The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1893-05-06

tenn, though Of but recent origin,
has already been established on al
flrm basis In that region. While
there are many well-to-do colored
people in the Southern States, the
great majority are without proper
ty; and Mr.. Gable will hardly con-
tend that the grown-up colored
population of 6,OO0,0OO is capable of
bearing even u considerable share
of the expense in providing for the
education of 100000 colored
children.
When it comes to details, Texas
has appropriated large public
domain for the maintenance of
common schools, in which the
whites and blacks participate on
equal terms. The official reports
of Texas show that in no county of
Texas do the white Taxpayers con-
tribute less than IS per cent to-
ward the colored schools. In some
counties of Louisiana the whites
pay five times as much school tax
as the colored people, and do not
receive one-third of the funds.
During the reconstruction period
little or no attention was given to
the cause of public education; as
the carpet-bag rulers of the South
were too busy with schemes for
their own ACKNOWLEDGMENT. In
Georgia, for example, the number
Of children of school age in 1872
was 277,1OO; and the average daily
attendance was $500 while the total
expenditure for school purposes
was $135,000. In 1890 the number
of children enrolled in the public
schools of Georgia was 342,562 and
the average daily attendance was
23O,3s4. The total expenditures
were $959,S51. Nearly all the
Southern States show equally sub
stantial signs of progress; and there
is not one of them that betrays the
criminal neglect of the education
of the colored youth with which
they have been charged by Mr..
Cable.
When the Southern people were
menaced with the Force bill by
Congress, bills were introduced in
one or two Southern State Legisla-
lures to provide that the school
taxes paid by the white inhabitants
should be exclusively applied to
the education of white children,
and the taxes paid by the blacks
should be exclusively devoted to
the schooling of the black children,
But, so far from becoming laws,
these measures hardly received
serious consideration. The South.
ern people emphatically declared
that it was the interest of the
whole population, white aud black.
to give all its youth the best posi-
BILE common school education.
They fully recognized that only by
means of good schools could the
colored inhabitants become qualiti-
ed for the proper discharge of the
duties of citizenship, and that the
white people should tax themselves
to the extent Of their ability for
the cause of general education.
The scheme of national system
of education has not yet been Who'll
ly abandoned by its authors and
advocates, Notwithstanding it's
signal defeat in Congress a few
years ago. This and similar
schemes are sure to crop out from
time to time under the centraliz-
ing tendencies of the Government.
Recollection of the Freedmen's
Bureau, besides, makes those who
participated in its spoil exceeding
ly kind toward policy that prom
ises to give them control of the
funds which Congress might appro-
pirate for the education of the col
ored youth of the South. But the
States, North and South, are able
and willing to maintain and to con-
troll their own school system, as
we'll as to solve other social prob
lens, without the intervention of
the Federal Government. 1t is too
late in the day to wrest from the
States the control of their schools
by appeals to ignorance and pre-
judice.