The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-06-10
the approprl

of the State and the Normal and Indus
trial School combined, and the stu
dents who enjoy the benefits of such
liberal appropriations are surely under
peculiar obligations to the State. There
has been no intention of giving any
money to any student here. 1t is SIM
ply an investment of money on the
part of the State which it allows stu
dents to have the use of because of its
faith in them and because it believes
that the State will be repaid, if not in
money,in good citizenship; and young
man who is educated in one of the
States institutions, if he is properly
educated. cannot but feel a greater
obligation to the people of the State
than one who has not received such
advantages.
In the new life upon which we are
entering in North Carolina, the young
men trained at this institution will
have great influence. Many of them
be at the head of large industrial en-
terprises, and they viii control in
measure the physical, intellectual, and
moral lives of thousands of people.
Let no ambition for personal success
in the management of cotton mill
ever make you forget that you owe it
to the plain people of this State land
that means everybody TO make of
Yourself the best citizen of North Car
Dina which it is possible for you to
become. Under no circumstances
ought you to forget your obligations
to those who shall work under your
direction, for they are part of this
State, and they pay their taxes to
support the institution which has
helped you during your stay here to
become competent to lead and direct
them. | believe that it would be
wise course if you should decide from
the beginning that in addition to the
taxes which you will pay to support
the government under which YOU live,
you will also set apart each year your
salary for one week or two weeks for
benevolent work among those whom
YOU direct, and even if your salary
should become ten thousand or one
hundred thousand dollars year, you
could we'll afford to continue the habit
begun in the day of small things.
But in addition to any benevolent
work which you undertake among the
people who are directly controlled by
you, it ought to be part of your
constant thought to study the general
welfare of your State, and / trust that
you will never forget that the State
is made not of land and trees and
mountains, and rivers, and not even
of factories and palaces and cities,
but of people, and that when you say
YOU love your State everybody will
understand it to mean that you love
the people in North Carolina.
/ trust that you will succeed in your
life work, and that many of you will
become men of wealth and power. [
hope that when the question of taxa
ton for a liberal support of public
schools in communities where you live
shall arise, as it will surely do, you
will be found upon the side where all
men will be expected to stand who
have been aided in their own education
by public taxation. Nor is 1T enough
for a man who has received his own
education largely from the State to
simply vote on the right side of this
question. He ought to be leader in
that great struggle for better public
schools in North Carolina which will
certainly take place during the next
decade. At the coming election, in
forty counties in this State, the voters
will be called upon to cast their bal
lots ''for schools or against schools"
If the majority vote for schools, it
will mean an increase of public school
tax in the township where it is voted
of twenty cents on each one hundred
dollars worth of property, and sixty
cents on each poll, the money so vot-
ed and levied to be used in the town
ships where it is voted. II the schools
shall win in these forty counties it