Petitions for prohibition in the District of Columbia are being sent to Congress from all parts of the country. These petitions will probably receive very little attention from the Congressmen, yet they show that some of the citizens of the Union are dissatisfied with the customs in vogue at Washington. Of late years it has gained an unenviable reputation for the profligacy, intemperance and debauchery, in almost every form, that is carried on within its limits. The Capital of a Christian country should most assuredly be otherwise. The city should undergo a reformation, and a good prohibitory law would be a very good method by which to bring about this reformation. The intemperance among members of Congress is startling. The legislators of a country, above all men, should keep their brains free from the influence of intoxicants. No man is fit to make laws when his mind is clouded by liquor. It would be a glorious triumph for the grand principles of prohibition if a prohibitory law could be passed for the District of Columbia.
Rev. J. B. Bobbitt has recently issued a circular calling upon Superintendents to organize a Trinity College Sunday School Endowment Fund, the object of which is to arouse among the young an interest in education and to keep the subject continually before the minds of the people at large. All collections taken on the first Sunday in every month are to go to the Endowment Fund. A little from every pupil will make a large amount, and still no parent will feel it very burdensome. Every citizen who is a friend of education, culture and refinement ought to give liberally for the endowment of institutions of learning. Do not hoard up money for your children. Not only are they sometimes injured by receiving a fortune, but very often ruined by the expectation of it. The myths tell of a miser of old for whose soul the Tartarian gods could not find within their domain a sufficient punishment, who thereupon decided that the most severe penalty would be to send him back to earth and there let him see how lavishly his children spent his money.
The ignorance of the majority of young men about the national government is really astonishing. Young men who have had more than ordinary educational advantages, and have considerable general information, often exhibit an entire lack of knowledge of the Constitution and in fact of everything pertaining to the general government. How few young men ever read the Constitution and study its meaning! Yet these same young men will soon be invested with all the rights, powers and privileges of American citizenship, if they have not been already. How can such young men vote intelligently, when they have scarcely any knowledge of the nature of the government under which they live? How can the most sanguine patriot expect a good government to continue to exist when the average voter is so ignorant of politics? This is the reason why lawyers hold most of the responsible offices—they are, as a rule, the only men who study politics. Farmers will assemble in a political convention, and nominate a lawyer for some high office, and before they leave the hall in which they have met, will commence a tirade of abuse because the lawyers hold all the offices, while the honest, hard working farmer is denied such privileges. The farmers are themselves generally to blame, as the majority of them are too ignorant of the requisites to get their rights. A copy of the Constitution should be in every home where there is any degree of intelligence, and the best political newspapers should be taken. In fact, every high school and college should have a competent teacher to instruct the rising generation of young men in the Science of Government. The voters of the future will then be more intelligent than they have been in the past.
Dr. H. B. Battle, Director of the Experiment Station, has recently made a report of his analysis of various brands of fertilizers used by North Carolina farmers. This report also states that the relative commercial value of fertilizing ingredients has been considerably reduced. An ammoniated fertilizer valued at $22.00 last season will be valued at $20.65 this season. This is good for the farmers. The Experiment Station is certainly of great benefit to the Agricultural classes.
It is not proposed to interfere with the Endowment Fund by soliciting subscriptions for the New Building; but an effort is being made to raise money for this purpose by concerts, lectures, etc.