Trying To Understand The Use Of This Quote - J Bartlett

[debrand]

The young man who wrote this blog quotes someone writing in 1876. The use of the quote interested me. I am not certain if the modern writer is saying that education is not important for laborers. If so, he is incorrect. I've known several people who did manual labor and still enjoyed reading.

In the busyness of farm life during the middle of summer, I am often reminded of what R.L. Dabney wrote in one of his 1876 letters to W.H. Ruffner. It was concerned his reasoning why not everyone should be educated in the levelling fashion of the state school system.

"Now, no people will ever connect a real pursuit of mental culture with the lot of constant manual labor. The two are incompatible. Neither time, nor taste, nor strength, nor energy of brain will be found for both. Have not all manual-labor schools been failures? The man that works all day (usually) does not study. The nerve-force has been expended in the muscles, and none is left for mental effort.

"Hence, we care not how universally the State may force the arts of penmanship and reading on the children of laborers, when these become laboring men they will cease to read and write; they will practically disuse the arts as cumbersome and superfluous. This is a fact at which your enthusiast for common schools is very loath to look; but it is a stubborn one."

It sounds like R.L.Dabney wanted children born in poverty to remain poor without any means to escape a life of backbreaking labor. There is a reason that we have stories of immigrant families working two jobs so that their kids could get an education. Most parents didn't want their kids to grow up poor and die early from hard, difficult labor.

I found it strange that the young man would use this quote and was curious what you all thought.

By the way, I found the blog by following a link from Meredith's family's blog

jonathanjbartlett.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=16

[maybeizfundie]

Or maybe he assumed that the children of the poor were not capable to moving "upward" in society, and therefore penmanship was wasted on them?

Either way, icky.

[debrand]

Or maybe he assumed that the children of the poor were not capable to moving "upward" in society, and therefore penmanship was wasted on them?

Either way, icky.

The quote shows an attitude toward the poor that I am hopeful no longer exists. One of the reasons to post the quote would be to show how far our society has come in attitudes toward the education of the poor. That doesn't appear to be the reason that the blogger posted the quote though.

Considering that the blogger is a farmer who can obviously read and is able to post his thoughts on line, it would be ironic if he agreed with the quote.

[debrand]

jonathanjbartlett.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=16

The blog is called High On A Mountain. Sorry, I forgot to include the blog address in my first post

[maybeizfundie]

He doesn't give a whole lot of context to figure out what he means by posting it. Best guess is he thinks that the public school system doesn't meet the needs of individuals?

[MamaJunebug]

In the busyness of farm life during the middle of summer, I am often reminded of what R.L. Dabney wrote in one of his 1876 letters to W.H. Ruffner. It was concerned his reasoning why not everyone should be educated in the levelling fashion of the state school system.

...

About the above words, debrand wrote:

It sounds like R.L.Dabney wanted children born in poverty to remain poor without any means to escape a life of backbreaking labor. There is a reason that we have stories of immigrant families working two jobs so that their kids could get an education. Most parents didn't want their kids to grow up poor and die early from hard, difficult labor.

I found it strange that the young man would use this quote and was curious what you all thought.

By the way, I found the blog by following a link from Meredith's family's blog

jonathanjbartlett.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=16

JMHO, but the key to this is in Blogger's phrase "levelling fashion of the state school system."

Blogger obviously sees the state school system as bringing up some, and pushing down others, thus the "levelling."

Evidently neither idea is good. They, the superior, should not be pushed down to a lower level. Those at a lower level should not be elevated to one that's higher.

I agree that Blogger and Dabney both would have the poor and unlettered remain the way they are. Poor, uneducated folks can provide a low-cost source of labor and materials to the economy on which Blogger and Dabney - born into some modicum of wealth - can prosper. (Or could prosper, in the late Dabney's case.)

That Blogger links to the Alexanders (and thereby conservatively ambitious 2nd Lt. Hammer) doesn't surprise me. My best friend lives in a part of Missouri that spawned (unfortunately) an individual who believes that people without college educations deserve to earn no more than minimum wage. Thus this individual set about pillaging a firefighters' pension fund. He then appeared before the state legislature, boasting of his success and merrily offering to do the same to a teachers' retirement fund.

Yes, even though the money in the teachers' fund had been contributed entirely by the teachers. The only motivation my friend can figure is that this individual has political aspirations and wanted to present himself as a ruthless friend of the wealthy.

The supreme - and vexing - irony in this is that the man does not have a college education, himself. His public bio says that he is a canny and successful investor, but word around town is that he ruined his family's business when his father became incapacitated.

Bringing it all back to Dabney and Blogger? They and the man in Missouri seem to share the idea that some people are fated to receive little and others to receive much. Of course they would say that it all has to do with education or the lack of it.

Aha! I think I see the other motivation for the Missouri guy to go after teachers' pensions. If there is not a good pension plan in place, fewer young people will be interested in pursuing a degree in education. Fewer teachers > decreased educational opportunity for the masses > the aforementioned lower working class on whose backs Missouri and Blogger can ride. It apparently worked for Dabney at least until that late unpleasantness of the War of Northern Aggression [sic]. :roll:

[debrand]

MamaJuneBug, I hate to sound like a conspiratoral theorists but sometimes I wonder if there isn't a move in the US to keep poor people poor. That way they will accept less pay and safety standards so that the rich can remain very, very rich. It's a crazy thought, I know but why else attack people like teachers?

[MamaJunebug]

MamaJuneBug, I hate to sound like a conspiratoral theorists but sometimes I wonder if there isn't a move in the US to keep poor people poor. That way they will accept less pay and safety standards so that the rich can remain very, very rich. It's a crazy thought, I know but why else attack people like teachers?

"Conspiracy" and "Conspiracy theorist" have never been bad words in my vocabulary. Substitute "plan" for the c-word and it sounds a lot better.

And you know there are such plans. I mean, look: Liberals and sensible conservatives (there are many!!) know it makes eminent sense to have an educated population and have conspired planned to achieve that, for years!

So of course, there are plans to keep some folks down and others, up.

Thank you debrand for doing the OP on this guy. Folks like him need to be brought to the light of day!

[GenerationCedarchip]

MamaJuneBug, I hate to sound like a conspiratoral theorists but sometimes I wonder if there isn't a move in the US to keep poor people poor. That way they will accept less pay and safety standards so that the rich can remain very, very rich. It's a crazy thought, I know but why else attack people like teachers?

Most people that I see around where I live attacking teachers are people who make even less. I think part of the issue is that they don't know what kind of work goes into being a teacher and part of it comes from a resentment of the pay and benefits because a lot of the critics in my area are construction workers and other laborers who have been getting slammed with layoffs. And then there's the gender bias related to most of the teachers being women.

As for that obnoxious Dabney quote, am I the only person who thought of the snooty rich guy in Caddyshack when I read that thing? "Well, the world needs ditchdiggers, too."

[emmiedahl]

I think part of the problem is that people see economics as a zero-sum game. If one person gets an advantage, then it must be forcibly taken from someone else. This is not really the whole story. A better educated workforce is more productive and that makes more for everyone. If the poor get better health care, it does not have to be at the expense of the wealthy's health care. Our government in the US sucks, so it might end up that way, but that is because of a corrupt leadership and system.

[Kitten]

BWAHAHAHAHA! It's a good thing my ancestors were apparently endowed with super powers. My great-great grandparents were ordinary millworkers in England when they emigrated (with seven or eight kids, I believe) to the US, eventually becoming homesteaders in the upper Midwest in the mid-1800's. One of my great-great uncles kept a diary, so we know that despite the hardships of homestead farming in an isolated rural area, he and his brothers (and presumably the sisters as well) grew up reading all sorts of literature, especially the classics, and studying several foreign languages, even while serving in the Civil War. My great-grandfather was a minister as well as a farmer, and sent his son (my grandfather) to one of the top law schools in the country. Even though my grandfather continued to farm for many years, he was active in politics and law.

Good thing my great-great grandmother insisted that her children pursue every educational opportunity they had, even if it meant studying on their own, well into their adulthoods. Good thing she thought her children could work for a living and improve their minds.