Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet., 1865-08-31
The Education of Our Youth.

\ VIC make room IQT bub lUlkoWtbB 0oAA-
munication in the hope that it may serve
to awaken public interest to the import
ance Of the subject of which it treats. The
writer is fitted from talents and experience,
to speak knowingly and apprecistingly Of
the great blessings and advantages grow
| ing out Of well-devised and well sup
ported educational systom,
There is nothing Of more vital conse-
auence to the best interests Of society than
D proper and carly training of the intel
| lectual and moral characters of our youth.
| In this there can be no difference of opiD~
| ion among rightly constituted minds and
| hearts; and toward the practical and nover-
tiring elucidation of this self-evident pro"
position, we should like to soc every man
and woman in the community zealously
engage and make common cause.
Lot our school houses be once more re-
established, and our schools revived and
made nuclei Of learning fountains Of
purity and excellence whence shall flow
4
our rising generation. Then may we hope
TO see spring up new and better order of
development in youthful natures, which
will "grow with their growth aud
strengthen with their strength" to culmi-
nate in principles and actions rejecting
credit upon themselves and The community
and enabling them to occupy positions Of
| honor and usefulnessin the several spheres
Of action in which they may be called to
serve.
The loose and rambling specimens of
Juvenile depravity to be seen about Our
streets, is one Of the sad demoralizing fruits
Of war. But the war is past, and it is the
duty now Of older and wiser heads TO put
forth every effort to stay its after eonse-
Quences Of disorder md immortality. These
street nuisances should be abated, and
every incipient swaggerer, blasphemer,
loafer and pillorer, should be attended to
ere it is too late, and consigned to course
of educational training, which shall make
them bear good fruits in after time, instead
or being permitted to go on in course of
outlawry which must bring them to shame
and irremediable ruin.
We trust that all due and timely atten
ton will be given on the part Of our citi-
zens to the radical suppression Of the seri-
GUS abuses complained Of and which cry
aloud for reform; and that they will
equally interest themselves in promoting
the cause of general education in their
midst t#...
BAToN RoUGE, August 26th, 1865.
E5itor Gu3ette and Comet-A brief space
in the columns of your paper will not be
unproftably applied, the subject matter of
which shah relate to the important, and
now neglected question Of education. 49,
There is, without any doubt or possibility
Of denial, no question that bears so much
| interest and more momentous consequences
| in the progress and future destiny Of the
people Of these Southern States, than the
education of the generation that is now
growing up to participation in, md ulti-
mate control of, The affairs upon whose di-
rection and management depend theinter-
ests and destinies Of the South as q section.
In the general arrangement and disorgani-
cation of the civil system, the religion and
literary associations and institutions, that
has accompanied the long and terrible con-
fict through which the people of the South
have passed, none have been impaired and
suffered more severely than their eduea-
tional interests. Tho severest loss that
they have sustained--far above and beyond
the partial or total arrangement or de-
struction of our civil code of laws, far more
than the trifiDg or entire loss of property
in abroad acres, or "the peculiar institu-
tion,r and equal to the disorganization Of
oil old religious associations and the break
ing Of old church ties, is the almost uni
versal snbversion of their educational eys-
tenn. During the long and dark struggle
now closed, throughout nearly the entire
area of conflict, from one extremity of this
war~trodden section To the other, cur
schools have been closed, or have main
tanned, at intervals only, brief and strug-
Cling existences. The war, with its ner-
ciless rigor, and its stern necessities, had
dragged from their homes not only the
sfirst- born" but all, almost to the verge Of
helpless sinfancy--connected in with the cause
and the destiny of the Confederacy- enlist
ed in the ranks Of its supporters, and there,
subject to all the unrefning and demoral-
izinq associations and Influences Of the
camp and the field, for the most i'm pressi-
bic and the most susceptible periods of
their lives, they have returned more or less
contaminated in moral character, their
montal culture, through neglect, perverted
and their natural intellect, debased. None
will more readily admit the necessity and
Importance, of re-establishment of some
public system of education, than those
brave and experienced men from the camp
and the field, and none accept more gladly
of their advantages.
In many, very many towns and cities of
this section, from the initiation of the con-
flict to the present day, the doors of the
schools have been barred, save to the grim
cohorts of war, and tho advantages of
primary education totally denied, except,
where by authority of the Federal Govern
ment tbey have been opened to the chill
dren Of our more favored "colored breth-
ren.n Now, that the demon OF war has
folded his tattered and blood-stained BAN
uer, and the bright angel Of peace has