Year: 1871

Educati0n! A Natien's Best Gift


10 the People.


Il will give my children an education
and then they will always be able to make
their way in the world,'' said my Father
and though only an humble tiller of the
soil, earning his bread by the sweat of
his brow, he never grudged dollar for
this purpose. or withheld his hand from
generously helping the children of others
still poorer than himself to this great bles-
sing and now that he is no longer here to
aid and counsel, We all look back with
greatful hearts upon those days oftoil,
and doubly value the precious prize which
they brought to US. Every one who op-
poses the school tax, should stop moment
and reflect. that by just so much as he
docs this, is he adding to the great mass
of ignorance and its consequent crime and
vice. In Pennsylvania they are endeav-
oring to psss a law. compelling the atten-
dance at school for certain number of
months in the year, of every child of a
schoolable age. And why should Ten
nessee be behind the Keystone State in
this great work of education? Why pre-
fer paying Jail tax to school tax? One or
the other nanst be paid and who that sees
our streets full of children from morning
till night-children whose busy, restless
and enquiring minds, are filling them
selves up with food, such as would cause
the mothers and sisters, if not their faith
ers and brothers, to shudder with sicken-
ing horror, could they but know and re-
alize the effects of its contaminating in
fuence. Every good thought, every sub
ject of philosophical contemplation. every
impulse eff love. every generous feeling.
every gem of admiration for the true and
the beautiful, which is instilled into
child's heart or mind, is one more helper
on in the onward and upward path of life.
Each good seed sown will absorb the place
which some bad or evil one might other
wise creep in and occupy. .l..f


What is it but the superior education
and training of the Prussians that gave
them the superiority and advantage in the
war with France! Speaking of the schools
of PRUSSIA, f. *. Hosomer in the Allan
tic Monthly says; Every able bodied
young Prussian must serve as a soldier,
he he noble.or low born. rich or poor. !!
he caanot read or ar1fte he must learn.
He must be punctual, neat, temperate,
and so gets valuable habits. His body is
trained to be strong and sdple. Shoema
kers and bankers son, count, tailor and
farmer, march together, and community
of feeling comes about. The schools are
admirable. The University at Berlin
counts its students by thousands, its rro-
fessors by hundreds. There is no branch
of human knowledge without its teacher.
One can study Egyptian heroglyphics or
the Assyrian arrowhead inscriptions. a
new pimple can hardly break out on the
blotched face of the moon, without lee
ture from a professor next day, to explain
the theory of its development. The poor
earthquakes are hardly left to shake in
peace in and out-of-the-way strip of South
American coast, or Calabrian plain, but a
German professor violates their privacy,
undertakes to see whence they come and
whittier they 60, and tries to predict when
they will go to shaking again.


Out of tsuenty-one millions of Italians
only four millions can read and write
And look around our own neighborhood.
in our own county and State, and see the
vast numbers who are also in this same
pitiable condition-to whom every book
and paper, every almanac. even, is an un-
known tongue. Think of those, who with
every pulse throbbing with warmest affec-
tion for an absent child, parent or friend,
and yet are unable to hold the longed for
heart-communion with them through the
medium of pen ard paper, only as some
strauger-hand writes for them few dry,
meaningless, parrot-like words, which may
hap some other stranger will have to be
called upon to read to the recipient Oh
let us who pour out our feelings warm and
fresh from the deep fountains of the hearts
purest and best, strive with all our heart
and might to give this blessed boon to ev
cry child in the land. not as a grudging
charity, but as an inherent birth-right as
much to rightful heritage of earth's chill
dren, as in the free sunlight, the pure air,
and the crystal water


'.Then pleasant as the morning light,


In peace shall pass our days;


And heart-approving conscious joy,


illuminate our ways


E. D. S.


Factory Vile, Carter County, East Tenn.