,
Inadequate resources. When a great mind of
the sixteenth century, looking about for the
causes of the prosperity and downfall of states,
ascribed the former and attributed the latter to
he relative wisdom of princes and the relative
|abors of the schoolmaster he overlooked a
great element of inf1uence-the influence of
woman on the workings Of society. If ANY of
our children then are to be ousted from the
oatrimony of intelligence which the common
wealth, BY every sound obligation, owes to
hem ifany are to be trained-systematically
rained-to the baleful rites Of ignorance-if
he hopes and expectations Of the State are to
,e halved away; let the doomed portion of our
sent on the weary ways of life to
:ompanion with ignorance, be those who are
destined to be the men of our State. Let US
our means-edncate our daugh-
ers, at least-educate them to be wives and
Of American freemen. Ia. the. course
# a few years we will have a common school $
ound every hearth of the land-the very best /,
common schools, the home school where =:
essons of virtue and patriotism will be learned /
t the mothers knee. The deep truth of a phi
osophical mind shall then have been truly re-
lized; the child will indeed be sthe father of P
man. and in the language of the prophet, h
with the voice Of the divinity, b
hould the whitening question be asked Q
What hast thou done with the sons and t
aughters, which | had begotten unto thee? 2"
..ouisiana will have acquired the privilege of
tosone half of her young generation, 9
Matched away from the grippe of sadness and =
,deemed from the blothes of ignorance. 4