Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1870-04-27

STERLING, or 3d., 4fU,OfZ. luese Bluh'o Wei
made entirely for the benefit of that elias
of people supported by manual labor, an,
such national expenditures in behalf of ed
ucation are in rebuking contrast to tn
feeble effort we have made in establishin,
an educational department without invest
ing it with dignity or endowing it will
means necessary to the practical and ETH
cient discharge of duties which such de
partment should necessarily include. Thu
Government of Great Britain has also pub
lished over one hundred large octave vol
umes of reports and information respecting
education. Indeed the official schools in
quiry commission sent TO this and othel
countries in 1865, cost that Government
more than all of our appropriations thus
far for the Department of Education. Sew.
| enteen large volumes of the report of that
commission have already been published
for the information and benefit of the Eng
lish people
| PRUSSIA.
When Prussia commenced her present
| system of common shoots her territory was
hut fraction of its present size-was the
battlefield of Europe, and echoed with the
tramp of invading armies. Notwithstand-
| ing her impoverished condition she under
| took the work of educating her people, and
in 1913 she had two and q half million chill
dren i'm attendance upon her schools.
Twenty years later, while environed by
threatening empires, she arose in the pow
er of superior education, reconstructed the
map of Europe, and placed herself in the
front rank of the nations of that part of the
world who were astonished at the bril-
liancy of her statesmen and the skill of her
armies.
THE RATIO OF ILLITERATE CITIZENS IN
CREASING.
Our own States and Territories present
the startling fact that there is an annually
increasing ratio of ignorance, and that we
have now within our borders more than
four million illiterate adults, to whom the
twenty-six letters of the alphebet are as
meaningless as so many Chinese hiero-
glyphics.
Our census reports first took cognizance
of the number of illiterate persons over
twenty years of age in 1840 when it was
found that one in thirteen of the free adult
population of the country could not read or
write. In 1850 the number had increased
to one in nine of the free adult persons in
the country. Ten years ago, of our IL, 1884,
033 free adult population 1,2lS,0ll We're re-
ported illiterate, to which if we add the
l,745, 140 adefts who were then slaves we
have the aggregate of 1858, AL wholly I'M
able TO read and write. In 1860 half of our
population were either side of twenty years
of age; therefore we should take the ado
lescent illiterate into account in order to ar
rive at the true condition of our people.
A sTATIsTICIAN's OPINION.
1t is the opinion of DR.. Lee, who has
carefully prepared statistical tables and
maps under the direction of the Depart
ment of Education, that
"There must be, and is, a still larger
number, more than three million young
persons, who are growing up in ignorance
to fill the ranks of the illiterate as older
ones pass off the stage. So that more than
six millions u
In 1860, or seven millions now
" of the American people constitute book
less class, shut out from direct access to this
main source of knowledge, not counting
the million and half children under ten
years of age who cannot yet be said to be
illiterate though they are on the high road
to it unless something more efficient is
promptly done to save Them
With this vast army of illiterates we go
into a new decade, to which are annually
added about one hundred and sixty thou
sand who yearly reach the age of twenty
one, half of whom are exercising the priv
ilege of suffrage and have a direct voice in
the destiny of the Republic.
THE soUTH-ITs 2,340,5O0 ADULTS ILLIT-
ERATE.
But if the results of national neglect of
the interests of education in the District of
Columbia and the Territories are deplora-
BILE, how much more serious are its conse-
quences in the Southern States, where
there never bas been any efficient system
of public schools in operation since the first
settlement of the county? No demon
stratiOn is needed to prove that the difficult
ties and dangers through which we as a
nation have passed during the past fifty
years would have been avoided had thor
ough system of universal education been
introduced and carried into effect in the
early days of the Republic. The want OF
such system has resulted in a civil war
whose cost in blood and treasure is beyond
comprehension large population desti-
tute of intelligence; a large portion of the
Union not only without free schools, but
with "A strong sentiment of hostility to
their Introduction. Yet the most effective
measure of reconstruction which could be
adopted would be an efficient system OF
not less than two millions of the youthful
population of the South without the means
of obtaining even the rudiments of educa-
ton. During the past year the State OF
Pennsylvania expended more for schools
within her limits than twice the amount
expended in all the Southern States put
together; yet the Governor of that State
complains that there are seventy-five thou
sand children in his jurisdiction still UNI
provided for. The Governor of Wisconsin
says that Notwithstanding the efficiency OF
the school svsfam i'm that State there are