The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-25

 ncgros educational development, made | the thought of his political power an all | absorbing anxiety. From this preoccu- patton of our public interest dargely | the freedmen by the Federal government | the chief sufferers were the white chill l dren of the masses of our rural popula- | tion. That they have so suffered may be | called the fault of the South; yet it is | also the fault of that negligence of all | our countrymen through which the South, | with inadequate resources. has been | largely left to bear alone a national bur | den and to discharge national respon-
 sibility. When. therefore. the wealth of | our common country. North or South. | generously invests dollar in the educa-
 tion of the children of these Southern l States I do not call it the extension of charity" I venture to call 1t the ac- l ceptance of obligation.
 This is the obligation which was so
 nobly assumed by the founder of the | Peabody Fund-a fund left by Northern | man for the educational needs of black and white, a fund which has, for these | thirty years-through the South's glad and | faithful use of it-put forever beyond l question not only the acceptabilit of ed | ucational philanthropy at the South but i the practical wisdom of the comprehen- siye policy for which it stands.
 A Challenge to Our Educational Patriotism.
 | Surely this educational situation at the South is today d challenge to the wtsest and deepest forces of a national patriot ism. Our conditions, as have
 said, are those of rural pop
 veloped lands. The one little State of Massa chusetts has almost as many cities of 25,0OO people and over as may be found l in all the States of the secession put to- gether. The combined white population of the two States of Alabama and South Carolina does not equal the white popu- | lation of the city of Chicaso: and the white population of Greater New fork exceeds the aggregate white population of the States of labama. Florida, Lou isiana, South Carolina and Mississippi. When we bear In mind how widely scat l tered arc our people, and when We re- member the civic hopelessness and the economic depression through which they have struggled on what wonder Is 1t that
 in some of our Southern States, like Ala
 bama and the Carolinas. the public school term has been less than eighty days?
 And yet We must not fail to put this fact in conjuncrlun with another which
 reveals the educational earnestness of
 our people. the fact that of the total revenues of these States 5O per cent. are
 now devoted to the maintenance of the system of public education.
 A Striking Contrast.
 Our Southern States must look with larger and moro active confidence 10 the resources of local taxation and yet
 
 possess a national significance and should ch lilenSe a national response. The child in Alabama is not the child of Alabama alone. Our children are the Nations children. In their potential citizenship lie
 the social and political forces which are to have part in the making of their country's government, In the shaping of their country's destiny. Yet there Is req son for reflection in a startling contrast
 to which the records of our government
 will point you The child of Alaska is the subject of tho Nations conslderate provision He is not in any immediate
 sense potential voter. Yet in Alaska the expenditure upon the children of the
 Sation--though 60 per cent of them are
 the children of the Eskimo-is annually
 s17.4 per capita of the enrolment. The children of Alabama are not the subject Of National provision, and the eXpendi-
 ture or Alabama per capita of the en- rollment Is now annually &.42. The aver age expenditure in the United States, as whole. is so 19. For the child of the
 Nation in Alaska an annual investment of S11 45;-for the child of the Nation In
 Alabama an annual investment of A.l2 though the child of Alabama represents in his growing and eager life the poten- tial clecorate of the richest and noblest land in history.
 thank God for every dollar that is being expended unnn he children of our territories. l also Know the explanations with which some would attempt to mod fly the appalling contrast which l have cited. But, my friends, when l see what our great Government can spend and
 what this Government can compass when
 it tries, how insistently and successfully it can find needs to meet and tasks to
 accomplish from the Eskimo to the Fill fpino and from Porto Rico to Guam, 1
 say the time has come to look straight
 and clear before us to the home acre of
 our own undeveloped citizenship. It is
 well 10 aid and to bless the governed.
 We shall not fall to do so if we have something of care for those who are
 going to do the governing No rule will ever he wiser than the rulers, and no
 republic can be freer than its own people. To enlarge the lot and to increase the
 Inspirations of the children of these
 United states. North and South and East and West is not a gratuitous charity; It is not merely the obligation of one section to another. it Is the responsibility of the Nation to it's citizenship: 1t is tho supreme duty /of our National CA pacities and of our National self-intereSt.
 l am glad that there are those who, un- der the pure impulses of generous pa triotism, arc trying to aid in doing per sonally. what the Nation has not done officially. While 1t is true that tho Nation has duty to Its citizenship these men are also proving that d truc citizenship has duty tn the Nation. l believe that every true gift nf a genuine philanthro- py represents the thought Sf what Is due not merely to the child but to our country. Such a gift ia the acceptance of the holiest and deepest obligation of the citizen to the State. It is his effort to add to the forces by which it rebutlds and reconstltutes it's life
 And yet. let LIS suppose that such gift were made solely for the childs sake were indeed that real thing which the world calls charity.-not the charity of condescension, but the charity of rever- ent and tender love. the motive of that fine ennobling, human grace which puts a mans strength at the service of his friend. which puts Gods power at the service of tfbse who pray. which always places and slways will place the whole worlds wisdom and goodness and great ness at the service of little child-YuD will dare to stand. a forbidding and darkening barrier. between charity and the chidreng
 A Story Out of Life.
 Let mo tell you d story-a true stor,. but one which in some reSperts is think. the most marvellous in the long record of human struggle and of slnrene accomplishment. lt is the story of an Alabama girl.
 Just twepty-two years ago. in one of the smaller cities of our state there was born 10 an hopored Confederate soldier and his noble wife. little daughter
 For few brief months she dyeit among them as little presence of bodily happiness and responsive charm, Clear eyes, lighted with the strange wisdom or innocent habyhood; soft prattie mak- ing audible her rapturous content win { the wonder of this great kindly. be- ! frlendng human world, and then within | the bitter fate of few swift hours. there | came the desolating change
 It was not death: it was that tragic compromise by which life comes bacl, from death. leaving fla la,,rals q, a.attS.N