The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-10-29
HOW EDUCATION HUNTS vIR
GINA WIT

hktW EDUCATION BLGNIS WIZ
GINA WIT.
Colonel Beard speeches are very warmly
commended by the Conservative press, as
in some respects they deserve to be. In
comparison with those of the Bourbon
school Of orators, they are models of good
sense, argument, and liberality of senti-
ment and principle He don't entltuse
much on the topic Of Virginia for Vir-
ginians." He fails to brag of big ances-
tors, who, when living, overtopped himself
by dozen cubits or more. He don't pro-
fess to be wise or great by Inheritance only.
lie don't ask to be sent to Congress or
anywhere else by reason of his own
or another mans brthrght. He claims
no distinction by virtue of being
either the first or last man to haunt
the secession rag.o lie even draws it
mildly on the Yankee, and pulls his bow
string very cautiously on the carpet bag
ger. His arrows are not dipped in venom,
nor is his culver filled with poisoned mis-
sie5. He simply deludes himself with the
belief that he is serving the best interests
of Virginia by voting and urging others to
vote the Bourbon ticket. This is grand
delusion, it is true, but not half so much
of dclusion as the Conservative leader in
dulges who imagines it possible for Kem-
per to be elected.
In the speech he made at Manchester
the other night, he gave two of the candi-
dates on the Conservative ticket, if not all
three of them, pretty hard hit in fact,
some Of those present looked upon it as
square hit in the bulls eye. He stated
that 'sthe material prosperity of people
could be measured by its intelligence.
and that upon the education of people
amy people, depended, in no inconsderable
measure, the material advancement and
grandeur of a state With Withers and
Daniel denouncing the common school
system of Virginia, and other Bourbon
orators declaring that to read, write and
cipher blunts mans wits and makes him
less shrewd at u bargain, if not more in
competent as voter, it only surprises us
that Colonel Boards utteranees should be
received with any favor whatever at the
hands of the Bourbon press. What right
have the common people and especially the
"niggers," to dull their wits and blunt
their understanding by learning to read,
write and cipher at the hands OF ''she car
pet-baggers from Massachusetts, or any
other state? Colonel Beard should, before
he makes any more speeches, take les
son from Colonel Withers, r.. T. Daniel,
Colonel Holiday, or some other equally
brilliant Bourbon light, on this subject of
bunting human wit and stamping out
human intelligence by learning ''to read,
write and cipher in the double rule of
three" An awful thing is this
double rule of threep' 1t puts
positive extinguisher upon the hui
man intellect, and makes a blizzard or beg
gar's brat of every man who is not born
with the ancient characteristics of true
Virginia gentleman clinging to him from
shirt-collar to knee-buckle, or from the
crown of empty pate to the shrunk calves
of well-descended gentility?
Colonel Holiday said at Charlottesville
the other day, the boosted seat of Vir-
gina learning, "that it was the boast of
the northern people that they had common
Tree schools, and we didn't have any. He
said he had been much among the northern
people, and spent a wear or two in Naw
England, ana the most ignorant men he
had ever seen in his lite were those very
New Englanders, who had been taught
reading, writing and to cipher in the double
rule of three. He could go to the hills of
old Virginia and find men who had never
seen school-house, who could not read
and write, but who were smarter than the
New England common school graduates,
and knew more about the theory and prin-
ciples of government and could beat
them all to pieces in a trade"
Now, Colonel Beard has the reputation
of being not only little "cute"-
shrewd at driving a bargain-but of
having his education begun, il not COM
pleted, at one of these northern common
schools; aud how delighted he must feel
to know that one of these prodigal sons of
Virginia learning, born with an utter con-
tempt for reading, writing, and ciphering in
the rule of three, should be able to cheat