The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1885-07-09
And. further. we must insist that

And, further, we must lnSlSI GuaG
Justice and interest alike demand
the most generous and persistent
expenditure for education in the
very lowest strata OF society. There
is little danger that the children of
the well-to- and superior class
viii! not enjoy the best Opportuni-
ties; but the one class no state can
afford to neglect is that for which
the majority cares little, and which,
so often, has no wise regard for IL
self. To cast upon the ignorant
mass of either race the responsibili-
ty of educating itself is simply to
declare that a state can get on safe
ly with such an element perpetually
increasing at the bottom of society.
1t Is like the foolish householder
who should turn in disgust from
the foul cesspool under his chamber
window, waiting till it should puri-
fy itself, while he lavished his
thousands on the adornment of the
drawing room and the luxuries of
his table. In due time a CHASTITY
dCtuOA nOuAh llOL1l lDAO
lected abyss and stalk through his
palace, shifting the dearest house
hold treasures with disease and
death, and the glory of mansion
would be changed to a charnel
house.
And we must realize that the
most valuable education we can
give these ignorant masses, of every
sort, is the most stringent training
in that intelligent industry, rigid
economy and public spirit which
will bring out their children upon
the high ground of worthy citizen
ship. 1t will be good for the south
ern colored man to know that he is
not to remain the perpetual ro-
nance of Christendom; less and
less, every year, will be bolstered up
by charity from abroad, and more,
as the years go on, will be forced to
take his own place and make his
way, in American style, toward the
front. American citizenship can
not always mean prolonged child
hood, or American suffrage the vot-
ing of ignorant masses on the most
complex problem of government
now set upon earth. The best
friends of our colored people will
now tell them that the highway to
genuine "civil rights is the open
front door of solid American man
hood. The intelligent, Industrious,
and reliable portion of the freedom,
to-day, see more money and are
better able to face a just taxation
than the people of New England for
the first fifty years of colonial life.
The same habit of conscientious
economy, intelligent industry and
persistent expenditure on the upper
story of society that brought out
that people, amid the stern sur
rOundings of those early years,
would land our southern freedmen
and the lower masses of the white
race, in half the time, in a position
that would provoke the envy Of the
majority of mankind for education.
Taxation is even more the privilege
of the poor than the duty of the
rich; for no national wealth can
long endure the strain of a shiftless,
childish, dependent lower class, that
swallows up everything thrown into
it as the all-devouring grave shuts
out the light of lite.
The states of this Union where
education is most gloriied, and
where the people are best satisfied
with its results, are those in which
a large proportion of the school
funds are raised by local taxation
Massachusetts has no state school
tax and distributes only a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars yearly
from state funds, while her local as
sessment last year reached the sum
of five millions seven hundred
thousa and dollars, raised by towns
and cities, which assessed them
selves from one to four and a half
mills upon the dollar for schools
alone. Every northern state, with
but two except ons, raises the major
part of Its school tax by home as
sessment: Pennsylvania and Iowa,
the whole; New York, Ohio and Ill
inois, four dollars to one. OF the
southern states the majority endeav-
or to support schools chiefly by
state funds or general taxes, and
the schools in the southern states
are satisfactory just in proportion to
the local consent to taxation. In my
journeying through the south, am
the perpetual witness to the sharp
contrast between two sorts of COM
munities in the same state and even
neighborhood. One town refuses
to assess the local tax and struggles
on with an inferior public school,
good enough to destroy the private
schools, too poor to satisfy anybody
and the whole educational problem
is muddle from which nobody can
find the way out. Another town, no
more favored in means, assesses a
competent tax, establishes graded
schools for both races, Utilities the
best teachers in the place, and finds
itself, in six months, in the most en-
thusiastic state of satisfaction
about the children. 1 have never
seen little cities, of five Thousand
people, anywhere, in such state of
harmony and honest pride and
happiness as scores of these towns,
from Washington to San Antonio.
And nowhere does "bread cast
upon the waters" bring so quick re
turn in kind as in a town whose
people, by heroic effort, have unit
ed to support the elementary edu-
cation for every child. The cities
of Nashville and Atlanta, in ten
years, have gained in reliable popu-
lation and increase in valuation
enough to pay, twice over, all their
expenditure for schools. The best
"boom" now in a good southern
county town is a first rate system
of public schools, crowned by a
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