The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1909-05-05
NEW SCHOOL LAW
IS A GOOD THING
There is No Danger of
Mixed Schools.
CONSTITUTION FORDIDS This
The White People Have Full
Charge of Educational
Affairs.

Despite the recent campaign of ed
ucation by which the State Depart
Inent of Education undertook to make
clear to the public of Kentucky the
operations of the new school law,
there seems still to exist a wide
spread Misrepresentation as to its pro-
visions. Thus, in a newspaper pub
lished in Pulaski co0nty there appears
the following rather ill-tempered COM
ment on the law:
Readers of the Item know that we
have always opposed the present
school law of Kentucky, and have
given unanswerable arguments to sus-
tain our position. Later on the peo-
PIE will get a dose OF this law that
will make them sick. Just wait until
high school is established in each
county, and it is to be done next
year, and you see the negroes and
whites in the same classes and your
Indiana mixed school law will bios
som out.
Take a county whose population is
equally divided between. whites and
Legroes. 1t is possible to have a ne
gro for a school superintendent, the
educational board negroes and negro
trustees. Thus the whites would be
dominated by a negro population, and
under this law the logical meaning
is negro teachers also"
The greater part of the aversion eX-
pressed in the above is based upon
the theory that the new law permits
the coeducation Of the races, the head
line of the article being, "Mixed
Schools the Menace of the Present
situation" This assumption grows
out of lack of information concern
ing Kentucky laws in general and the
The argument, for instance, fails to
take cognizance of the fact that the
Constitution expressly provides that
separate schools for the races shall
be maintained. The general laws fol-
| low the mandate OF the Constitution
and prohibit the coeducation of the
races under heavy penalties.
Moreover, the validity of these laws
has been established not only by the
Court of Appeals of the State, but by
the Supreme Court OF the United
States as well. Berea College was so
affected by the decision that its Off
GERS are at this moment undertaking
to raise funds for the institution to
be known as the Lincoln Institute,
promoted to educate the negroes who
are forbidden entrance at Berea or
any other school with whites. The
charter Of Berea College, it may be
remarked, was granted before the
present prohibitory law was passed,
and in that charter was no prohi-
bition of coeducation. And in behalf
of Berea College it was contended
that as it was private school and
the association of the races was vol
untary, the law was inapplicable, but
the courts held otherwise. Coeduca-
ton of the races is, therefore. abso-
lutely impossible in Kentucky; the
Legislature itself cannot even make
il possible, and so the anxiety on the
score of mixed schools is gratuitous
and unprovoked.
Now, the new school law passed by
the last General Assembly provides
mainly for high schools and for a
new system of electing school trus-
tees, making the county the unit of
taxation and excluding graded schools
from its operation. Any lawyer who
knows enough law to have a license
will say that it was unnecessary to
repeat in this new law the constitu-
tional provision referred to, or the
general laws referred to. For in
stance, in the charter granted to the
State University and the amendments
thereto there is no provision requiring
the appointment of only whites to the
State University, nor is there a law
STIMULATING that only white pupils
shall be appointed to the two nor
NAL schools. This was unnecessary,
these schools are dedicated to the
white children and being controlled
by the Constitution and the general