The North Star (Rochester)/1847/12/03/Ignorance in Alabama

Ignorance in Alabama.—Such is the title of an article in the Southern (Alabama) Advocate, on the subject of popular education, in the course of which the following statement is made, founded upon the census of 1840:

"By that document, we find that the white population of the State then amounted to about three hundred and thirty-five thousand, (335,185,) and that, of these, the number over twenty-one years of age alone who could neither read nor write amounted to upwards of twenty-two thousand, (22,592!) Twenty-two thousand citizens in a Republican State, who could not read the charter of their liberties! Twenty-two thousand in a Christian land, to whom the Scriptures, the guide of moral conduct, were as much a sealed book as to the unhappy beings in the darkest regions of Paganism! These are astounding facts—they are disgraceful—they are mournful."

By referring to the census, it will be found that the number of white persons in Alabama over twenty years of age was 130,897. The fair estimate, then, is, that almost one in every five adult white persons in Alabama in 1840 could neither read nor write! And we have the testimony of this writer, that the evil has been steadily increasing since the census was taken. He attributes it, in some cases, to the worthlessness of the school lands donated by Congress; and in others, to the neglect or mismanagement of them. The truth is, the Legislature has provided no system of public education, and the reason of this is obvious. It was stated by Senator Archer, of Virginia, in a short address delivered by him in Cincinnati, a few months ago, at the close of the annual examination of the Common Schools by which that city is adorned:

 

"Senator Archer," said the Cincinnati Times, "remarked, at the close of the examination, that he now saw, for the first time, evidence of the practicability of popular education. No one, (he said,) who had been so long conversant with political matters as he had, could doubt that the only safeguard of our free institutions is the diffusion of sound knowledge among the whole people. It was to him a source of deep regret that, in his own State, from the nature of its population, the establishment of a system of public schools had been impracticable."

 

This is the secret of it. "The nature o the population" prevents. The Plantation thins out the free white population, and what should be a school district, is occupied by a few wealthy slaveholders with hordes of slaves. To the latter, education is forbidden, and the former do not live near enough to keep up a school; and even were this not the case, their habits dispose them to employ private tutors, or send them to boarding schools, rather than suffer their children to mingle with these of the poor at a common school. But the poor alone cannot keep up schools; and thus anything like a system of popular education is effectually prevented.—Wash. Era.