The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1882-06-08
THE BOYS OF THE SOUTH.
Hon. E. T. Taliaferro Upon Educa-
tion and Business Qualification.

, LEGE. rENt %.
In delivering this, your annua
address, / shall not indulge in tn
use OF the usual extravagant compli
ments to pupils, and fulsome tribute
to teachers, but rather content my
self with leaving the merits of eacl
to the results of your examination
and to the well established characte
and prosperity of Giles College.
Your annual examinations ar
but thermometer for the public anC
your patrons to judge of the degree
of your eXertiOn and the efficiency
of your teachers, in solving tht
greatest of all problems, the manneI
in which young men should bC
taught to become useful member:
of the community. 1t is to be re
gretted, but nevertheless is true
that this problem in the main hal
not been successfully solved in the
southern states since the war, or fol
the last seventeen years. In other
words, during the period mentioned
the young men of the south as 8
class--of course with marked ex-
tions-have not developed that
practical, vigorous and accurate
training required to make thorough
business men, which our oppor-
tunities would justify, and which
has ever characterized the young
men of states north and west. This
rule applies to all avocations, and
in a marked degree to those seek
ing success in professional life.
Education, intended only to fit
the mind for the channel of life
where by nature it is best adapted,
often by its A. Ms. and A. B's., its
Latin and its Greek, and its oLogies
and its isnas, deceives the parent and
beguiles the pupil into a field of
ambition so foreign to the nature of
the votary, that the whole of life
becomes impracticable and a total
failure. - "-
Not decrying for a moment the
highest order of a finished eduea-
ton, at the same time it is safe to
assert that what the young men of
the south stand in greatest need is
that practical mental training which
is required to make of them accu-
rate business men in any depart
ment of life. There seems to have
followed as one of the direst results
of the late civil war an enervated
spirit and Frustrated energy among
a very large class of people of the
south, who prior to that period
boasted of being sciOns of some Of
the proudest families within the pale
of southern slave-owping aristoc-
racy. In this particular the south
ern states have but added another
page to repeated history, illustra-
ting the fact that where the institu-
ton of a proud aristocracy with its
prestige and its fortunes has been
suddenly swept away, the energies
of it's people are paralyzed and they
are unable to cope with that practi-
cal lite the new order of things de
mand, and refuse to breathe other
atmosphere than that of their former
grandeur, even though it be but a
dream of the past. This bankrupt
feeling, most unfortunately, but
naturally, spreads its influence over
all classes, and especially the chill
dren of those who were most un-
fortunate, and who have been told OF
former grandeur, the area of large
plantations, and splendid equipages
and taught to believe that 'blood"
in men, like pedigrees in live stock,
descends from generation to genera
ton. Most of this class of young
men are total failures and objects
of pity, if not contempt, in com
munities where they reside. How
often have you heard right here il
Tennessee this talk of what they, Ol
their fathers, owned before the war
of families reaching back to English
and Scottish nobility, or Puritan ol
Huguenot first settlers? What does
it avail if your father was a COVER
nor or a senator or an aristocrat, /
you have not a penny In you
pocket; or that your family have ;
tree of forty generations, when yol
! cannot obtain a business situation
in the town where you live? Civ
/ young man a practical bushes
| education and let him in turn eX
/ hibit energy, industry and correc
habits, | care not how humble hi
: origin or poor his ancestors, an,
: in the great avenues of business lif
l his employment will command cage
f and high figures in the market
r Honesty may be impaired by blood
but merit, like all the characteristic
, of individuality, is part of tn
: man, and the source of its inhereit
= ance is his own eXertion. Th
/ physical and political conditions {
J., this country, and even of the Unite
e States, are far different from wins
they were when our fathers wel
young men, or fifty years ago. Th
. system of speedy transportation
the easy access to markets, the il
creasing demands of the huma
4 race, the facilities of bank exchang
t the progress of civilization and con
: mercial transaction, and a thou
and other causes, are gradually r
4 ducing everything to practics
: mathematical business basis. Lars
e corporations, banking institution
o Joint stock companies and partne
d ships, now extended throughout ii
!, width and breadth of the countr
!. in a great measure controlling Il
= financial world, transact their bus
y ness with mathematical preeisio
y and with the regularity of m
:, chinery. The whole human rae
o directly or indirectly, are brOugl
h into contact, either with one or Il
T. other or all. Those dealing with the
d learn the importance of aecura
II business habits, and they in tui
teach it to and require it of the
Of neighbors. Fifty years ago yo
r. father loaned his money to h
l neighbor on the faith of his chs
I'd acter; to-day he lends on the solve
a. cv of his endorsers, and the same
n turn is required of him. Then. {
IN merchant sold his goods on tin
ne often at the pleasure of the buyC
~ o-day, quick sales, short profits a
ae ae the money down or at the end of
days, and in turn the same is
We quired of him by the eastern who
| saler. Even in the profession