The Daily Dispatch: November 8, 1861., [Electronic resource]

Grinding Seed Corn.

‘ President Davis says--‘"When a youth under 18 joins the army, instead of continuing at school, it is like grinding seed corn."’ The illustration is a good one, and as true as gospel. No youth under 18 has any business in the army, and in nine cases out of ten is a drawback instead of a benefit. In consequence of the great number of boys in the army, nearly all the colleges in the country have been suspended. Not only so, but even the female colleges have either suspended altogether, or are dragging along at a dying rate with but a small number of pupils. This is more to the regretted than the suspension of male schools, for the reason that there is no excuse for it. Young ladies do not go to war, nor does war make their stay at home necessary. In consequence of the scarcity of money in such times, men imagine their inability to educate their daughters, but they should remember that, in all human probability, years will come and go before there is an improvement in this respect, and that a large majority of men are better able to educate their daughters now than they will be two or five years hence, when the full burden of the war debt will be upon them. The present, therefore, is the time to educate our girls, or risk the probability of permitting them to grow up without intellectual culture.

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