Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-12-20
senator rsa.rey.s educational Rlrl
Nasbville American.

senator HsaIIey's Educational Bill.
Nashville American.
The bill introduced by Senator
Bailey, to give to certain eolored
schools the Interest on the money
earned as pensions by colored sol
diers and covered back into the
Treasury because the claimants
could not be found, will meet with
general approval. The South needs
nothing so much, in the race with
the rest of the world, as that trained
Judgment and aptitude which nave
given the United States the advant-
age of all Europe. The negro is now
and, so far as we can see, always to
be u citizen of the United States and
of the South, with whose conditions
ne is not likely To grow permanent
~ dissatisfied. 1t is our proper part
TO do the best we can ana TO make
the most we can out of him. This
will be best done by giving him
education, and his past few years
have shown capacity the people of
the south did not expect. His first
training, from barbarisn, TO the
state in which freedom found him,
was under the Southern people in
what was, no doubt, not only the
best, but the only school-slaverys
They will do we'll to continue the
schooling, both for their own and
his advantage. If the established
schools are not all as we would wish
them, they are all we have, and we
have, and we have left the field to
be titled by others. We believe they
are, in the main, doing the best they
can. The time is at hand when real
or faneitd political bias will be Ofno
Consequence. They have hard
| field to tiii-the education of those
who lack the most essential part of
training preliminary to education
| home training. To build education
upon a foundation which lacks this
important fundamental training
must be a task. requiring long years
experience, acquired by repeated
failure and the observation OF par
| tiaI success. The best that can be
done-the material lacking this
| home Trainings to give such as is
/ possible, to try to instil higher ain
| billions and higher aims for higher
| life, which shall yet avoid that
| reaching after the unattainable,
which has been the bane of the new
| iy-Ireed ana enfrancnised negro. 1T
| is proposed to endoW these existing
colleges with this fund, $3.50, 900, the
| principal to be retained in the
| Treasury, as is done in the case of
! the -Smithson fund, the interest to
| be paid the institutions in the fixed
ratio. Thus is to be provided a high
! er education, which is to keep up
the supply OF teachers for the lower
or common schools. The one work
| is essential to the other. We are
continually met in urging education
for the negro, by directors who can
point out the very apparent diff
ficulties, and yet who have nothing
to proposa-such men "a DIR. Dab
ney, OF Virginia, one Of the ablest
and purest divines, man of
| thorough conYictIOnS-the greatest
| force in this country that has got
| itself faced about and going back
ward. They have nothing to pro-
| pose-they would stand still-and
yet these very men are guilty OF
daily inconsistency in their efforts
to reclaim the heather, in which
they use secular instruction. The
plan inaugurated comprehends both
the two in the llege-thesecu
in the common school. The bill in
troduced by Senator Bailey gives
substantial aid to an established and
fairly-well working machinery. I'm
! less we use both agencies, the COM
/
school, we have to sit down and
con fess impotence to deal with one
of the profoundest problems of our
| day and cOuntry-a problem affect
! ing the future of both races. Look
at the question as we will, it pre-
sents grave difficulties, and it may
be that the profoundest insight and
the deepest convictions will pause
| in despair where those with Il more
superficial view, sustained by hope,
| go ahead and accomplish results. 1t
| is certainly true that the men most
engaged in the work seem to be
least impressed by difficulties, APP
parent, and not at all solved. These
/ difficulties are apparent, especially,
| to those who best know the. negro,
and any plan is as yetsOmeWhat eX-
perimental. We believe the provis-
ions of the bill introduced by Senator
Bailey will be generally approved,
especially in the South, where,
whatever views may be held as 10
the present capacity of the negro to
make a sad sort of thing of civil
government, there is widespread
desire to try his capacity for inn
provenent to the full. 1t is a pro-
! per measure, for the negro earned
| the money in labor which was not
of his making or choosing, and It is
well to give him and the rest of US
| the benefit of it in an effort at his
Improvement.