THE EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM IN THE COTTON STATES.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 447, 19 November 1875, Page 3

THE EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM IN THE COTTON STATES.

The following is an extract from a very able lecture on the above subject by Dexter A. Hawkins, Esq, Chairman of Committee on Education of the New York City Council of Political Reform : “While travelling in Italy in 1853, 1 had for a companion for some weeks a gentleman from Moscow, who was a member of the Diplomatic Service of Russia. He spoke seven languages, and, though he had never been in America, he was as familiar as De Tocqueville with our history and institutions. One day he su prised me by saying, 1 How long do you think your free Government will stand V I replied, ‘As long as any Government stands ; we think it the best, and the best of every species survives,’ “He replied, ‘ I give you ten years. Half of your country is fit for a Republic. In that half the intelligent citizen, the school district, the town, the country, the State, the Free Church, are all homogeneous, qualified and harmonious elements of free Government. But the other half of your country has an institution and a social organism, which unfit every citizen for a Republic, and train him up for a military despotism. At the rate things progress and develop in America, the crisis must come within ien years ; and then the result will depend upon whether there is in the Free States intelligence and decision enough to crush out slavery ; if not, free government will end. The Union will be preserved, but either as a military despotism protecting slavery, or a democratic republic abolishing slavery, and protecting the free common schools and a free Church.’ “ The crisis did come in eight years. After a century of experiment, the cotton States decided to sacrifice free government for the sake of retaining forced labour. They expended half a million of lives and billions of money in the endeavor to establish a political power in harmony with human slavery, and with it as a corner stone. “ Their acts, method of thought, and aspirations during the five years of bloody struggle had rendered them more unfit than before to ca ry on successfully and wisely the free and tolerant government they had failed to destroy ; namely, a democratic republic based upon universal suffrage. “ When peace was restored, it was thought to be clear that it was not wise or safe to intrust this 5C£ per cent of born and bred petty tyrants and oligarchists with the whole political power of the cotton States. They would naturally try to restore in substance, if not in form, the old order of things, and would do it inevitably if not restrained by some superior power, “ But the 43J per cent of coloured inhabitants just out of bondage were equally unfit to rule a republican State, though from an opposite stand-point. They were grossly ignorant, and had been brought up to consider themselves human cattle —mere chattels —with no right except to labour and to obey. The gates of knowledge, especially of political knowledge, had been kept guarded and shut against them. “ In crushing out the rebellion, we put an end to the former civil and social State ; destroyed the oligarchy, abolished human catt'e, and made all human beings equal before the law, “ But we did not and could not eradicate at once the evil effects, upon all .classes, of Iwo hundred years of slavery. These remain till new generations are born and trained under the aegis of liberty. “ What now is the actual condition of our patient as a member of our democratic republican family 1 He has fu 1 civil and political rights; but 51 per cent of him above the age of ten cannot read or write, and is as ignorant of the use of these rights as a child is of the use of a case of surgical instruments. If we give the instruments to him, and leave him without a guardian, he is as likely to cut, and probe, and saw in the wrong place as in the right, and thus destroy himself. Wo it is with one half our patients. What wc intended for his salvation may, through his ignorance and inexperience, prove his destruction.

“ But the South must bo saved from the unlettered of both classes. In short, it must be redeemed from the rule of ignorance. This cannot be done at once by restricting suffrage to the intelligent; for, as a matter of fact, a right like that of suffrage, once conferred upon millions of men, cannot be peaceably taken away. Nor would it be wise at present to do so, even if it were practicable ; for the 49 per cent of the present generation in the cotton States, who are not illiterate, are, as already shown, not themselves qualified to govern with justice and equity a republican State, peopled to the extent of nearly one-half by their former slaves. The three thousand unpunished murders, stated by a Southern member of Congress to have been committed by them since civil government was restored, are proof of this. The political slaughters of New Orleans, Coushatta, and Colfax demonstrate it. “ The redemption and restoration of the cotton States can be accomplished only by and through universal education. Dictators, military governors, martial law, cure nothing, remedy nothing ; they are mere temporary restraints, like the hangman’s rope or the headsman’s axe ; often necessary evils, but never reformatory elements. Compromises to keep the Kelloggs or the M'Bnerys in power are equally futile. “The free common school must be planted, nurtured, and sustained within reach of every man’s children, white or colored, from Albermarle Sound to Rio Grande ; and a law must be enacted, and public sentiment to enforce it cieated, that will require the children to attend these schools. In the language of Milton, statesman as well as poet : ‘ To make the people fittest to choose, and the chosen fittest to govern, we must teach the people.’ The patience and perse vcrance of long years are essential to success in this undertaking. “ We must labor and wait till the present generation, at least, has passed away, and a new one has been born and educated in freedom, common schools, and equal civil rights. It is a great work, a gigantic labor, to create the schools and educate in them seven millions of people.