Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1890-11-01
A LATE CONVERT.
Democratic Love for Free Schools of Re-
cent Date.
From the Chicago Tribune.

cent Date.
From the Chicago Tribune.
Congressman Mills says in his speech
at Racine:
The school house was created in the
state of Wisconsin when that territory
was ceded to the United States by Viz
ginia. Where does the Republican party
get this sudden affection for the school
house? Let it carry out the old Demo
cratic doctrine that was laid down in the
ordinance of 1889; The tree schoolhomse
was IN full operation long before the Re-
publican party was formed; it will be in
full operation long after the Republican
party is dead. 1t was part of the funda-
mental government.
Wisconsin schoolhouses owe nothing
to Virginia. state which was IN favor
of the education of the GLASSES" but
not of the "masses," and practiced it.
| The first schoolhouses of Wisconsin
were built by men from the New En-
gland states; and the teachers who
taught in them came from those sec
tons, and not from the country south
of the Potomac. The sixteenth section
of each township was reserved for edu-
cational purposes by the ordinance of
1887, but that clause was inserted at the
request of Massachusetts men accus-
toned to free schools for century, not
of NirginianS who had never known
them.
1t is true that the confederation which
existed when the ordinance of 1877 was
adopted was older than the Republican
party, for the principles of that party
were not born till the constitution Of
the United States was adopted, and a
nation took the place of league Of
states" When the constitution went
into force Republicanism came into
| being, with Washington as its
great leader. That the Democratic par
ty existed few years earlier, as eXem-
plitied in the articles of confederation,
is quite likely. Doubtless it was then
and there that it became so badly poi
soned with it's anti-national doctrines
which ripened into bloody secession
in 1861. But if Democracy did get its
! breath of life from that antiNational
| instrument, the free school existed long
| before it, as early as the first resolves Of
| the general court of Massachusetts in
| l641 ordering the establishment of a
| school in each town ''to the end that
| learning may not be buried in the
! graves Of our forefathers."
| The conversion of the Democratic
/ party to the cause of free schools is Of
/ late date. 1t was against them in the
| South before the war; it has sought
! frequently to cripple them in the North.
So it is amazingly impudent for this
Texan to talk about the educational in
| debtedness of Wisconsin and any other
state to Virginia. 1t has always been
the North that has sent the school
master and the schoolma'am to the
South to ditfuse the light and blessings
of education among the people.
| 1t is true that Virginia made a cession
of her shadowy claim to the soil of Wis
consin as part of the territory north
west of the Ohio-a cession which, by
the way, it was practically forced to
make. But whatever Justice there may
have been in its claim to ownership of
Southern Indiana and Illinois, derived
from the occupation of Kaskaskia and
Nincennes by Gen. Clark, its claim to
the territory which is called Wisconsin
now was worthless.
Tobacco and Civilization
Prot, Shaler in Scribner
The development of the American
colonies, their rapid growth in the cen
=, i. IL