National aid to education. [Circular letter by James Mitchell.] Atlanta, March 11, 1886.

001




NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION.

Hon
.

My Dear Sir
—Allow a respectful word on the necessity and importance of national aid to the work and cause of education in our public or common schools.

Imperialism
, in its worst forms, has been the sure effect and curse which God has allowed to rest on the human tribes and nations, which in the morning of time abandoned Him, leaders and chiefs becoming a civil and social necessity, arising from their brutalized and ignorant condition in which man could not govern himself.

Republicanism
, as a system of government placed in contradistinction to that of imperialism or monarchy, is founded on the intelligence and virtue of the electors who form the State, and without these qualifications our institutions are in danger.
Holding these convictions in common with millions of the American people, we earnestly and yet respectfully ask your aid to secure the passage of a prudent but liberal educational measure.
As to the constitutional question, in a republic the fundamental law should seek the greatest good for the greatest number and we believe the Constitution of the United States does this; to quote the maxim of my ancient friend, Judge Blockford, of Indiana, “Reason is the soul of the law, and when the reason ceases, the law should cease to exist.” Many reasons exist why the Constitution of this great nation should embody power to enable you to diffuse the life-blood of intelligence into the republic, but if the Constitution has not this power to pour needed life into the body of our electors, then let it be quickly amended; but, holding that you have the power even under the strictest construction, we ask this aid
now
, because of more value now than a generation hence.
It is said the West does not wish this new departure. Let me appeal to my old friends of the West and Northwest, who so generously responded to the prayer of my youth, in regard to gradual emancipation and colonization (which, thought Clay as President of our Society, and Lincoln as President of the nation, represented in their day), to place no hinderance in the way of this great measure, so much needed by the South, which is now nobly struggling to escape from the ignorance and barbarism engrafted on her in generations past, by the whole and heavy hand of a united nation in a by-gone age, for which the men of this generation are not responsible.
As a ministerial laborer in the South for the last twenty years, let me assure you that, that ignorance is not confined to the colored race alone, for an unlearned and an uncivilized race, when received into the home of an instructed race, must in the very nature of things dilute and weaken the tone of the civilization of the race that gives them domicil, unless quick instruction follows. It becomes then a duty of the first magnitude, that a generous effort be made to lift to equal place on the plain of enlightenment the sections depressed by ignorance,
without regard to race or color in such States or Territories
, and to this end we pray the passage of the pending appropriation bill in aid of the common or public school funds of the States.

PERMANENT SUPPLY.
Whilst thus pleading for a brief and temporary supply of school funds, allow me to suggest a source of permanent supply for national education: Assuming, without discussion, that all our citizens should be educated far enough to enable them to make and read their own ballots, a thing that 40 per cent. of the

people
of Georgia cannot do to-day, and should be enabled to read the Bible.

end
Send
your “surplus revenue” to the States, according to population as settled by the Census, for which let the State execute a two-per cent bond, to be endorsed by the Federal Treasury, as a Bank Bond, in denominations of $5,000 and their multiples, and with it replace the existing United States bonds now used as bank basis as these are called in from time to time.
This will preserve the endangered National Bank system, the best we have had in our history, and secure the bill-holders of our paper issue, another desirable thing.
The interest thus derived from the States will swell in volume as the national debt is paid off and our bonds called home (making Americans, not foreigners, the receivers of the interest paid), the surplus revenue being then distributed in greater quantity to the States, who now become the fountain of supply to the Federal school fund, to receive it back again, under the discreet legislation of Congress, which as the almoner of the nation's bounty will place the fund where most needed.
This scheme, or some one of this nature, will furnish a permanent school fund to supplement the land grants for education already made by Congress, and it will enable you to give something to the “Old Thirteen,” who have been aided but little by the land grants for schools in the new surveys.
Nor will it be out of place to remind you that Congress has long since exercised its care over the mental culture of our citizens, in providing measurably for public schools in the new States, and what it has done for a part of the country it can do for the whole. We hold, therefore, that the measure asked will not infract the Constitution, but will honor its expounders, and strengthen the hands of the friends of this national relief. With sentiments of respect we remain, etc.,

JAMES MITCHELL,

P. O. BOX 481, ATLANTA, GA.
March 11, 1886.