The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1915-03-19

Thos. Jefferson longed to see the time
when every State had university, every
county high school and every COM
munity good elementary school. JEFF
ferson had been dead almost eighty
years when Tennessee began to agitate
the high school. Lake County was the
| first in the State to establish high
school, The speaker referred to the first
visit, nine years ago, he made to Ohion
County to establish county high school
and lost by one vote. He was told to
come back again in short time. In
eight years another effort was made for
county high school in Obion, and but
for the disagreement arising out of the
present county court system OblOn
County would now have a county high
school. One generation therefore lost
thru this lapse of eight years. The
general tendency is to put off the school
tax as long as possible, and therefore
your people are denied the privileges Of
the county high school. Speaker SAID
he had been engaged in almost every
county in Tennessee in the county high
school work, and in West Tennessee
Upton, Lauderdale, Shelby, Madison,
McNairy, Henderson, Haywood, Fay
cite county high schools had been es-
tablished, but Obion, the pride of West
Tennessee and the richest agricultural
county in the State, had failed to join
the majority. In Tennessee there are
only thirty-fve remaining out of the
fold.
Speaker had introduced a bill in the
Legislature requiring the counties to
levy high school tax. The county
high school is not an experiment, We
have reached the time when the State
should say to the counties that you
must levy high-school tax. 1t does
not require any argument to show that
the State should make a compulsory
tax instead of permissible tax. Nothing
would make for better sociaizlng in
huence than one big central high school,
where the pupils of the county could
assemble and take a two years course
after completing their elementary work
in the district school. But you wait
and find out what the town ring wants
and then you vote "agin" it. The
country and the town need each other.
They could mutually supplement each
other and live better thereby. Each
should learn something of the other and
a better unanimity would exist.
In Tennessee not one out of hun
dred go thru college. Ninety-seven out
of hundred never see inside of COL
lege. Tennessee has suffered from one
thing in particular, and it is that edu-
Gated boys have been inculcated with
the idea of looking down on labor. No
work needed to be done is unimportant.
All work is worthy of the best intellect.
Before the war we had various stratas
of society," and there was sentiment
among negroes that II would rather be
a niger than poor white man." The
war has brought about an economic evo-
luton, and the best thought is being
turned into the fields of industry and
channels of trade. The boy who re-
mains on the farm needs an education
just as much as the one going into the
office. The farmer deals with the COM
mercial problems of the world and it is
an insult to say that he should be an
ignoramus.
Obion is fully able to compete
with other counties in the State and
your people should never rest until
you have one or more good county
high schools.
COOPERATION.
On account of the belated train
northbound the other two special
speakers for the occasion had not
arrived Editor MOOOpV of the