Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1868-01-16
The Education Question.


The radical demagogues in this State,
and especially in that anomalous assem-
blage now in session in the city of Rich
rnond. ycleped the Constitutional Conven-
vention, are laboring to create the impress
sion in the public mind that the Con-
sentative whites are opposed TO the educa-
ton of the children Of the poor laboring
classes among US. Now, whilst it is true
that ninety-nine hundreths of the intelli-
gent white men Of Virginia are uncompro-
misingly opposed to the utopian schemes
of this convention, as foreshadowed thro'
its resolutions, because they would involve
the State in hopeless bankruptcy, to say
nothing of their utter impracticability, it
is not true that they are opposed to the
education Of the poor classes.
AS the stability of our political institu-
tions and the elevation of the community
in the scale of virtue and moral purity de.
pend upon the enlightenment of the people
he would be an enemy to his race who
would oppose the education of the children
of the poor mechanic and the laborer
For many years previous to the war the
Legislature Of Virginia had been accumu-
lating and fostering Literary Pund,"
the proceeds of which were annua lily ap-
piled to the education of INDECENT children
This fund was devoted to the cause for
which we sacrificed our lives and our for
tunes, and is no longer available for its in
tended purpose. It will therefore be the
duty of the Legislature, at as early day
as practicable, either to r:vive the excel
lent plan already referred to, or to origin
ate some other practicable and efficient
scheme by which the advantages of COM
mon school education may be secured to
those who are too poor to incur the ex-
pense.
1t is no more the duty of the State to
educate the children of the rich, who are
abundantly able to attend to their training,
than it is to establish public nurseries in
which to relieve mothers of the trouble of
administering to the wants of their tender
offspring. Those who have the means to
educate their children, and who have sufi
cient intelligence to understand their high
obligations to the community and to their
offspring, prefer to exercise their own
Judgment and discretion in the selection of
their teachers; whereas, should the mon
strous scheme of our motley convention be
adopted, they will be compelled to entrust
the intellectual and moral training of their
children to such men as boarl composed
of negroes and incompetent white men
would most likely select, and whose senti-
ments, upon the great political and moral
questions of the day, would be diametri-
cally opposed to those Of a large majority
of the white population. Thus the moral
obligation Of the citizen to train his own
offspring according to his own views of
right would be destroyed by those who
control the Legislature, in their insane at
tempts to establish the monstrous dogmas
of puritanical radicalism.
The intelligent white men of Virginia
ho III L
to schools under the control of incompetent
teachers, and in which all are to be admit
ted without distinction of race or color :"
Except in the lowest grade of common
schools in Massachusetts and some one or
two other demoralized communities in the
North, where the negro element is not one
in thousand of the population, such an
anomaly does not exist; and it cannot exist
in Virginia, at least SO far as the wealthy
are concerned
The question is, shall the children of
the poor mechanic and laborer, who are
unable to educate them privately. be forced
into these demoralizing nurseries of radi-
cal ideas? In plain terms, shall they be
reduced to the degraded level of the ne
gro? for this is the pith and essence of the
whole question.
The pretended zeal of these political
fedgings is founded entirely on political
considerations, and not in any paramount
obligation to make provision for the edu.
cation of the children of the poor 1t is a
scheme to place under radical tuition the
entire youth of the State.
This bold effort to poison the minds of
our youth with the ideas of New England
puritanism and infdelity must be met witt,
determined purpose to defeat it at the
very threshold. Every white man who
is unwilling to be put upon social equal
ity with an inferior race, must vote against
this villainOus attempt to degrade and de-