Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/56

36 had not read that part of Poe's writing which, if not destined for immortality, is peculiarly freighted with autobiography.

One of the larger questions that pressed for solution in Poe's lifetime was that of public education in the South. Poe had himself applied for a position as teacher in a public school of Baltimore early in 1835. "In my present circumstances," he writes to his friend, J. P. Kennedy, "such a position would be most desirable, and if your interest could obtain it for me, I would always remember your kindness with the deepest gratitude." He was unsuccessful in his application but, what is far more important, he became a resolute champion of a public school system for every southern state, a system that should have as its pinnacle a state university. This was Jefferson's plan, though many years were to pass before it was to find even partial fulfillment. Poe had hardly moved to Richmond before we find him urging upon Virginians "the establishment throughout the country of district schools upon a plan of organization similar to that of our New England friends." He does not believe, as William Wirt believed, that as need arises rich men will establish universities without the aid of state governments, and he points proudly to Virginia, "where, notwithstanding the extent of private opulence and the disadvantages under which the community so long labored from a want of regular and systematic instruction, it was the government which was finally compelled, and not private societies which were induced, to provide establishments for effecting the great end."

At times Poe suggests new subjects for the school