New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1874-08-06
From the Union and Herald, Columbia, s. G.
National Schools and SnobOcr1cJ

From the Union and Herald, Columbia, s. G..
National Schools and snob0cracy.
'Cadet Smith has arrived in Columbia.
He did not pass. '-Phanir.
| Alexander Bouchet, young man of
color, graduates from Yale College, holding
the fifth place in the largest class graduated
from that ancient institution. "-Erchange.
These simple announcements from differ
] ent papers tersely sum up the distinction
between the military and civil education of
this country. One is exclusive, snobbish,
and narrow, the other is liberal and demo-
cratic.
No one who has watched the course of
Cadet Smith and the undemocratc, selfish
and snobbish treatment he has experienced
from the martinets of West Point, men cdu-
Gated at the expense of the Government,
supported by negro taxes, as we'll as white,
who attempt to dictate who shall receive the
benefits of an education in our national
charity schOols-no one who has read of his
court-martialings, the degradations and the
petty insults inflicted upon him can help
feeling that he returns home to-day, in spite
OF the Ph0nir's sneer, young hero who has
passed. in grit, pluck, perseverance, and
all the better qualities which go to make up
true manhood, and only has been found"
because rebel sympathizers at West Point,
the fedgings of caste, and the Secretary of
War, do not intended to allow, if they can
prevent it, negro to graduate at West Point
or Annapolis, if he is knomn to be negro.
Any one conversant with educational mat
tiers who has examined the examinations for
entrance, or the curriculum of the naval and
military academies, will not for moment
1,o1io hat tbos, nnf hpb
as those demanded for an ordinary New Eng
land school, and by no means in thorough
ness, quantity or quality to that demanded
for entrance at Yale, Amherst, Dartmouth.
or Brown, are too high or abstruse to be
compassed by negroes, some of whom have
successfully stood all these, and are now
pursuing their studies in the best institutions
Of the North.
No fair-minded man believes that Smith,
Napier and Williams, Conyers and McClel-
!, land have had impartial treatment. The
2 Government itself has been remiss in not
throwing about them the protection of its
. authority. Had these colorcd boys been
students at. st. Cyr, in Paris, or Woolwlch,
in England, under despOtic France and aris-
! tocratic England, they would have been
treated with that courtesy and justice OF
which the average white American has no
idea. The South once ruled West Point,
much to its detriment in loyalty, however
much, by reason of sending boys more than
prepared, it dominated in scholarship. 1t
seeks to recover the lost ground, and rightly
, fears to meet on terms of equality in the
camp the sons of fathers to whom it refused
quarters in the war and buchered in cold
blood at Fort Pillow. We cannot expect
. the sons to forget the lessons OF the sires
, but we have right to demand from the
General Government the roofing out of all
, , snobbery at West Point, whether it is of
that kind which sends poor white boys to
coventry, because they haven't a family
name or wealth, or whether it be that
! smallest, meanest and shallowest of all aris-
< tocracies-the one founded upon color.
If the Government is not able TO ROOT out
. these unrepublioan seeds in these hotbeds OF
dislOyalty and snObbery, then let Congress
, shut up the useless and expensive appendix
ges, and educate its officers at the colleges OF
the country where they may learn lessons in
true republican equality and nationality.
The remedy lies with Congress- y rcmon-
STRANGE should at least be heard from the
cOlOred members of Congress who are insult
ed whenever colOred boy is ill-treated by
the students or officers of these institutions
So far from being DISCOURAGED by defeats, the
njust treatment moted out to these Young
! men should redOuble the efforts Of others o.
i their class to carry this new bastile by storm
: 1t should lead every colored Congressman to
, make sure that he either sends Il colorcd APP
plicant or white one who has not the seeds
: of spobberY and caste in his soul.
u Smith, after four years torture, comes home
8 is driven home, because, torsooth, he NIGH
attend the ball next year. He is bounded
out of the Academy because he would have
been assigned to a white regiment. There
are some negroes who feel that their rights
, in the land of their birth are superior to the
e prejudces of the enemies of the Union, and
, who dare to speak and write III behalf OF
these rights as their fathers dared to fight 70,
: them very few years ago.
BOuchet, under civil rule, enters Yale Col
e lege. the best prepared student of 1870 fresh
men, and all through his course is treated like
gentleman, both by the faculty and the stu
dents, men who know what justice means
and have some adequate idea Of the true the
8 DRY of education and gentlemanly conduct
:. Two freed boys from North Carolina and
South Carolina, slaves during the war, pre-
pare at the best Northern academies, ant
u enter, without remonstrance, Amherst an(
Dartmouth,
What divinity, then, hedges West Poin
+ and Annapolis? What but the old rebe
. spirit which seeks to control them for use il
future rebellions as it did in the past. The
war developed some unwelcome truths Will
regard to this snobhish and disloyal spirit OF
q our national institutions, and the exploits oil
some volunteer officers showed that all man
hood, bravery and skill were not contained
in West Point or Annapolis, or, if there, did
q not pertain solely to the petty ciqucs that
q ann to give the tone to those academies. 1t
Il is not for any officer, the creature of the Gov.
enment-it is not for any student, the vii.
= ling ward Of that Government to say wht
8 shall enter the national schools and ke thC
Y REGIMENTS of nv bounty
e It is the duty Of every member of Congress
to see that the Government sanctions no sucl
. spirit and it becomes every loyal citizen VIII,
: wishes to avoid the mistakes of the former
a war to see that no class be excluded, ant
that every boy, 0aoe admitted, shall hav
the strictest justice dealt out to him, a thlne
which, thus far, has not been done in the cas-,
8 Of the cOlOred cadets.
s The true remedy is in the feelings and sym
2 pathes of the officers of these academies, il
q the ability and fair Investigations of the boar
Of examiners {; not from such gentlemen as a
j. present seem to rule those Institutions.
e NIGER NIGORUM.
From the Rochester Express.
II West Point Weighed and Toun,
Wanting.