New-York daily tribune., 1865-10-05
THE POOR WHITES AGAIN.

THE POOR WHITES AGAIN.
We must educate them. That is our own an
swer to the que ,tion-What shall we do for the
Door whites We must create a new South by
taking the negro in onehand and the poor white
in the other. and leading them forth from their
squalid huts and cabins into the pleasant cot
tages and school-roomS of Northern civilization.
Ii is ignorance that has degraded both classes;
il has been because the South had rum-shops
where the North has school-houses, and slave
marts where the North has libraries, that We
have had a long war and have now al
heavy debt. The schoOlmastcr was abroad
when the poor whites squatted and he found
no attractions to induce him to return.
What he should have given, the mothers OF
the poor whites could not supply. Had every
teacher in the North enlisted in the army, the
rising generation would hardly have missed
them. For it is our glory that our women are
everywhere highly cultivated class: that there
is hardly position now held by men in any Of
our schools or colleges for which a woman,
nearly equally well qualified, could not be
quickly provided in an emergency. Bat the
women of the South are more illiteratc than the
men. OF the $500 adult Virginians who, in
1880, could neither read nor write, 80, l35 were
women; and in every Southern State the pro-
portion was in favor OF the men. This accounts,
in a large measure, for the Meater virulencc Of
Southern women, which has everywhere been
displayed against our forces Of occupation.
Saved by the fact OF their sex irom the dangers
/ Of war, and shut out, by their gross ignorance,
/ from all opportunities of examining into its re-
mOter causes, they have been the Jealous cham
pions of movement which would have per-
petuated Slavery, and thereby, as every South
ern mother knows. would have entailed genera
tiOns more Of home tragedies, Of jealousies, Of
secret forms Of social corruption; for it would
have caused the matron to suspect always,
and often to know, that each Of her female
servants was her rival, or the mistress of
I her sons, and many a secret shudder it would
have caused her rs she thought Of the perils TO
which the daughters Of her household were con-
stantly exposed. Half has not been told Of the
misery which Slavery brought into every South
ern home And yet--so potent is ignorance
the women, who were the chief victims Of Slay-
cry, were its chief champions also.
The war has placed the poor whites in po-
stion where we can reach them, for the first
time in our history, without begging leave Of
their political and social superiors, who persist
emily and consistently were hostile to their
elevation. TO be sure there were exceptions to
this general rule: as where Memminger and
Aiken, in Charleston, succeeded in establishing
common schools in the teeth Of bold opposi-
ton by the Rhetts and others, who did not hes
itate to say that the poor people had no better
right to an education than the slaves. But
such exceptions were few in number and
far between in territory. The war has
also enabled the poor whites to appreciate
to some extent their own degraded positions
and the revelation has visited not q few Of them
that there is no necessary alliance between ig-
norance and poverty-that the mechanics and
farm laborerS and small farmers Of the North
are as well educated as the children Of the rich
planters who lorded it over them. The war has
rendered the poor whites another service-it has
taught them habits of regularity, and it has
forced them to work. 1t has brought them into
contact, also, with men from every section off
hc country, and new ideas have thus found
heir way into regions where nothing less
powerful than an army could have carried
hem for rs. Still more, it has shown them
hat their old leaders were unfit for their posi-.
ion; that "a rail-splitter and tailor" after
III, We're able to put down the united chivalry
Il arms. They are learning another lesson
low. They see the proudest of the naughty
lage-m&otcrS sue daily and humbly for pardon