Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1874-11-06
From the Milwaukee Wisconsin.
Mixed Schools of the South.

Really the greatest question, after the
financial, with which the statesman of
tn. present day has to grapple, is the
wisdom and the propriety of passing the
SO called Civil Rights BILL Should ii
be made the national statute? is now
more deeply agitated than during any
previous period, for the reason that it
is the browning act of emancipation,
and even the extreme friends of the
negro say that when this is granted
they shall ask nothing mole from Con-
gress. This bill was literally the idol Of
Charles Sumner, and he considered that
the nation had not done its.whole work,
until it became a law. One of the
most disputed points in the bill was
the provision declaring that white ana
black children shall attend the same
school. Sumner said to us in Febu-
airy, 70, that it was good and a patri-
otto measure, because the prejudice
against the blacks was nothing but
prejudice against color, and that chill
dren should be taught in early life to
get rid of that prejudice, and mixed
schools would accomplish that grandre-
suit.
Senator Brownlow, A. Fl. Stephens
and other leading southerners of both
parties hold that it would not remove
that prejudice, but rather intensity it,
and that forcing black children into the
white schools would break up the whole
system. Both parties are honest in
their convictions; now the question is,
which is right? And we will say
that this is a problem which can be
solved only by experience. In some
northern states it does not work bad
ly.
In Wisconsin, colored children are
admitted to the public schools. But
there are so few of these black faces
here that they excite no attention. The
question arises when there are more
colored than white children at the same
school how does it work there? We
have a case in point in Louisiana.
More colored than white children at
tend the public schools of that state,
and hence if the sense of infcriority
and disgust on the part of the whites
would be manifested anywhere it would
be there.
We have a report Of the School Su-
per ntendent of that state, Thomas w.
Conway, who narrates his experience
on this truly far-reaching subject. 1t
is evident that he thinks that the pre-
iudices are in the pare hts and not in the
children, and therefore this gives con-
frmation to the theory ofSumner, that
if mixed schools are persisted in, in
few years til whole difficulty will be
settled by the growth Of cordial good
feeling between the whites and the
blacks:
The day came for the opening Of the
Schools. AS expected, the colored chill
dren came with books in hand. The
whites wereI ahead of them: Seeing the
colored children admitted, the white pup,
lis all left. speak now of those. schools
where this test was made.) ] sat in my
cab anxiously beholding the result of my
own course. For awhile / confess was
AuIA vi SolloWs l4ouSue lltsu ocCH ShiItf
of an indiscretion which hordered closely
on crime, and yet felt as | was squarely
meeting an issue imposed npon me by my
oath Of office. Well, the white pupils left
and the colored ones took their places.
This was the result one day. Now foran-
other aspect of the case, The day in which
this took place saw, at the close Of school
hours, the children who had left and those
who took their places---the whites and the
blacks--playing together, as usual, on the
green, under the wide spreading live oaks.
Phis sight prompted me to ask some of
the white pupils why they ran away in
the morning? The answer was; "Our
parents told us to leave if colored children
were admitted. Then | asked. "Why
do you play with colored children?" The
answer was. Because we want to-we
do so all the time" This convinced me
that there was really no antagonism between
the children Of the two races except that
which sprang from older persons, who were
possessed of the bitter prejudlces derived
from slav cry first, and IRON the war SUBJ
sequently. The next day came, with the
excitement somewhat abated, and then,
very soon, the whites, seeing no prospect
of change of policy, sent their children
back to school, and the year actually clos
ed with larger number of white pupils
in the schools than ever before.