Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1873-01-08
The Educational Question.

With pleasure we publish the following
memorial to the Legislature on the all
importan subject Of education. 1t was
prepared by G. w. Charlton, Chairman of
the Committee and unanimously adopted
by the Board of Trade of this city at its
recent meeting.
| 1t will be seen that the memorial is a
strong and earnest one, and can not fail to
attract the attention of members of the
Legislature.
In our next issue we will give to the
public another memorial, emanating from
the same source and adopted by the same
body, on immigration
To the Honorable, the General assembly Of
| Tennessee
The undersigned, committee appointed
by the Board Of TRADE of the city of Knox
| vile to memorialize your honorable body.
on the subject of the enactment of some
thorough and efficient school law, would
beg leave to call the individual attention
of the members of the respective Houses
of the General Assembly to the acknowl-
edged importance of education, and to 1n1-
press upon you, the representatives of the
people, the imperative duty of the State to
| foster and encourage SUCH system OF
common school instruction as will place
| the rudiments Of education within the.
reach of all the children of the State.
We need not, it occurs to us, call your
attention to the following self-evident
truths or axioms, to-wit: That the human
mind can not remain idle without con-
tracing dangerous habits-and properly
cared for. will find employment for their
mental faculties in vicious paths and di-
rections that ignorance always develops
crime in its most aggravated FORMS that
the expenses incurred by the State in the
prosecution of criminals, proceeding from
and growing out of ignorance. would far
exceed the sum necessary to provide COM
mon school instruction for every child in
Tennessee aud that, as an evidence of this
assumption, we refer you to the statistical
fact that more than seventy-fiye per cent.
of the convicts now in the penitentiary
can neither read nor write. Political
economists agree that it is cheaper
to 1reuerst crime by a liberal sys-
tenn of education than to punish
offenders by the ordinary process
of law. 1t certainly cannot be maintained
with any show of reason that such posi-
ton is false and untenable, nor can it be
denied that the wider the advantages of in
struction are diffused, among the masses,
the more prosperous the State. the more
efficient its laws and the more faithful and
useful its subjects. Indeed, as State, we
owe all to the intelligence of our people.
1t is the forerunner of immigration, of
wealth, virtue and prosperity. 1t blazes
out new pathway in thorough reform of
every hue and grade. Its vitalizng infiu-
ences permeate every artery of human in
dustry and impart dignity, strength aad
policy to the commanding efforts of the
human intellect. The plow, the loom and
the anvil, all owe their triumphs to the
genius of intelligence, while the electrical
agencies and the mighty achievements of
steam claim their origin and their final
elimination in the advance of science.
How, then, in view of these wanderful
facts, can great State like Tennessee, re-
main Indifferent as regards the education
of the children? How can she refuse,
through her acknowledged representatives
to adopt some feasible plan or scheme look
ing to the accomplishment of this end
We shall not attempt to point out to you
that plan, or to dictate to your honorable
body how it shall be done. We do not ex-
pect, nor do we urge such a system, for eX
ample, as exists in some of the older States
of New Englani. We are aware that We
are not sufficiently advanced in our
educational ideas to foster such sys-
tenn. That has been the work, and
the earnest toll of years-the product Of
careful thought, patient investigation and
long and we'll tried experience. But we
may adopt one fully commensurate with
our present wants. We would venture to
suggest to your honorable body, that we
are of the opinion that any school system,
not having general and central head, as
a State Superintendent, with subordinates
in each county, and county and school
district directory, would be defective and
altogether inadequate to the exigencies of
the present, although, we are free to con-
fess, time might at no distant day, author
ize your successors to dispense with County |
Superintendents. However, the system
suggested is not unworthy of your atten-
tion, as we hunbly conceive, and might |
be given fair trial. We are aware that
any valuable system of public instruction
will require the expenditure of considera-
ble money, but that should not lie in the
way of 50 important an undertaking. |
The direct road to prosperity and financial
advancement is, education. 1t is the way
to get out of our troubles. It. will COM
mand population, capital and skilled labor:
We are not rash enough to encourage and
stimulate the throwing away the peoples
money. On the contrary we advocate
rigid and watchful economyin all eXpend-
itures but, in the matter under consider
alton, we are free to suggest to your
honorable body that you could not, it
seems to us, make more timely and
Judiclous appropriation than that OF sus-
tanning the work of education
throughout the State. 1t would
be money properly expended, and while
many of your constituents would perhaps
complain of your action at the time, in the |
end would applaud your course.
In conclusion, your memorialists would
represent to your honorable body that the
Board of Trade of the city of Knoxville is
the representative organization Of large
constituency of property holders, business
men and Taxpayers, and willing to bear
their equal share of the burthens of taxa
tiou for the purpose of inaugurating and
establishing thorough system of popular
education in Tennessee.
"The Augustan Age of Murder" is what
the New York Herald calls it, and pro-
ceeds to foot up the murders in that city in
the last three years. Forty murders in
1870, forty y-five murders in 1871, fifty-siX