Jas. H. Thornwell, D.D. Some ladies educated a poor white boy who is known to fame as Hon. Alexander Stephens. It is not for want of intellectuality, but for lack of opportunity that the children of the poor whites are ignorant. It seems strange that Dr. Thornwell and Alexander Stephens should have become champions of slavery, the institution guilty of oppressing beyond measure the class to which they belonged, and in which they would have remained had it not been for the charity of individuals whose benevolence in this line was a glorious exception to the prevalent sentiment of the southern aristocracy.

I was principal of the high school connected with the Princeton, Ind., graded schools. A number of refugee children belonging to the poor white class of the South attended these schools. They fully equaled the other children in progress in their studies. Afterward I was superintendent of the Cambridge City and Leavenworth graded schools, in the same state, and found many children of refugee families in attendance. These children showed no intellectual inferiority, but kept equal pace with the other children in all their studies. The masses of the people in the South were deprived of every privilege. They were kept in ignorance, that they might not know their wrongs, and they were reduced to and kept in extreme poverty by every possible device, that they might not be able to rise superior to the degradation which their environment had forced upon them. To contemplate this bestial wretchedness, hopeless igno

rance,

and forlorn condition, filled with joy the souls of the aristocratic slave-holding oligarchy-if it be conceded that they were possessed of souis.

Slave-holders were bitterly opposed to the education of the masses, and used every possible means to prevent their acquiring even the ability to read and write. They desired for their own caste a monopoly of wealth, culture, and everything that rendered life worth living. There were some glorious exceptions to this view. Tishomingo county, in the northeastern corner of Mississippi, contained many Scotch and Scotch-Irish people. These people were anxious to give their children a good education. There were but few slaves in the county and the majority of the people could not be induced to favor secession. A Presbyterian minister, who became president of Corona Female College, located in Corinth, Miss., strove by tongue and pen to rouse the people of the state to adopt measures looking to the education of the masses. He delivered an address before the legislature at Jackson, urging upon the legislators the necessity of adopting a free school system for the state, but his efforts were looked upon with disfavor by the slave-holders; some of his utterances had the true ring and were well-nigh prophetic. This divine, Rev. L. B. Gaston, published an article in the Corona Wreath, a monthly periodical, edited by his wife, Mrs. Susan B. Gaston, which I will copy. Its earnest plea for the general diffusion of knowledge among the people only rendered Mr. Gaston unpop

ular, and failed of convincing men joined to their idol-slavery, that popular education was desirable. This article was published in the July number in the year 1858:

"The idea of universal education is the grand central idea of the age. But in this country no system, however perfect, no enactments, however enlightened, and no authority, however constituted, can attain to the full accomplishment of their object, however praiseworthy and laudable, without the hearty and efficient co-operation of public sentiment. These extracts are taken from Randall's Common School System of New York, and are placed at the head of our speculations on the subject of education, as indicative of our feel ings and purposes in adopting it as a standing theme for discussion and remark. It is even now apparent that the current century will be noted in the pages of history for the educational progress made by the human family, for the expansion given to the idea that knowledge is power; and for the device and establishment of a comprehensive system of popular instruction. In committing to record its memorable events, it will be the future historian's task to trace the rise of national dominion and grandeur to the introduction of schools for the instruction of the masses, and to contrast the conditions of those states and kingdoms that adopted or rejected the policy. With almost prophetic pen we can predict the attainment of empire to the little kingdom of Prussia, simply from a consideration of the vast moral and

intellectual power that is now growing up through the medium of her common school system, which was perfected in 1819. As the past history of the world furnishes no parallel to such a case-a people universally educated in the best literature, science, art, and religion that time has ever produced—we know not how to estimate the force, or calculate the action of her power; but this generation will not pass away before the national policy of Prussia will tell upon the destinies of Europe. We have the light of all past ages to show that a people trained or educated to be of one mind and feeling are irresistible to all surrounding nations not so taught or disciplined. Numbers in this comparison are of minor consequence. Mind has always governed matter, or mere brute force, and so it ever will govern. Regarding this as the order of nature, and looking to the condition and prospects of our own country, our feelings are profoundly stirred with mingled emotion. In one portion of it we find that education is fully appreciated, and the means of dispensing it to all are judiciously applied. The North has always been distinguished for its attention to this great social interest, but within the last thirty years it has made advances that seem to border on perfection. By means of public meetings, addresses, and lectures, teachers' associations and institutes, governors' messages and superintendents' reports, the public mind has become thoroughly imbued with the spirit of education. The cities, towns, and populated country

have been meted out and districted for schools, within a convenient distance from every man's dwelling, and in some states the school-house door, like that of the church, is thrown open and made free to all of a schoolable age. These measures and appliances that constitute the most powerful machinery for intellectual claboration and development are almost unknown in the South. The work of education with them is the movement of a spirit, with us it is the operation of a simple sense of expediency. They have accumulated means of knowledge, we are dependent.

"There you may see the evolution of the steam engine in its thousand protean forms, of the steam threshers, and diggers, and reapers, of the Cyclopean gnomes that mould iron like wax, of the machines that sew, weld, stamp, dovetail, bevel, shear, turn, weigh, weave, spin, saw, veneer. We are comparatively destitute of all these mechanical appliances and powers. They have type foundries, bookprinting presses, authors, writers, publishers, and other instrumentalities for producing and dispensing knowledge of which we have scarcely any. They furnish our school-books, our center table and library books, and most of our current and periodical literature. They provide, prepare, and administer the larger portion of our intellectual food, and God never made a man, much less a people, to receive sustenance without being subject to the sustainer. While we, therefore, take pride in the North, as a portion of our country, for the eminence to which it