The daily state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 188?-1891, 1890-03-06
CITY SCHOOLS AND ROCKS
schools in City and Country Ought IN
Teach History Correctly.
Especial Cor. of STATE CYRONTc1r1

Especial Cor. of STATE CHRoNIcLE1
PIrTsBoRO, n. G., March 5, 1901
Send you for publication wise and
tlmel letter from Maj. Finger. | think
the time has come for an earnest protest
against growing evil. Publish the
letter now, and allow me a little
space III the near future for few re-
marks and observations of my own. Mai.
Fingers reply will sufficiently indicate
the character of the letter l wrote him.
A. H. MERRITT.
OFFICE OF SUPERINTENDENT OF
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,
RALEIGH, N. c., Feb. 90, 1890.
SUPT. A. e. MERaITT,
DEAR SIR: l have your favor of 18th
inst reply as follows:
l. Nearly all of the city public schools
nave specia! acts of Assembly which put
them solely under the control of Local
Boards. The State Superintendent has
10 supervision of them as to courses of
study, textbooks, nor in any other par
tlcular. While the law does require all
the public schools in the State to use the
state list textbooks. ! think some city
boards disregard this requirement and
40 not consider it applicable to them.
The County Boards of Education do
aPporton to these city schools a part of
the general county school funds, and the
city boards and teacher rs are required to
make the usual statistical reports to the
County Superintendents and such reports
to the State Superintendent as he NAV
call for; but these reports are simply for
information and do not imply any con-
troll on the part of the County or State
superintendent.
2. There are many school histories
now used in the State which, in my jadg-
ment, are not proper books to be used
in our schools. have examined many
school histories written by northern au-
thors since the war and before the war,
and have not found even one that did
not do injustice to the South either by
positively false statements or by omis-
slonS. For instance, the last copy of
3arnes' History that | examined con-
tanned no account OF the battle of Kings
Mountain except FEW LINES IN FOOT
NOTE nothing at all in the TEXT OF THE
BOOK about this very important battle.
90 not think that you will find any
histories OF Northern authorship that are
at all free from such omissions and that
do not in this way fail to give credit to
the South for the part she performed
in securing our independence Not only
so, but when they come to the late war
they are particularly unjust and most of
them teach that the Southern people
wfo were in and supported the Confed-
crate armies were rebels Or traitors. 1t
is to my mind simply remarkable that
such books are tolerated in our schools
by teachers, public or private, or by their
patrons Holmes and Stephens Histo-
rles are on our State list Of textbooks,
and it seems to me they ought to be
used to the exclusion of such books as 1
have alluded to. Teachers and school
boards have it in their power to do much
to have history correctly written, by re-
fusing to use books that do injustice to
the South. 1t seems that fathers and
mothers concern themselves but little as
to the character of the histories their
children use. AS rule they arc con-
tent to allow the teachers and school
boards to select the books without any
examination or criticism on their part.
This being so, the greater is the respon-
sbilty upon teachers and boards.
Very respectfully,