Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-07-19
Southern Education.
Atlantic Monthly.

There is much to encourage all
thoughtful and patriotic men in the
present attitude and activities of the
people of the Southern States rela-
i've to education. The increase OF
popular interest and of accomplished |
results is everywhere manifest and
vital. All educational work In the
South, whatever the obstacles and
III this field may
be, has the advantage of a constantly
rising tide, and of being done on
widening lines of advance. 1t is
time of growth, of new undertakings,
more comprehensive plans, and, gen
orally, of increasing revenues and re
sources of all kinds. The very fact
that our educational work has been
going on so long, and that
our educational institutions are
established so firmly and
securely, is, in most Northern COM
munitles, reason for somewhat
languid popular feeling in regard to
education. The machinery runs
itself" But in the South there is a
newness about much of the educa~
tional work now going on, which
gives opportunity for personal ear
nestness and self-sacriuce; and for
the development of popular enthu-
siasm, and thus the situation
has its advantages as well as It's dis
advantages.
| observed also, nearly everywhere,
a feature of great interest and in
portance in the fact that the new ed
ucation in the South is tending to
become more practical and industrial
than is the education which is obs
tanned in most of the schools
of the Northern States The South
ern people are compelled, by the
peculiar conditions and circumstan-
ces OF life Ill then communities, to
enquire more closely than is usually
done Ill the North what kind of
knowledge and instruction will be
most useful to the young in after life.
! The new education III the Southern
States Is, in many instances, better
suited to the needs of the people
there than is the average Northern
school education to the needs of the
masses here.
/ OF course there is still vast
amount of popular ignorance and in
/ difference almost everywhere iii the
/ South: there are many incompetent
J teachers; and there Is Il general dis
1 enlargement of inadequate revenues
/ for pressing needs. But, considers
/ ing the recent extreme impoyerish
ment of the country, and the violent
/ displacement Of the old system OF
social life and of the institutions OF
all these States, the results actually
ministratiOn Of new systems Of
popular education are remarkable
and highly gratifying. The Peabody
fund has produced immeasurable
benefits IN the Southern States. ]
visited many OF the men who are
chiefly concerned III it's administers
ton, and it is evider that this work
Is generally IL the hands of gentle
men who are admirably fitted for its
management, and that the proceeds
of this endowment are distributed
with scrupulous fidelity, and with a
wise perception of the chief needs
of the time.
The foremost men in the Southern
States-I mean those who are fore
mostin business, and IN the social and
moral life and activities Of the locaI
communicative everywhere taking
up the subject of education for tht
negroes i'll a serious and business
like spirit. I did not find anywhere
except in Southeastern Texas, any
manifestation of prejrdice agains
negro education, or feeling Of jeal'
ousy regarding the Advancement o
the colored people in intelligence o.
capab' 'ty for solicitation. TIL
Southern people are divided il
opinion rega ding the capacity of tn
negroes for continued or permanen
Intellectual Improvement; some 0
them holding that, while thu
negroes readily acquire the rudi
ments of knowledge on account O
their initiative ability, they are muc
inferior to the white people in what
ever requires sustained and compile
mental activity This is probabl
true, but no such rule can be of uni
versal application, and Southern me
say everywhere that many individual
among the colored people are capabl
: of using probably the best educa
tional facilities that can be place
within their reach, andthat it is nee
essary for the welfare of the whit
people that the negroes should b
educated as fast and as fully as pos
sible.
Many of the Southern people al
pear to me to be rather sanguin
and extravagant in their expectation
regarding the results of popular il
tellectual enlightenment They tai
very much as Horace Mann and hi
fellow laborers talked, when the
were beginning the intellectual rt
vival which led to the establishment
of the New England public schoc
system They will of course find, q
J has been shown in the Norther
States, that even after the publ
: schools have educated the mass G
the people, other problems of sc
rious nature remain.
A Female Faster.