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THE PEABODY SCHOOL FUND.

Now that Texas has obtained a school law under which organization is practicable, and which will spread the blessings of free instruction throughout our hamlets and villages, it is probable that substantial aid can be obtained from the large fund left by the banker Peabody, for educational purposes in the States of the South. 

[[stamp]] The NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES [[/stamp]] 

This agency takes pains to present its genial and timely aid to choose districts and sections who decide to support free common schools, and they say "do your required part, then our assistance is ready." In many parts of the South under this practical impulse, a popular interest has been awakened and stimulated in genuine earnest, to remove the stigma from the State's escutcheon of so much fatal ignorance. The public mind being thus set in practical motion, school buildings are obtained, teachers hired, pupils gathered in, and then the promised quota from this beneficial fund is paid to the proper authorities. In most instances about one-third of the total school expense is thus defrayed. We believe that with the exception of San Antonio, no part of our State has received assistance from this source. 

This fund rightly managed, as we believe that it is by honest and discreet men, is popularizing and building up the common school system throughout many of the Southern States, especially in the larger towns and where the people are sufficiently awake and progressive to value the advantages of instruction.

It is opposed of course by those who desire that the masses should remain without knowledge, who maintain that to them ignorance is bliss, and who seek to shape and control the political sentiment of the State in order to reproduce the blank darkness of the past. Their clients are those who can not educate their offspring because "whisky is so high," and whose idea of Paradise, especially on Sundays, is to sit all day on the fence about a doggery, like buzzards over carrion.

We learn from the report of Dr.

AN UNREASONABLE EXPECTATION.

The chief error committed by the American people in the policy of reconstruction, has been a non-comprehension of the fatal, blighting, withering effects of slavery upon our Southern people. We thought that a soil blighted and cursed for ages with human bondage, would bloom at once with all the hardy and fragrant flowers and fruits of freedom as soon as that baleful presence was removed. We forgot that though the hateful plant itself was mown down by the scythe of civil war, its roots everywhere remained to vex and trouble the land.

[[stamp]] The NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES [[/stamp]] 

A race of whites to whom schools were unknown, the idle sons of planters led by hot blood into profligacy, harsh masters and cowering serfs, a people habituated to bloody and violent ways, to the red hand, to pistols and 
bowie-knives, to gambling and use of the lash upon men and women, a people wonted to the deference of crouching slaves, and to whom freedom of opinion on the great political and social questions which met them at every turn was absolutely unknown, was expected to change in a moment the ingrained habits of generations, and to act as the schooled, disciplined, self-sustained and civilized citizens of Prussia, or of a New England, or a middle State behave, so soon as slavery was violently extirpated at a blow. 

This expectation was wild and unreasonable. It is like the idea entertained as to the effect of death by certain theologians, who hold that the mere separation of soul and body works a miraculous, instantaneous, and transforming change upon the character. Such easy going theories are apt to fail under tests. The American people begin to see their mistake, and to comprehend that after shedding so much precious blood to cement a Union held above all other earthly things as necessary and precious, many years must yet elapse before the communities lately in revolt can become heartily homogeneous with the spirit of modern freedom. For at least a generation the South is likely from time to time to disturb and distress the welfare, stability, and prospects of the nation. We must distinctly recognize this ominous fact, and be prepared for its manifestations. Real statesmen, disciplined and trained to duty, are required to develop throughout the Southern States that reverence for law, that regard for decency and peace, on which American self-government is based, whereby we may avoid the anarchy of Mexico and

[[left margin]] To all whom this May Concern: Watch Well for how this will Carried Out: - I think Partially. [[/left margin]]