THE BATTALION.
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he had the gospel preached to him and
became civilized for the first time sin e
the dawn of his creation.
The South is thinking, reading, and
investigating more, and keeping a bet
ter system of records than ever before
in htr history. Hawthorne and Lemon
say: “We have been hearing more
from the South of late, and are likely
to hear more yet in the future; indeed,
it is more than possible that another
generation may find us receiving our
best literature from that part of our
country.”
We are beginning to realize our want
of a true history, for we have been
grievously misrepresented, and unle s
we see to our vindication, we sh 11 be
judged as charged. I hope you will
pardon me for saying that most of us
are criminally negligent in s u lyin';-
and teaching the literature of tho
South.
Most of the public schools that at
tempt to teach literature at all, go
through the form of teaching Shake
speare, or Milton, to children, whose
minds are not sufficiently mature o
comprehend these authors. The proper
place to teach that class of literature
is the college or university.
We have always neglected home tal
ent. Poe received only ten dollars for
“The Raven.” The .South threw him off
to starve. He was very popular in
France, while England regards him as
as the greatest American poet, and is
held in high esteem as a prose writer,
as is shown by the fact that thirty-
seven thousand copies of his t les
were sold in England in 1887. The
sweet, gent’e spirit of Lanier foueht
against poverty till deuth relieve! the
pc or sufferer. Though he has been
dead only a few years, his fame is
growing so bright that we shall soon
be building monuments to his memory.
O’Hara wrote “Bivouac of the Dead”
to celebrate Southern heroes. It has
been selected by the North as the most
fit poem to celebrate their sleeping
dead, and may be seen in the National
Cemetery at Washington.
Dr. W. T. Harris said last wint r at
Galveston that Southern poets had
written poems that the nations could
not foryret and our prose writers had
written things as great as ever written
by Browning.
The South is rich in materia 1 for
rich and rare fiction. The negro, with
his darkey ways; the creole, with his
peculiar life and mongrel language
the mountaineer, with isolated home
and simple wants, are character 5
worthy of the pen of a Scott or Dick
ens. The mountain scenery of Virgin a,
North Carolina and Tennessee; the
balmy breeze from the gulf; the cap
tivating beauty of orange groves;
dense forests, musical with feathery
songsters; skies rivaling those of Ital ,
must inspire the poet and stimulate
the novelist.
In conclusion, I beg of you to find a
place in your course of study for
Southern literature. Ask your boards
of trustees to make it a permanent fea
ture of their schools. Encourage you •
pupils to read our best authors, and
thp biographies of Lee and Stonewall
Jackson.
This is a duty we owe to the “Old
South,” whose glory will yet emeree
from the shadows of an unfortunate
war. It is a duty we owe ourselvee
and the rising generations who w 11
judge us and the generation now pass
ing away, and will accurately write
our history.
In doing this work let us have as our
guiding star the motto of Abraham
Lincoln, “With malice toward none,
with charity for all.”