National Republican., 1883-01-04
AID no COMMON SCHOOLS.
What Congress May DO, and What Is
NCedrnl no BE Done,


Reu. C. c. Painter.
There are in the United States 6,239,958
persons, ten years Of age and over, who can
not write their names. More than three
fourths of these are found in the old slave
states More than one-half of the whole num-
ber arc colorcd. If the general government
should provide means to sustain school for
this class alone, for three months in the year
at a salary for tho teachers of $50 per month
for q school of thirty pupils. it would require
the sum of $1s,719,05s OF this $11,439, $40
would go into the old slave states $9,1S7, 1922
because of colored illiterates. leaving $i,961,-
657 for the whites, and $3.50, 439 would go to
the other states for both black and white illit-
crates
In 1879 North Carolina raised for common
schools a sum which would give $50 per an
mum to each school of thirty iliterates mot
school children)) How long it would take
that state to make intelligent and safe voters
of her citizens at that rate is q matter for
sober reflection, not alone to the politician,
who remembers what the electoral vote of
that state is for president, but to every citi-
zen.
If the government should enable North
Carolina to keep up her schools for four
months at fair wages, instead of one month,
as at present. at such a salary as can secure
only an inferior teacher, it would be some
thing, but not all that is needed. If such a
sum should be given, Mississippi would re-
ceive as her share of it 81, 1,119,603; New Jer-
sey, with nearly the same population, would
receive S159,7l7. But $959, 500 of Mississippi's
share would be because of colored illiteracy,
leaving nearly the same amount for white
illiterates which New Jersey would receive,
which shows conclusively that it Is because
of the negro chiefly this help is needed, and
for him, as voter, the nation at large Is re-
sponsible. In considering the disparity be-
tween the sum that would go TO the south
and the new states of the northwest respect
lively, not only must we remember the negro
as factor in the problem, but also these
facts: By the ordinance of 1767 by which
| Virginia ceded the great northwest territory to
| the general government on such terms-AIr
Webster said, in his great speech on the Foote
resolution-as " fixed forever the character of
| the population of the vast regions northwest
of the Ohio by excluding from them invol-
untary servitude, and impressed on the soil
itself, while it was yet Wilderness an in
capacity to sustain any other than freemen." /"
And six days after, In his reply to Hayne, he
said also, that " it set forth and declared it to
be high and binding duty of the government
itself to support schools and advance the
means Of education on the plain reason that
religion, morality, and knowledge are neces-
sary to good government" By this ordinance
of cesson, Virginia stipulated that the pro-
ceeds from this vast territory should be con-
sidered as a common fund for the use and
benefit of such as have become or may become
members of the confederation or federal
alliance of states. The other states claim
ing unsettled lands within their territory
also ceded their titles to the general
government, which became possessed OF
the whole. From time to time Congress
has made most liberal grants of this land tC
the new states for school purposes, so that
Minnesota, for example, has realized from hon
share, or has the land from which at the
same rate of sale she can realize q fund OF
$20,000,000 for educational purposes, while the
old states have not had a dollar excepting the
share in the grant for the endowment Of ag
ricultural colleges by act of 1862, in which
the new states as well rs the old shared
ratably. 1t may be truly said, then, tha
every instinct of self preservation demands
that the unquestionable right Of the genera
government shall be exercised in using the
means at its disposal to meet the great DANCE
which threatens us from the presence anC
power of ignorant voters and that every sen
timent Of justice to the negro himself as thu
subject of many wrongs and the possibl,
ayenger of them, and to thestates themselves
requires that governmental aid shall be giveI
to the common schools of the country,