The age-herald., 1898-04-10
Public Education.

In 1891, North Carolina had under consid- eration the low condition of her common schools and the expense of her facilities for higher education The subject was very similar to that before the people of Ala bama today, and a pamphlet written at Wake Forest college in the Old North state fits the Alabama situation as well as It ald the facts then under consideration in North Carolina
 - Mir. Taylor proceeds to explain the value and objects of common schools. and his quotations are very forcible. Professor Woodrow Wilson, formerly of South Caro- lima, says: "Without popular education no government that rests upon popular action can long endure; the people must be schooled in the knowledge, and, if possible, in the virtues, upon which the maintenance and success of free institutions depend" Dr. J. L. M. Curry of Virginia says: "Such writers on the English constitution as Montesquieu and Blackstone, in writing on suffrage, concur that those should be ex- cluded from voting whose situation Is such that they cannot be presumed to have will of their own or, what is equivalent, an independent and intelligent will A mass of ignorant voters awakens fearful appre- Pensions The adult illiteracy in the United States is appalling. Of the 1,5SO,OOO illiterate voters in the United States, the southern states furnish 317,%1 white and s2O,o22 col- ored. This illiteracy is a standing menace to public institutions" MT. Taylor shows that as a measure of self-defense, of self preservation, it is the duty and interest of A state to maintain common schools for all classes of children.
 But in the matter of higher education, Mir Taylor finds in the course of an ex- tended inquiry that the voluntary or non- state plan is the only just and operative plan that can be adopted. He finds ample support, too. for his proposition. Bishop Atticus G. Haywood says: "The arguments that demand the public school for the ele- mentary education of the whole people, for bid the educa ton of a few in college or university at public expense. Tuition is be more righteous to tax the people to pay for the board and clothing of these stu dents. for then the poor as we'll as the rich would have chance at the benefits of college or university education provided for by the taxation of the whole people" President Nunnally of Mercer university, Georgia. is equally emphatic: "The higher education of the people by the state is a fearful mistake. It is impossible to make 1t universal, and fl is therefore unfair and unjust" Bishop McTyeire said: "It sounds we'll to say, Our state university is open to the poor as well as the rich. The farmer and mechanic can educate his son there on the same terms with the millionaire. Look at this a moment. The farmer wants his son to chop out cotton and help gather in the crop. The mechanic wants his son in the shop. Offer to them a common school, within reach, Tor nine or ten months in the year, and you offer them what they want, and what they can accept Moreover, could these boys be spared for two or three years from the blow and anvil and work bench, their parents cannot afford the ex- pense of board and travel and books and suitable outfit for the university It Is moclSing them to say it Is open and free"
 MT. Taylor also shows how empty the claim is that supply of teachers can only