Year: 1869

~-----E ---D-- -
been sustained among the white children of
this State by the Baltimore Association of
Friends, though heretofore mentioned both
in this journal and in the Sentinel, deserves
our thanks and praise again and again.
They have about fifty schools with three
thousand pupils, mostly in the central por-
tions of the State. We do not rrspose at
this time to repeat the statistics already pub
lished, but to call attention to their excel
lent and practical planfor the instruction of
the teachers. The school sessions close with
the month of June, and then all the fifty
teachers are assembled Al central place apd
theze tsemssixes atteaa school for six weeks
under their efficient Superintendent. All
their expenses are paid by the liberal Asso
citation. They return the next year to their
work with new ideas and methods, and
fresh zeal to improve their schools and bene-
fit the community. Their aim is not merely
to keep school, but to make their school
frst-rate. ~ 5,,


To raise up such teachers justiies an
outlay. The want of them has always been
the great difficulty in working Public
School system. The State of North Caro-
lima must meet this want with as much
practical wisdom as the benevolent societies
which have supplied us in our time of dis
organization. 1t will not be sufficient to
establish department for Normal instruc-
tion in the Universities, as the Constitution
requires. The State itself must, at least in
the beginning, support the pupils. We af-
firm this not merely for the reason stated in
The North Carolina School Report for 1858,
that "we must look to the poor classes for
our Teachers" but on the principle that per-
sons of special qualifications are needed for
the State in the shortest possible time and
without possibility of failure. ega5


AS the United States trains Army officers
at West Point and navy commanders at
Annapolis; so must we prepare our leaders
in the grand army of education. Even
States in which the School system has been
long established, find it necessary to help
youth in preparation to become teachers.
Massachusetts, gives hundred dollars an
nually to each of forty young men in her
colleges on condition that they shall after
wards teach in the public schools. And all
such scholars on attending Normal School
after leaving college receive fifty dollars a
term from the State Treasury. Is not the
young North Carolinian who dedicates him
self to the high calling of public teacher,
as worthy of public allowance as the New
Englander, and at the present time likely to
be quite as needy?


We claim no originality for these sugges-
tions. The people of North Carolina are
familiar with the thought that their youth
deserve and must receive more help in their
efforts after an education, and this, too, not
merely to furnish us with teachers, but to
secure the education of young men of ability
to serve the community in different spheres Of
usefulness. There have been many young
men supported in the University by the CON
tributions of their fellow students through
the Literary Societies This is a matter Of
just pride, and at the same time the most
incontrovertible evidence of the need o
such help for students. The importance ol
educating Agricultural Chemists to assist
planters in reviving the exhausted soils o
the State was well set forth before the Agri
| cultural Society of Cumberland county b,
| the Orator at their Fair in 1850, Walter T
Leak, Esq. He proposed that there shoult
be selected from each Congressional distric
three young men of steady habits, goot
morals and limited means to be educated q
the University in Agricultural Chemistr.
and Geology, the Agricultural societies pay
ing their tuition and the State paying al
other expenses by an appropriation Of somt
ten thousand do liars year. We commcnt
the following liberal sentiments ofbis to th
consideration of the people to-day:


| sLet it not be said that the State is al
ready in debt, and requires her resources Il
meet her engagements. What we ask j
such scanty appropriation, with such al
object in oiew Give US an appropriation
and, my word for it, you would soon find
new and profitable stimulus impaired to ag
ricultural industry. Give us something likks
this and require of the educated young nlcr
to take charge of some central free school ir
their respective counties, and you remedy il


no little degree the greatest difficulty wit
which your present free school system ha


to contend, the want of competent ins.ruc
tors of youth You would thus inaugural


in miniature Normal School" system


which must be perfected into manhood b


fore popular education can ever attain il


highest degree of usefulness, or at all me,


the expectation of its friends.


"Who can object toa plan like thise tt


farmer qoW not, for it is the crying want


this agricultural! age; the friends Of popal;


education canaHs, for as far as it goes,


remedies what all admit to oe an evil in tt


present free school system; the demagog,


dare not, for his appeals in behalf Of the de-


people will then cease to be effecsaal, and tt


very prejudices attempted to- be arouse


will be closed to his approach"


The grower of cotton gets profit of o


cent for every five cents profit by the man
| focfy1ror- Wa7on. DJn:,a Jno7s,