The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1889-08-15


twenty are adrift. National aid to
education is the best help the north
and the nation can offer as relief in
this emergency. But, within the COM
ing ten years, the most progressive
Southern States, like Texas, will be
compelled to adopt the compulsory
education, labor and vagrant laws for
the direction of child life, that are
now the safety of New England, and
are being adopted by several of the
leading States of the north. This
lunacy of personal independence"
that permits a wicked, shiftless FAM
lily, rich or poor, to launch a half
dozen worthless children on COM
munity, to swell the tide of pauper-
ism, crime and all social abomina-
tons, must give place to the Amer
lean idea of the responsibility of the
State for public order and law, intel
ligence, industry and morality,
The better sort of people through
the south see clearly that these UNI
ruly elements are now the most seri-
Gus weight on its growing prosperity;
and there are gratifying indications
that this conviction will ripen to prac-
teal results i'll the years to come.
Texas is inevitably under great dis
abilities in some respects Its vast
area its sparse population of whole
regions as big as ordinary states; the
wonderfully mixed character of a new
immigration, including some of the
best and worst of our own and all
lands; the rivalry and fancied hostile
interests of different parts of its ter
ritory, that makes an influential pub
lie opinion an effective legislation for
the general good so difficult, and the
fact that Texas is still an empire
trimmed with a wilderness only dotted
with settlement, 500 miles broad,
separating it from the great
centers of American life--all
these influences cast their shad-
ow. But all the more conspicu-
Gus are the energy, patriotism, breadth
of mind and conservation of heart of
leading classes of her people, her
foremost men of business, generally
the judiciary, the leading members of
the medical and clerical profession, the
progressive churches, her foremost
teachers and educators, and especially
the glory of the new south, the great
body of intelligent, right-minded and
inspiring young women. 1t is these
classes that are chiefly entitled to the
credit of what has so well been done
during the past ten years.
We find now, instead of six, 1870
towns and cities with respectable
system of graded schools-such an
advance in eight years as no modern
state can boast. Texas now expends
$3,000,000 annually for education, only
only second to Missouri in the sixteen
states. The country people are NOV
ing, and a score of its $50 counties
are getting strong on their educa-
tional legs, though only 5000 of 5000
country schools are established in
school houses. A spirit is abroad that
in ten years more will sweep away an
other drift from the old past, and set
the children's table, spread with all
the opportunities of the coming years,
from the mountains to the gulf. These
city and village graded schools are
supplemented by new State Univer-
sity, coeducational, and perhaps the
best agricultural and mechanical state
college in the south; excellent nor
NAL schools for white and colored
youth state benevolent institutions,
some of conspicuous merit several
great institutions for the colored peo-
pie; and improving class of private
and denominations establishments ;
and q growing interest in music,
libraries and art. The Catholic
priesthood there as everywhere is
| the relentless foe of the COM
mon schools; while the large and
wealthy Hebrew population are its best
friends and one of the best elements
of the new life of the state. The col
ored people of Texas seem to us lack
ing in the superior class found in the
older southern states, probably because
the original slave population was
chiefly of the cotton and sugar plan
tation type. But there is the same
indication of progress there as every
where. While half insane politicians
and theorists are filling the air with
wild talk on the Impending race con-
flict," thereby stirring up the lower
elements of society to disorder the
southern negro is to-day going ahead
faster than any similar people under
similar circumstances since the world
began; and, in twenty years more, the
vital Grace question" will abe the sur
vival of the fttest" in the great
American Grace" between the enter
prising colored and reactionary, lower
class white youth of these sixteen
states. Education, temperance, moral
and humane Christianity, social and
political common sense, are all that il
necessary to solve "the race question
in the south.
For almost five months we have
journeyed up and down this wonder
land, wonderful in ways that must be
seen to be known, built up from 8
wilderness, in less than fifty years
into one of the most powerful of the
southern commonwealth, a country
that battles ordinary estimates Of hui
man affaira Tho thing IN do il Ia p(