The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-02-12
Ghe Wessenger.
A STRONG AND GROWING SENTI-
MENT.

All men who do not now throw up
their hats and bawl for legislative COM
puIsbon of parents are placed in the
limbo Of fossils and fogies. Mr.. Martin
H. Holt Is more modest and moderate.
He favors compulsion, but not in a
drastic form. He writes to the Raleigh
News-Observer:
II think a law should be made giving
power to township trustees 10 compel
attendance. when children arrive at the
age of II years without DelnS aDie 10
read and write. No legislator need o:
afraid of that mild form of compulsion.
even in a state as noted for conserva-
tism as North Carolina"
While the Messenger has expressed
its own conviction of danger lurking
in rampant paternalism and strong
government tendencies, it has seen
from the start that the people at large
were in favor of forcing a compulsory
law. Since the amendment was adopt
ed. and will go into effect 1st July next
year, it has been urged with no little
of meaning and plausibility that the
negroes would educate their children
while the poor whites" would not do
this. We have seen his argument
doing service in this and other states.
Their is possibly some grounds for the
contention, 1t is to be admitted that
many whites have been i~nexcusabiy
Indifferent to educating their children
in the years gone. 1t may be that they
will continue in this foolish, unfeeling
course. But possibly the example of
negroes at school will prompt them to
try to nave their own children quail
fled for the right of suffrage by hav-
ing them taught how to read. White
men are as accessible ito reason or per-
suasion as negroes are. We are I'M
willing to believe otherwise lest we do
injury to men with white skins
The states of the south are consider
ing this question Of compelling all
children to attend the schools prepared
for them, when not attending private
schools. Florida and Tennessee and
Georgia and others are now agitating
the question as to compulsion. The
Chattanooga News, as we'll as other
papers of Tennessee, is strong for a law
y compel, and brands all who dare to
oppose. We copy a part of a para
graph before US:
1t is stonishing that in a land of free
schools, where every child has an op-
portunity to get an English education
free of charge, that such a bill should
seem a necessity. That something
should be done along this line there is
hardly a doubt. By nature, children
like to go to school, and in nine cases
I'm ton urhpra thew do not 00 IL ram he
safely set down that the parents are
no blame. To say that a compulsory
education law interferes with the
rights OF the individual is the sheerest
nonsense. No man has a moral right,
when an education a be had for the
cost of books, ito allow his children to
grow up in ignorance. 1t is in the in
terest Of society and good government
that the children of today be educated.
They will be the rulers ito tomorrow
If it should be true as many think
that the negroes are reader and more
willing to take advantage of the OPP
portunities for schooling than are a
certain class of whites, then in view of
the coming educational test it becomes
something impressive if not mOmentus
to force education, for 1t will never do
to have an entirely educated negro
population n a partly educated white
population. There should be an cleo
torate of educated people altogether in
so far as reading and writing go. A
friend in Florida writing on Goth ult..
said it was a question of time when
there would be as many negroes at
school as whites. He said:
ut costs them nothing and hat is
a great essential. What then shall be
done to inspire the whites with a laud-
able ambition in that way. When the
voting time comes around we will be
surprised at the strength of the negro,
vote and the smallness of that of the
whites"
If these fears are to be realized, then
in view of the amendment test. it be-
comes highly important to nave the
white children all taught more or. less.
Is it not possible t. accomplish this
without ~resorting to q new and radical
law? Has the amendment really Great
ed conditions that necessitate a resort
10 nonacrrnS or IN avtronon Ein6o