The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1873-07-24

Il does not require very close observation
to determine that the most Of the ncwspa-
per articles against the new school law and
in favor Of the old are written by school
masters. They carry pedagogue on their
face IS plain as 3 mans nose. A writer Of
this class in the Galveston News Of the tenth
inst, in an article on the ''Four Months
Law, " exhibits much feeling about our sug-
gestion, that school teachers may instruct
four months in the year and work during the
remainder. He says ''this is direct insult to
the respectable and honorable profession of
the teacher Now, we don't know exactly
what opinion this pedagogue may have about
labOr-he may think it degrading, it
would seem so, but we do not
we think it beneficial and ennob-
ling. Such has been the opinion
Of some Of the greatest and best
men America has produced. Frank
lin did not consider labor degrading,
nor did Judge Chase, nor Amos Kendall,
nor many other New England young men,
who have literally icorked themselves up to
good education and to the Halls Of Con-
gress and the Supreme Bench. And yet
this Galveston schoolmaster feels himself
insulted at the bare idea that he should
cOntaminate his soft hands by manual labor.
All these sorry mouthed writer's exhibit an
ignorance about common schools, as they are
carried on at the North with great advantage,
which is the more striking on account Of
their assumed knowledge and wisdom.
Their idea of common schools seems to be
that they must be continued all the year,
and be conducted by men who make teach
ing profession for life. This is neither
practical nor wise. It would make the sys-
TEN too expensive, nor would it work as well.
Such is not the fact with regard to the
common schools of the Northern States.
They are mostly conducted by young men
and young women, who are not intending
to be school masters and schoolmistresses
all their lives, and who are using this as a
means to reach other positions. BIT this
does not disqualify them from making ex-
ceIlent teachers. They are, in fact, all the
better for it. Your professional life long,
nothing else teacher is apt to become amere
Dominic Sampson, or something worse, with
his mind running in narrow channel, and,
though he may know great deal of Latin,
Greek and Hebrew, united really to be
teacher in common school. Now the
writer in the News may be one of this sort,
perhaps, with great deal of book learning
and very little practical common sense.
He wants the schools kept up..the whole
year for his special benefit. If he wants
to teach uninterruptedly his whole life
time, let him start a private school
what is to hinderG Texas, at this time,
cannot afford so expensive system, even if
it were wise to have such, which we do not
admit. The State is in debt, her warrants
are deprecated, her Governor is now absent,
trying to sell bonds to pay off the radical
membranes, and here is this Galveston
pedagogue, with scores of other, clamoring
for continuous school system, far beyond
that of older and richer States, to give him
constant employment, and save him from
the degradation of doing something else for
an honest living, at the bare idea of which
he feels himself ''insulted." Well, we
can't help it, nor can the State either. Let
him feel insulted, and let him feel degraded,
if he will. Texas cannot, just now, edu>
cate all her negroes for his benefit. We
have worked on a farm during the summer,
and taught common school in the winter,
to enable US to be what we are, and we don't
feel degraded thereby, not one bit, and it
will not hurt the Galveston schoolmaster to
do the same. If he feels ''insulted" by our
suggestion, and indignant at the last Legis-
lature, for repeating the radical school law,
let him quit his honorable profession,
and do something else. The schools of
Texas can survive his loss. :