The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1911-03-16
ARE WE WASTING MONEY?
Nearly Sixty Per Cent. of Our Taxes
Goes to Schools.

Editor Bamberg Herald:-Nearly
| 60 per cent. Of all taxes collected in
Bamberg county goes to the public
schools. Never in the history of this
country was so much money used for
education. The people seem to think
that education is the penacea for all
evils and all ills. We need edu-
cation, 1 admit. 1t is needed in the
homes, in the community, in the
church, in our counting houses, on
the farm, at the bar, and on the
forum, but are we getting it. fear
not. 1 cannot call to mind a single
boy, and every boy in the county had
a better chance tha his father had,
who gives promise of going higher
up than "the old man."
Judge Prince, in his charge to the
grand jury at Bamberg a few days
ago, used these words: '"The public
schools of South Carolina are a per-
feet farce" Well, the taxpayers
are toting a heavy burden to sustain
valueless system.
But does higher education pay?
Let us go back and take the success
full men locally known. Here are a
few 1 will mention: F. NJ. Bamberg,
E. R. Hays, H. ]. Brabham, J. B.
Black, C. R. Brabham, S. D. M.
Guess, Joseph Guess, Simon Brown,
Robert Aldrich, w. G. Simms, G.
H. Bates, J. o. Patterson, J. w. Jen-
ny, Miles Loadholdt, Jacob Lightsey,
J. A. Lightsey, Hansford Rizer, G. F.
Rizer, Josiah Ritter, Conrad Ehrhardt,
all picked up what they knew. Their
lives are behind them, and need no
comment at my hands.
On the other hand, of the many
college-bred men known, can name
only few: J.'J. Maher, G. Duncan
Bellinger, H. G. Folk, and H. S. Hart
zog, who made and are making
success
The world owes it's greatest debt
to men of limited education. Nearly
all the great books were written by
uneducated men. All of the great
inventions were made by uneducated
men. When I say uneducated men, I
mean men who educated themselves.
Lord Bacon was one of the best
educated men the world has pro-
duced, and the most learned of all
English judges, yet never was a
criminal docked before him who was
lower down the gamut of crime than
Lord Bacon himself. His life is
disgrace to learning and to English
Jurisprudence. Lord Byron, the most
wonderful master of the English
language known, was at best moral
leper. So also was that most gifted
of women who is known as George
Eliot.
The rice planters sent their chill
dren to Europe to be educated. They
got a thorough education in books
and into European society, but where
are the rice fields now? Once the
garden spot of the world, land of.
beauty and prosperity. Go there,
and it is fast becoming a bowling
wilderness, and one is forced to ex-
claim: Icabod! Icabod! the glory of
Israel hath departed. Education of
the highest order has not saved the
rice fields.
The last census reports that 49
per cent. of all the Southern white
farmers and planters have left their
farms to negro tenants and have
moved to town to educate their chill
dren. For 5000 years the negro
race has farmed in Africa, and in all
those centuries Africa has made no
progress at the hands of her own
people. What progress has been
made is what foreigners have done.
And do the Southern people think
they can live in town and that their
farms will prosper at the hands of
those who for 5000 years have
shown no cunning in the art of hus-
bandry? I shudder for the future of
the fair Southland.
A. w. BRABHAM.