The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-06-20
Letter from Mrs. Clarke.
HOUSE
BEAUFORT, June 18th. ,

BEAUFORT, June IStn.
MIR. EDITOR: The readers of the
FARMER AM MECHANIC are sure OF a
SIP of good cream whenever Mrs. Spen-
Ger gives them an article, for though
she sometimes serves Mocha when
we want Java, or Black tea when We
would prefer Green, she never Spolls
the draught with skim-milk; she is
the cream of your paper, and North
Carolina ought to be proud of her.
But is our State, as a community, ever
proud, in the proper sense of the word
of any home product:
Her prophets are not without honor
save at home, and for that reason are
seldom known as such until they leave
her borders; Virginia and South Caro-
lima glorify their sons and daughters,
but North Cardinals cream all goes to
enrich some other coffee, or if it stays
at home, as a general rule wastes its
sweetness and spoils for want Of APP
probation. We put Nirginians and
Marylanders. New Workers and South
Carolinians, into u pulpits and u
professors chairs, and at the head of
State institutions: we send for them
to build our public editices, railroads
and bridges, and then wonder that
North Carolina does not get more of
the cream of life. We want this cream
and we feel our deficiencies, but If we
would train our own citizens to do our
work, and not skim our milk for out
siders, it would be better for us. Mr..
Battle has gone the right way to work
in bringing a teacher, not for the chill
dren of North Carolina, but for the
children's teachers, if the same course
had been followed when we started
our Insane Asylum and our Deaf Mute
Institution, we need not have sent to
Virginia for a doctor and a principal,
we might have selected officers when
the foundation stone was laid, and sent
them to be trained by the time the
buildings were ready for patients and
pupils. Mrs. Spencer is doing a good
work by opening the eyes of the wo-
men of North Carolina not only to their
Importance but their power and their
duty to use that power. AS a people
we are slow to change, and though
desiring the cream of life, set ourselves
against progress from a mistaken idea
hat it is necessarily downward as well
as onward. We want the best, but we
don't want any Innovation, and we re-
sist new ideas until they are old. Eve
ry virtue becomes in its excess a vice,
and the boasted conservatism of our
State sentiment may be carried too far.
The new men we bring in are amongst
us, but not of us, we do not assimilate;
and they feel they are..but:sojourners
for a time in our land, and float off
elsewhere to something better, while
our native cream is yearly skinned
by the emigration of our young men
to other States where they are better
appreciated than at home.
was glad to see by the account of
the closing exercises at st. Agnes
School at Albany New York that
North Carolina was most honorably
represented by Miss Jean Graham
Ellis, a daughter of our late Gov. Ellis,
who took the Meade prize for good
English, and reached the perfect mark
in good lessons: she read the first ESSAY
which was on Hero " orshir," while
the valedictory was delivered by a
Tennessee girl, Miss Betsy Eliza Royce.
1.-The Cultured South" was the head
ing of a paragraph announcing the
success Of these two young ladies in
carrying off the prizes; the address OF
Bishop Doane to the graduating class
is given in full, and is so excellent that
l cannot forbear quoting a part of it,
| though we have all had a surfeit o.
graduating addresses lately. He com
menced by saying that the famous
statue of Minerva, known as the Pal
la1ium, held a distaff and a spear,
5 emblems of woman'S work and wo
: mans warfare, and urged his hearers K
a take as their watchword in work anC
warfare, "earnestness" adding, II
; l am not greatly mistaken about the
tendencies and hindranCies of woman
mood to-day, this lack of earnestness i.
the great want of our time. 1t dispir
: its women, because it takes the spiri
out of their warfare. Trifing is ;
!. sore temptation to your sex. The ole
figure of vines and oaks is pretty il
S poetry, but nine times in ten i