The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-01-12

IL Is CONCERNING the negro, NC oHouiu
equipped for service: If it is concerning
the rural schools, here education should
equip the country children for service.
For what service? To go to town and
clerk in stores? To go to college ana
study law. but eventually become
school teacher or an insurance agent
until something else turns up? Isn't II
possible to educate country boy so
that he will love the country more? Isn't
il possible TO elevate a rural community,
and at the same time inspire the citizens
with a greater love for the country! Is
all education for the purpose OF training
a citizen to live in town? Isn't 1t POSI-
BILE to rub off the rough angles Oh q
country lad, adorn his home, and refine
his society; and at the same time create
stronger ties for the country? If not,
why ali this cant about country educa-
ton? If education makes one dissatis-
fed with the country it is because the
education is wrong; and any system or
training that does not make the young
ladies and the young gentlemen more
useful In their own community is fall
ure and should be avoided. There is al
ways a class of individuals unstable in
their own birth place. whose talents are
suited for other trades than what their
fathers followed, and we frequently find
some of the salt of the earth there too.
1t is natural for these TO push out and
find employment under new skies and in
new environments, but when you con-
slider whole community, like Round
Knob township, in Clarendon county, and
when you see the community degenerat-
ing year after year; when you see the
best people moving TO town, the bright
young men seeking positions in the
stores, and the farms proving less and
less productive, it is time to consider
the questionable cause. Either they
have had no education; or their educa-
ton did not equip them for service
Then their education was wrong.
From reports not much over half the
country children attend school for even
two months in the year Then to such
a school in most sections as has already
been described How can the parents be
induced to send their children to school?
compulsory education? This would be a
great thing for the towns, but not for
the county until a great economic change
takes place. Why? Because the aver
age white tenant today can not take his
forty acres and a mule and make a
living without working women and chill
dren, to say nothing about making money
and enjoying a few of the Injuries of life,
he can not take a small plot of ground
and keep above actual want without
working his entire family. Now, while
he is in this grim struggle for existence,
for the State to tell him he must send
all his children to school for four or six
months in the year, would produce
revolution; or the State would be COM
PEELED TO feed him while it educated his
children. Compulsory education, no
doubt, is the thing for all classes, but a
few generations are necessary yet to
bring about different economic condi-
tion. This condition is the result of
years of social and economic changes
dating back even to the beginning of our
colonial existence. Let us take a retro
spective glance.
In New England as fast as the colonies
were planted, the idea OF public education
became a part of their religion, and the
community maintained both the school
and the church at public expense. AT the
same time Governor Berkeley of Virginia,
was congratulating himself that no such
thing as a school house or a printing
press existed in the whole southern
colony, and he hoped they would not for
these hundred years. Public education
in New England was part of the social
religious and economic foundation. AS
ha cd an in ha
river bottoms, on the plains, they car
ried with them their schools and churches
as the property of the community. In
Virginia and in the South generally the
idea of public education was born later.
The South was largely an agricultural
class; here was the aristocracy. The
landlord was able TO educate his own
children and he preferred TO do it in his
own way. He employed a private tutor
and would not think of allowing his son
or his daughter to attend a free school"
Some provisions were made early for
public education, but it was in the nature
of a charitable gift to the poor children !;
and the more wealthy class would fire.
quently maintain a private school within
sight OF the public school rather than al
low their children to go to the free
school" The free school" was one way
of caring for the poor and this idea is
not entirely extinct in North Carolina
today, for there are private schools main
tanned at losing figures. while the pub
lie schools are conducted not three hun
dred yards away. There are graded
schools in North Carolina that are re-
garded in a similar manner The idea
of educating all the children at the pub
lie expense has not yet taken hold of
the South, and especially North Carolina
as 1t should.
child does not rise higher than the
common level of his associates unless
this child turns apostle to the community
In anti-bellum days when the world was
large and distance immense, the wealthy
landlords son moved in a large circle
of few associates. The caste system
placed him above every class except the
landed arstocracy of which he was a
part. But in the great change that fol-
lowed the revolution of the Civil War, al
classes were thrown closer together, and
became more dependent one upon the
other. The landed aristocracy has given
way to the commercial aristocracy. The
old order Of things has been reversed and
the landed gentry is standing alone with