The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1880-09-09
PRESIDENTIAL TICKET.
Popular Education.

There is no question which should more
engage the attention of the public than pop
ular education. 1t is the ground work of
our Republican institutions and these can
never approach perfection until popular in
telligence is so universally ditfused as to
make each factor in government acquainted
with the duties and responsibilities of citi-
Zenship. We cannot, without doing inius-
tice to a sense of duty, ignore the demands
of the illiterate and poor upon the liberal
recognition of the educated and wealthy land
it will be idle for any one asking the suff-
RACES of the people to attempt to escape
from a fair and candid expression of his sen
timents on this subject.
President Hayes. in recent speech at
Canton, Ohio, reviewed the question from
a national stand point, just as Hon. A. II.
Ii. Stuart did, not long since, in an able
paper, prepared by him for the considera-
ton of the Peabody Educational Board on
this subject. In that paper Mr.. Stuart very
clearly established that it was within the
PlONlISC VI UuO SOfC1ll1 lO lCSS Gllil
it was its duty, to encourage general sys-
tenn of education throughout the Southern
States just as Mr.. Hayes has argued the prop
osition in his remarks at Canton. The ,Presi-
slaveholding States, under the system of
slavery, education was denied to the col
ored people. and the education of the non
slaveholding white people was much neg
lected. By reason of this state of things in
1870 more than four millions of people in
the South, of school age, and over that
age, were unable to read and write. and
more than three-quarters of million of
voters were too illiterate to prepare or even
to read their ballots. This evil, says the
President, is not rapidly diminishing. By
the latest available statistics it appears that
in 1873 the total school population, white
and colored. in the late slaveholding States,
was 5,lS7 ,5S4, and that only 2,710,096 were
during that year enrolled in any school,
leaving 2, All. 46S-almost two and half
millions-of the young who are growing
up without the means of education. Citi-
Zenship, and the right to vote, continues
the President, were conferred upon the
colored people by the Government and the
people of the United States. 1t is. there
fore, the sacred duty, as it is the highest
interest, of the United States to see that
these new citizens and voters are fitted by
education for the grave responsibility which
has been cast upon them. He then quotes
from statement of DR.. Ruffner to show
that Virginia, and the Southern States, are
not in condition practically to meet the
demands for a proper education of those
who have been thus thrown upon their
care, and that it is the duty of the govern
ment to make provision for general sys-
TEN of education. which shall embrace the
illiterate and poor of the States and Terri
tories, as we'll as the immigrants, whose Off
spring may be without that advancement
essential to good and useful citizenship.
The Presidents views. we have no doubt,
have been to some degree inspired by the
able and instructive discussion of this whole
subject in the paper prepared by Mr.. Stuart.
and adopted by the Board of Trustees of
the Peabody Fund. of which both Mr..
Stuart and President Hayes are members
The article of Mr.. Stuart and the speech of
the President, are the first elaborate discus
sions of the question we have seen. Mr..
Hoar, of Massachusetts,. several years ago,
addressed the House of Representatives on
the subject, and introduced bill embrace
ing the principle or policy, advanced in the
paper to which we have referred, but as
yet no definite result has been reached
The reference to this important matter i n
public speech by the President OF the
United States will, most assuredly, attract
to it more than ordinary attention, and
make it a question appropriate for the con-
sideration of the people in determining
their ballots for representatives in Con-
gress.
President Drehr, of Roanoke College,
introduced his very instructive and erudite
inaugural address in assuming the respon-
sibilities and duties of that position, with
pertinent quotation from similar adj
dress delivered twenty-five years ago by
the first President of the College, the la
duty of one generation to another is its ed
ucation. The preceding generation has it
n its power to determine whether the sue
ceeding one shall be intelligent, moral, en-
ergetic and benevolent, or ignorant, de-
PRAYED, indolent and selfish. Each of these
opposite characteristics is mainly the result
of the educational arrangements employed.
1t remains for us to determine, before we
close the career of life, whether we will ed
ucate our successors to be better men than
we are better qualified to incur the respon-
sibilities of life, to possess superior wis
dom and more refined humanity"
Mr.. Jefferson, with marvellous sagacity
and forethought, declared nearly hundred
yeare ago that free schools were an essen
tial part-one of the columns, as he ex
pressed it of the Republican edifice, and
that without instruction free to all, the
sacred flame of liberty could not be kept
burning in the hearts of Americans"
Mr.. Madison said, almost sixty years ago,
"a popular government WlCIOuC popular IN
formation or the means of acquiring it, is
but prologue to a farce or tragedy, or
perhaps BOTH"
These sentiments were not the utterances
of demagogues. appealing to the passions
and the prejudices of the people, but the
results of the philosophical reflections of
statesmen and patriots who had and have
passed beyond the mere desire for public
place, and calmly studied the nature of our
institutions. the source of their power and
the agency for their preservation. President
Hayes and Mr.. Stuart have merely enlarged
upon the general ideas expressed by Jeffer-
son. Madison and DIR. Bittle, and given the
thought practical direction so that its de-
velopment and application to the general
good may be attained through the only
means for their mplishment-th Con-
gress of the United States.
We believe it to be the duty of Congress
so formulate system of education for the