Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1890-09-05
OUR COMMON INHERITANCE.
AN ADDRESS BY PROF. G. Shell
BURNE, OF TAZEWELL FE.
MALE SEMINARY.

SOUTHERN PRoaREss AND EDUCATION
CLAfifs, PossIBILITIEs AND DUTIES
OF THE SOUTHWEST UNDER THE AID.
yANoING MARCH OF SOUTHERN Pho
eREss-THE HILL COUNTRY OF TAzE
WELL.
Ton years ago, before the. "steel
rails" threaded the beautiful valley of
your Clinch-when there was moth
ing but the "slow coach" to connect
you with the telephonic, telegrahpio
and railroad systems of the country
lin company with my brother, l.
Wade Shelburne, who was then
citizen of Roanoke, and prominent
educator in this State, in an open
vehicle, 1 drove over these hills and
through these valleys for the first
time, and though but boy I was
struck with the beauty, the tope-
graphy and the natural advantages
that your country possessed, and
with all the fervor of boy, and with
all the sentiment and aspiration of n
boy just fresh from college, / went
back to the narrow streets, the heat.
ed walls and smoky atmosphere of
my city home to dream of your car
peted turf of blue grass, your lowing
herds, your clear blue skies and sun
sets golden i'll beauty, aud during my
residence here, l have found so much
to delight me in the magnificent
scenery of this region, in its peaceful
and prosperous village, in the rare
intelligence and hospitality of its
people, in the freedom of mind, spirit
and conscience that have enjoyed,
that I shall, rs q common citizen
speak to you of our common inner
itance, these eternal hills-their
claims rs educational forces and our
clnims, possibilities and duties under
the advancing march of Southern
progress, and while l shall speak to
you simply from an impulse of my
own, trust that shall utter no
sentiment that docs not find response
in your own breasts.
i, for one, believe in the old How
ard Payne doctrine, that there is no
place like home, and especially n
home in the mountains of the "Sunny
South" and that love of home, love
of country, love of native hills, of
ones own people and institutions,
that the keeping, the rearing and
identifying of these is n patriotic
virtue, if not political duty; and
that merely to be born and reared
among the hills-a mountaineer, if
you please-is to be chosen peo-
pie, specially favored of nature and a
citizen of Gods own country. The
mountaineer has always been free,
liberty loving, broad minded, broad
souled citizen of the world. "At
Thermopylae, in the Businesses OF
Switzerland" in the gorges of noun
tains, the grand battles of liberty
have been fought. Why, merely to
stand on one of your mountain crests
under the immeasurablo arch OF
heaven, the centre of an extended
panoramic view, and drink in O deep
draught of your mountain air, is to
become educated, and if not to live
longer, certainly to live nobler, freer
and better. Amidst these vast works
of Gods-monuments chiseled out by
the hand of nature. and clothed with
beauty, richness and sublimity-the
soul naturally goes out and cannot
bear the thought of chain.
Your free air. clear and transpar.
ent with purity, breathes into us not
only vigor and health that nerves
and animates the soul, but even O
freer spirit, loftier aspirations and
nobler sentiments. Webster said on
one occasion to the citizens of Ro
chester, in New York, that no peo
pie ever lost their liberties who had
a waterfall hundred feet high, and
God says to every son and daughte,
of the mountains that no people ever
lost their liberties and individuality,
who have o rich mountaia country
1000 feet above the sea.
In historic wealth, the fame of vir.
ginia has spread over the civilized
world. In material wealth, she is
one of the first States in the great
South Sonfhwaot V;ro;n;o =, AZ,