The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-09-17
TEMPORARY ABANDONMENT FOR
THE SAKE OF REFORM.

When the hold of foul ship is to be fumi
gated for distinction, the crew and passen
gers first leave it. When q house is to b
renovated, repaired, cleansed, painted ant
whitewashed, the occupying tenants fine
temporary quarters elsewhere. Evacuation
ought to precede any general overhauling.
is this plan which we have repeatedly urget
respecting our polluted public schools Speak
ing for the highest and most enlightened
portion of citizens, we have recommended
the honorable white teachers to throw
up their situations and withdraw. Ano
we have advised all parents of white chill
dren to take them out of school, This is mo-
an individual suggestion of the BULLETIN, mol
is it made unadvisedly. 1t represents the
! sober judgment Of the best friends Of educa.
ton and of those who set the highest value
upon moral purity. 1t need not be said that
this abandonment is to be only temporary,
not final; that its intent is to benefit the
public schools, not to break them down; that
it is to be the precursor of thorough
reform and restoration, and not the Inaugural
protest and declaration which the people will
follow up with such action as may be deemed
appropriate. This withdrawal seems to us a
necessary prelude to any further efficient
action. Our citizens would appear little in
consistent in holding mass meetings to pro-
test against mixed schools if they suffer their
children to attend such schools. Unless our
white inhabitants as body have made up
their minds in unalterable and determined
opposition to the co-education Of the races,
sporadic cases Of indignant remonstrance will
be of little avail
We should prefer to suspend our comments
on this unpleasant subject if the abuses CON-
planned Of are to be tolerated until political
changes bring about change in the admins
tration of our public schools. An abominable
outrage, joined with insults, has been perpe-
trated by the Board of School Directors To
obtain redress without showing due resent
ment seems to us impossible Ii our citizens
acquiesce, the aggressions of the past will be
and they will be followed
by other and greater aggressions.
Audacity and aggression are the
of the man whose
will more than that of any other controls and
modiies the action of this colored body Give
him and his colored majority an inch and
he will demand an ell. Let him install one
negro teacher over white boys and he will put
in fifty more. Let him mix one school and
he will mix them all. He leans to hybridity
IN everything. He hates the whites en- mlasse;;
Did and young. The body of the colored peo-
pie are averse to the mingling of races in
schools or elsewhere, and this fact is we'll
known to Pinchback. to his colored and white
,oadjutors on the board, to Brown, who
holds the position of Superintendent by no
shadow of right, to each member of the pre-
ended State Board of Education, and to all
he members of the greedy school clique.
All these aim at the retention of their
offices, at the promotion of friends and favor
tes of both sexes, and at the manipulation of
he school money. The more wicked and
cunning among them have deeper design,
which is to engender new hatreds and to pro-
luce new causes for strife and collisions.
But the good citizens Of New Orleans wish |
o thwart them in their villainous purposes,
nd to enter upon such course of action as
7ill most surely and most speedily abate this
nuisance and colossal oppression.
The abandonment of the schools for brief
eriod seems to be absolutely necessary as a
preliminary step.