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As much as we may boast of our free institutions we are far behind the rest of the world in industrial education, in the application of scientific principles to daily life. We abuse Russia, but Russia has 1,200 technological schools; Belgium has 25,000 pupils in her trade schools; Denmark, 6,000; Italy, 16,000. Georgia has no trade school for white children. She has, fortunately, one noble technological school, which I commend to your support and your encouragement. The other day I went to Newport News, which, as you know, is at the mouth of James River, on Hampton Bay, in the State of Virginia. The largest shipbuilding works and the largest dry dock in the United States are at Newport News. They recently received contracts for the construction of United States vessels, and are prepared to do all such work in the best possible manner. I went through the works. I had an old Confederate soldier to pilot me. When I asked about the improvements in the place his heart rejoiced. I was there when the dinner hour arrived. From the shops and works men came in great numbers, until it seemed there must have been 1,000. I said to my friend, "Where do these men come from?" He replied that they came from various parts of the world. "Are there any from the South?" said I. "Oh, yes," said he. What do you pay these men?" I asked. "From one dollar a day up to eight or ten." "Do any of these old Confederates get the eight or ten?" With a deep sigh and with a tear in his eye, he said: “No; no Confederate among them. The Confederate soldiers," he continued, "and the negroes get a dollar a day; the Northern and European laborers get the six or ten dollars a day." "Why is this?" I asked. "Because," said he, "they have had industrial training at home. They come from their shops and from their training schools, and they put intelligence into their work, and they get for it the best wages."

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And yet, when I stand here and appeal to Georgians for manual-labor schools, you say that man is a theorizer; he is taking up the time of the legislature, which should be passing an act to declare Goose Creek a highway, or to build a road across Possum Swamp, or a bridge over Terrapin Hollow! [Laughter.]

Last year, Mr. President, I was in Asia Minor. If any of you have read The Prince of India you will remember some account of the town of Brusa, southeast of Constantinople. I saw there hundreds of donkeys and women with loads of mulberry leaves. A few years ago the silk trade seemed likely to become extinct, because of an insect that was destroying the mulberry trees and attacking the cocoons. Thousands of trees were cut down. The people are now replanting the mulberry trees, and trade is springing up again. It is because Pasteur, the great curer of hydrophobia, subjected the cocoons to a microscopic examination, discovered the insect and applied a remedy. He applied scientific knowledge to the work of saving the silk trade. A school of sericulture has been established, the mulberry trees are being planted, and the people are growing prosperous again.

When you came here you took the oath to support the Constitution, and it says that there shall be a thorough system of common schools, free to all children, for education in the elementary branches of an English education. This mandate requires general, or State, and local supervision, neat and healthy houses, grading and classifying of the pupils, adequate local and State revenues." A valued friend said to me last night that Georgia is spending too much money for public schools. Let us see how this is. Agricultural depression is more serious and more harmful in Mississippi than in any other State, because it is so exclusively agricultural, having few manufacturing interests, little commerce, and no big cities. And yet Mississippi pays for her public schools $7.80 on every thousand dollars of the taxable value of property; Illinois pays $14.40; Texas, $4.80; Nebraska, $18.70; Massachusetts, $3.80; New York, $4.50. Georgia's educational tax proper for the support of the public schools is $1.40 on the thousand dollars! What do you say to that? Can you expect to equal other States in school advantages unless you increase the revenues going to the public schools? Let it be borne in mind that ontside the cities, the local or extraState revenues are very meager. The Southern States raise on an average about 36 cents per capita of population.

But you need not only to increase the revenues supporting the common schoolsyou need promptly and properly paid teachers. The worst thing that I have ever heard about my native State, Georgia, is that she has permitted the teachers in her public schools-poorly paid as they are-to go month after month without receiving the pittance of their hard-earned salaries! [Applause.] If I were the legislature I would not let the sun go down before I wiped away this crime against the teachers of the State. I only echo what you will find in the governor's message, in the report of Captain Bradwell, and in the lamentations of the teachers.

The training of the teachers is implicitly contained in the compulsory establishment of schools. By making education an integral part of the government you are under strongest obligation to provide good schools. The teacher is the school. You can not have a thorough system of common schools without good teachers. You can not have good teachers without paying them promptly their salaries and without training them to teach. Unfortunately our normal schools are handicapped by the

unpreparedness of the pupils to be taught how to teach. Thorough general training should precede professional training, and is its best preparation for it. Take a school of medicine or of law and combine it with elementary education. It would be absurd. It is none the less absurd to combine elementary instruction with professional training for teaching. Teachers should know the history of education and of educational methods, and practical and definite application of the principles of education; and these things should not be dead rules. The teacher goes from the concrete to the abstract; from special to general; from known to unknown; from idea to the word; from thought to clear expression; and these should be applied habitually, unconsciously, and govern spontaneously every act and element in teaching. Students can become habituated to best methods by being kept in the true path, under the guidance of those familiar with the right methods and principles. I went to Milledgeville the other day to see and inspect the Normal and Industrial College. It is a most remarkable school. It has been in existence only three years, and has 322 girls; 121 engaged in preparing themselves for teaching school. Although in its infancy, it has sent out 100 teachers to teach in Georgia. I went into the different departments. I wish you could see Professor Branson's teaching in the normal department; it would do you good. You could not do a better thing than to spend a day in going through the school and seeing what they teach there. If you do not go yourselves, send your committees and let them see how the thing is done.

Here is a map, which is an object lesson. It shows the normal schools in the United States. It is not accurate in all its details; yet the general facts are correctly stated. In the States that are most wealthy and most advanced there are the greater number of these black dots, which represent normal schools. The person who made the map did not recognize the fact that in Georgia you have an excellent normal school at Milledgeville. It is industrial and normal, and the work done is excellent. The Peabody fund gave $1,800 last year to this school. I wish I could persuade you to establish coeducation of the sexes at Milledgeville. In the name of patriotism, why do not you teach the boys as well as the girls how to teach school?

Teaching-good teaching, I ought to say-has much of the persuasive power of oratory. It is a glorious sight to see a live teacher-not one of these old moss-back teachers, who has not learned anything since the flood, but a live teacher, who appreciates his vocation-standing before his classes! How it arouses enthusiasm, fortifies the will, inspires the soul; and what a criminal waste of time and money and labor and energy it is to put an incompetent teacher before a class of boys and girls! We see sometimes a picture of Herod murdering the innocents. How we grieve over it! I went into a school the other day in the mountains. There sat the teacher, ignorant, stolid, indifferent, incapable, with the boys and girls gathered around him, studying the a-b, ab; b-a, ba, k-e-r, ker, baker; and I thought then, Mr. President, that we ought to have another painter to draw another picture of the murder of the innocents. It is not the teachers who ought to be painted in that picture; it is the legislatures who are murdering the innocents, when they refuse to establish normal schools for the proper training of teachers. How does the old hymn go? "How tedious and tasteless the hour"--some of you have sung it. How unutterably tedious are the hours spent in such schools, poring over lessons day after day. Some are mechanics when they ought to be artists, for these teachers have no plan nor method, no inspiration nor striving to teach and stimulate all the many sides of a child's nature to higher attainments, higher thoughts and more vigorous action. Time does not permit me to speak of secondary schools, of rural schools, of six-months schools. Some one in writing about me in the paper said that I was growing old. That may be true as to years, but not in thought, not in patriotism, not in loyalty to the South, not in loyalty to the Union, not in loyalty to this country of ours, and to the Stars and Stripes. I am not growing old in my interest in the cause of education. And yet when I hear that your people are about to celebrate the semicentennial of Atlanta, it recalls to mind the time when I used to pass this place and there was no city here, nothing but old Whitehall Tavern. That was in 1811-42. During that period a town was started which was called Marthasville. I used to ride through this section of the country, by Decatur and Stone Mountain, on my way from my home in Alabama to the college at Athens. It then took me five days to make the journey. Now I can go the distance in six hours. What a mighty change! From Marthasville in 1842 to Atlanta in 1893! Five days of travel cut down to six hours; five days on horseback or in stage coach to six hours in a Pullman palace car! Steam has revolutionized the business and travel of the world. We have gone from the stage coach to the steam car, and the sails of the old ships have been superseded by the ocean steamships. The telegraph and telephone and steam have brought the continents into one neighborhood and given solidarity to the business of the world. The merchant can telegraph to China or to Japan for a bill of goods; and before he goes to bed to-night word comes from the other end of the world that the goods have been delivered to the ship and they will leave in the morning. What a revolution has been wrought in our methods of business. Improved machinery of transportation

has reduced freight expenses from 24 cents per ton per mile to about one-half cent per ton per mile. Civilization creates new kinds of property. In Africa the inhabitants know nothing about bills of exchange, promissory notes, choses in actionnothing about the modern methods of business. Just in proportion as you grow in civilization, and advance in the scale of education and intelligence, you have more kinds of property. It is because of diffused education, because of the work of intelligence, because the forces of nature have been harnessed to the business of life. Science and religion are both evangels of democracy. Wherever these go shackles fall off, tyranny ceases, and the great masses are lifted up to the recognition of their rights and their privileges. Prerogative of mental development is no longer confined to the few, but is conceded to all who bear the image of the Son of Man.

Only one more remark. I said awhile ago that I was a Georgia boy. I am a native of Lincoln County-the dark corner of Lincoln. I graduated from the University of Georgia, growing up in my college days with such men as Tom Cobb, Linton Stephens, Ben Hill, Jud Glenn, and others. In my political life I associated on terms of intimacy with such men as Stephens, Toombs, Hill, and Cobb. I come to you as a Georgian, appealing for the interests of the children of Georgia, and appealing to the representatives of the State. How inspiring it is to deeds of noble statesmanship to read the names of the counties you represent. Some of them recall in imperishable words the names of founders of the State, of men who stood for her rights, of men who bore the brunt of the Revolutionary struggle, such as Oglethorpe, Richmond, Burke, Chatham, Wilkes, and Camden; Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Carroll, Sumter, Putnam, Jasper, Greene, the German De Kalb, Hancock, Lincoln; to them add the names of the men of the days succeeding the Revolution, Calhoun, Webster, Clay, Lowndes, Polk, Pierce, Douglas, Randolph, Taylor, and Quitmanmen from other States, but allied to you in close sympathy. Not these only, for your own great men have their names linked with the destinies of your counties. What an inspiration it must be to represent the county of Berrien, or Bartow, or Cobb, or Clayton, or Dawson, or Dooly, or Dougherty, or Forsyth, or Gilmer, or Hall, or Jackson, or Johnson, or Lumpkin, or McDuffie, or Miller, or Meriwether, or Murray, or Troup, or Walton. I think that if I were a representative from such a county, with such a name, I should be inspired with patriotism to do something high and useful, and to help the State I lived in to bear worthily the name of the "Empire State of the South." [Applause.] I appeal to you for the common schools of Georgia, for the future men and women of the State The women of the State touch my heart very deeply. My grandmother, mother, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, Georgia born, names suggestive of holiest affection and tenderest memories, which make me, not less than my nativity, a Georgian. In all of womankind, whether or not history has recorded or romance described or poesy sung her virtues, there has been no type of female excellence, no example of purity or loveliness or heroism more exalted and noble than that furnished by Georgia mother or wife, fit representatives of the unsurpassed southern matron. In their names I plead.

Mr. President, a friend told me of a girl in the northern part of the State, not prince-begotten nor palace-cradled, growing up in glad joyousness and innocency, amid the rich, virgin growth of wild trees, who was seen plowing an ox on rolling hillside to earn subsistence for an invalid father, a bed-ridden Confederate soldier, who lay helpless in an adjacent log cabin. Touched by such heroism and filial fidelity, a gentleman sent her to school, and last year at the examination one thousand people, who had come from the mountains to show their interest in the education of the children, saw that girl, who had labored for the support of herself and her bed-ridden father, stand on the platform and take the prize offered for the best essay. Refusing to abandon her old father during vacation, she went back to her mountain home and to labor, but she is now teaching in the school which brought to light her latent powers. There are thousands of Georgia boys, in the wire grass and middle Georgia and in the mountains, who, if educated, would, like Stephens, be patriotic and honored servants of the State. There are thousands of young maidens, who, like our heroine, require but the helping hand of the State and the warmth of generous culture to emerge from humble homes of obscurity and poverty to places of usefulness and honor. [Long applause.]

LOUISIANA.

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM IN LOUISIANA. [Paper prepared for Louisiana Educational Association, by John R. Ficklen, professor of history in Tulane University.]

**If I had as many sons as Priam, I would send them all to the public schools.”—Daniel Webster, Mr. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: It seems eminently wise that the Louisiana Educational Association at this period of its honored career should devote a portion of its time and attention to the origin and development of the public-school

system within the borders of this State; for we are now entering upon a new era in the history of our schools, and we need, in particular at such a time, to study both the present and the probabilities of the future in the light of the past. As student and teacher I have always laid great stress upon this study of the historical development of our institutions as one of prime importance. We do not thoroughly understand the present until we know how and why it has become what it is. Moreover, from the accumulated experience of those who have gone before us we may learn to avoid a thousand errors; where they garnered only "barren regrets," we may reap a bountiful harvest of good results.

As the individual must live over in miniature the life of the whole human race, so those who would reform institutions must investigate the history of those institutions and understand the causes that led to failure or to success. Without this knowledge their labors will be short sighted and unfruitful, and to their hands no wide powers should be intrusted.

Let us trace, then, as briefly as possible, the origin and development of our publicschool system. From such a study I hope something profitable and something interesting may be gleaned together. Clearness of treatment will be promoted if we divide the whole subject into three periods.

I. From the beginning of this century to the framing of the second constitution in 1845.

II. From 1845 to the civil war.

III. From the civil war to the present time (1894).

I.

Before the opening of the nineteenth century, as you doubtless know, public free schools did not exist in Louisiana. The Ursuline Nuns, ever since they were brought over by Bienville, had devoted themselves to the education of young women, and there were some private schools in New Orleans, but the policy of the Government had provided no system of public instruction. The truth is that monarchical governments in that day were unfavorable to the education of the masses. Knowledge is power, and it was not considered desirable that the people should have much power.

In the year 1803, however, the great Territory of Louisiana, Jefferson's fine purchase, was formally transferred to the commissioners of the American Union. As you know, Louisiana then embraced a vast tract of country, from which many rich and prosperous States have since been carved. For nine years the southern portion was called the Territory of Orleans; but, finally, in 1812, much to the delight of its 60,000 inhabitants, it was erected into the State of Louisiana-one of the fairest sovereignties that go to constitute the American Union.

During the early period of its territorial government, there are to be found frequent references to the subject of public education. But many years were to elapse before educational views crystallized into any kind of system of free schools. Nor was this tardy recognition of the value of common schools peculiar to Louisiana. It was equally the case in the early history of all the Southern and most of the Northern States. It would be interesting to trace the development of public schools in the United States at large; to show how the enduring system established in Massachusetts by the old Puritans of the seventeenth century was modeled after the system of schools which they had learned to know during their sojourn in Holland-a system in which Holland at that time led the world. It would be interesting to show that the main object of the Puritans was to keep out "that old deluder, Satan," by teaching all the children to read the Bible, thus preparing them to exorcise the evil spirits that ever torment the ignorant. It would be still more interesting to show why that old royalist, Governor Berkeley, feared the rise of public (I had almost said republican) schools, and devoutly thanked God that there were none in Virginia. Such themes, however, while they would be fruitful of suggestions as to the progress of our American civilization, would occupy far more time than has been allotted to this whole paper. I can not forbear, however, mentioning one fact which may make our Louisiana teachers rejoice that they live in this day and generation rather than in the New England of the seventeenth century. In an old New England town book (date 1661) the duties of the schoolmaster are laid down as follows: (1) To act as court messenger; (2) to serve summonses; (3) to conduct certain ceremonial services of the church; (4) to lead the Sunday choir; (5) to dig the graves; (6) to take charge of the school; (7) to ring the bell for public worship; (8) to perform other occasional duties. With these manifold functions to discharge, it is easy to understand the importance attached, in early New England, to the office of schoolmaster.

But to return to Louisiana. No sooner had the United States taken possession of Louisiana than the enlightened policy of our first American governor, W. C. C.

Claiborne, spoke out in no uncertain accents on the subject of public education. I quote from his address to the territorial council in 1804, just ninety years ago: "In adverting to your primary duties," he says, "I have yet to suggest one than which none can be more important or interesting. I mean some general provision for the education of youth. If we revere science for her own sake or for the innumerable benefits she confers upon society, if we love our children and cherish the laudable ambition of being respected by posterity, let not this great duty be overlooked. Permit me to hope, then, that under your patronage, seminaries of learning will prosper, and means of acquiring information be placed within the reach of each growing family. Let exertions be made to rear up our children in the paths of science and virtue, and impress upon their tender hearts a love of civil and religious liberty. My advice, therefore, is that your system of education be extensive and liberally supported.”

These were noble sentiments, but if we may judge by the words of the same governor some years later, they found as yet only a feeblo echo in the hearts of the people. For in 1809 we find Claiborne lamenting the general "abandonment of education in Louisiana." It is true that in 1805 the College of Orleans was established-a college in which the honored historian of Louisiana, Charles Gayarre, was a pupil; but though it lingered on till 1826, it was never in a flourishing condition, and the legis lature finally concluded to abolish it and appropriate its funds to the establishment of one central and two primary schools. In the constitution of 1812, under which Louisiana was admitted to the Union, there is no mention of a system of public education; it was perhaps intended that the whole matter should be left to legislative action. During the ensuing war of 1812-15 with England, in which Louisiana bore so glorious a part, the people were too much absorbed in the defense of their soil to make any provision for education.

According to the annual message of Governor A. B. Roman (in 1831), it was the year 1818, just one hundred years after the founding of New Orleans, that witnessed the enactment of the first law concerning a system of public schools. The governor doubtless means the first effective law; for ten years previously (1808), an act was passed to establish public schools, but it was rendered nugatory by the proviso that the school tax should be collected only from those who were willing to pay it. Beginning in 1818, however, the legislature made comparatively liberal appropriations for educational purposes, the amounts increasing from $13,000 in 1820 to $27,000 in 1824. Little attention was paid to elementary instruction, but it was proposed to establish an academy or a college in every parish in the State. Lottery schemes-not peculiar to Louisiana, but used freely for educational institutions at this period, both in the North and in the West-were set on foot to raise funds for the College of Orleans and for an academy recently established in Rapides Parish. In addition, one-fourth of the tax paid by the gaming houses of New Orleans was presumably sanctified by its appropriation to the cause of education.

In spite, however, of all these efforts the message of Governor Roman in 1831 makes patent the fact that the system of public instruction in Louisiana has been a failure. The main cause of the failure was recognized by this enlightened Creole and he sets it forth in the clearest and strongest language. It may be summed up in a few words. The schools had not been wholly free. In every academy established and in every primary school provision was made to receive without tuition fees a certain number of indigent pupils. In the two primary schools of New Orleans, for instance, gratuitous instruction was given only to children between the ages of 7 and 14, and preference was to be shown to at least 50 children from the poorer classes. Thus a certain number of poor children, marked with the badge of charity, were to be admitted to the schools and there associate with others that paid. Such a system of public schools could not be successful. The pride of the poorer classes was hurt. One of the parishes refused to take the money appropriated for public schools, while in many others the parents, though living near the schoolhouses, would not send their children because it was repugnant to their feelings to have them educated gratuitously.

In twelve years, declares Governor Roman, the expenditure for public schools had amounted to $354,000, and it was doubtful whether 354 indigent students had derived from these schools the advantages which the legislature wished to extend to that class. In conclusion the governor uttered these significant words, words which should be engraved over the portals of our legislative halls: "Louisiana will never reach the station to which she is entitled among her sister States until none of her electors shall need the aid of his neighbor to prepare his ballot."

Thus we see that the necessity of a new system was beginning to be felt-a system under which the schools should be absolutely free, under which the sons and daughters of the rich and poor should sit side by side, and know no distinction except that which is created by superior abilities. Unless the schools could be raised to a higher level in public esteem, there was no hope of their success.

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