The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1866-06-27
C CHAR T. ST ON.
WEDNESDAY MORNING, JUNE 27,=18e6.
TIT. BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

II would seem modest and q reason
able request for a peaceable individual or
community to ask to be let alone, and to be
allowed to manage their affairs according to
their own best judgment, But slight as is
this postulate, it appears it cannot be con-
ceded. Not only are the four millions of
freedmen "the nations wards" but the re-
mainder Of the population of the South are
also to be regarded in the minority We
have selfappointed guardians, who kindly
take charge Of our affairs. They make laws
for us, and furnish us with a strong military
peace establishment, to see the laws duly ex-
ccuted. This is matter of course. But we
are still further provided for. Our guardians
consider us non compos, and they considerably
arrange whom we shall marry; what society
we are to frequent; who is to till our lands;
who is to teach our children, and who to
weigh out our tea and sugar. How can we
ever discharge the heavy debt of gratituoe
we 90 on aovumulating every day we live?
The load will soon become crushing.
Ever since our Northern friends have
gained foothold in the South, they have been
busily engaged educating" any and every
thing that came across their path. Whole
swarms Of educators have been imported for
the express purpose,-trom all the regions
North and East Mr.. IcHABoD CRANE, with
whole galaxy of thoroughly trained assist
ants, came,-with fear and trembling, it is
true,.-but determined nevertheless, to plant
the seeds of New England civilization on this
barren Southern soil. They came, they saw
and they filled their schoolrooms with anxious
freedmen. This was all very we'll, and we
were glad to see it. =@=
But they were singularly disappointed in
not being received with the same open arms
by the white population. This, Of course,
they could attribute to nothing but peryerse-
ness and prejudice. They reasoned thus:
"These people at the South are very igno-
rant can neither read nor Write;-and have
never even so much as heard of tho great
gospel of this nineteenth century. And here
are we, the accredited preachers and teachers
Of the same. Yet, will they not come to hear
US, or sit at our feot to receive instruction"
This method having failed, other means ore
--r-..s-.<vt oW 1ceds, That we need
foreign schoolmasters s-"strangers to take us
m" Accordingly the Radicals, who are the
great wire.pullers of this entire machine
have Just mannuyred on Act through Con-
,ress, establishing Bureau of Education,
BY means of which they will obtain the right
o intermeddle, to their hearts content, with
he private affairs of every family in the
and. True, this law will affect the Northern
IS we'll as the Southern States. BUTT is well
known that it was framed specially with
view to onlighten our barbaric regions. A
object, perhaps, may have been to
secure fat places for innumerable aspiring
youths and faded schoolmarms. -
Laws of this kind have heretofore always
been deemed unconstitutional, and utterly
antagonistic to the spirit of Republican insti-
tutions. Strange that the soa-disant Republ Ii
can party should foist SO many of these mon
,rchical importations upon the people of the
United States.
Were we to object, and say, we need not
your interference. We have got along very
we'll thus far; your system is not suitable to
our people, nor to the sparsely settled dis
tricts of our country. A smile of contempt
would be the only reply, with perhaps the
,upercilious remark: "Look at your people;
how many of them can neither read nor
write; your women almost uniformly ignorant
and illiterate,n etc. We cannot answer this
charge from the census as we had the mis-
fortune Of losing our library on a memora-
BILE night last year in Columbia, but we had,
during the four years of the war, abundant
of testing the relative education
and intelligence Of the individuals composing
the two armies. There were some Of our
soldiers who could not write their names.
There were many more who wrote and
spelled very badly, and others again very
many Of them who were gentlemen of in
telligence, education and refinement.
We came in contact with the soldiers of
The United States in Confederate prisons and
hospitals, and found wagon loads of their