The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-07-02
MERELY SUGGESTED BY THE
FOLLOWING QUOTATION.

some truths that we needed to be re-
minded of. and while the medicine he
gave lis has doubled us all up it will
ultimately do US all good. None goes
before the editor Of The Messenger in
loyalty to North Carolina, but he
should not allow ever his devotion to
che state, to dull his ears to patent
though unagreeable truths.oChariotte
Observer.
The Messenger is not for profonging
discussion as to Mr.. Pages very re-
n~arkable, but unfortunate address.
His truths" were not offensive. for
they were all in the census reports.
The Messenger had published them and
commented upon them through the de-
cadeS-the figures concerning iiitera-
cy in North Carolina. No intelligent
North Carolinian we ever met express
ed doubt as to those figures or en-
deavored to repress or avoid them. We
kold the story of the illiteracy when
Mr.. Page was a college boy. We have
fterated and reiterated it until it be-
came IAN old story" now quite thread
bare. It is not the truth" that Offend
ed. Not that. 1t was his manner OF
speech, his ignoring Of most impor-
iant facts, his failure to recognize any
thing good done in the state prior to
the arrival Of the new mamie is a
brother to that "neW wOman"
deafness TO all that vas m =.
and inspiring in the history Of North
Carolina schooling, his false theory he
built upon from the start, his ridicule,
his injustice, his suppression Of most
praiseworthy facts-these were the
smart things that won him favor
with inconsiderate and not informed
teachers and even captured our gifted
friend Of The Observer. Mr.. Page is
a very bright, scholarly man. He
writes well, he spar!lies, he g%litters,
sometimes with a false fire, but it is
2ight If not from Heaven. He has the
unfortunate gift Of saying unjust
things unwiseIy and Of SO speaking
half truths as to make them most OBJ
oxiou to criticism and most reDel-
Ian to the men of education who
"abided in the ship" during the great
storm that swept over North Carolina
in the war and during the accursed re-
construction times when oguer and
.spOliatiOn, debauchery and expressions
were as common as the streets in
which the marauders and demagogues
walked.
Half truths, misrepresentation, con-
cealment of good done will never work
out great and b%enignant results in any
cause. North Carolina and the south
are not like Massachusetts and New
England in hardly any particular.
Fine a we'll educated, genuine SOUTH
ron, who remains faithful to the past
and to the present, and place him by
the side of an equally well educated
New Highlander. and let them enter
into a free talk, and they will differ
upon religious, moral, civil, historical,
biographical, material and all other
questions. They occupy entirely differ
emit standing points of study and OBJ
%servation and see questions differently.
The ideas and multitudinOus "isms"
Of New England have not been popular
in the south, unless it be with a sec
tion of school teachers who take TO
shem like children to the w%hOOping
cough. While the south, in common
with the Christian world accepted def
nitely and decidedly the great funda-
mental doctrine of the Trinity. at one
time New England, particularly the
more highly educated men and women
Of Massachusetts, rejected the great
Christian truth. Even at this day
many of them are not better than ed
ucated Pagans.
We have understood that ever Mr..
Page has so far advanced" in his
higher education" as to Spurn and re-
ject the Bible as the Word of God. We
would indeed be glad to know thai in
this he has been misrepresented. No
man car be a teacher for good, a safe
~hierophant of the people, a leader in
the forces of North Carolina educa-
ton who rejects the eternal truths Of
God and sets aside as unworthy the
Christian Scriptures. North Carolina
has done no little for education. Every
tax payer has been for t~hirty-twO
years helping to educate the illiterate
negroes while trying to school his own
children. The men who left North
Carolina to her fate after the cruel
harrow of war had left her desolate
and her best people were stripped of
fortune, and civic rights and the pow
er of citizenship, and sought more in
viting fields abroad where the materi-
alistic ideas We're foremost and wis
dom walked the streets in golden san
dals, and then took their money for
taxes and helped to educate the chill
iren in the enemy's land, need not to
exhaust their mental a~cuteness and
powers in uncovering the ~nakedness of
their deserted mother, and use their
muscular force in hurting the stones OF
half truths at her already wounded
body. North Carolina will continue to