Year: 1875

Recently we had occasion to look over an
educational document which was largely
composed of the reports of school commit
tees and supervisors. About fifty of these
reports contained the remark that the public
school was ''the bulwark of our civil and re-
ligous liberty'-not in these precise words
always but variously ampiied by the fatu-
lent vocabulary and embellished with the tur-
gid rhetoric of the stump orator. From read
ing these reports and other evidences-mostly
the latter-We had come TO conclude that a
free school system which should provide am
pie instruction for every child within the
limits of the State, is the first subject which
its legislature should consider and the first
object it should make provision for. We
have, therefore, had many serious appre-
tensions of the pernicious results which
will follow the large non-attendance of our
public schools and especially the disastrous
consequences likely to come from the neglect
of the Southern States to provide ample
means of instruction for their hundreds Of
thousands of ignorant children, white and
black. The North has widely lamented the
lack of interest in the South in the sup
port of free schools, but some recent develop
ments respecting the text books in vogue in
the South will seem to mitigate the grief of
patriotic and intelligent people at the partial
failure, thus far, to establish a general free
school system in the reconstructed states.
A Philadelphia frm,-and we had as well
give the name-J. B. Lippincott & Co., have
just issued school-history written by a
Professor" Derry of Augusta, Georgia, which
is calculated to do as much mischief as any
book can, as will be seen from the following
specimen passage taken therefrom:


Which are the most prosperous of the South
ern states?


Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, and
North Carolina.


To what do they owe their prosperity?


To the fact that the white population in
those states is largely in excess of the negro
population, and hence their state governments
are entirely in the hands of the whites, the on
ly race that ought ever to bear rule in this
country.


What is one of the most important measures
Of Grants administration?


The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to
the Federal Constitution, which, like the Fear-
UPGOtu AIueuuulGuG WAS CdltlGu tHIOuSA uy
force and usurpation.


What does the Fifteenth Amendment de-
clare?


1t tdeclares that the right of citizens of the
United States TO vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the UHlted States, or by any State,
on account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude


What more can you say Of the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments.


They have served to keep alive bitterness
of feeling which but for them would have long
since died out.


In these answers, the pupil is not only
taught that coloreG men are unfit to hold any
office in this country, thereby keeping up the
political color line another generation with all
its injustice and bitterness, but that the last
were adopted by "force and usurpation,"
(which involves, of course, the idea that this
essential part Of our fundamental law should
be disregarded and overthrown); and further
that these amendments shave served to keep
alive bitterness of feeling which would have
long since died out"


This is a pretty crop of ideas to SOW in the
youthful mind. What sort of a crop may be
expected from this tare planting? Of course,
it cannot be expected that the southern
schoolbook maker will go into raptures re-
specting the reconstruction policy but it is
not too much to expect that he will take a
non-partisan and impartial view OF the
events of the past fifteen years. We cannot
believe that any book has been permitted to
be used in Northern schools, which contains
malignant Trades against the South, much
less assaults upon the Constitution. If
any such book had been introduced, we are
confident that the public would demand that
it be instantly elected. is this work to be
taken as an evidence of the goodwill of the
educated people of the South toward the
North or that they wish TO forget and heal up
the unhappy differences of the last twelve
years? Ifso, what good result can they ex-
pect from instilling such preposterous par
tisanship and disloyal sentiments respecting
the Constitution into the miuds of the young?
And these Philadelphia publishers, can they
justify themselves as patriotic men when
they issue such a book?