find a remedy and to apply it is the only duty which devolves upon us. Without universal education, not only will the late war prove to be a failure, but the abolition of slavery be proved to be a tremendous disaster, if not a crime.

The country was held together by the strong and bloody embrace of war, but that which the Nation might and did do to retain the integrity of its territory and of its laws by the expenditure of brute force will all be lost if for the subjection of 7,000,000 men by the statutes of the States is to be substituted the thralldom of ignorance and the tyranny of an irresponsible suffrage. Secession, and a confederacy founded upon slavery as its chief corner stone, would be better than the future of the Southern States-better for both races, too-if the Nation is to permit one-third, and that the fairest portion of its domain, to become the spawning ground of ignorance, vice, anarchy, and of every crime. The Nation as such abolished slavery as a legal institution; but ignorance is slavery, and no matter what is written in your constitutions and your laws slavery will continue until intelligence, handmaid of liberty, shall have illuminated the whole land with the light of her smile.

Before the war the Southern States were aristocracies, highly educated, and disciplined in the science of politics. Hence they preserved order and flourished at home, while they imposed their will upon the Nation at large. Now all is changed. The suffrage is universal, and that means universal ruin unless the capacity to use it intelligently is created by universal education. Until the republican constitutions, framed in accordance with the congressional reconstruction which supplanted the governments initiated by President Johnson, common-school systems, like universal suffrage, were unknown. Hence in a special manner the Nation is responsible for the existence and support of those systems as well as for the order of things which made them necessary. That remarkable progress has been made under their influence is true, and that the common school is fast becoming as dear to the masses of the people at the South as elsewhere is also evident.

The Nation, through the Freedmen's Bureau, and perhaps to a limited extent in other ways, has expended $5,000,000 for the education of negroes and refugees in the earlier days of reconstruction, while religious charities have founded many special schools which have thus far cost some 10,000,000 more. The Peabody fund has distilled the dews of heaven all over the South; but heavy rains are needed; without them every green thing must wither away.

The work belongs to the Nation. It is a part of the war. We have the Southern people as patriotic allies now. We are one; so shall we be forever. But both North and South have a fiercer and more doubtful fight with the forces of ignorance than they waged with each other during the bloody years which chastened the opening life of this generation.

MEASURES PROPOSED.

I think it is clear that the Nation has the power, which implies the duty of its exercise when necessary, to educate the children who are to become its citizens; and that the urgent demand for its aid at the present time has been demonstrated. I desire to still further de

tain the Senate with suggestions in regard to the methods which are, in my judgment, proper to be pursued by the General Government in the present emergency.

Your Committee on Education and Labor has reported two bills making provision to aid the common schools of the country, and of both I heartily approve.

The first is a measure which has been pending for several years, proposing the creation of a perpetual fund, to be composed of the accretions to the Treasury from annual sales of public lands, railroad revenues, and other sources, the interest of which shall be distributed to the States, at first upon the basis of illiteracy, afterwards according to population; one-third to be appropriated to the support of the agricultural colleges, and the remainder of such interest to the common schools. This sum would be small at first, but would rapidly increase, and such a fund would in time become a mighty agency for good, a perpetual fountain of blessing, and a bond of union so long as the country shall endure. The conception is sublime, and every effort should be made to secure the enactment of this measure into law during the present session; certainly during this Congress.

It is proposed to surrender the management of the income from this fund to the States, subject to forfeiture of subsequent installments in case of abuse or maladministration. This is probably a sufficient safeguard, although I would prefer that national funds be expended originally with the approval of some national officer or agency. The provisions of this bill have been the subject of much careful study by wise men for many years, and it is not probable that any substantial improvement can be suggested to this bill providing a perpetual fund; certainly not until the light of experience shall have been turned upon its practical operation, when further legislation can be had if necessary. I believe it to be wise to pass this bill as it is, and at once.

TEMPORARY AID.

But for immediate use more money must be provided. Temporarily, many millions from the National Treasury are imperatively demanded by every consideration of national honor and of the public welfare. A generation is educated in the common schools (if at all) every five years. If the next two generations of children could be educated properly, the country would then be in the hands of intelligence instead of ignorance, and no community once enlightened will ever permit itself afterwards to retrograde. Intelligent selfinterest will support the schools in self-defense, and, once elevated to the proper standard, every locality will maintain itself without much, if any, extraneous aid being required. Besides, if we could bridge the chasm of the next 10 years, the proposed fund to be accumulated from the public lands and other sources would have become important and would furnish all the assistance which might thereafter be demanded in addition to local taxation.

Whatever is done by the Nation now should be directed where it will do the most good. Illiteracy is the disease, and the remedy must be given accordingly. Until the standard of knowledge is brought up to a reasonable level everywhere, implying capacity to

discharge the duties of sovereignty and citizenship, the Nation must, or at least should, in common prudence, distribute its money upon the basis of comparative ignorance.

The safety of each State, however intelligent, is as much endangered by the ignorance of any other as is the illiterate State herself. Such is the complication and interdependence of our political and even of our industrial affairs that all great national issues and questions of policy are really decided by the small majorities which are liable to be found in any State. The interests of Massachusetts, so far as they are affected by national relations, are as likely to be decided by the vote of South Carolina or California as by her own. She has no interest, then, save that the money taken from the Treasury in support of education should go where there is the greatest need of schools. Thus the reason for distribution according to either wealth or population fails.

As to the amount which is necessary, great diversity of opinion prevails among those who desire the extension of aid by the Government. The bill introduced by the honorable Senator from Illinoise [Mr. Logan] proposes to set apart the tax upon intoxicating liquors now about $70,000,000 and likely to remain at that sum or to increase hereafter-until such time as the conscience and common sense of the people abolish both whisky and the tax upon it together. That day will come. He proposes to distribute to the States according to population. The House committee has reported a bill appropriating ten millions yearly for five years next ensuing, to be distributed to the States according to illiteracy.

I have had the honor to introduce a bill (Senate bill 151) appropriating $15,000,000 the first year, fourteen millions the second year, and afterwards a sum diminishing one million yearly until there shall have been 10 annual distributions, the last of which would be six millions-it being thought probable that State systems could by that time maintain themselves, or that from the perpetual-fund bill, should that fortunately become a law, all the aid necessary could thereafter be derived. This bill has been reported by the Senate Committee on Education and Labor with its unanimous support so far as the amount appropriated is concerned. I believe that to give a larger sum would induce the people of the States where most of it would be expended to depend too largely upon the National Treasury for the support of their schools, and the result would be waste and inefficiency.

The community must pay to the extent of its ability, or it will lose interest in its schools and its children will not be properly educated, no matter how much money may be received, the burden of raising which the people do not feel. Besides it will be difficult for those portions of the country which are comparatively unused to the practical administration of school systems at once economically and profitably to absorb the full amount which is really needed, and which will be required as greater accommodations, competent teachers in sufficient numbers, and larger attendance of pupils are secured. The proportion of $15,000,000 which this bill would give to the Southern States would prolong their existing schools for at least three months with present accommodations and teachers, and, in addition, would secure the extension of the school system to such dis

tricts and children as are now absolutely without the pale of any ed-
ucational privileges whatever. In my belief no less sum can possibly
do this.

The following table exhibits the distribution of $15,000,000 as pro-
posed in this measure, Senate bill No. 151:

The bill contemplates the gradual increase of ability and dispo-
sition to support their own schools, as the natural consequence of
greater intelligence in all cases, so that the appropriation and its
necessity will pass away together.

SUPERVISION OF EXPENDITURE.

The measures before the country, with the exception of this (Senate
bill No. 151), propose to turn the funds over absolutely to the several
State and Territorial governments, endeavoring to secure honest and
wise application by declaration of forfeiture or suspension of install-
ments of years succeeding by action of the Commissioner of Educa-
tion or of the Secretary of the Interior, unless relief be afforded by
Congress.

I have thought, and still believe, that such supervision is objec-
tionable, for very strong reasons-reasons far less important to the
Nation than to the States. Such a system will in my judgment be
liable to abuse in many ways, and I think it would be even better
to give the money outright, and call for no account whatever of the
manner in which the State discharges its trust.

To suspend the annual payment in any case after the schools shall
have been developed and shall have become dependent upon the
national aid for existence, as they will be for some years, would
almost destroy them for the time being. It would create such con-
fusion and ill will between the Government and the people of the
State concerned as would go far to neutralize any good results from
the appropriation itself. It is not difficult to see how complaints and

even abuses could be established by newspaper reports, affidavits, and partisan proofs; nor how desirable opposing political parties might deem such controversies when important elections were pending. Sectional animosities, now so happily disappearing, could be easily aroused again if that part of the country paying most of the money and receiving the least from its benefits should be made to believe that this school money was misappropriated to political or personal ends by the section paying least and receiving most.

Accusation would almost necessarily result in suspension for investigation, which could not fail to be prolonged, either before the commissioner, the Secretary, or Congress, and result in ruin of the schools. The penalty would come home upon the children every time; nobody else would suffer at all. The consequence would be, in my opinion, either no practical supervision of this enormous national expenditure at all, which could not be justified, or the evil consequences I have suggested would follow, and other objections might with propriety be raised. I believe that there is no rational or practicable form of supervision which does not precede or accompany the expenditure itself.

I therefore have thought that a Federal officer should be charged, jointly with State authority, in the application of these funds to the education of the child who is to be qualified by the State and Nation to become a citizen of both.

I can not divest myself of the feeling that Congress is bound to supervise the actual use of the public money. It should no more put the National Treasury under the State governments than it should put the Army under command of the governor of that State which might chance to be the theater of public war. The education of the child is the duty of the Nation as well as of the State. It is no discharge of its duty to give money, and then, if it is wasted, to say, "Now the children shall go ignorant, because the State has failed to properly use the money to the application of which we should have attended ourselves."

It is no answer to say that the State authorities will properly apply these funds. All believe they would, but who knows it? There will be many who will doubt it, and many more who will say they doubt it who do not. I am apprehensive that there will be great complaint and bitterness arising if this appropriation for national aid is turned wholly over to the States with only a post-mortem supervision retained to be enforced by the subsequent slaughter of the innocents who attend the schools, the destruction of which is the remedy proposed for dereliction on the part of the authorities of the State.

I believe that the appointment of a Federal agent or superintendent of the administration of the fund therein, to be a citizen of, identified with, and interested for the people of the State for which he is appointed, who in conjunction with the State superintendent should arrange the distribution of the money in the first instance, would be the proper form of supervision.

No citizen of a State, although holding a Federal appointment, could afford to exclude money from the schools of his State for captious or improper reasons. Should he do so, popular indignation would soon drive him out of his State and his office too. No im