The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, December 01, 1903, Image 21

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    THE BATTAEION
17
tion, both new and old; its patriotism; its suffering's, during
and subsequent to the civil war, and its rapid recuperation
since. Instead of permitting them to believe that their fore
fathers, “the old South,'’ were either imbeciles or traitors,
let us teach them to love and to hold sacred the history, val
or, patriotism and conscience of the Old South.
I am glad however, thac the South is waking up from its
lethargy ; that men and women of ability, of genuine patriot
ism 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 Orady ; “Free Foe,” by Joel Chand
ler Harris; the poems of Sidney Eanier and Father Ryan,
should be taught to every Southern youth. “Southern Lit
erature,” by Miss Louise Mauly, is worthy of a place in every
Southern school, and I think that the citizens of the South
should see to it that their literature fi~ds a place in the cur
riculum of every school in the land.
The reason for teaching this literature to small children
is, that it is so full of parental love and filial devotion—
themes that delight them. It magnifies the home, where
mother is queen and sister sacred. It delights in the por
trayal of farm scenes; of waving 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 lively at night with the banjo and that “double