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To: GOPcapitalist

One of the major problems of the South was the degree of illiteracy compared to the North. This was a result of the lack of concern about education that was endemic to its culture. Your list is of historical interest but proves nothing to contradict the higher degree of illiteracy and disdain for education which plagued the South.

You might modify it to replace the name Columbia with Kings College, its original name.

And you are aware that Virginia did not have the same degree of fanaticism regarding slavery and actually had an industrial base. As well as being the richest colony, then state, until the early 1800s.


127 posted on 11/19/2004 12:44:59 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
One of the major problems of the South was the degree of illiteracy compared to the North.

You sure like being wrong today, capitan. It was generally the case in the 1860's that rural frontier states had higher illiteracy rates than non-rural states (thus both Minnesota and Arkansas boast higher illiteracy among the white populations than do states in the east). Even then, the highest illiterate adult rates in any state were seldom more than 10% of the white population in 1860. The discrepancy was nothing even remotely near what you make it out to be with most states, north and south having illiteracy of adults between about 4-8% of the total white populations. Numerically speaking, the most populous northern states like NY had the highest number of illiterate adults.

Your list is of historical interest but proves nothing to contradict the higher degree of illiteracy and disdain for education which plagued the South.

You have yet to substantiate either of those claims beyond gratuitous slurs which have been proven wrong. It is a simple fact that in 1850 the south had (1) more colleges total, (2) a comparable number of pre-revolutionary colleges, and (3) an illiteracy rate among whites that was not substantially greater than that found in the north.

And you are aware that Virginia did not have the same degree of fanaticism regarding slavery and actually had an industrial base.

Irrelevant. It was a leading southern state and home of the confederate capitol. If you are going to make unsubstantiated blanket slurs against the south as a whole you cannot ignore one of its most prominent states when it turns out that state contradicts your slur.

131 posted on 11/19/2004 1:19:03 PM PST by GOPcapitalist ("Marxism finds it easy to ally with Islamic zealotism" - Ludwig von Mises)
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