Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1857-1858, 1857-06-10


Gen. Harris in his speeches takes ground
against the Normal School Bill introduced
into the last Legislature by Mr.: Hatton,
and characterizes it as an attempt to estab-
fish an "aristocratic school," This is
species of demagoguery to which we did
not think the democratic candidate for
Governor would resort. His party friends
had claimed for him high order of intel
lect, aud elevated, stateSman-lke views.
We expected to see the possessor of these
attributes meet all questions fairly, candid
~, and honestly. That Gen. Harris has
deemed it polite to pursue different
course, granting him the measure of ability
claimed for him by his friends, must, we
presume, be attributed to the fact that he
has found in the Cedar Snag," Bob Hat
ton, a competitor whom he cannot meet
successfully in the field of fair and ingenious
debate, and that it is, therefore, necessary
to descend to the low arts of the dema-
gogue, and endeavor to incite the passions
and prejudices Of the poor Is it true,
though, that the Normal School Bill was
an attempt to establish an "aristocratic
school" The very reverse is the truth.
The poor children Of the State are educated
in the common schools of the country. I'm
fortunately the number of competent per-
sons seeking employment as teachers is
small. Private schoolS-the schools in
which the children of the aristocracy are
taught, the select schools of the Nabobs,
who like Gen. Harris have contemptuouS
opinion of the intelligence and character
of the poor-theSe private schools, hav-
ing more money at their command, get
the more competent teachers, and the
common schools, where the poor are taught,
get the incompetent. The history Of
the common schools of our State affords
incontrovertible evidence of this fact. Mr.
Hatton's Normal School Bill had in view
IHO OuuNoIlOH vi d pun vi buC CulluI OI
! of the State for the profession of teacher
Wherever this system is in practice, the pu-
pills are pledged to spend a certain number
of years after they shall have graduated, in
the occupation of teaching. Under pledge
of this kind, the world witnessed the noble
spectacle of a daughter of Willard Fill
more, engaged in teaching whilst her fa'
Their was filling the Presidential chair. I'm
der the operation of the Normal School, as
proposed by Mr.. HattoH, our State would
have been furnished with competent teach.
ers-all Of her schools enjoying the advan-
tages thus aforded-and the children of
the poor placed on an equal footing with
the children of the wealthy and aristocrat-
ic, so far as the means of solid, subStan-
tial education is concerned. 1t is Gen. Har-
riS, then, who favorS the aristOcratic, and
not Bob Hatton, whose whole life has Civ
en- evidence Of his sympathy with and af-
lection for the humble poor, in the midst of
whom he toiled in early life to acquire the
means to give himself better education
than that afforded by the common schools.
whether in the field, at the plough handle,
behind the coulter, as clerk, or in
the school room as a teacher, he has
never held an opinion, or desired to aid
in the advancement of an object, mimi
cal to the welfare or promotion of those
who have no claims to ariStocracy. Remem-
boring his own manly struggles under the
oppressive burthens of poverty, it has been
an object of his laudable ambition, to make
the ascent to the temple of knowledge for
those to come after him, less toilSome and
less forbidding. And for this, the ma
tured statesman" the able and sagacious
leader, Harris, would have him condemned
What have you to say to that, poor fathers,
who look with longing to the day when
your children shall enjoy greater facilities
of education, to enable them to be useful
to you, to themselves, and to their coun-
try? What say you, young men, who are
battling against the discouragements of
limited education, and feeling deeply that
contemporaries, less worthy, are outstrip
ping you in the pursuit of fortune and
fame-and indeed in all the advantages OF
society-because you have not been per-
mitted like them to drink of the waters OF
knowledge Are you willing to see the
plough boy of yesterday, the rising states
man of to-day, cut down, because he pro
posed in the Legislature to do something
to confer upon the poor the blessings of a
liberal education =? We mistake your spirit
much, if you are.