The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-25
COMPULSORY
 EDUCATION A Special Problem for
 Alabama. SENATOR REYNOLDS SPEAKS Conference fer Southern Education
 at Memphis. Senator Reynolds Tells Why the Bin was Defeated in the Last Legis-
 aature-The Nesre
 Problem.
REYNOLDS SPEAKS
nY wIIL n. sHEEHAN.

Memphis. Tenn, April 24-(Special)- A1abana's own special problem, the solution of which Is only matter of time. compulsory education was under discussion at the conference for South srn education this afternoon and while she conference discussion was supposed to embrace the entire South, Alabama appeared to nonopolize the afternoon discussion.
 pr. B. J. Baldwin President of the Monfgomery Board of Education. Sec retary of the Southern Conference for Education, and one of the pioneers of the organization, presided over the dis russiun. One of the most interesting contributions to the discussion was by Senator Herbert F. Reynolds of Center vile. who was chairman of the Educa- kionni Committee of the Senate of Ala oarf1a. and who was the chosen cham. pion of all the bills presented by the leading educators of the State :n the last Legislature. Dr. Baldwin present. d Senator Reynolds as one who had lone much for the cause of good schools m Alabama, as one who would speak pn the cause of compulsory education.
 Reynolds Makes Speech.
 Senator Reynolds said that he felt 10 resentment or disappointment In the aefeat in the last Legislature of his Dill for modified compulsory education. He realized. when he offered and urged lis bill. that he was ahead of his time. But the first fight was only prelim- mary skirmish, the bill might be beaten Tn 1901, but when the Legislature had assembled. 1t would voice the senti- fnant of the State and compulsory edu- rat<on would be wrought into the statu- tory law of the State, which he re- counted as one of the things that Ala haraa had recently done for it's public schools, and it was inevitable that the wtep forward would be law which would compel the careless and mar eererf parerlts to take advantage of the splendid opportunity which the state offered its children.
 rr. Wycliffe Rose opened the discus nson pr. Rose is the agent or the Fea- body fund, from which great many bfessings have flowed to the cause or sducatIon of the South. He alluded to Fhe necessity of a compulsory educa. fte,t ntve in several of the States. The afafhN of the South had risen to the s,fcAa5on the money had been given fo establish public schools for all the secfions and for all the people, the lime had come when the inoinerent parent must be made to take adVani- age of the opportunity offered the ci'A- dreHs
 ff eourse the inevitable negro ques- .ss n.,s entered upon the discussion or the ,ss,,a ] The negro question is to the south the same as the old man or the sea was to Sinbad, the sailor. Fne tEouth never started anything, 1t never does anything but it has 10 eonsiues the negro question even as Sinoad hao fo carry the old man when he started anvwhere, or attempted to do any thina. The negro beat compulsory ed- 1acatfon when 1t was offered in the last Legislature. The point was raised and was raised in apparent triumph. that the negro parent would make any sort of sacrifice to send his child to school. while the white father was not SO anxious about it. The white father was willing to send his child to school when he was not needed to work on The farm. but when the time was at hand that the child's work was neces- sary. it as argued in the Alabama Leg islature, the parent was entitled to his work as far at is was to go to make a living for the family. By some paradoxical and foolish appeal, 1t was made to appear that the compulsory education bill would benefit the ne- gro without doing any good for the white man. The bill therefore was beaten.
 Senator Reynolds in his talk this afternoon. made it appear that the hope of Alabama was that the sensible people would ultimately frame into the Jaw, backed by sentiment that the par entF ahould be made to do his duty; that he should send his children to school for the good of the State, no matter what his own ideas or what his own incompetency might be. It was to be remembered that negro par ents need no incentive to send their children to school. The negro child would go if he had nothing to eat and butslittle 10 wear. but the white child