American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1869-08-07

gulf.
As yet comparatively few South
ern students have SO far forgotten
the events Of the Last few Years as to
seek an education among those who
are alien to them in blood, in habit,
and in feeling. Such patronage as
the North receives from the South
comes mainly from Northern settlers,
who are SoutherncrS in their post
offices alone and even these, if they
understood their true interest, would
do well to look around them and see
whether States, SO rich i'll all mate
rial resources, are after all so poor
i'll the appliances of higher education.
One thing we can tell them, that can
did teachers at the best and most
progressive Of the Northern colleges
have not only expressed their aston
iShment at the elevated character of
our standards, but have virtually ac-
knowledged the inferiority of their
own methods and their OWN results.
The morai tone Of our students is so
far above their belief, that we cannot
lloIjC W llluhC -NVl IL NOllN Il 10 W
our simple plan Of trusting the honor
of Il gentleman; and spies and moni-
tors and policemen will be regarded
among them, perhaps for al time, as
vitality necessary to the existence of
Il college. But intellectual results
many of them can understand, and
every year more and more look South
ward, IL little obliquely, it is true, if
SO be any good may come out of Ma
Zareth. We do not claim perfection,
we do not thrust forward invidiOus
comparisons, but we do claim the
need Of honest endeavor, and are
not ashamed of the fruits of long cX-
perience and unremitting toll.
1t is, to say the least, umwisc in
Northern colleges to brag so loudly
of their achievements in view Of the
fact that so many SOuthernerS are
alumni of Yale, of Harvard, and of
Princeton, and know so well the con
stitution of those very schools which
claim such vast superiority. How
many of these Southern alumni would
gladly buy back those years of mis-
directed effort, OF sporadic study
how few of them send their own pu-
pills to Alma Mater. For q Alma
Matern is no name to coniure withal.
She can no longer win to her arid
bosom the sons whom she cursed
few years ago with all the. fervor of
Mucklewrath, and all the venom of
SycoraX. The hot breath of those
curses burned up such slender ties
as bound the eSouthernerto the North
ern school, and the Southern alum
nus has as much love toward his
Northern Alma Mater as toward a
landlady who had feasted him with
pumpkin-p charged him with pine
apples, given him photograph with
her bill, and then drcnched him with
soapsuds. Nay, most assuredly Alma
Mater is no name to con ure Withal,
when the Southern student finds in
after days that he has been lured by
one or two names of fatuitOus celeb
rity to waste the most precious Years
of his life i'll Il hundrum routine, dur
ing which most of his training was
| bN IdlI
and half-fledged theological students.
Now and then the great gun of the
college fired blank cartridges over
his head, by way Of gloritication at
the successful Swindle to which they
were partners but small profit had
he from the l.. l.. D'S conferred by
the trustees) or the PHI. DIS (bought
for seventy five thdlers apiece at the
University of Krahwinkel,) and still
less from ID. DIS, who were all busy
with their tracts and sermons and
books-one Illuminating against the
Hopkinsian hcresy (whatever that
may be) i'll order to show his fitness
for lccturing on depolarized light,
and another cobbling up Life OF
John CALVIN to exhibit his acquaint-
ance with Greek comedy. What can
man, who is real teacher, do in
such galley as that? If he attempts
to row, he will knock all his col
leagues overheard, for that galley is
not intended to be rowed. Figure
head to catch the public eye, sails tC
catch the breeze of partisan favor
these be their gods, but chiefly fig
re- head; and the bigger and emptiel
, the head the better; nay, we have
l known some of these figure heads t
take the place of sails altogether
But in quiet and in confidence, "a
4 well as in bigness and emptiness
I, shall be the strength of the figure
: head and we have been much anus
b, ed at the anomalous conduct of a fig
) ure- head imported at great eXpcns,
), to be the figure-head of a colleg
which once enjoyed a large share o
: Southern PATRONAGE college whicl
exhibited the bitterest party spiri
IL during the war, and which now ap
+ peals to Maryland-of all States =
. for support. This figure head, i'm
ported as we have said at great eX
pense to be a figure-hcad, has under
{ taken to row. The ti%urc-head ha
IL movable eyes and Il wagging tongu
, -dTgdt it has arms, 0rgdt it can row
{ How this innovation will be reliShe'
u by its colleagues we cannot tell. Il
:; Our hot youth, when 'Carnahan
II was king" and good old johnny vice
IL gerent, i'll those glorious times whe
Z there was not Il man Ill college VIII
4 could have written ten lines of gran
e matical Latin, when the ProteSso
IL lancird that deRS was Of the teminin
. gender, and when the GrGc0 M1Or
. was our :. Ultima IhHIe, p i'll thoS
u glorious times such hereSy woul
t, have been tolerated as little as til
II Hopkinsian. What! the PreSider
lie row What! the Professor teach
" 4 few harmless cccentricS -Stcphe
" Alexander and Matthew 1Ope-wel
- allowed to paddle Il little, but nobod
to was expected to heed them, and Il
" few students who did not take hcC
ly were as eccentric as the Professor
ID True, that is twenty years ago, an
IL for aught we know The set may
d entirely changed. But the gradual
IN come to the South, they enter o.
Id preparatory schools as critics, al
h they stand aghast at eXaminatio
he which to us are mere chlld'S pia.
to and by these fruits we see that the
ey has not been any serious advan