The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1904-11-02
PROF. CALDWELL
Speaks on the Bond Issue Mon
day Night, Showing Urgent
Necessity for More and
Better School Houses.
A Very Strong Plea Made for the
Welfare of the Children from
the Standpoint of an Earnest
Worker In the Cause of
Education.

The audience which greeted
Prof. B. G. Caldwell at the court
house Monday night was not
very large, but it was a repre-
sentative one. including many
ladies. DR.. Stephens acted as
master of ceremonies, and in
introducing the speaker, gave
brief sketch of Prof. Cald dwell's
entrance into educational work
in Louisiana, his career and
thorough Identification with the
work, and then explained the
subject to be discussed and
offered some reasons why as a
school man he favored the
million dollar bond amendment.
He closed by introducing Prof.
Caldwell who began by express
sing his pleasure in speaking to
a Lafayette audience and stat
ing that he felt among friends to
whom he could talk with con-
fidence. He paid a number of
fine compliments to the people
here in recalling his successive
visits to this parish, and ex-
pressed the belief that his
hearers would credit whatever
he had to say on the bond issue
solely to his sincere desire to
further the welfare of the chill
dren. He was no politician, nor
financier and in regard to the
two principal objections, that
the million dollar bond issue
would cost $2,OOO,OOO or would
further the political fortunes of
some person or persons, he did
not feel himself competent to
speak. Either contention might
or might not be true; but as far
as he was concerned he was
willing to grant what the ex-
tremists on. both sides con-
tended, he would simply con-
slider the question from the
standpoint of a school man, who
had the interests of the quarter
of a million school children for
whom there was no school whose
birth right as American citizens
entitled them to the full privi-
leges and advantages accorded
every other child. or citizen. The
bond issue might cost $2,OOO,-
OOO-he did not believe it would
but granted it did-1T WAS
WORTH IT. To have a million
dollars in one sum cash, NOW,
to build 1000 school houses to
take care of the 10000 white
children who had no house to go
to school in, to open to their
minds the worlds treasure
house of knowledge, to trans
form them into intelligent citi-
zens, to equip them for the Goth
century struggle for a livelihood
was worth it.
He then spoke of the character
of more than IS per cent of the
rural school houses, giving
examples that went straight to
the hearts of those present.
He told Of the arduous and diff
cult efforts of some little children
to reach a school house over
streams and water and miry
roads and the school house
a sheep shed. He told of another
case where nineteen children,
taught by an earnest young boy
of II, went to school on a back
gallery of a piney woods house,
and how when it rained, the
little fellows were forced to take
shelter in the only available room
of the house, which was occupied
by q man emaciated and sick
unto death with consumption.
It was the best that could be
done, but it was pitiful to take
those rosy, bright, innocent
children into the impure, con-
IAonp;O,,a ofrnOcrhoro Mt tho rie1x