News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-09-24
The School House and the South.

the matte Boston Journal,
The School House and the South.
Rev. A. D. Mayo, whose education
al journeyings and duties in the South
ern States give him notable opportu-
mites to learn the practical workings
of the new education in the new south,
has recently sent out concise state
ment of what he has seen and knows
upon this great subject. During the
reconstruction period, the North and
the nation put some $4,000, 900 into
the educational work of the South,
and at the close of that lurid period
of political, social and financial trans
itions, the southern commonwealth
all were ready to invest in systems OF
public schools, old Virginia leading.
Mr.. Mayo sums up the situation OF
to-day when he says that every south
ern State "by the deliberate action OF
its own people, without compulslon
from without, has established sys-
tenn of free education for children OF
DO h races and endorsed the whole
American idea of the support OF the
secondary and higher instruction oy
the commonwealth" With 6,OOO,0 0O
children in the South, not one-third
of whom are under proper schooling
influences, the task Of per%ecting this
system of f: zee schools. Will test the
mettle of the States to its utmost.
The sentiment in favor of schools is
among the higher classes, the body of
the people being blind to its virtues:
"When southern school mistress, !"
SAYS Mr.. Mayo, "steps upon her plat
form, she too often stands an isolat-
ed missionary in community without
libraries or habits of reading" 1t is
therefore quite within the probahili-
ties that the writ is correct when he
says the efforts of the South to push
free schools and higher grades OF
teaching have been equaled ''by no
people in human history" But with
out any comparative anatomy of ed
ucational endeavors, it will be at least
admitted, even by those of the North,
now happily few in number, who
speak of southern progress with the
cool inuendoes of sectional prejudice,
that the SIT, 100000 paid last year
by the So b Sites is no unmean-
ing sign of substantial progress. MIR.
Mayo favors congressio lal aid for the
South, the encouragement of in
dustrial schools to supplement the
common school system, aud the aid OF
northern men of fort ne, the practical
suggestion being made that $500 CIV
en- to the public school authorities in
any southern locality under suitable
conditions will do more for the educa-
ton of colored and poor white chill
dren the twice that sum spent in
sending a TO 'gn teacher to open a
rival school there.
Mr.. Mayo has very pleasing pen
chant for the picturesque grouping OF
the details of any subject that inter-
ests him, and this striking passage
may be added as an authoritive trans
cript of what may be seen in the
South:
More than 20 years ago one of the
bravest of the yor Ig commanders in
the national army, Col. Shaw, of the
city of New York, fell at the head of
his igade of colored soldiers in
desperate assault on Fort Wagner,
during the siege of Charleston. He
was buried with his me and his body
was never found. After the C ose of
the war the families II New Yo X and
Boston connected with the fallen SOL
der, built school-house in Charles
ton for colored children, established
the Shaw school, and for Sc 1eral
years supported it as private benef-
icence. The building was virtually
given to the city, ard all the funds of
the corporation passed over for its en-
largement. Last April, for the third
time, l visited the city, the guest of
it's government. / saw that nowhere
In this country was there a more
thorough and honest purpose to give
these people fair elementary educa-
ton than in the city that first threw
out the flag of revolt. There are sew
eral large schools, supported from the
north, which were visited. But the
most interesting of all were the two
great free schools, containing 2000
colored children, many of their teach
ers representing the old respectable
families of tie city. My last visit
was to the Shaw school, now collec-
ton of several hundred children, with
white and colored teachers the prin-
cipal, like the city superintendent, an
officer in the confederate army. /
was invited to the great hall to listen
to some exercises by the higher class
es, prepared as understood, for their
coming commencement exhibition.
The first was a recitation, by 100 of
the older pupils, from Longfellow's
Building of the Ship:
Sail or. o Ship of State,
Sail on, o llon. strong and great!
Then boy as black as night, George
Washington by name, was summoned
from his seat to recite pathetic po-
EN-, 1.-THE Dying Soldier" The poem
was most touching story of peril
and suffering, even unto death, for
tho savino of tho Union Az tho COL