Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1866-08-16
The Kind of Reconstruction Need
ed at the South.

The action of Congress on the subject
Of reconstruction was right so far as
1t went. Proper enactments are well,
eat something beside laws are needed to
a genuine and perfect reconstruction.
This something was not in the prov
inee of Congress TO furnish, but the 10y
al people may do much towards supply
Ing the need. The great wantisa true,
loyal, Industrious spirit among the
Southern population. This want is to
be supplied by the education Of the
Southern masses. And this education
Is to be effected not so much, for the
present, by schools as by the publication
and thorough distribution ofloyal news
papers. The disloyal Southern journals
now printed do not circulate generally
among the masses Of the Southern PEG
pie. They have no means OF paying for
them If they want them. On the 9TH
or hand, there is hardly patriotically
disposed person at the North, who would
not gladly contribute towards sustain
ing loyal presses at the South for the free
education Of the ignorant and deluded
people of that section, until such time
rs the presses could sustain themselves.
1t would be not only humane, but also
an economical investment; for il would
tend TO insure, more than anything else
sould, the permanent peace, harmony and
prosperity of the country. The rebellion
which has cost us such immense sacri-
Ace Of life and treasure, would not have
been possible had education been diifused
throughout the mass Of the Southern
people, as it is among the people OF the
North. In their ignorance they were
the fit tools of the comparatively few
slave holding aristocrats. The kind Of
" reconstruction needed at the South,
then, is education, -educatio through
schools and especially through loyal
newspapers and other publications. On
this point the Boston Advertiser well
speaks as follows;
With the opening of mail communica-
lion, it is the duty OF the loyal men of
this country to instruct, by system, the
defeated men who on their farms and
plantations are sullenly wondering what
is the future of their country. They
know that their old leaders have misled
them. Let the loyal publication socie-
ties, let every missionary board that can
rise above the bigotry of sect,-let ev-
ery journalist who knows how to reach
the regions away from the towns, under
take Systematically to teach such misled
men what is the true policy, and the
true destiny of America. There never
was a nobler chance for circulating the
documents for q generous instruc-
zion of millions of persons in the prin-
eiples Of republican government, than is
offered now. We talk of the disloyalty
of Virginia. But we should speak rath,
er of the blind ignorance of her people,
people many of whom can read, how
ever, and whom we ought to instruct in
the essential principles of the system OF
government to which for the first time
they belong,
In Richmond Charleston, Savannah
Mobile, New Orleans, and Nashville
there should be maintained journals o
the first ability, with ample capital
ready to give every day full interpreta
ton of the necessities of the hour tt
men who do not know, and who hav'
shown that they do not know, what i
best for them. In each capital city a
the South, a bureaul like those whicI
circulate political documents on the ev
Of presidential election should be en-
gagged in the wise distribution of such
reading as will instruct even the mos
ignorant as to who are their best friends
as to what is their true policy. Such
system of education would soon breal
up the domination of the FIRST families
and would complete in the new socia
order Of the South the work of the vic
tory in which these families have bee