Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1871-08-23
SERIOUS TRUTHS FOR THE SOUTH.

anu clean ana nard as money ana skill can
make them, free of toll and binding each
of its important centers of population and
wealth, is paradise for travellers who
have all their lives been accustomed to the
rough, dusty, tortuous dirt roads of Ameri-
ca. Her palatial railroad depots, built of
costly MARBLE ornamented with frescoing
and stately columns her railroads con-
structed with the highest engineering
skill, so compact and even that the swift
trains run as smooth and true as the piston
rod ofan engine, are marvels to those OF
us who have seen railroads spin out like
cob-webs, over rivers and valleys, through
tunnels and up the steep mountain sides,
too long and too numerous to be much
more than mere skeletons of what we will
one day make them. Her vast cathedrals,
that have swallowed up the wealth and
industry of many generations-mines of
unbounded riches, whose affairs and jewels
alone would build all the imposing church
structures of our most populous city,
whose vaults bury more than the wealth
of some of our greatest marts of trade, are
the awe of travellers from every cline.
And yet, with all these, Italy is the
" wretchedest, princeliest land on
earth. Her churches that support
battalions of sleek priests are surrounded
by thousands of the most destitute and
miserable paupers in the world. The doors
of her cathedrals and palaces swarm with
beggars and her cities TEEN with the most
ignorant and indolent wretches in being.
With her turnpikes, railroads and costly
Ig foIt &c no
ment! Her people are ignorant and
wretched. With all her outward evidences
of magnificence, culture and wealth, she
is destitute and poor. The real power and
wealth of people cannot be measured by
such standards. They are the mere incl
dents of real national greatness.
AS a people, the South need to learn this
great lesson. For generations she has glo-
ried in her rich plantations, in her stately
homes, in her handsome and queenly daugh-
ters. She has boosted of her chivalry and
OF hersuperior social requirements. Grant
ed as all that she claims, what have they
done for her more than the more substan-
tial achievements of Italy has for that
classic land? Hear what one of Georgia's
most gifted and fearless sons says on this
subject, in recent letter explanatory of a
late address to the alumni of the State
Uuiversity-we refer to the Hon. Ben. H.
Hill:
with every ingredient more abundant at
home, we send to the originally barren North
for fertilizers to give life to originally fer
tile, now deadened, soil with the finest ores
and cXhaustless coal beds peeping at us from
our own hill sides, we send North for tools to
work our fields with the richest lands on the
continent, we send North for bread to feed our
children with the noblest trees that ever lifted
their tops toward heaven, if we want n finer
church in which to worship, or Il more conve-
nient residence in which to live we send North
for the plan for the architect, and for the build
er! We spend millions of dollars sending our
children North to be educated, and refuse the
smallest pittance for the endowment of univer-
| stiles ut home Our physicians and surgeons
end North for their medicines to heal, and for
the tools that secure skill in their delicate art
| Our lawyers send North for the books in which
| to learn the rule fjustice for our people Our
| preachers send North for commentaries on the
Bible to teach their tiocks the way of salvation.
Our editors send North for type to print their
| papers; and lawyers, preachers and editors
| make long speeches. say long prayers and fill
whole columns thanking God for superior
Southern genuine purity and learning And
our politicians, all shades of Demosthenes
| and Cicero, bend down and hear the matchless
| periods of true patriotic eloquencc Our polti-
| clans strut like condescending Jupiters to the
I
| Northern shoes on their feet and Northern coats
| on their backs, and prove to gaping crowds
| their unequalled fitness for office, in straining
! their lungs ms the thunder gust doth the yield
| ing cloud with noisy denunciations of North
| ern weakness and greed, and climactc euloges
| on Southern power and independence
| If my humble voice could be heard by the
| Southern people l would urge them to do many
| things which these very derded Northern
people have DONE Endow frst-class univers-
| ties provide for polytechnic schools in those
| universities honor, labor, and make the call
| ings of the miner, the manufacturer, the me-
| tsllurgist, the machinst. the agriculturist and
| the mechanic as learned and as honorable as
are the learned professions of law, medicine and
| theorlogy. If we do not these things we shall
| grow weaker until we be despised as contempt-
| BILE. The stranger-even the enemy we hate
will come in and possess our heritage will
build up the land we neglect, and will be the
rulers of the children we leave behind us.
The great power of a free government
is in the hearts and heads of its citizens.
We can never become truly great until we
make education as free as the air we
breathe and the ballot by which we rule.
It is the foundation for national prosperity
and power as it is for individual happiness
and usefulness We want our schools on
every hill side and in every neighborhood,
and until we have them So we will be
wanting in the greatest element ofstrength
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