http://www.nytimes.com/1865/10/05/news/education-for-the-poor-whites-of-the-south.html
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There is no subject more worthy of the attention of the people of the North and of the South at the present time than a consideration of the best means for instructing and elevating the poor whites of the Southern States. In view of the changed condition which the freedmen hold to their late masters, it is a subject which will receive more attention from the educated classes of the South than it ever has heretofore. From all the statistics gathered previous to the rebellion, and during its existence, it is evident that there has never been, in any other portion of the country, a class of people more utterly destitute of all the means for obtaining a knowledge of the most simple and common rudiments of education.
It is needless for us to argue the necessity of a change in this condition of things, or to show what would be the result of such an altered state in the moral and political complexion of the South. Our object is simply to suggest what we believe to be a practical as well as necessary scheme for their moral and educational advancement. Our readers are aware that in many of our most populous Northern cities schools have been opened in the poorest quarters, sustained by benevolent persons, the design of which is to draw in those who seem to be without the pale of our public schools. These are termed industrial schools. Why might not a similar plan be adopted for educating the poor whites of the South? Let a society embracing prominent philanthropic men in the South as well as in other portions of the country be organized, having for its object the employment of ladies of the best culture and the opening of industrial schools where the population is most dense and where the greatest amount of ignorance and moral desolation prevails. That such schools are absolutely necessary for this class, any one at all acquainted with their condition must admit. Those who have given the subject the most careful examination tell us that vice and licentiousness in its lowest forms prevail among them to a fearful extent, that their ignorance is most profound, and that their indolence is of so stolid a character that they seem unable to raise themselves out of their present degraded condition.
What then would be the training which the children and even adults could receive in such schools? First, cleanliness of person and dress, a high standard of morals, some industrial pursuit for the females, and as is done in this city, the boys and young men might also receive instruction in some trade or handicraft, and at the same time while bring taught to be virtuous and useful they could be receiving all the elements of a good common school education.
A proper division of time is all that is necessary to carry into practice the system which we have thus briefly outlined. To make schools based on such a plan successful, two or three things are requisite -- a high order of intellectual talent and warm moral sensibilities in the teacher, a profound sense of the importance of the work and indomitable perseverance. Now while so much is being done for the good of the black race, might we not it the same time bestow some thought upon plans which may be made both simple and practical for the elevation of our white brethren in the South, and in the successful prosecution of which men of all shades and parties, North and South East and West, could unite? Surely this would be more honorable work than sneering, as a morning journal does, at he "poor whites," as a class hopelessly degraded, even below the lowest African grade it the South.
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