The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1907-10-22
SOME NORTH CAROLINA BOOKS
AND EDUCATION.
By Dr. T. B. KNGSBURY.
BY. Dr.. T. B. KINGSBURY.

and the East that scores of them eel.
what they see in published letters and
books that old readers can not be ex-
pected TO read them. Fifty and sixty
ana ever seventy years ago, works or
real genius Of the sightseeing kind
appeared and were read and enjoyed
by the best class OF English q
~Lamartine's Letters from the
orient were elegant. beautiful, at
fluent, and gave him fame that has
survived until now. The best or all
such works Is, perhaps, "Eothen." OF
rare richness OF style and peculiar
fascination. 1t was written bv an
Englishman Of fine distinction and
scholarship, Alexander Kinglake. 1t
WAS published in l847. He added TO
ms nigh reputation later by his work
on the War" between Rus
STA on one side and England and
france. l never read It or saw it. but
l read much about the wal while pro-
crossing. His work was begun in
1863, and completed in 1888. Proba-
bly, the day l received the volume by
Mr.. Willard, it disappeared somehow,
and [ have not been able to recover
1t. l would probably have read more
or less of 1t If | had retained the copy
the author kindly sent me. He is a
gentleman of ability, a good writer,
and I have no doubt an intelligent,
~up-to-date observer. AS a legislator
he made a decided reputation, and no
one from his county since the war
conducted himself with more of influ-
ence and success.
OF all the gifted literary men and
learned scholars who have crossed the
ocean to visit Great Britain, Europe
ocen to visit Great Britain, Europe
duce u book of travels. If those l
have known my long time and dear
friend, the late Rev. DR.. Charles f.
Deems, was the one who was the best
anninna6 for the wiring of n work
Of rareSt incidents and literary charm.
And yet he never wrote a line for
publication so far as 1 know. After
his return from his first visit. about
1852 or 1863, in the little village of
Leasburg, in CasWell County, North
Carolina, at the home of a fine. COM
~panionable physician, DR.. Stanfield, L
met him. There were two men and
three ladies present, and for an hour
or more he entertained US most rare
ly with a delightful account of some
Of his observations and experiences in
Europe and Great Britain. AS a
bright, genial, engaging, alluring con-
versationalist l never found but few
who equalled him. The evening I re-
fer to was without exception the most
delightful I remember now. In all
my life 1 recall but two other con-
versatonal joys equal to 1.-THE one I
had In with q cousin OF mine
In the room of Senator George f.
Badger in a Washington hotel about
1854. when that marvellous master of
choice English entertained US for some
hour and a half. He was the best of
takers / ever heard. The other one
was in 1872, at Trinity College, when
in his bed room at the hotel Governor
Vance Che had been elected Senator
but the ugly Radicals in the United
States Senate ruled him out), enter
tanned a Western lawyer and myself
for an hour or two. and 1T was indeed
a most memorable time, an occasion
Of singular interest and variety, not to
be forgotten. | regret that DR.. Deems
did not write at least one volume tell
ing of his two visits eynd the seas.
His visit to the Holy Land, to Mount
Sinai and later to Great Britain Ia
second time) was most entertaining, as
gathered more or less from him
later. He told me that the two most
interesting and beautiful of European
cities he visited were Edinburgh.
Scotland. and Oxford, England.
am always riendIy to good in
structionS of learning that have high
character and are ornamental as we'll
as useful. One of the foremost col
leges in all the Southland is Davidson
College near the flourishing town OF
Charlotte, in the truly great county of
/ Meckienburg. with its interesting his
torical associations and fine progress
siveness. Davidson College is every
way worthy of the important n
very influential denomination of
Christians who own and control it,
the Southern Presbyterians. It is in
it's seventy-first year, and is not only
one of the best educational adorn-
ments Of it's people, but is a great
credit to the South and North Caro-
lima. 1t has developed remarkably I'M
der it's present superior management.
1t opened the other day with 291
Students, and hiatt is more hopeful. l
learn from that able Presbyterian or
gan, the Charlotte Standard, that 1T
SIS one of the largest bodies of regu-
lar college students in the Southern
States, as Davidson has no DEPART
ments of Law, Medicine, Theology,
Pharmacy, etc, all of her students ma
circulating for the regular college
courses in Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The students represent practically
every State in the South, and quite a
number in the West and Northwest.
The eshm class numbers some
thing over one hundred, entering at
the average age of eighteen years n
six months: fifty of them are from
outside of North Carolina" Like 9TH
err flourishing and influential i%nstitu-
lions of learning 1T has had it's day of
small things, but it is now in the
Of education, and is making
bravely on to greater and
a wider vista o usefulness and dis
tinction opens before it, There are
reports from larger Southern i%nstitu-
lions of learning relative to very ugly
and disreputable hazing that can not
come ever from Davidson College at
any time. The Legislatures should
put an end to cruel treatment of new
students in all colleges and UNIVERSE
ties in our Southland, If the Trustees
and Faculties are unable to do so.
Some reports are extremely repulsive,
a reproach to any section claiming to
be civilized, much less Christianized.
They are unworthy of Africa or of any
barzaric people. They should be
souelched at any cost.
Wilmington, n. c.