s
ruled by a "little aristocracy, which, in its social and economic
character, made a failure and left a stubborn crop of wrong social
notions behind it--especially about education." The chief backward
influences were the stump and the pulpit. "From the days of King George
to this day, the politicians of North Carolina have declaimed against
taxes, thus laying the foundation of our poverty. It was a misfortune
for us that the quarrel with King George happened to turn upon the
question of taxation--so great was the dread of taxation that was
instilled into us." What had the upper classes done for the education of
the average man? The statistics of illiteracy, the deplorable economic
and social conditions of the rural population--and most of the
population of North Carolina was rural--furnished the answer.

Thus the North Carolina aristocracy had failed in education and the
failure of the Church had been as complete and deplorable. The preachers
had established preparatory schools for boys and girls, but these were
under the control of sects; and so education was either a class or an
ecclesiastical concern. "The forgotten man remained forgotten. The
aristocratic scheme of education had passed him by. To a less extent,
but still to the extent of hundreds of thousands, the ecclesiastical
scheme had passed him by." But even the education which these
institutions gave was inferior. Page told his North Carolina audience
that the University of which they were so proud did not rank with
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other universities of the North. The state
had not produced great scholars nor established great libraries. In the
estimation of publishers North Carolina was unimportant as a book
market. "By any test that may be made, both these systems have failed
even with the classes that they appealed to." The net result was that
"One in every four was wholly forgotten"--that is, was unable to read
and write. And the worst of it all was that the victim of this neglect
was not disturbed over his situation. "The forgotten man was content to
be forgotten. He became not only a dead weight, but a definite opponent
of social progress. He faithfully heard the politician on the stump
praise him for virtues that he did not have. The politicians told him
that he lived in the best state in the Union; told him that the other
politicians had some hare-brained plan to increase his taxes, told him
as a consolation for his ignorance how many o