The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1911-09-14

paired your usefulness by becoming
too impatiently intolerant of men and
measures you did not think we're
good.
But to the purpose of this letter.
For about ten years I tried to
teach in the rural schools Of my
county. For the last six years have
been County School Commissioner of
the same. During these years the
one burden Of my efforts has been to
establish rural schools that would
give the country boys and girls an
equal showing with their town cous-
ms. I haze told people of this and
adjoining counties tn at it was not only
best for the moral and religious wei
fare of their community, but that it
was plain business proposition to
educate their children at much less
expense than they would carry the
children t. the teacher In our eff
forts to do this we have tried every
plan we could think of to get money
to bring the teachers we wanted.
sometimes, and in some districts we
succeeded temp orari1y, but as soon
as few leaders would lose interest,
die ou+, or move oat, the teachers
could not be paid, and the result in
every case was that the school went
down in the hands Of inferior and
incompetent teachers. A generation
of boys and girls must suffer because
nobody would be responsible for the
teachers pay
When the law was past giving the
people in each district the right to
vote upon themselves a tax with
which to supplement their prorata of
the state fund I thought the prob
lem was solved, because this is just
what is being done in many of the
states that have the best schools.
But | see you are opposed to local
tax for school purposes and the rea-
son you give for so doing affords me
no information. l cannot see for my
life what difference in principles there
is in local tax for school purposes
and that part Of the state tax we pay
for the same purpose. In each it is
adValOrem levy and in each case the
tax collector does the collecting. The
fact that the state fund makes a cir
cult by way of the state capital be-
fore it gets into the hands of the To-
cal school officials, has nothing to do
with the principles involved. The
indemnity Of the principles lies in the
fact that each is an advalOrem levy.
You cannot oppose one without OPP
posing the other, and don't see how
you can oppose either without argu-
ing yourself opposed to public
schools. Some might say that in the
case of local taxation Brown will pay
some of Smiths tuition; but the
same is true with the state fund. In
my county of Franklin we get almost
as much in pension money for the
old soldiers as we pay into the state
treasury. If you will take the pains
to investigate you will find many 9TH
er counties in the same shape, in
Guiding possibly McDuifie. No man
knows better than you just how abb
surd it would be to think of es-
tablishing and maintaining any in
stitutiOn ty means of an advalorem
taxation in such a way that each
and every man would share ben
efits thereof in exact ratio to the tax
es he had contributed thereof. Much
of the school fund that comes to this
county, as we'll as many others,
comes to this county, as we'll as
many others, comes from the richer
counties and cities. The same is
true with other things as we'll as the
school fund My neighhor may have
contributed. five dollars in taxes to the
building. of the steel bridges acToSS