The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1902-02-27
A MELANGE OF
LIVE TOPICS
Penned for Journal Readers
by a Local Scribe.
NATIONALISM.

gress and by other measures which
the government is asked to adopt.
Thus plans for a national univer-
sity at Washington to be under the
control of, and partially support
ed by, the general government are
well under way and we shall prob
ably see in the not remote future
the scheme fully consummated.
Mr.. Andrew Carnegie is back of
the movement and he has promis-
ed an endowment of twenty mil
lion dollars to the institution.
Mr.. Carnegie has also been asked
to endow national theatre mod
eled after the state institution of
that character in France.
Both of these organizations are
not only entirely unnecessary and
would entail a useless expense to
the people of America, but are pos
lively repugnant to the constitu-
tion of the United States. While
the federal constitution was being
framed it was proposed to make
provision In it for the establish
ment of national university, but
the proposition was defeated be-
cause it was considered that edu-
cation is a matter coming within
the reserved powers of the states,
and as the federal constitution was
intended to deal only with ex-
ternal matters of the union and
such internal ones as the states
could not conveniently manage,
the scheme providing for educa-
ticn was clearly without the con-
stitutional perview.
There are great numbers of col
leges and universities in the Unit
ed States, especially in the North
and West, that are frst-class, both
as regards equipment and endow-
ment, and SO far as those sections
are concerned, there is no need of
a national university at Washing
ten. The South has a few SPLEEN
did institutions of learning, such
as the University OF. Virginia,
Johns-Hopkins, Baltimore and
Vanderbilt, and a number of mi
nor ones like those under the con-
troll of most of the Southern
states. but they are all badly han
! dicapped on account of insufficient
endowments. There is no need
even in this section for a new uni
versity at Washington. What we
do need is a strengthening of the
institutions which we already pos
sess; and if Mr.. Carnegie wishes
to confer lasting benefit upon the
! cause of education, to do kind
ness where it will create the great
est good and cause his name and
memory to be perpetually blessed
let him drop that twenty million
dollars into the laps of some of or
most deserving Southern colleges.
Right here in Marietta we once had
fine little military institute sus-
tanned by the State, but which, by
the fortunes of war. was reduced
to ashes, greatly damaging the ed
ucational facilities for the poorer
young men of the commonwealth.
For sixty thousand dollars this
college could be replaced (that is
the buildings) when doubtless it
would again be taken under the
care of the State. Mr.. Carnegie
has been prodigal in his generosi-
ty to rich Northern institutions
which did not need his assistance
one-tenth as much as do similar
ones at the South; and as he has
expressed desire to spend the
greater part of his immense wealth
for just such causes as this, we
hope he can see his way clear to
give us back our old Georgia Mil
itary Institute as a much-needed
contribution to the cause of edu-
cation. The military feature of
a new college In our town might
be omitted and q mechanical and
agricultural one substituted in it's
place.
The Ogden movement designed
to aid education in the South.
promises to bring some results, SO
far as the common schools are con-
cerned, and if the cotton tax is re-
funded and the proceeds of the
sale of the public domain are APP
portioned among the states for ed
ucational purposes, the dreadful
illiteracy existing at the South
will speedily be removed. AS mat
ters now stand the South is in a
very bad condition from an educa-
tlonal standpoint. We are too
poor to properly sustain our high
er institution of learning or even
to provide a semblance of a COM
mon school education to the chill
dren of the State.