New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-06-16
Remarks.
rs rr-peC lutiNr
JOHN PEACOCK,
JOHN CLARK,
Tms;ee. Of School Disir

While the question remained undecided,
we'll as we knew how to fight tat all
events zealOusl y, and to our own serious
cost. We did not lose less than Two
Thousand subscribers by it. In the result
we were badly beaten and beaten because
the Poor are too stupid to kno'c their rights
or too co,cardly TO assert them.
We do not mince words. The Free
School cause was betrayed and deserted by
Just such poor men as our correspond
ents speak for above-who keep their
children out of school because they think
they can't afford to pay three cents day
for the schooling of four of them-yet who
can, or do at least, afford to buy Liquor,
Tobacco and other pernicious luxuries
which impair their health, diminish their
vigor and shorten their lives. They can
afford to waste day each of every week
in some frolic or sheer idleness, but they
can't afford to school their children
Shame on them
We are not at all excusing the Country
Squirearchy, who resisted and broke down
tie Free School law. They acted sell
fshly, meanly, suicidally, as Avarice
always does. The Real Estate of New
York can richly afford to be taxed for the
schooling of every child within the State
boundaries, and will make monej by the
operation. 1t is worth less to-day than it
would have been had the Free School law
been upheld. Every child who grows up
idle and vagabond, fishing and bird nesting
when he should be in school, subtracts from
the value of the farms and buildings all
around him. Any man who knows enough
to earn, or get, or even keep farm, ought
to be ashamed of the short-sighted miser-
illness implied in opposition to Free Schools.
But what use in fighting the lost bat
tie over again. The Squires of course
have learned nothing; and for us to COM
mence it would only be provoking them to
stop The Tribune again, and so destroy
the present chance of letting little light
in upon their narrow souls. And then the
Poor would behave just as cowardly and
basely as they did before, and leave us
hogged and done up at the end of the con-
test. For it is not right in our correspond
ents to saddle the blame of our defeat on
the Legislature which repealed the Free
School Law. True, the People had af-
firmed the Law by majority of Twenty
five Thousand; but treble that majority
was given by the cities and larger villages,
which voted nearly solid for the Law,
while the Agricultural region, ruling two
thirds of the Assembly Districts, gave
strong majorities against it. The Country
Landholders, Merchants, Bankers, &c.
fought it because it taxed them to educate
poor mems children; the craven-hearted
Poor too generally knuckled under to their
landlords, employers, creditors, &C., pre-
tending that they could school their own
children, and wanted no aid from the
Rich; and now we see the falsity of this
pretense in deserted schoolrooms and I'M
taught children. But what reason have
we to expect that the Rich are materially
wiser or the Poor less craven in so than
they were in 1850!
No, good friends! we decline to stick
our head into hornets nest for nothing.
Whenever you can assure US that the men
who live in small cottages on richer mems
farms, working land on shares or hiring
out by the month, are ready to resist their
landlords or employers Establishments,
defy their frowns, and walk square up to
the work of demanding and insisting on
Free Schools, we are ready to renew the
struggle, though it should cost US twice as
much as before. But to fight for the mere
sake of fighting, with moral certainty of
severe personal loss in the contest and a
notifying defeat at the end of it, is an
enterprise for which we have no stomach.
If you Ike it, go in but we choose to
stand outside and wait a while. We got
enough before to last US some years yet
at least until we discover some reason to
hope that the Poor viii stand up for their
rights as they failed to do in 1850. We
see none yet. Ed.