Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1903-11-18
Educational
RIaht Education.
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Every son, whatever may be his
expectations as to fortune, ought to
be so educated that he can superin-
tend some part of the complicated
machinery of social life; and every
daughter ought to be 80 educated
that she can answer the claims of
humanity, whether those claims re-
quire the labor of the head or the
labor of the hand.-Horace Mann.
There are 217 counties in the
United States in which 20 per cent.
and more of the native white men
of voting age are unable to read.
There are 212 of these counties in
the South.
The South contains Cd per cent of
the total native white illiterate popu-
lation of the United States over ten
years of age.
The native white population of
the South over ten years old is only
ID per cent. of the native white pop
ulation of the country over ten years
old. Yet the South has Ga per cent.
of the native white illiterate popula.
tion
n
Forty-two North Carolina towns
and rural districts were granted
special graded school charters by the
Legislature of 1908. These char
ters confer the privilege, after vote
of approval by the people, of levy
ing and collecting special school
tax.
Sad Story.
A special dispatch to the Knox
vile Journal and Tribune from
Chucky City, East Tennessee, con-
tains this significant paragraph:
"The exodus from this section of
the country to the West continues.
Within the last few days twenty per-
sons went from this station alone
Some estimate that for some time
hence the average will be fifty each
week. But this seems entirely too
large. However, many of the best
people are going. They claim they
cannot educate their children here,
that they cannot hope for anything
more than mere living, and if they
can give their children neither edu-
cation nor property as an Inheritance
they are therefore doing them an in
justice. To keep from doing that
injustice they must move out West
or to some other favored section of
the country than the South"
The growing of ignorant and un-
progressive men over the cost of edu-
eating the children of the State is
not only inhumane but indecent
Superintendent Britain, of this
county, in a recent article reprinted
by US from the great periodical, The
Worlds Work, says:
cit is a significant and deplorable
fact that the court house and Jail of
the average county represent, as a
rule, the investments of more money
than all its school houses combined
that is, we commonly spend more to
convict and house criminal than to
train him so that he will become a
useful citizen although instances
could be multiplied showing that it
costs more to convict a family-as,
for instance, that of the notorious
Jukes, in the State of New York
than to educate whole township"
That cogent statement will apply
to at least rs per cent of the counties
in the State of Georgia. Look at it
understand what it means-then
60 and look at your court house, your
jails, your bonded debt for both,
your courts criminal expense ac-
count, leaving out it's cost for civil
litigation, and then, if YOU are
Georgian to the manner born, think
what all this expense for crime
means as compared with the cost OF
: educating the people of the future
out of criminal temptations and into
honest, useful ambitions.
Is court and Jail protected barn
full of field products worth more to
any citizen of Georgia than children
educated to efficiency in self-support
and self-protection against the wiles
of temptation and trickery? If not,
then every good man and woman in
Georgia should get usiastically
busy in demanding, and having at
any cost, system of common schools
in the State that will equip every
Georgia boy and girl with sound
primary Observation-Disclosures Con-
stitution.