Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1873-10-11
enormous advance of q go? Surely

enormous advanced 81 go? Surely
there is. Train up your sons and
daughters to become intelligent labor
ers, not laborers in the common accep-
tation of the term (menials) but intel
ligent machinists, artisans and chemists,
and you WILSON be able to compete with
Massachusetts, or any other State in
education and wealth, Iappealto you.
then, in the name of the children of
the county who areimpotent to remedy
any evil that might result from an un-
just or partial action on the part OF
your body; in the name of the county
whose wealth will be enhanced by
your action in the name of the prop
erty-holder whose property will be Sc
cured and enhanced; in the name of
the poor man whose offspring, guided
by the unerring wisdom of your munifi-
cence, must fill your manufactures and
workshops, your armies and navies,
and who must become your statesmen,
your orators, your jurists, and WELD
the balance of power at the ballot box;
in the name of the State, of whose
whole your county forms an integral
part-in the name of God and COM
mon humanity, to give US to-day, that
aid that will enable us to feed the minds
of the youth of the county, hungering
and thirstinS after knowledge. We
know that such appropriations are
usually made by your body at Janu-
airy term. and that any aid given us
now mis- ht not be rendered available
before the beginning of the next scho-
lastic year. We ask you to make the
appropriation in advance of the JAN
uary term, that the districts, encour-
aged by this earnest of your willing
ness to render every aid in your power.
may be induced by district assessment,
TO supply funds enough to carry on
the Schools until your munifcent aid
can reach us. 1t is said that your
worshipful body is not in sympathy
with us in this great progressive en-
terprise of the age. We ask you to-
day, to give peremptory rebuke to
this unjust malversation of public
opinion, by appropriatiDg a property
tax of FIVE mills on the dollar, and at
least twenty-five per cent ON privileges.
Mississippi, your sister and adjoining
State, pays property tax of seventeen
mills; others of the Southern States
pay in proportion, thus precluding the
necessity of county and district taxa
ton. Illinois, in addition to three
per cent. ON the net proceeds of the
sales of all public lands, pays prop
erty tax of two mills, and so of nearly
all the western States and territories.
A mighty wave of progress bears us
onward. We cannot afford to stand
still amid the fierce Industrial rival
ries of the age. In the grand march
of industrial progress, the people that
suffers its energies to be paralyzed,
the education of its children to be
neglected, or its artisans to deteriorate
will be swallowed up in the maelstrom.
| 1t rests with you, to-day, to decide
whether, in the grand bivouac of
life, your sons shall become mere
privates or officers-for the school boy
of to-day becomes the orator, the poet,
the hero of tomorrow. You must
determine to-day whether your sons
and your daughters shall remain as
rough uniformed clay in the hands of
the potter, or be moulded into beauti-
full vessels, fitted to adorn a niche in
the historic page of the future. Give
us this appropriation to-day, and L
will at once visit the districts at their
several precincts, and lay before them
the importance of district assessment
for prolonging the schools for ten
months in the year, instead of five
And am assured, from the fattering
increase in popular sentiment, aided by
as noble a band Of directors as ever
advocated the cause of popular edu-
cat on, that this enterprise will surely
be successful.
Your Superintendent has thought it
advisable not to put the schools IN the
county in operation, until we have the
money to meet the expenses of carry
ing them on, or until we are fully as
sured that the money will be ready to
pay teachers promptly at the end of
each month. The interest accruing
from the perpetual fund will be paid
into the county treasury, on the LIST of
this month; but it will not be sufi-
cient to carry on the schools longer
than one or two months. The revenue
collectors will not receive their books
in time to do much during this year
and have thought it advisable to de-
fer opening the schools until the LIST
of January, 1874, and even then, it
would be exceedingly iniudiciOus to
make the attempt, unless fully assured
that the money would be in the hands
of the proper authorities to meet con-
tracts promptly. To attempt the in
auguration of schools without funds
accumulated sufficient to carry them
on, would be but repetition of the
efforts of the past, and it needs no
prophetic eye to see that 1t would re-
} suit disastrously to the system. The
work of preparing for their Inaugural
ton has been fully met, and the schools
could be put in operation tomorrow,
with more vigor, and under more skill
full management than has ever charac-
terized its manipulatiOns heretofore.
, 1t is the earnest desire of the friends
of the system, that it shall be deci-
| ded success. Your Superintendent
J has given his whole time and undivided
, earnest attention to it, with the one,
. sole view of making it success. Ii
{ human means and instrumentalities
; to bear on it, aided by the co-opera
ton of its friends, can make it sue
coed, IL shall succeed. In the mean
J time, we must make haste slowly,
keeping in mind the old adage haste
makes waste and waste makes want.
Your Superintendent would most
! respectfully advise your wOrshipful
body, that though willing to bestow his
whole time upon the work of enlarg-
ing and rendering more efficient the
work already done, he has not YET
: learned the art of living on air. By
the action of your body at its July
term, your Superintendent was allowed
no compensation for services rendered
unless the schools were in successful
operation. While could have started
the Schools in September, and had the
benefit of the means provided, the
wisdom of your body and of the whole
county, will sustain me, L am confident
in the policy have pursued. would
most respectfully inform the court,
that the labors have been arduous, and
the expense consequent has been met
in great degree by me, in the absence
of any provision from the court, that
| see before me three months of the
| most irksome labor that it was ever
my lot to encounter, heavier perhaps
than it will ever be again. L am will
ing, nay anxious to bend every energy