It was generally regarded as the luxury of the rich and the socially high placed; it was certainly not for the poor; and it was a generally accepted view that those who enjoyed this privilege must pay for it out of their own pockets.

Again Page returned to the "mummy" theme--the fact that North Carolina, and the South generally, were too much ruled by "dead men's" hands.

The state was ruled by a "little aristocracy, which, in its social and economic character, made a failure and left a stubborn crop of wrong social notions behind it--especially about education." The chief backward influences were the stump and the pulpit.

"From the days of King George to this day, the politicians of North Carolina have declaimed against taxes, thus laying the foundation of our poverty.

It was a misfortune for us that the quarrel with King George happened to turn upon the question of taxation--so great was the dread of taxation that was instilled into us." What had the upper classes done for the education of the average man?
The statistics of illiteracy, the deplorable economic and social conditions of the rural population--and most of the population of North Carolina was rural--furnished the answer.
Thus the North Carolina aristocracy had failed in education and the failure of the Church had been as complete and deplorable.