unfriendly flag should be in sight of Beacon Hill. You are 'checked by accounts from the Southward, of a disposition in a great majority to counteract independence.' Read the proceedings of Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia, and then judge."'*

And again, June 1, he wrote to Isaac Smith:

"Your observations upon the oppressive severity of the old regulations of trade . . . are very just. But if you consider the resolution of Congress, and that of Virginia of the 15th of May, the resolutions of the two Carolinas and Georgia, each of which colonies are instituting new governments under the authority of the people, . . . I believe you will be convinced that there is little probability of our ever again coming under the yoke of British regulations of trade."+

Thus was the example of North Carolina welcomed by the advocates of independence who urged their constituents to follow her lead. Virginia did so May 15, and on the 27th of the same month, just after Joseph Hewes had presented to the Continental Congress the resolution of the North Carolina Congress, the delegates from Virginia presented their instructions.‡ Virginia had gone one step further than North Carolina, for while the latter "impowered" her delegates to "concur" with the other colonies in declaring independence, the former "instructed" her representatives to "propose" it. Hence it was that Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, and not Joseph Hewes, of North Carolina, won the distinction of moving "that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States."

The Provincial Congress properly referred to the Continental Congress the question of declaring independence instead of making a declaration for North Carolina alone. Nevertheless, after April 12, 1776, the Provincial Congress proceeded on the assumption that they had finally severed their political relations with the British Empire. On April 13 the Congress ordered that if any persons appointed by the king under the act of Parliament providing for the appointment of commissioners to offer terms of reconciliation to the Americans, should arrive in North Carolina without a commission to treat with the Continental Congress, they should be required to return immediately on board the vessels that brought them; and if they refused they were to be arrested and

*C. F. Adams: The Works of John Adams, IX., 379. +Ibid.: IX., 383.

Ford: Journals of the Continental Congress, IV., 397.

sent to the Continental Congress. On the same day a committee was appointed to draft a constitution for the new State. Failing to agree on this, the Congress decided to remodel the provisional government which had been in operation since October, 1775, and in recognition of the altered relations existing now between North Carolina and the British Crown, struck out the word "Provin cial," from the name of the executive branch of the government changing it from "Provincial Council" to "Council of Safety." Finally a test was prescribed for volunteers in the army by which the soldier bound himself to "be faithful and true to the United Colonies;" to serve them to the utmost of his power "in defence of the just rights of America against all enemies whatsoever;" and to lay down his arms peaceably when required to do so by the Continental Congress. This was the first test prescribed by the Provincial Congress in which no mention was made of the king, Parliament, or the British Empire. The Congress recognized that while the province was not independent in name, it was so in fact. The Declaration of Independence in July, therefore, was the official recognition of a condition which had existed in North Carolina since April 12, 1776:

The American Spirit in Education*

By S. C. MITCHELL

President of the University of South Carolina

The American spirit is distinctive in government, commerce, architecture, journalism, and religion as regards separation of church and State. It would be surprising if the American spirit were not also distinctive in education, so thorough-going is our democracy. This distinction appears in contrast with two former ideals in education. First, education at times consisted in initiating an individual into the manners and tone of thought of a particular social class. Such was the feudal school, preparing elect youth for the knightly order. Such is Eton today, seeking to produce English gentlemen. Secondly, education has sometimes aimed to maintain certain religious tenets. Such were the monastic schools of the Middle Ages, and such are the sectarian schools of a later date. Now, in marked opposition to these two types of education is the American school. It is not classal; it is not ecclesiastical; it is not merely cultural. On the other hand, it is democratic, aiming primarily at efficiency, both as regards the individual and society.

While America welcomes in education private enterprise and denominational effort, to which we owe a vast debt of gratitude for constructive service, yet the people of this country have made up their minds that it is the duty of the State to school the child. The only sure bases of a republic are the intelligence and virtue of its citizens, whose common will is law. Universal education is a truer test of democracy than universal suffrage, at least in the South. It is found that public taxation alone is equal to the task of training all the children in our democracy. Three hundred million dollars are spent annually by this country on public education. It is a mistake to think of the public school as a free school in the sense that it costs nothing, since the people pay for it as truly as individuals who support a private academy. A public school is rather a co-operative school, one in which, by an excellent plan, all the people of a community share the burdens

*Address at the recent Conference for Education in the South, Atlanta, Ga.

and benefits. Co-operation is the lesson that we Southern people are learning rapidly. This educational movement in the South is building up community life by making effective the coöperative principle in all forms of progressive action. It finds application first in the neighborhood school; but it rapidly extends itself to the public library, the demonstration farm, the co-operative dairy, good roads, the local factory, and the general enrichment of rural life.

The people of the South have shown that they are willing to sacrifice in the interest of their children. Signal examples of this are found in the increase of local taxes and larger grants by the legislatures for the schools, as well as in the splendid new buildings that are rising everywhere throughout the land. We have tapped new sources of strength in community effort for education. What the individual, or the family, or the denomination were too weak to accomplish, it is found that the community, acting as a unit, can easily do.

Mark the changing sphere of the States in American democracy. The modern commonwealth is concerning itself less and less with "big politics," and more and more with education, public sanitation, the regulation of the labor of women and children in factories, better agriculture, the extension of the rural mail delivery, and other similar everyday tasks of a homely character. Our fathers fought for States' rights, but is not the State under the present order coming into possession of a transcendent right that was too long held in abeyance, namely, the right to educate all the children in the spirit and ideals of American democracy? Perhaps it is truer to say that the modern State is thinking of its duties as well as its rights. There is no saner political principle than that insisted upon by a famous teacher in the University of South Carolina, Francis Lieber: "No right without its duty; no duty without its right." The local community and the State at large now recognize that their supreme duty is the training of the children in economic and political efficiency.

Equality of opportunity for all is the platform of the public school. As we get an insight into the deeper obligations of democracy, the purposefulness of the school becomes more and more significant. Better the fettered hand than the seared eyeball. Democracy proposes to give to every child access to the

treasures of human experience and knowledge, with a view to its development and to the progress of society as a whole.

The public school implies, therefore, faith in the capacity of the average man. It believes in blood, but it believes that all human blood is blue. "One-half of the best natural genius born into a country belongs to the manual labor classes." The public school provides for such genius born in obscurity. Think of the pains taken to train Helen Keller, a spirit once almost entombed in a body! How splendid have been the results of the emancipation of her soul. Similarly divine capacities lie hidden in every boy or girl, lurking in yonder mountain pass or in the slum section of a modern city. Sublime is the unconquerable faith of America in the power of education to develop the people in all that makes for industrial independence and political sanity.

What are the bonds of union in a democracy like ours? They are not merely political. Essentially they are sympathies, common ideals and traditions, mutual interests, like-mindedness. "How can two walk together, except they be agreed?" The school begets such community of interests. The tiniest schoolhouse on the hill yonder overlooks all America. "America is not so many square miles of territory, nor so many millions of population, but a tremendous idea in process of realization." A prime duty of the school is the child's orientation. His survey must extend from the center to the circumference of our country. His vision must not be confined to a mere segment, whether a class, or a party, or a denomination; but it must embrace the whole circle of national interests. The school must not only democratize, but also nationalize, the youth of our land.

The school is set to teach thinking, and not books nor doctrinal or partisan tenets. It is easy to teach facts, such as geopraphy or history; it is hard to teach thinking. Yet thinking is the supreme thing. Dr. Henry S. Pritchett insists that our American leaders have more often failed us in the ability to think straight than in any moral delinquency. It was also a maxim of Horace Mann that "one former is worth a hundred reformers." What a democracy needs is men who see things whole and who have the independence of thought and depth of conviction as to public issues to stand alone, if occasion requires. We must covet the virtue of minorities. As a section, we are far too subject to be