The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-03-19
If Universal Suffrage, then Universal
Education.

So far as the southern states are con-
cerned in the appeal made to the nation
to help for time the public schools, this
may be said with perfect truth The tax
payers of the South have, as whole, not
been for twenty years able fairly to edu.
cate their own children. Thousands OF
southern whites are as poor as the negroes
themselves. As to the colleges and higher
grade schools in these states, many OF
them, during their long period of storm
and stress, have died utterly; all that sur
vived the war were crippled all are Grip.
pied now, with the exception of some of
the state institutions and one or two 9th
ers, helped, for the most part, by the genet
osity of few northern philanthropists.
Let it be granted, if it be demanded, that
there is not SO great an interest in pop
ular education in the South as in some
other parts of the country. This only
increases the force of the argument for ma
tional aid. For it increases the peril
that is, the huge mass of illittracy down
there, and diminishes the ability to meet
it, of those who are awake to the facts of
the case. Thousands of the best people
in the South do understand and feel the
danger that is upon them, but they strug.
gle against fearful odds in their efforts to
meet it. Nothing seems palmer to US
than that the South cannot, unaided,
meet the emergency that is now upon her.
A good deal is said, in answer to such
statements, that northern charity is send
ing thousands of dollars into the South.
This is true, and much more ought to be
sent. The best people there appreciate
this effort to help them. But large as
these sums are, they are utterly made
quate individuals cannot do work al.
most too great for the whole people. Our
position is, it is the duty of the whole ma
ton 10 help, for time, the states with
their heavy burdens, and it is the condi-
ton of the southern states that makes the
duty urgent. F,r in these states is con.
centrated both the densest ignorance and
the greatest poverty. Is it better for this
nation to leave these millions of illiterate
people, with ballots in their hands, than to
spend few millions of the money paid
by the people, for the benefit of the whole
people We say whole people," for in
such government as ours, plague-spot
in one state puts the health of all in
jeopardy. 1t is national duty 10 help
educate these millions of untaught chill
dren, because national interests are in
volved. 1t is national duty, because it
must be done; the states most deeply in.
volved cannot do it, and the nation car
1t is national duty, for the plain histor-
ical reason that the nation, as such, made
these millions of negroes citizens and
voters before they were prepared for their
new duties and relations, and, in the very
act of doing it, and by the method Of
doing it, largely took from those who are
now called on to prepare them for these
duties and relations, the ability to do it.
The glory of the act OF emancipation is
incomplete till those who claim its honors
have done what they can do to fit the enfran
chised people" the wards of the nation
for the positions and responsibilities
into which they have been called. The
men of the South, who have accepted the
issues of the war in good faith, may well
say with Honorable w. E. Forster, of the
English parliament, in reply to the radi
cal wing of his party: You demand uni
versal suffrage | demand universal edu
cation to 60 along with it," Universe
suffrage we have, and in the South, as tc
the maj ority of voters, illiterate suffrage
There Is no remedy for the evils of THU
state of things, whether by repression
within the states where the evil is, OF
whether from force of any kind from
without those states. There is no remedy
that leaves out the school.house and the
school-master. Ethical education there
must be most certainly, but never in thi'
world were sound ethics founded upon ig
norance and superstition. -AdUance.