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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1900)
THE BATTALION 5 and more than one column on John L. Sullivan, of Boston. Even so excellent a text-book as American Literatu^e/ , by Hawthorne and Lemon, gives more space to that ideal crank, Walt Whitman, than to Sidney Lanier, Thomas Nelson Page, Joel Chandler Harris, Paul Hayne, John Esten Cooke, and Father Ryan, all combined. Many of our school his tories treat our jurists, statesmen and civilization with silent indirlerenca; and we have been quietly waiting for a just chronicler, a true historian of our people. I am glad, however, that the So th is waking up from its lethargy; that men and women of ability, of genuine patriotism and love for the truth, are in modest tones asking the world to consider the true history of the South. ■“The Old South,” and “Old Virginia,” by Thomas Nelson Page; “The New South,” by Henry Grady; “Free Joe,” by Joel Chandler Harris; the poems of Sidney Lanier and Father Ryan should be taught to every Souther i youth. “Southern Literature,” by Miss Louise Manly, is worthy of a place in every Southern school. It is the best book of its kind that I have seen. A very recent work, “The Souther .1 States of the American Union,” by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, is a history worthy 01 enthusiastic support, and I trust it may find an advocate in every Souther a teacher. It gives, in a concise manner, the history of the Southern colonies; the part they performed in estab ish- ing freedom of thought, of the press, and of conscience for themselves and posterity; their wisdom in council valor in the field, and the'r p triotism everywhere. And, Mr. President, I wish to see this literature put into the intermediat > department of our schools. I say in termediate department, because ther a are about twice as many children in this department as there are in the high schools, and the greatest number possible should have this literature taught them. Children in the sixth and seventh grades can easily coxpre- hend all the authors I have named. This literature, which is but a rsflec- tion of the people it attempts to de scribe, is full of sincerity, justice, pa triotism, and conservatism. Another reason for teaching this lit erature to small children is, that it is so full of parental love and filial devo tion—themes that delight them. It magnifies the home, where mother is oueen and sister sacred. It delights in the portrayal of farm scenes, of wav ing fields yellow with grain, or white with cotton, of green pastures made more cheerful by frolicking lambs, of the perfect order and system of farm work; of the merry contented slaves as they went to their work in the morning with songs on their lips, or as they made their quarters live’y at night with the banjo and that ‘ doub e shuffle” which only a negro cm dm e to perfection. Permit me to digress just here to say that Southern litera ture gives the best history that can be found of slavery. It rehearses t’.e al most forgotten fact that the North wes particeps criminis with the South i r introducing and profiting by the slave trade; that the Southern colonie; re peatedly protested and went on record in their legislative assemblies against the slave trade; that when the first vote was taken in the Federal Con gress, to prohibit further importat'en of slaves, Virginia voted in the affirma tive, and New Hamshire, Massachu setts and Connecticut in the negative. Slavery as an institution cannot be de fended, but I want its true history taught to the children of our firesides. I want them to know that tha neg o slave, as a rule, was well fed, we 1 clothed, well nursed when sick; that