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TALKS FOR THE TIMES.
She has a school system. It may not be perfect.
It may have defects; but it is a system that may be
greatly improved by more money wisely used. The
present school population of Georgia is considerably
over 400,000, and the present school fund of Georgia
is considerably under $300,000. I have no reason to
believe that many of the other Southern States are
in a better condition. You see, then, the situation.
How is it to be bettered? How is it to be helped?
Not certainly by casting mud. Not certainly by dis¬
cussing old issues. Not certainly by calling up old
specters. It is useless now to say, " *Twasn't I who
did it, but you." It is useless now to say. "I didn't
bring the Negro from Africa. I didn't throw him
overboard in the middle passage. I didn't buy him
and I didn't sell him." This is not the question.
Moreover, all this was done, whoever may have done
it, and it remains to-day a fact bald, bare, indisputable.
It is useless, then, I say, and it is wicked, too, in the
face of the great duties of the hour, in the lace of
the great responsibilities of the hour, for men on
either side to come forward with these dead questions,
to come forward, and, like Lady Macbeth in her
sleep, walking and rubbing her hands, exclaim, " Yet
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