“Great Against the Small,” an Editorial from The Gold Leaf of Henderson, September 14, 1905
Charity and Children
The State ought to be kinder and more considerate to its
weakest children. However true this may be in other respects, North Carolina in
the matter of education is kinder to her strong that to her weak sons and
daughters. The per capita tax she levies for the benefit of the young men and
women able to play baseball and manage card parties is all out of proportion
to the money she appropriates to give the little children of poverty a chance,
and year by year sentiment seems to be growing in favor of providing better
things for those abundantly able to help themselves.
Here is a chance for some strong, brave man to lead a
movement that involves more than all the temperance crusades and other
questions that defect the moral welfare. And yet in this day and time and
knowledge no man stands forth as a champion for the child! The reason for it is
that men are afraid to go up against the educational combine that wields so great
power in the State and nation. It is a tremendous proposition to encounter, but
somebody will yet arise with power enough to beat back the tide that threatens
to overwhelm us.
The college is now the king. The common school is again
falling back into the obscurity from which J.B. Holman helped to lift it. It
were better for a politician to die fighting for a child than to live a fawning
syncophant at the feet of the college cormorants.
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