Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1886-03-13
EDUCATIONAL.
WHAT Prominent Citizen Of Montgomer
County Thinks About the Blair Bill.

To the Chronicle.
1t Is only by knowing and ponder
ing upon the lessons of the past, thai
we can properly shape our conduct in
the future.
While the Federal convention was
IN session in Philadelphia the Cont
mental Congress at New York passed an
ordinance lraugbt with benefit to pos.
terlty and famous in our political
annals. 1t was fitting that a body with
which so many good and great move
ments had originated, should signalize
the close Of its career by an net OF pru-
dent and liberal Craftsmanship.
The ordinance of 1889 was for the
government of the vast rich territory
northwest OF the Ohio.
"Itproyidesin the most perfect way
Tor the perpetual welfare of the inhab
hnts OF the territory named, it secures
their entire religious liberty, ample
political rights, and the means oil com
mon school educalion," Venable, Sec.
l72, page 1877.
This wise craftsmanship OF our revo-
lutionary fathers was before we had Il
president or Federal constitution. 1t
was the States acting under the articles
OF Confederation, voiced by their rep
resentative, the author of that ordi-
nance was Jefferson, it accords with his
Declaration Of Independence: "All
men are created free and equal"
Jefferson is the greatest commoner
that ever lived in any age and he was
the best friend of elementary schools
and popular education at the public ex-
pense of all his contemporaries State
and national.
In James d. McKabes Pictorial HIS
tory OF the world, page 1882, he says
The colonists of New England were
careful to provide for the future train
ing OF their children by the establish
ment OF schools to be supported at the
public expense and free to all the chill
dren within their limits. In 1857 Har-
ward College was founded in Massa-
chusetts. The Southern colonies were
less careful to provide for their young.
Venable W. S. S., page 1871, says
During the revolution only four States,
Massachusetts,, Connecticut, New Hamp-
shire and Maryland, could boast of a
system of common schools. Private
and Parochial schools were encouraged
in the South" Our pilgrim fathers
and the 2Ol Catholics who came over in
the Ark and Dove established the free
school system in America. These
schools were the rock bed of indepen
dence, the diffusion Of knowledge and
learning. Among the common masses
in those four colonies for over one
hundred pears fired the people against
British tyranny and oppression.
The ordinance of 1887 was the
bonanza OF the great Northwest, then a
vast wilderness, now great empire of
population and wealth. Look at Ohio,
she was admitted in the Union in 1903,
she has conferred Voorhees, ana Morri-
son on Indiana, Allison and Wilson
upon Iowa, Plumb upon Kansas, and
retained Sherman in the present senate.
Ohio is the home of Presidents and
great Statesmen, and pays into her free
school treasury ten million dollars
Emigration for seventy years followed
directly westward in the wake of that
ordinance.
Our territory, at the passage of this
ordinance only extended to the Missis-
sppi river. Jefferson, under the gen
eral welfare clause, acquired by pur-
purchase in 1903 from France, Louisi-
ana for fifteen millions dollars, embrac-
ing all our territory west of that river
except Texas and territory acquired by
yet the force OF that ordi-
nance has been extended to all ACQUIRED
territory, after ratification of Congress
by the States. In 1889 Congress re.
enacted the ordinance of 1887 this ac-
lion ratified the action of the original
colonial States and under the ten year
welfare clause OF our constitution makes
It incumbent on Congress to vote aid
'or education in the states The last act
Of John Tyler was his signing on the
've OF the Sd OF March, 1S45, the bill
'nexing Texas. She has never donated
my OF her domain to the government,
loes not need national aid Her sena-
ors may with some propriety not give
heir support to the bill l cannot see
low any other senator can refuse to
support Blair's educational bill.
said in an article published in the
May 8, 1884, that Blair's
educational bill was an "Oliye branch