The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-25
THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

The Advertiser has raised the QueS-
tion for arguments sake of whether it
Is the duty of the taxpayers of this
country to provide education for the
thousands of alien children who are
immigrating to Hawaii.
Professor NJ. NJ Scott has contributed
some vigorous thought to the problem.
The Outlook" Of May 4th contains
an interesting article on the subject of
negro education, which bears on the
principle under consideration. The
gist of the article is as follows:
We are sorry to see the proposition Sc
riously made in some of the Southern
States to divide the school fund so as to
give all the taxes derived from the
whites to the education of white chill
dren. and only tne taxes derived from
colored people to the education of col
ored children We are glad to see this
proposition condemned, as 1t ought to be,
by the best citizens in the South. with
out regard to party. and generally re-
garded by them as an appeal by poll
ticians to the prejudices of the lower
classes. not as a practical proposition to
be seriously entertained No doubt there
Is something In the proposition which
may seem. on mere casual and care.
less consideration, to have In 1t an ele-
merH OF fairness We have occasionally
heard the same proposition, in a differ
ent form in the North. 1t has been some
times seriously proposed to relieve all
Roman Catholics from the school tax,
and leave them to educate their own
children In their own Church. It has
been sometimes seriously questioned why
the. rich man with one, or two children
whom he sends to private. school
should be taxed to pay for the educa-
ton OF the poor mans half a dozen
children in a public school, Why, should
not Protestants educate themselves, and
leave Roman Catholics to provide their
own education? Why should not feud-
aliaristrocracy educate their children at
Etens and Rugby and Winchester, and
leave the swcrkingmen and, the laborers
to provide, for their children such educa-,
ton as they desire?. Why should not
theswhites educate themselves, and leave
the Jcolored people to provide for their
own education? These questions are
SIMPLY different forms OF the same aues-
tiqpA-ssamely. Why should not the strong
and rich and cultivated take care of
themselves, and leave the, poor and un-
prosperous and ignorant to take care of
themselves? Aszss =
Those who ask this question ought not
to suffer any Illusion. It Is really the
question. Why should any intelligent
community object to have attached to
1t and forming part of 1t a mass of
ignorant and immoral persons, living
perhaps In. a state of dull content with
their animal conditions, perhaps in q
state of chronic envy of their more
prosperous neighbors? Surely history has
given in more than one tragedy an an
swer to that question. 1t was the ig-
norant plebs who destroyed Rome. It
fpd xuhac irr.,
ton inflicted on France the excuses of
the Revolution. 1t is the unschooled
peasantry of Ireland which keeps in
hopeless poverty an island rich in agri-
cultural and commercial possibilities. It
Is the ignorant population in our great
cities which every now and then inf1icts
upon 1t an ugly, dangerous, and costly
mob. These seven millions of colored
persons are going to remain in the South.
To deport them is physically impossible.
To absorb them by intermarriage with
the Anglo-Saxon race is not thought of
as possible by any one whose judgment
Is determined by facts. not by a priori
theories. They are not dying OF, and
will not thus disappear from the Amer
lean continent. They cannot be reduced
Into condition of slavery. and no one
wishes SO to reduce them.
What remains7 But one alternative;
capable of receiving. or to leave them
to increasing degeneration and decay,
burden and peril alike to themselves
and to their neighbors. The answer to
the question. Why not leave the colored
people to grow UP without education? is
well put in a sentence by DR.. j. l.. M.
Curry: I'VE must elevate this race or 1t
will drag us down." The colored people
educated and made a component part of
the Industrial and political organization
of the South, contented and prosperous,
self-respecting because worthy Of respect.
will add to the wealth. Sthe prosperity,
the happiness of the South. Left unedu-
Gated to drop in successive generations
into ever lower stages Of barbarism,
they will be a burden bound upon the
back of the South, IL not milestone
bound about it's neck.
For the South now to abandon the