The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-05-01
The Co-Education of the Races.

What then would be the practical re
suit, as respects education, of the so
called civil rights bill, as originally in
trod1ced into congress by Gen. Butler
| Would It secure the co-education of tn,
races Impossible Would education
| be facilitated in any way? Itwould in
evitably be destroyed, as public affair
Every state in the Union now has s
school system for both races supported
at public expense. How long would
such q school system be maintained in
the fifteen ex-slave states -? Just as
long as would be required to go through
the forms of law needed to destroy It
and no longer, except in those wretched
states where the negroes and their allies
dominate over the property therein. In
those states some sort of system would
be maintained for the benefit of the ne
groes, or at least money would ostensi-
bly, be raised for the purpose. As to
this being the practical result, there is
no difference of opinion among men &C
qualnted with the state of the case i'll
black and white; and, therefore, the
blacks do not desire mixed schools, and
the real friends of universal education
do not desire it, whatever may be their
political theories. There are now more
than a million and a half of children,
white and black, in the public schools
of the fifteen ex-slave states. What
would be the subsequent reputation of
any statesman who would aid in passing
law, the only practical effect of which
would be to turn these school children
out of doors
But what of the great future? Are
we forever to go on thus? There is no
need for us to solve social and economi-
cal problems for unborn generations.
We have our hands full with the pres
ent. Do not let us spoil our work from
the fear of setting bad precedents.
Our children will be sufficiently pro-
gressive. The prejudices which dis
turb us now will run their natural
course, and, so far as they are merely
preiudices, will end. The tidal wave
which may be omnipotent in its pride,
sinks exhausted at last on the bosom of
the deep. Unquestionabiy the tendency
of mankind is toward the obliteration
of race-distinctions, and it is seen in
the brightest centers of civilization, as
well as among the lately secluded peo
pies of the east. Some of the most
cultivated Caueassians have declared
their preference for mottled society
or as an eloquent orator expressed it,
for 'a rainbow of colors on the social
sky" And in the most polished courts
of Europe, not only has the Turk, the
japanese, the Chinaman and the Per-
sian received the highest social recogni-
tioD, but the same has been accorded to
the despised African.
Hence, in arguing for the policy ad
vocated in this paper, it is net done IN
ignorance of the tendencies of the race
at large or with any vain expectation
that we can anchor here. Still less is
there disposition to deny to the negro
equality before the law, or equal means
of Improvement with the whites. Nor
is there disposition to disparage the
intellect of the negro, or to discourage
him in his aspirations. Those who have
chosen to trace back the Ethiopian race
into the remote past, know that it too
has had its heroic age in which it led
the civilization of the world. And
those who have studied the remote
causes out of which have grown the di-
versities in the human race, and the in
huences which gradually depress or ell
evate any particular race or class of
men, know that there is nothing in
either the history or the present condi-
tion of the African race to preclude the
idea, that in the great future it may pos
sibly (though not probably attain an
equal rank in all respects with the fore
most of the other races.
But the fullest admission of such
facts and possibilities as these does not
affect the truth of the declaration, that
at least during the present generation
the attempt to mix the white and col
ored races in the schools of as fifteen
states of this union, is not only impos-
sible as to equalize socially the Brah-
Minis and Pariahs of Hindoostan, but,
if forcibly pressed, would defeat the
general education of both races