The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-04-29
PROMINENT EDUCATOR
 ON A BROAD SUBJECT
Prof. c. Alphonso Smith of North Caro- Tina Discusses the Practical
 and the Literary.

c. Alphonso Smith, professor of English
 in the University of North Carolina, de-
 livered the following address on the
 Practical and the Literary in National Life" before the Conference for Educa-
 ton Wednesday night:
 No one needs to be told that the age In which we live is pre-eminently an industrial age. We read it in countless
 newspapers; we hear 1t in tl,e whirr of
 machinery we see it in the evidences of
 material prosperity all about us; and we are made to feel 1t in q certain practical
 way of looking at things and certain
 business way of doing things, both of
 which are characteristieally American.
 Tn no other part of the country has
 industrial progress been so marked of late as in the south, and nowhere else
 does this progress present so striking contrast to the pre-existing order of things. There are men in this audience still in the prime of life who remember when the south was almost wholly agri- cultural; but since 1870 so swift have been her strides in manufacturing enter prise that statistics become obsolete be- fore they can be tabuated. The output of manufactured cotton goods will at the present rate be more than doubled In four years, and even If this astonish- ing progress is maintained 1t will be thirty years before the south will manu- facture all the cotton that she raises and during these thirty years not only
 will the cotton crop increase. but the needs of the world in the matter of cot ton goods will presumably increase in like ratio.
 When we add to this the proposed
 construction of the Panama canal and
 the industrial advantages that must ac-
 crue thereby to the south, the man Is not to be envied whose pulse does not quicken and whose imagination does not
 kindle at the vista that stretches before us.
 ''Tis a South whose gaze Is cast Not wholly on the past.
 But whose bright eyes the skies of prom ise sweep,
 Whose feet in paths of progress swiftly leap,
 rivers, run
 Through odorous ways to meet the morn- ing sun
 No Antagonism. But there are many excellent persons, chiefly from the ranks of literary men and teachers of literature who see in our industrial progress menace to our literary life. They believe that as in
 dustralism advances literature must nec-
 essarily decline; that we cannot serve
 two masters and that literature is des- tined to go down in the struggle with its stronger and coarser antagonist.
 This view of an inherent antagonism between literature and industrialism inn piles radical msconception of both. h.
 dustrialism is not materialism, nor is it utilitarianism. These are theories of life, while industrialism is means of liv- ing. Viewed as a whole industrialism is the subsistence of the race on the least
 expenditure of time and labor. It is the
 matrix that holds within itself the pos
 sibilty of all other activities. It is the substructure of society, and conditions its modes of self-expression.
 The peril of possible degenerat ton
 into materialism or utilitarianism is more
 than counterbalanced by the immediate and permanent benefits that industrial ism confers. Industrialism brings in it's
 train sense of popular independence and solidarity that arr as Dulwarl<s in periods of national crisis. It meant de- velopment of natural resources; 1t means
 emancipation from the temporal needs ] that threaten and thwart the genius of l literature; 1t means happy homes and
 diffused contentment; it means wealth.
 and wealth means more free schools l longer terms, and more efficient service; l wealth means not necessarily more uni versailles, but stronger and more ade- quately endowed universities. Away
 with the idea that we must de-industrial- ize a nation; that we must hush the hum of it's myriad activities, before the
 muse of literature will design to alight
 But the conception of literature in the supposed antithesis between It and in- dustralism Is no less perverted. These guardians of literature, pure and unde-
 filed would not only materalize indus trialism-they would unduly etherialize
 literature They would de-vitalize it.
 They establish their antithesis by accen- tuating the mechanical trend of the one,
 the transcendental trend of the other.
 But the literature that is too flnicky and anaemic to live in an industrial age does not merit to live in any age. The pur-
 pose of literature says Morley, is to bring sunshine into our hearts and to
 drive moonshine out of our heads
 Literature is not handicapped by the
 division of men into employer and em- ployee; she makes her appeal to all alike
 Says one of our poets:
 !" I believe that in all ages
 Every human heart is human And wherever the human heart is hu-
 man literature proffers her guidance and offers her minstrations
 Literature the Expression of Life. At tonhot pe tOo strongly urged that literature is the expression of life. and
 that the more full. free rich, varied and abundant life Is, the more full free. rich. varied and abundant will the literature be. The dramatists of Elzabeth's reign did not create the vital energy of their
 time. TEey reflected it. They interpret
 ed it. They were not the fountains. they
 were the reservoirs. New opportunities.
 new discoveries, new occupations had
 opened new vistas and literary greatness
 went hand in hand with material prosper ;ty.
 Let us never forget that literature means life in all it's vastness, in all it's complexity, In all It's grades. When Queen Victoria told Tennyson how much com fort she had found In Tn memoriam' when called upon to mourn the death of
 her husband, Prince Albert she gave no
 better illustration of the scope and func-
 tion of literature than did the poor wash
 erwoman who pasted Longfellow's lines
 on Maidenhood' above her washtub and who, as she bent over her daily task,
 lifted her soul Lack to the level of faith and hope and purity so lovingly sung
 by the poet. When Tennyson died, clasp
 ed in his hand Shakespeare's 'Cymbe- line, he furnished no better illustration
 of the scope and function of literature than did the begrimed miners of Newcas-