Among these forces poverty was perhaps the strongest.

It is difficult to convince a people who must struggle for the bare necessities of life that taxation for any purpose is a positive good; and a large proportion of the families of the rural South handled little money.

This was true even for years after the towns began to feel the thrill of growing industrialism.

It has sometimes seemed that the poorer a man and the larger the number of his children, the greater his dread of taxes for education.
Then, too, the Southern people had followed the tradition of Jefferson that the best government is that which assumes the fewest functions and interferes least with the individual.

Many honest men who meant to be good citizens felt that education belonged to the family or the church and could not see why the State should pay for teaching any more than for preaching, or for food, or clothing, or shelter.