Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-06-01
Dense Egaoranee-NVhy RepnbIIcan.

Dense AG2OrRnce-N ny kcpuD4tcaH.
A Boston correspondent of the New York
Tribune should be indicted for iconoclasm.
He has shattered an image that was supposed
to be too sacred for vulgar touch, and too
substantial to be proved only a hollow shell.
That image has been known as New England
education, and has for so long been held up
by admiring hands for general worship. The
ioonoclast has done his work without any re-
gard for what might be thought Of his con-
duct by those who anoint their eyes with the
salve of Yankee perfectness. He tells that
fAny one who has visited the inland towns
of New England, especially those a little re-
moved from the railroads, knows that they
are lamentably deficient in educational facili-
ties The inhabitants. moreover, are not able
to provide any better facilities, and, what is
still worse, they have, as a rule, little desire
for anything better. The district schools are
lacking in everything needful for teaching
even the rudlments of anything beyond the
simplest branches. The teachers, changed
every term, perhaps, are mlserably paid, and
as a rule are incapable OF anything beyond
the most elementary instruction. As regards
methods of teaching calculated to develop
the reasoning faculties, they know nothing
about them. And yet, the wretched instruc
ton of these district primary schools is all
the education ever received by many, per-
haps by most New England children of the
DAY. The tayeEed tew q baye the bs EN-
the education of the majority is the rudest
and most elementary sort. A clergyman,
settled In one of these country towns, was
surprised to learn that the groom of one of
the first couples presented for marriage was
unable to sign his own marriage application
Ia requirement of New Hampshire law), but
was required to make his mark as aHkwardly
as the most recent Importation from the EN-
erald isle. And this man was born, brought
up and educated in the town in which he
then lived, and his name was the family
name of one OF the early settlers Of the
State. The same clergyman during the civil
war was somewhat annoyed, soon after his
settlement, because his Boston daily paper
came TO him in soied aud crumpled condi-
ton. Inquiry revealed the fact that he was
the only subscriber in the town to a
daily paper, and the postofice loungers, dis
covering that daily was coming into town,
had persuaded the postmaster to take 1t from
the mail and allow it to be read by them be-
fore delivery. These incidents occurred in a
town not over forty miles from Boston. The
Inhabitants were chissy farmers, although in
winter every farmer either made shoes or
built carriages. With the exception of few
maid servants, there was not foreign-born
person within its limits. The mental condl-
ton of the men who grow up and remain
amid these surroundings is not an enviable
one. The much-talked-of intelligence of the
native New Highlander Is often an imaginary
quantity, if the New Highlander has had only
the advantages Of his native town" That is
the story told of the dense ignorance of New
England by Republican for Republican
paper. Is it any wonder that that section ls
so thoroughly partisan Republican? 1t is an
Impossibihty almost for the light of political
intelligence to make any impression upon 1t.