The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1897-02-03
The Plain Truth Tells.
No Occasion for Sectlonalism
in Our School Histories.
w ashiugton Post,

Washington Post.
The Columbia State announces that
simultaneously with the agitation in
the southern press against partisan
histories of northern origin in south
ern schools, certain northerr papers
have started an agitation against par.
tisan histories of southern origin in
the same schools 1t appears that
bill is now before the South Carolina
Legislature which demands impartial
ity in the school histories. The CO.
lumbia paper asserts that "what the
south wants and al! that it needs is
justice
School histories should be the
closest possible approximation to ab-
solnte fairness If this rule were OBJ
served there would be no occasion
for different textbooks on history for
different sections of the United
States. Time enough has elapsed
since the close Of the great war for
clearing away of the misunderstood
ings and prejudices that Influenced
public opinion north and south and
distorted the school histories of both
sections 80 years ago Neither par.
tisanship nor sectionalism should
constitute part of any school curri-
cuum
Those northern newspapers that
are criticising a school history that
has been recommended by the Con-
federate Veterans association com
plain that the occupation Of the
southern States by the northern
armies is termed "an INVASION and
that it is said that the northern ar
mics were ruthless. The Balti
more Sun, referring to this complaint
in a New York paper, says:
"lf our contemporary should ex-
anime into the northern school his
tories as carefully as he has ex-
amined the southern histories, he
might find there the reason why the
latter were written. No one un
familiar with the subject would gath
er from the northern histories that
the right of secession was an open
question until the war settled it The
southern people were fighting for a
principle They now and have fo-
quarter of century admitted that
the question has been settled aud set
tied adversely to their contention,
and they acquiesce in that settlement,
but they naturally object to teaching
their children that they were traitors
and rebels Secession was first
threatened by New England States,
but we doubt whether that fact is
very plainly brought out in northern
school histories Partisanship is no
better on one side than the other 1t
is only the truth which will make US
whole"
This union of States could not
have been formed by the adoption of
the Constitution if that instrument
had made peaceable secession impos-
sible by plain declaration against it.
1t is historical fact that the right of
secession was an open question until
Appomattox decided it. However
i'll advised the secession movement
may have been, it was not treason,
but an assertion of claimed right
a right honestly claimed and bravely
defended This fact should appear
in all the schoo! histories and know
edge of it by the writer's of such
histories should temper their nara.
tions of the events Of the war time.
The generation that fought and
witnessed the war-the men and wo-
men of the north and the south
have learned the lesson of mutual re-
spect The soldiers learned it on the
battlefield, and their fellow citizens
learned it later Sectional animosity,
80 far as the grown up people Of the
United States are concerned, is ab
solutely dead Why. then, should
sectionalism be taught in our schools!
Do we wish the boys and girls of
to day to grow up under the distoit.
ing and distempering influence Of