The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-08-23
COLUMBIA
Wednesday Morning, Aug. Is. 1866.
Something About ffse Morals OF Home.
SPIN.

Something About the Mera4. OF Home.
spun.
The civilization of a people. depends
upon their development of character
and endowment rather than upon their
acquisition of wealth.. We live only
as we grow, and We grow only in de-
gree as We put to proper use the seve-
raj germs of talent and character which
belong to our dganization. A people,
in like manner, must comprise within
their members all the agencies of mind
and faculty of whatever sort which
have been produced and been found
essential to the race, in the progress
to maturity of other nations. There
must be wits as well as sages: poets es
well as statesmen; prophets as well as
mechanics; and briefly, every province
of mind, every faculty for art, must
be evolved in the progress of q people,
however little the great body of the
people may esteem as useful the indi-
vidual possessor, or value the gift
within his keeping. If not thus va
riously endowed, and thus develop
ing, in all the province of thought, in
all the departments of genius, race
lacks in some necessary qualities which
are essential to its full.growth, niatu-
rity and perpetuation; and dies out
without making fits mark or leaving
its record. Such was the case with
our red men; such has been the case
with the black men and the deficiency
is briefly indicated when we say that
they lacked in art. They had human
appetites and passions-but lived an
animal life only, and either perished
or are perishing, in spite of all that
philanthropy and q soi-disant philoso-
ply has ever done for their preserva-
tiQn. Suchs too, must be the fate Of
all white stocks, however superior in
natural endowment, if they fail to
nurse to use, if not to perfection, those
qualities of the intellect which lead to
the growth and full development of
the arts In this lies the real great
deficiency of all purely agricultural
people. and here has been our error
and defeat. We have concentrated
all our faculties, efforts, labors, at
the production of 50 much raw mates
rial, the production of which called
for but little art, and exercised but
small. degree Of intelligence. Our su-
perior endowments were allowed to
lie dormant. We sought neither the
fine nor the mechanical arts; we labor
ed neither in the fields of philosophy
or science; we gave but little heed to
poetry; we read but few books, and
studied less, and rapidly let ourselves
down, in all the provinces of intellect,
until we could scarcely claim, as
people, any other superiority than
color, over our slave, the negro. The
overseer We put over him could
scarcely, in thousands of cases, write
ms own name 1ntelhg7Oly. bis school
ing did not teach him to spell cor
rectly, gave him no desire to read, and
he sought no information or society
beyond that of the bar-room. the bar
bacue, the horse-race, or the muster
ground. Was the proprietor much
more careful of his own mental exer-
cises or acquisitions? Did he read
books, and seek for knowledge? Had
he any faith in the saving virtues and
beneficial influences of poetry, philo-
sophy and art? Alas! We need only
ask these questions. The silence
which must answer them on every
hand is enough. What should follow
from this terrible ,son-user of our ia
cnlhes, the generous gifts of God, in
all intellectual respects-for, as