Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1870-10-28
The Democrats and the Public
Schools.

THE Democratic School Board of Louis
vile, Kentucky, recently directed that
McDonald's Southern School History of
the United States, written by the princi-
pal of the Louisville High School, an ex-
officer in the rebel army, and published by
an ex-rebel firm in Baltimore, should be
substituted, as a textbook in the
schools, for Andersons Pictorial Scnool
History of the United States," which had
been decried as a " Radical work. The
character and spirit of this school book,
from which, by Democratic appointment,
the children of Louisville are to learn the
history of their country may be inferred
from the following extract. The author
speaking of the massacre of the Union sol
diers in Baltimore, and of what followed,
says:
1.-THE defiance of Baltimore excited the
liveliest resentment in the North. The
streets were posted with placards, calling
for troops, and headed Vengeance upon
Baltimorep The noblest and meanest pas
sions of the human heart were appealed to,
for the purpose of obtaining volunteers.
1t was said, The capital is in danger'
Let patriots stand by their country in her
hour of need! AT the same time infuen-
tial journals declared that the Southerners
ards and bullies, and the women beautiful,
and loaded aoith jeaoels. Booty and Beauty
was one of the watch-words of the hour"
Here we have the wretched falsehood of
Beauregards s Manassas proclamation offered
as history, and serving the same purpose
for which it was originally uttered, namely,
to inf1ame civil hatred. And as if to show
that the sympathy with rebellion is as
timid as it is positive, it is alleged, when
objection is made, that this history is used
in the schools only as far as the account of
the late war
The consequences of the adoption of
such textbooks are but too evident They
are placed in the hands of children at the
most ductile and unsuspicious age, and
their entire feeling toward the government
of their country is colored by them. The
story subterfuge of saying that a certain
part of the book is not taught is merely
| contemplate. 1t is furnished to the schoos
| by Democratic direction as the history of
the country, and the child reads that the
rising of the people to save their govern
ment was stimulated by the basest appeal
to the worst of passions. The direct and
necessary result is to implant hatred of the
government, and to foster the spirit from
which the rebellion sprang. 1t is another
indication of the essentially and radically
disorganizing tendency of the Democratic
party. 1t can not forgive the victory of
the Union and of liberty 1t will not ac-
cept the situation, and acquiesce in the
conditions which are indispensable to the
repose of the country.
Meanwhile the spirit which writes and
the party which adopts such history as
this calls itself the conciliatory spirit and
the conservative party But every fresh
fact shows that it conciliates nothing but
disafection, and preserves only a malig-
nant jealousy of fidelity to the Union. Its
conciliation and conservatism in national
affairs are exactly as evident as its honesty
and economy in the municipal management
of New York.-Hdrpers Weekly.