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

y
Carolina and instead of receiving
new life from above, it has given up
the ghost, and California has gained
from South Carolina the two brothers
LeConte, worth all the peddlinG
pedagogues the North ever sent
to the South. They have swept the
University of North Carolina of its
Professors-ofa Phillips, a Hepburn,
"a &s,l'tin and an Internal Revenue
Collector preside overs two OF three
village lads, and calls in vain for
former students to accept dishonored
diplomas. The Universities of Geor-
gia and Mississippi still stand and
flourish, and Virginia has an army
of students i'll her University and
her colleges and these are so strong
that it will be necessary to proceed
against them more warily. But they
too have been aSSailed, they too are
to be undermined, and great fame
is to be gained by breaking down
the carved work of our sanctuaries
of learning with axes and hammers.
When they are gone, our ruin will
be complete; and SO the work of de-
struction is the first thing to be done.
Destruction first, pillage afterwards !;
for as yet we are too poor to make
our patronage worth having, and few
are the Southern students that could
meet the expenses at such colleges
as Harvard, where the tuition fees
alone amount to $3.50 a year. But
the Border States, and especially
Kentucky and Maryland, which have
not suffered so much by the war, are
beginning to attract the attention of
Northern colleges and when pros
perity returns to the other States
as it assuredly will-parasites will
come to share the bread of cruSty
Tlmon-bread a trifle soured perhaps
by the ferment of the war, but still
wholesome, still digestible. We
shall be urged to put away the bit
terness of the strife, to revive the
hallowed associations of the frater-
nal time, accept the moral help of
our more progressive kinsmen, and
to avail ourselves of advantages de-
MED to our benighted section. Give
us space to tell you calmly that we
do not need your help; that i'll the
midst of our poverty and our humili-
stion we have ample resources for
education of the highest type known
to this continent, and best suited to
the needs of this country; that
those of our universities and our
colleges that you have left us are
even now crowded with students,
who show an eagerness and an
earnestnesss that have only been en-
hanced by our social revolution. We
have ProfessOrs--many of them
trained in the very best European
schOols-men, as a body, well quail
fed for their work, and devoted to
it with singleness of purpose. We
have new generation of teachers
comingon, who have caught from their
instructors the spirit of true scienti-
fic progress, and who promise to
carry our lines far forward. Not
only so, but we tell you that much
of that which is valuable in your
country originated in ours that DIR.
Wayland, President of Brown Uni
verSity, and Professor of sort OF
Moral Philosophy, appropriated with
out acknowledgment the plan of the
University of Virginia, which was 9
brilliant success before your boasted
University of Michigan was an ex
periment-and that President Nc
Gosh, of the Typical Forms, is
trumpeting abroad a projected re
form in the constitution of the Col
lege of New Jersey which has beeI
thoroughly tried at the South, anC
showed to be a failure. We tell yol
further, what you do not seem t.
know, that mans ability to teacl
is not to be measured by his sue
cess in compiling even a good text
book, much less by his success il
palming off u bad one on an ignoran
public. The Southern teacher, VIII
prefers the living utteraIce to tn
dead letter, is not on that accoun
the less learned man-iS perhaps o
that very account a more effectlv
instructor. For even good tex
book is almost as dangerous to it
author as bad textbook is to tn
student. There is but too much dan
!, ger lest it cramp his development
e = and give him thesis to maintai
l rather than a problem to solve. FC
your true teacher should himself b
in inquirer; and if he writes boo
/. on the department that he teache
: he will find in his own spirit an il
crcasing tendency to do@matisn
: which is fossildOm. And hence it
= rather an advantage to orr Profe
sors that they have not devote
'. themselves as IL body to book NAL
l ing; it is an honor to them that the
have not devoted themselves to sue
book making as disgraces the liter
= ry market of the country. I
Davies, to AnthOn, to Owens,
. BulliOns, the North is wclcOme-Ol
:. how heartily welcome; and the tin
is coming when the vast bulk of sue
: manufactures must be kept at hom
Z for want Of foreign market. Tru
y scholarship knows no parallels
= latitude, no degrees Of longitud,
Il but the combination of section
, spirit with pretcmtiouS s'ioliS
> which characterizeS SO many of Il
2 Northern textbooks, has ronSed Il
! Southern mind to greater Nlgllan
e and more severe criticism, so tn
- - even the better class of school boo
- of Northern parentage must under;
80 80 a more rigid scrutiny than heret
~ fore, and encounter a liveIicr coml
~ " titiOn with foreign works and wi
~ productions of Southern growt
~ Witness the fearful havoc which t
", Southern Rcrietc has already ma
in the ranks of their scientific CohOr
or Nigilant and close criticism can
S no harm t0what ofgood the North III
of bring forth, and we are perfect
~ willing that our work be Submit
is to the same test. But we do not
lis tend to permit the control OF our {
Sc ucational interest to be wrcSted fir,
e our hands without a struggle a
ur without an appeal. And if our Sou
d, crn brethren choose to encourage
be effort to draw the best of our life il
ru the vortex Of Northern thought, I'll