The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-11-05

6dOA year hUOu6 PSOyOOOg
while the number of it's school chill
dren is only $500. It need not be
explained to a North Carolina audi
ence that the development of Dur
hams factories and the wealth of
her factory owners has made possible
this large school fund. But these
conditions exist in but few, very
few, of our other counties.
For many tagging years, from 1910
TO 1851, the patriotic leaders in North
Carolina toiled TO raise a permanent
school fund or endowment for the
use of our public schools, until in
1861 the fruition of these hopes
seemed to have been realized, for an
endowment of more than n million
dollars was subject to these demands.
When the Civil War came the fund
was lost and scattered, and so the
same financial problem-How shall
funds be had to educate children in
the public schools of North Carolina?
now exists that existed in 1917,
when Archibald D. Murphy, Chair
man of the Committee on Education,
made his famous report on educa-
ton to the General Assembly of
North Carolina.
We must learn to look things
squarely in the face, and then we
must learn to speak things as they
are. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend. The public schools Of North
Carolina are not what they should
be-. A four-weeks school taught in
a log house, without suitable desks,
blaokboards or books, brings and has
brought the entire system into dis
favor. So it has come about that
many of the more aggressive and
ambitious families have left their
homes in the country and have gone
to the graded schools in the city or
town, while those who remain on
the old homestead are almost ready
to cry out against the form of a
school system which keeps the word
of promise 80 our a and breaks it
to our hope. What must be done,
and how shall it be done? First and
foremost, North Carolina must have
four full months of school term in
each and every county in the State.
More than this, and in order TO bring
this about, North Carolina must
have a harmonious and ''State'' sys
tenn of education. This is the Ian.
guage of Calvin II. Wiley, the
patriot, the friend of humanity, the
6ireless. Let it be understood that
the precarious appropriation of so
much money each year by the Gen
eral Assembly for the cause of pub
lie education will not accomplish
what is desired and let it be more
fully understood that a license to
have an election in this county or in
that, to vote a tax to supplement the
general school fund, is but firing
along the picket line. Eleven pre-
cincts only out of twelve hundred
awaited themselves of the la " of 1897
and after a kind of a guerilla cam
paign only So, OOO was raised in the
whole State Nor will it, in my
Judgment, be wise to select one in
dustry in one State, such as the rail
roads, and make them the object of
attack whereby to raise revenue to
run the schools. These roads should
pay their full proportion of taxes
just as III individual does. If they
fail thereof, they should be- com
PEELED to do So. But when we come
TO SO universal a thing as popular
education, each father ought to know
and feel, ven down to the bottom of
his pocket, that he is taxed to run
these schools. Thus the interest in
public schools will be increased and
diversified for where a mans treas
r is, there is his heart also.
To accomplish this end the whole
State should be aroused, at one time.
with one common purpose, and with
the spirit, dash and enthusiasm
which must attend all large and
good and great movements. The
head Of a family, as he casts his net
into the waters of the O}racoke and
returns at night tt greet his little
ones, Ought TO know that he mas a
common cause with him who plows
his Ok up the steepest sides of the
Grandfather, and this cause is and
must be to move North Carolina
from the foot of illiterate States.