Southern sentinel. [volume] (Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville [La.]) 1848-1858, 1853-05-21
ENGLAND VS., America.

To Mrs. Stowe, the DutcIcss Of Sutherland,
and all agonizing sympathizers with the I'm
Gle Tom mania, we commend the following
from Dickens Household Words:
"t has been calculated that there are in Eng
land and Wales 100000 persons who can
! neither read nor write-that is 10 say, about
one-third ofthe population, including, ofcourse,
infants; but of all the children between five and
fourteen, more than one half attend no place Of
| public instruction. These statements-com-
piled by Dir. Kay from official and other au-
thentic sources, for his work on the Social Con-
dition and Education of the Poor in England
and Europe, would be hard to believe, if we
had not to encounter in our every day life de-
grets of ~llliteracy which would be startling, if
we were not thoroughly used to it. Wherever
we turn, ignorance, not always allied to poverty,
stares US in the face. If we look in the Gazette
at the list of partnerships dissolved, not a month
passes but SOM unhappy man, rolling perhaps
in wealth, but wallowing in ignorance. is put
to the expcrimentum crucis Of Ibis mark The
number Of petty jurors--in rural districts
especial y-who can only sign with a cross, is
1t is not unusual to see parish docu-
ments of great local Importance defaced with
the same humiliating symbol by persons whose
piliSC otiJ oloho tuClH / DG LlcH Oh LjlIk,
but men of substance. We have printed al
ready specimens of the partial ignorance which
passes under the pen Of the postofice autho-
rites, and we may venture TO assert that such
specimens of penmanship and photography are
not to be matched in any other country in Eu-
rope. A housewife in humble life need only
turn to the file of her husbands bills to discover
hieroslyphics which render them so many
arithmetical puzzles. In short, the practical
evidences of the low ebb to which the plainest
rudiments of education in this country has
fallen, are too common to bear repetition. We
cannot pass through the streets, we cannot
enter a place Of public assembly, or ramble in
the fields, without the gloomy shadow Of ig-
sweeping over US. The rural popula-
is indeed in a worse blight than the other
Taking the adslt of agricultural laborers, it
is almost impossible to exaggerate the igno>
rance in which they live, and move, and have
.heir being. As they work in the fields, the
world has some hold upon them
the medium Of their senses; but to all
the higher exercises of intellect, they are per.
strangers. You cannot address one of
hem without being at once painfully struck
the intellectual darkness which enshrouds
lin. There is in general neither speculation
n his eyes, nor intelligence in his countenance.
The whole expression is more that of an am
NAL than of a man. He is wanting, too, in the
rect and independent bearing of man. When
you accost him, Hhe is not insolent--which he
seldom is--he is timid and shrinking, his whole
manner showing that he feels himself at a dis
ance from you, greater than should separate
my two classes of men. He is often doubtful
when you address and suspicious when you
him; he is seemingly oppressed with
he interview, while it lasts, and obviously re- J
ieved when it is over. These are the traits S
which | can affirm them to possess as a class O
*fter having come in contact with many hun.
reds of farm laborers. They belong to "a gen.
ration for whose intellectual culture little or {
was done. As a class they have no f
musements beyond the indulgence of sense. "
n nine cases out Of ten recreation is ~associa- :,
ed in their minds with nothing higher than =
ensuality. | have frequently asked cIergymen
nd Others, if they often find the adult peasant E
cad for his own or others amusement! The
variable answer is, that such a sight is seldom :
r never witnessed. In the first place the great (.
ulk Of them cannot read. In the next, a large
Of those who can, do so with too
,uch dificulty,to admitof the exercises being
n amusement to them. Again, few Of those
tho can read with comparative ease, have the
for doing so.