Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 20, Number 2, Fall, 2008 Page: 23 of 68

Edwards' first job in Dallas was teaching at Dallas High School in 1901. The school, above, was located on Bryan
Street near Pearl.

cussed and favorably considered" by the Dallas
School Board.'6 The following month, the board
approved a resolution recommending that "a
class of children, who of necessity are deprived of
the advantages of the regular day schools," should
be given "the opportunity of at least attaining a
rudimentary education" by the establishment of
"a night school in the vicinity of the cotton
mills."17
When the regular public schools opened for
the fall session on Monday, September 22, 1902,
so too did the new free night school, in a rented
house in South Dallas. The two teachers "in
charge" of the facility were "Miss Alice Osmond
and Miss Affie Johnson."'8 Reporting the opening,
a Dallas Morning News writer observed: "It is
believed by all who are interested in the movement
that the new school will by virtue of its
better equipment and greater regularity be able
to do work that will be more satisfactory than
that of volunteer schools, which had to contend
with poor facilities for teaching and with various
outside engagements on the part of the teachers."9

Not surprisingly, Edwards also devoted his
energies to Stuck's campaign for a child labor
law in Texas. When The Dallas Morning News
came out against it,2' both men wrote impassioned
rejoinders, which were published. The
paper also ran a letter from Dallas Cotton Mill

manager W H. Fairbanks, who wrote to say that
there were far fewer children under the age of
twelve employed in his mill than the sixty-seven
claimed by Stuck. In response, the socially conscious
clergyman wrote that when George
Edwards attempted to observe conditions in the
mill and count the children employed there, he
was "refused permission to enter." Stuck admitted
he obtained his count instead from an
unnamed woman (later revealed to be the
matron in charge of St. Matthew's Home for
Children) who had also been turned away but
managed to return and slip in unnoticed, to
make "her way without permission in company
with one of the women operatives." Such methods,
he added, were "but an illustration of the
unpleasant work that has to be done by anyone
who would take up this question."21 He tried to
make it clear, though, that he had "no fight
against Mr. Fairbanks" personally. "It is the system
that permits the labors of young children,"
he explained, "and the labor during long hours
of any children, to the forbidding of health and
education, that I am fighting, and I hope to have
grace and strength to fight that until a legislative
remedy is reached."22
Stuck and Edwards had allies as well as
opponents. One was George W. Jalonick,
President of the Dallas School District. Another
was University of Texas law professor W S.

Fall 2008 LEGACIES 21