Semi-weekly Louisianian. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1871-1872, 1872-01-21


valuable service they have rendered in
preserving the peace, and the spirit and
enterprise which they have manifested in
keeping up their organizations uuder
many difficulties and at great individual
expense, entitle them to the highest COM
mendation and to the encouragement OF
the State. hope that you will make an
appropriation sufficient to enable them
to make an appearance creditable to the
State.
PUBLIC EDUCATION.
At the commencement of his admins
tration the State possessed no system of
public education. Whatever facilities
were afforded prior to the war had been
well nigh obliterated, leaving, outside of
the city of New Orleans. only here and
there solitary school. The Freedmen's
Bureau, under the direction of the general
government, had established number Of
schools, which were independent of State
control, and were designed for the benefit
of q single class of citizens.
The Legislature of 1869 enacted a gen.
eral school law, which, it was believed,
would meet the necessities of the people
1t differed in many points from the recon-
mendations of the Superintendent of Pub
lie Education, which had been transmitted
to your honorable body with my indorse-
ment, and experience proved how unwise
was that divergence. The law lacked the
elements of directness and simplicity which
were needed to insure its efficiency, and
although under it a successful commence
ment was made in public education, the
State Superintendent found it necessary
to apply to the succeeding Legislature
that of lS70-for such notifications of
the law as would give the State educational
authorities an actual in place of a merely
nominal control of the school work in the
State. Too timorous to grant all that was
asked, that Legislature, through its COM
mittees, rejected the simple yet complete
system proposed by the State Board of
Education and left the cumbrous ma
chinery demanded by the former law
almost intact. Still much was accom-
plished during the following year notwith-
standing these disadvantages. The founda-
ton of subsequent success was laid, but
through an expenditure of labor, and at
an expense which would have been avoided
had not fear of centralizing power, where
alone power could be efficiently employed,
deferred the Legislature from passing the
bill proposed by the Superintendent of
Education.
At this juncture the present members
of YOUR honorable body were elected, and
during the session of 1871 the school act
WAS so amended as to give the directness
and simplicity which had been vainly
soupht from the action of the previous
Legislature. and it is gratifying to know
that the success attained under it equaled
the expectations of the advocates of those
amendments. Information furnished by
the Superintendent of Education enables
me 10 state that the towns and rural dis
tricts ofthe State, where, at the commence
ment of this administration, only here and
there solitary school existed, now six
hundred and forty may be found fully or
ganized, equipped with teachers and mod
erately supplied with the appliances OF
education So successful have been the
workings of the present law that no hand
should be allowed to disturb it. Its SIM
plicity and effectiveness are sufficient argu-
ments in its behalf; and law which is
sustained in every feature by the approval
of the Board of Education, should not be
changed at the demand of any of theorist
unacquainted with the practical difficulties
that are to be overcome.
Obstacles, few years since deemed
absolutely insurmountable, have, under
this law. been overcome, and general
good will has been secured for the eouca-
tional system of the State. Kindly feelings
have supplanted the hostility OF thousands
who originally proclaimed which control
the public school system, and 1t needs
only firm yet kind persistence in the
present course to bring the whole Of our
citizens into full accord with the State
authorities.
The amount of the State school fund
which has been apportioned during the
year is sos, 800 80. This sum gave to
each educable child in the State one dol ]