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

|
J four years the small amount of some So
600, 500 has been expended in the build
ing, renting, and repairing of school-houses,
, the purchase of books and apparatus, the
, pay of inspectors, superintendents, and
teachers; yet the results are that they leave
in the field 2,118 schools, containg ia, 522
pupils, or about one-tenth of the children
of the freedmen, who let us hope, will by
these means acquire "a modicum of the ele-
mentary instruction the Government owes
them. Add to this the number of adults
who have received instruction, and the
number of pupils who have received bene-
fit from this small amount of money is
swelled to quarter eff q million.
Thus an energetic bureau-for having
seen can testify to its value and efficiency
adopting wise system of rules, by con-
slant inspection requiring schools assisted
by them to keep up to the standard may
render effectual to the accomplishment of
much good mere trifie not more than
the War and Navy Departments almost
annually waste in futile experiments.
THE IMMENSE DOMAIN GRANTED.
Yet Congress has been lavish in appro-
| priating public domain for educational pur-
/ poses. The land granted for this object at
various times in the different States and
Territories already amounts to $3.50, BOZ
| acres. This vast area is 122, 776 squire miles.
1t is nearly equal in extent to the Kingdom
of Prussia, greater than Great Britain and
Ireland, more than half the extent of the
French Empire, equal to an area twice the
size of the State of Illinois with ten States
| the size of Delaware thrown in, or twenty
| six times the size of Connecticut. This
| noble tribute to so important an object lies
| scattered in mile-square plots over the most
fertile and beautiful portions of Gods green
earth, and had it been properly conserved
would have produced, it Is estimated, a
grand national school fund of $500, 900, 900.
The interest of this would have been
magnificent endowment for the entire
scholastic population. of the United States.
In 1870 the English Commissioners for
Foreign Plantations addressed to the Gov
ernors of the several colonies a series of
questions concerning the condition of the
settlements under their charge. One of
questions related to the means of popular
education. The Governor of Connecticut
replied to the royal commissioners as fol-
lows:
One fourth of the annual revenue of the
colony is laid out in maintaining free
schools for the education of our children
The Governor of Virginia replied
thank God there are no free schools
nor printing, and L hope we shall not have
these hundred years"
SO far as free schools are concerned his
hope was more than realized, and have
been recently informed by one of the fra
mers of the new constitution of Virginia,
an old and very intelligent citizen of that
State, whose opinion is founded upon an
intimate knowledge of its people, that the
provisions incorporated therein for the
maintenance of common schools, which
are precisely the same as those in the State
of New York, are even more obnoxious to
the element which has -hither ruled and
ruined that State than the iron-clad OATH
or universal suffrage.
IGNORANCE THE CAUSE OF VIRGINIA's
MISFoRTUNES.
The history of Virginia as State in the
Union exhibits continual increase in the
percentage of illiterates to her whole pop
ulation, as far as we can learn, until, as
shown by the census of 1910, she had 5S, 1877
free persons over the age of twenty who
could not read and write. Unheeding this
fearful record, she kept her downward
course, and ten years later she had IS, $50
illiterate free persons over the age of TWEEN
ty. Neither States nor individuals can es-
cape the consequences of their crimes. The
compensation of Virginia has been terrible;
she fell from sovereignty, became the bat
tle-ground between States, civil strife desc
lated her fields even in view of the national
Capitol, and she is now but Just regaining
an equal footing with the other States OH
this floor.
This history of Virginia illustrates that
In 1850 they contained but twenty-eight
per cent. of the free native population of
the whole thirty-four States, but SO upe-
quail had been the previous rate of educa-
| tional development, to such an extent had
| they monopolized the Ignorance of the
! country, they had in their free native pop
ulation sixty-seven per cent. of all the
adult native illiterates in the United States.
! In other words, with only about one-third
of the free population of the nation, they
possessed more than two-thirds of its illit-
crates not including the slaves, which, If
added, would have swelled the proportion
to more than nine-three in the South for
every seven in the North.
|
1t Is not singular coincidence, TO say
| the least, that of the original thirteen States
which formed this Union but one has en-
| tirely failed to make some constitutional
provision for education, and that that one
| has led in two unsuccessful attempts to dis
| integrate the nation and subvert the free
| principles upon wdich it is founded? /
need not name the State to indicate the one
to which / refer. On the other hand, two
centuries and nearly "a half ago the general
court of the colony of Massachusetts en-
acted school code ordaining q school to
! be established in every township that
might number five families. One hundred
and forty years later, when State consti-
tuition was framed one of its sections read
/ L, -