The Chickasaw messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1880-1900, 1881-01-13
PablIe schsol..


I f"At'f v ttta Al NlNlEs AAMtN AiNu TIE 81
Louis Dhnslian Advocate Of the 8tl
inst We Iaye bad a great deal oi
sickly seuumentalism in the South
on the Common School question
There has been a certain aping oil
New England civilization since Lee
and Grant met under the Sour APP
pie-tree at Appomattox We have
been trying to convince the North OF
our complete reconstruction by tue
adoption OF her Common School Sys
TEN for the benefit Of the negro race.
We have swallowed any amount OF
dirt, and played lick spitIle To a su-
peua i've extent Aud what has been
accomplished
The article speaks for ITSELF 1t
needs no comment wish you to
publish it as it il, lead lines and all,
50 that the reader may readily distin
guish the comments OF the Advocate
rom the article Of White, ana the
Thanksgiving Sermon Of Nutting
No reader OF the Northern paper has
failed 20 notice the filth OF the Dl-
yorce Columns, nor the alarming
multiplicity Of aife aud husband mur
ders, suicides, fratricides, and so on
to the end If the chapter Of crimes
published in them, to the exclusion
OF more profitable reading. This
Northern appetite for these things is
insa.iable, and the newspaper is only
feeding this greed for dlth ant
crime:
"But the article which perhaps is the
most remarkable OF all is that by
Richard Grant White, who asserts,
argues and attempts to prove that
the Public School system as exist
ing in these United States has "eom-
pletely failed to accomplish the end
OF which il was established" and. as
he says, "worse than that Of mere
failure; for the result has been de-
plorable and threatens to be disas
trous."
This has been the expression Of
many minds for years past, and eve
ry additional year only serves to
deepen and strengthen the convlc-
ton. There are those now living,
who, forty years ago, predicted the
results that are now being realized
Mr. White assumes that the system
has bad 10 this country all the ad-
vantages that could reasonably been
asked, for ii has been faithfully tried
and has proved to be a failure. It
is thus he approaches the subject,
openly, fairly, and in a manly way
The article is long and elaborate
We can only furnish the readers
with some OF the more salient points.
He states, and justly too, that the
system lis supported by enormous
sums Of money taken by process of
law from the pockets Of individuals
viii he, will he, every man who has
property is compelled to pay for the
education Of other mems children,
in schools to which he may or may
not wish to send bis own children, If
he have any. The Qply possible jus
tidcation for this forcible appropria-
ton of his money is, that it is tor the
public good, for the common wealth !;
that TIE system for the support of
which his money is taken affords Sc
curity for life, liberty and property,
which without that system would be
lacking And this is the reason for
it, and the only reason that is avow-
ed. This is so 1t will not be de-
MED. The theory is that Ignorance
is the mother Of vice." the state
has a right 90 protect itself. to pre-
vent as well as to punish crime !;
therefore has the right to require the
education Of the people, that igno-
rance may be banished, vice prevent
ell and the mass Of the people eleva-
ted, thus the safety of the state may
be secured This theory Mr. White
pronOunces mot merely unsound,
but absolutely ialse" and continues,
knowledge willnot lift the masses,
except as a balloon is lifted, because
inflated with gas Mere knowledge
does not raise the quality of mems
moral natures Knowledge is light
indeed to him who can sec, and who
can think and ieel rightly as to what
he sees but mere intellectual light,
without moral warmth, will not
produce a healthy moral life, any
more than a healthy physical life can
exist 10 the light Of thousand suns
without the genial warmth Of one"
Then, in reference to the adage
Ignorance is the mother Of vice" !"
Mr. White says:
III ignorance were the mother Of
vice, aud flour Public School System
we're what it is set up to be, the fruits
Of the latter would by this time have
been manifest, plainly visible to the
whole world, in our moral advance
ment as a people, in a higher tone 10
our society, in the greater purity Of
our politics and the incorruptibiity
Of our legislators, in the increased
probity OF the executive officers Of
our state and municipal governments
and Of our corporate financial bodies,
in the superior wisdom and more
solid integrity Of our bench, in the
sobuety Of our matrons, the nodes
ty Of our maidens, in the greater
faithlulness Of wives, in the diminu
ton Of divorces, in the steady de
crease Of vice, and crime, and idle
ness, aud vagrancy, and vagabond-
age If ignorance is the mother Of
vice, aud the Public School Is the ef
icient foe Of Ignorance, the last City
years should have seen in all these
respects an improvement so great
that the admiring nations would ap
plaud aud humbly hope to initiate
But who needs to be told that 10 ell
these respects We have deteriorated !
Il is not Horace's praiseT, Of the
DAYS when he was a boy that tells Us
this. lisa matter ofpub.ic record
Il Is known to every observant man
who has lived more than thirty years
Our large towns swarm With idle,
vicious lads and young men who
have no visible means Of support
Our rural districts are infested with
tramps, 4 creature unknown to our
laLhar,s and even 70 ns In our Nonlh