Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-08-25
TERMS s2.oO IN ADVANCE.
EDUCATION FROM A POLITICAL
POINT DE VIEW.

POINT OF VIEW.
GAINESVILLE will, during a large
part of the present week, be occu-
pied with the subject of education.
1t is true that a large portion of
what will be said and done 1--WE are
writing on Monday before the exer-
cises commence) will amount to dis
cussions between teachers regarding
technical matters specially interesting
to them and only indirectly effect
ing the public generally, but many
gentlemen are to address us whose
names alone give an ample pledge |
that a broader treatment of the sub
iect will be adopted, and that Wig
orous and, we hope, a successful eff
fort will be made to interest the pub
lie on a subject which assuredly
concerns them nearly whether they
are consciously interested or not.
We will not be out of fashion. A
period when mems minds are called
to so important subject gives us
the opportunity which we cannot
afford to neglect of ventiliating some
ideas of our own on education which
we have long desired to present, but
were diffident about securing the
public ear.
We propose to approach the sub
ject from a political point of view.
In this we hardly anticipate much
competition on the part of this
weeks speakers, for from meetings
of this sort politics are generally and
wisely excluded. For ourselves we
are nothing if not political; the
work we have now for some time
been engaged in irresistibly leads us
to consider all subjects in their po-
Iitical bearings, and none have more
momentous political relations than
this.
Our two cardinal positions are that
First-The Southern people must
be universally educated.
SecOnd-The South must do it and
not leave it to the North.
When we speak of the Southern
people being educated, we mean all
of them without distinction of race
or color or sex.
We are far from saying that it is
in all cases the duty of the State to
do this by teachers appointed and
paid by itself; very far is that from
our opinion.
We would give the freest scope
and the amplest encouragement
to private enterprise, whether
put forth by individuals, or religious
denominations, or by local cOmbi-
nations for the purpose. But when
voluntary efforthas done its utmost,
experience shows us that a very
large proportion of our Juvenile
population fails to be reached by it,
and legislation has not realized its
responsibilities till all are reached.
The State has not done its work
while a single child, male or female,
black or white, is without the means
of education, or has failed to come
within its influence. "This means
Negro education," says some Bour-
bon, who has been asleep since 1861
and gets one eye half open at hear
ing of this. Yes, it means Negro
education, and that is thing which
we are going to urge and defend
with all the power we can muster
for the purpose; but we have anOth-
er point to make before we come to
that; not more important, perhaps
less so, but we take it up first be-
cause it can be disposed of more
briefly: "The street Arabs in our
great cities" What are we going
to do with them? Our experience
during the recent riots in Baltimore,
Pittsburgh and ChicagO-wherever
the resistance to law and order and
property ran such lengths that it
had to be put down by armed force,
the larger proportion of its victims
were boys from fifteen to twenty
years old. 1t seems difficult to i'm
press Americans with the danger of
this state of things, partly because
they meet with the thing in an ear
lier stage of its development than
it has been seen in elsewhere, and
partly because it is a comparatively
new thing with them and they have
not had their minds long enough
directed to. it to appreciate its
gravity.
Let it be laid down, then, as
the experience of older civilizations,
and as fact which we cannot afford
to neglect, that professional crime
existing only among adults has a
tendency to die out, but that among
Juvenile criminals it has tendency
to spread and propagate itself and
TO supply the personnel from which
the ranks of the adult criminals are
recruited.
We have written the last sentence
with our minds directed to the Grim,
inal records of London for the last
forty years, andwe are so profoundly
impressed with the importance o
the subject that we deem it best t.
give some of the facts in that his
tory. a glimpse of the evil where
it has attained a more advanced de
velopment and upon a larger scale
NAV induce men to concert meas
ures for REFRESHING it here before i
attains dimensions demanding sucl
heroic treatment as has been else
where required.
1t is just about forty years nov
since Charles Dickens published hi
wonderful fiction Oliver Twist;
a work not more admirable for 1t
trenchant humOr and vivid force Q
character than for the deep disseC
ton carried in it through the MOI
bid anatomy of London life. TIL
nl;v~nr tho ap11ntr