The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-01-13
The Nlessengm.
A kNoTTY QUESTION.

upon perfervid sympathy and on north
ern s-entimentalists and theorisers on
the south and the negro. We are not
surprised that people In the state who
have never been brought under the heel
of a combine that fastened negro rule
upon them are profoundly moved at
The very suggestion of lessening the
appropriations of the h fund to
negro schooling. The abstract theory
of tie vast uplifting power OF educa-
tion is particularly fascinating and al
during. Horace Mann, Of Massachu-
sets. very gifted, distinguished edu
Gator, was so enthusiastic in behalf of
his dear hobby that he not only gave
ITO education the power to fill the mind
with learning n knowledge, but to
transform fallen human nature and
make more high toned, noble, moral. 1t
was a thorough renovation, and, per-
haps, a good substitute for the Chris
tian religion. Possibly he did not go so
FAR az that. But it lis a we'll known fact
that educated criminals abound in
Europe, in the Americas, every where
In civilized lands. A son of the old alb
olitionist Bowen, visited all southern
penitentiaries some years ago, and he
told us he was appalled, when he found
an average of two-thirds or about that
proportion, as we recall it, of the in
mates able to read and write. Profess
sor Lee, of Johns Hopkins University.
made a special study of the negro in
the north. He found Of the educated
negroes 80 per ent were n~on-'support-
ing. Bill Arp, the wise man Of Georgia,
long ago found out as to the negroes
In his state that the education they had
received had only helped to spoil good
Geld hands.
We believe that the educational ex-
pertinent of thirty-two years in North
Carolina has been to a very great ex-
tent a palpable, unmistakable failure.
Not that some persons nave not been
benefited and somewhat enlightened by
the money expended upon the schools.
But the mass of the scholars have not
been improved very much intellectually
and none morally. The schooling has
made but few in the hundred wise
voters, better citizens, more moral in
life, more profitable to the state, more
valuable to the community, more in
formed as to civil responsibilities and
duties. 1t has given aspiration and du-
plicity and cunning and resource to as
piring politicians, but without impart-
ing sound basic principles or genuine
honesty or a semblance of wisdom.
I'VE believe in the counties where the ne
groes have most abounded this will be
the serious, deliberate judgment of
nine men out Of ten among the intelli-
gent whites who are capable of forming
and expressing an opinion.
When education is made a fetich-is
blown over as the one great moral rem
4ovator and mental ili-lninator that
make men capable Of citizenship and
proper members Of Christian churches
THAT without the schools ignorance
and vice and violence will rule, and
with it that high intelligence, virtue,
law, order, prosperity, wisdom and all
the other adornments of civilization
surely follow, then they are too far
gone in crankism and banal theories
and false philosophy and Utopian
dreams to fairly judge the experiment
through the years in schooling the ne
groes.
The white taxpayers in North Car
ollna in their deep poverty after the
war placed upon themselves a stupen-
dous burden. 1t was nobly done. f
was humanely prompted. They have
paid somewhere about 5000, 900 to try
to educate the negro children n make
the males wise, prudent, patriotic, just
voters. But what a supreme failure II
has been! T~hirty-odd years OF expert
ment has given to North Carolina a ne
gro population scarcely more
in character or useful intelligence be-
vond he nfranchised negroes at the
end of the war. In self-supporting, In
fdelity to trust, in industry, In De-
bavior, in law abiding life they are not
fairly comparable to the first genera
tion.
With all this before the Messenger 1T
will not apply the axe to the root of the
tree and declare that the equities re-
OulTe the WlthuL VI Oil Lh0A~S
white taxation from negro schools. 1t
will not go to that extremity now. The
prospect is that the negro voters will
give less trouble to white taxpayers
and burden-bearers hereafter, n that
a better understanding between the
races shall obtain, and peace and con-
f1dence will prevail more than they
have for some years. In that view for
bearance and ~benevolence may suggest
that the help to educate or give
schooling to negro children shall not be
entirely withdrawn by the white tax
payers. Let a better distribution be
made-one that promises to bring surer
and more equitable results. Let every
negro parent be compelled to contribute
to the school fund for negro schools.