Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1855-12-06
BKr. HattOn,s Bill to Establish a State
Normal Scho0l.

tive from the county Of Wilson. The general
object of the bill not only meets the concur
renee of public sentiment as reflected by the
press, but the gentleman has so nearly perfec-
ted his bill, that its provisions, in detail, meet
with general acquiescence.
Every intelligent, rejecting man, who has
observed the workings of our Common School
system, is forcibly convinced that it has most
signally failedFn accomplishing the object which
its founders had in view, viz: 10 provide means
and teachers to give every child in the State
The rudiments of a thorough English educa.
ton. The next enquiry, after the establish.
ment of this proposition is, Whist has been the
cause of its failure? Is if lack Of funds, or
sit fault in thesystem of apPropriating those
funds2
An examination of the facts proves that the
great defect lies in the system. The School
fund Of Tennessee is sufficient, if it were eco
nomically and properly applied. Although we
are the strenuous advocates Of every measure
which will promote the educational interests OF
our people, and win promptly sustain any Judi
cious proposition to increase the fund, and give
those who have such interests in charge, an
ampler range of power and extended facilities
for advancing the great cause committed to
them, yet we maintain that, even with the
present fund-if it were employed in qualify
ing teachers, supporting and raising up men
who intend to adopt teaching as the business
ioc Al 81 Ia in
bic vocation to which they have attached them
selves, an amount of good could be done which
will astonsh those who have begun to despair
under the present system, and send thrill OF
who appreciates education and the intelligence
of the masses as q means of perpetuating our
liberties. Let the Common School fund beap-
piled to the making of teachers, to the estab-
Ilishment of a high order of scholarship among
those whom the State sends forth endorsed as
teachers and the people win see that their
services are put in requisition, and richly re-
munerated in the various school districts OF
the different counties.
Let the greater portion of the fund be thus
applied, and the remainder devoted to pay the
tuition of those who are too poor to undergo
the tax themselves, and we predict far differ
ent report in the next census tables in regard
to the state of education among our people
The evil of our present system is, that the men
whom the School Commissioners have furnish
ed the people have been incompetent and ut
terly unable to command confidence or res
pect. They have been men who have only
engaged in teaching for season, who have
not appreciated the dignity of the calling, OF
the responsibility which attaches to one who
takes charge Of the tender mind of youth, and
who often moulds, for veal or woe, the tempo
raj and eternal destinies of his pupil. Nc peo-
pie hold liz higher estimation chan ours, the
blessings of education. If the State of Tennes-
see will furnish her people with the means Of
educating their children, they will gladly do it.
We contend that she had better furnish them
with good teachers to conduct their district
schools, and money sufficient to pay the tut
ton of the poor, than to place ample means
in the hands of ignorant School Commission
ers, Who will squsnder it in the employment OF
itinerant numbsculls, who think they can teach
school because they can do nothing else; men
whom the good sense of the people of the dis
trict will reject as unworthy Of the position
and rather than have their children waste time
beneath their supervision, will place them at
manual labor, and neglect to cultivate their
minds, permitting that field to go to waste
where might be garnered sheaves of enduring
earthly fame, and which might bloom flowers
that would bloom again beside the waters OF
eternal life.
We have an abiding confidence that if the
State will furnish every school district with a
gentleman whom she can endorse as one OF
high mental and moral endowments, that the
people of that district will have their children
well educated.
Mr.. HArroN's bill proposes to establish a
school at the expense of the State, where men
may be qualified for this high calling, and we
earnestly hopeit may pass, and with it such an
appropriation as shall put it to work under fa-
vorable auspices. This is no new system. 1t
is one which has for years been in successful
| operation in some of the the New England
States, and in New York 1t is no untried
experiment. lis success and ability are great
truths, verified by experience, and sanctioned
/ by the approval of the people among whom its
/ benefits have been scattered.
The want of educational facilities is one of the
most humiliating sources of the dependency OF
the South upon their Northern brethren. And
TO no cause is this superiority Of the North to
be more attributed than the adoption among
them OF such system as is contemplated in
I the bill of Mr.. llstton. They possess no supe-
riority Of natural gifts over US, We claim that
the difference, if any, is in our favor. Shall
We, by a system of sbort-sighted economy,
longer submit to an inferior position when eve
ry consideration of duty TO ourselves, and the
section of the Union in which we live demands
that We should place ourselves where boun-
tiful Providence designed where We should Def
Let Tennessee be one Of the first among her
Southern sisters to take this step in the on
ward march of intellect. One by one the
South is Kidding herself of the milestone clog,
which have hitherto impeded her progress
she is building railroads, erecting manufactures
aud endorsing great institutions OF learning in
her midst; she is applying art and science t.
the Improvement of her commerce, and the
development OF her vast agricultural and min.
eral resources, aud let her not be backward in
cherlshing aud developing the greatest OF all
/ her trensnres-iha minds of her rlsinr genera.