Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1852-1852, 1852-09-28
From, DeBov's Commercial RevieW.
Southern SchOO..BOOkS.
CONCLUDED.

clear perceptions Of the ailmeGt, and we there
fore have tried to show, in the previous part ot
this article, that general education being the ba-
sis of all our social and political Institutions
most of the present schoo-books, 10y which the
elements Of an education are passed into the
minds of the young pupils, are a mere matter OF
trade produced for money making purposes, and
improved only so far as competition IN trade, or
public opinion: compelS Improvement We have
also contended that the wants of the South are
not met by the present school-books in use
among U.s. produced at the North and that the
extent of territory embraced in the Union forbids
any one set of works. unless classical, from being
adapted for universal use, and that there are rea-
sons, from climate, productions, politics, society
and geographical position, why this should be
80.
We consider this state of affairs caused by a
bad system, and not by bad men, and the reme-
dy must, therefore, 90 to a change of system
Now, the business of popular education is, in a
great degree, national business. The federal
government has recognized the principle in the
public land system; but each state must, and
constitutionalIy ought, to afford good common
school education to every child born on its SOIL
This principle has been generally acted on by al
most every state in the Union and if dcma
gogues and politicians can be prevented from
gambling for place and power with the school
funds, there is no danger that our posterity will
lack the ability of knowing right from wrong.
Each state, then, should control its own school
books. The state superintendent of public schools
should have suitable manuals prepared, developing
the early history of the state, its productions, its
constitution, and mode of government, and should
also select uniform textbooks, from the spelliug-
book upwards, for the whole state If this were
done judiciously, the printing by contract, and
pains taken to have the best Of the kind, private
schools would follow this lead, and public opinion
would shut out bookselling speculations This,
to certain extent, is done at the North. New
York will not use Massachusetts text books,
and Pennsylvania is taking the same plan.
There is no reason why child should not begin
his first knowledge of things at home, and be
made to identify himself in thought with his
native state, its predictions, history, biography
and interests A generous competition, too,
would spring up between states, as to who should
prepare and develop the best textbooks andSys
tenn, and from this competition an experience
would grow Of great value to our future interests.
This project involves no heavier outlay than the
present plan, and leaves open to private competi
tion the higher range Of textbooks; for we very
much doubt if sound, honest, common school
educution Is not quite as much as any state
ought at present to attempt, with the single ex-
eeption of NORMAL SCHOOLS.
By this term we mean schools where the pro-
fesson of teaching is well taught, for want of
.. H. oof,l
-fcinnt southern education and shall have
few suitable schoolbooks until writers, taught by
experience, rise up among us to prepare them.
Of this section of the Union, more than Of
any other, is it true, that teaching is in general
taken up without training, and as temporary
resource, and to it flock too many Of whom, with
truth it may be said,
"a third-rate college licked them to the shape,
Not Of the scholar, but the scholars ape"
Perhaps to this circumstance, more than to any
other, may be traced the propensity to educate
our youth at the North, instead of at home, as
if there were disgrace in a southern diploma.
So long as this principle operates, there can be
but little permanent improvement. The south
ern planter must resolve to do with his children,
as he is striving by factories to do with his cot
ton, manufacture the material when it grows.
To effect so desirable result, there is nothing
equal to the Normal School, devoted to prepa-
ring young men for the profession of teaching
in all its branches, and calculated to relieve the
professions of law and medicine, already stuffed
to repletion. The internal improvements in pro-
gress, and in contemplation, will require large
number of engineers and scientific mechanics.
The foolish and anti-American notion about
"vulgar mechanics is passing away. People,
with that eye to the practical and the dollar
which marks our nation, begin to discover that
bridge building locomotive engines, the superin-
tendence of factories, the chemistry of dyeing
cottons, and of agriculture, the constructions Of
sugar works, and, in fact nearly all the practical
applications of the arts, are quite as honorable
employments, and often more rcmunerative, than
the pursuit of the three professions that the
young doctor and lawyer having hung out on
shutter bit of gilded tin, are often driven to
low expedients by "the force of circumstance
force quite as powerful as steam or water; and
that the preacher too often finds his reward laid
up in heaven, for he rarely obtains it on earth
In truth, we are drugged and law-ridden COM
munity, too much beset with pills and bills of
costs; and what blessing it would be, if our
cotton and sugar-planters, who are so rich, could
only believe that their children ought to be some
thing else than rich mems sons and that
"No fables tell us of Minervas born
From bales Of cotton or from sackso corn
that it is a vain and pitiful ambition to visit the
North for tinsel education, that ruins the mind