The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1910-07-12
The Hope Of the South.


Travelling this week across a con-
siderable section of our Progressive
Farmer and Gazette territory, says
Editor Poe, we could but dream Of
the time when all our Southern
country shall become as fair as the
rural districts of France and Eng
land as we saw them tw2 years ago
our muddy roads shall give
way to beautiful highways; when
oi.r old frie@5.s Shall be redeemed TO
AZ, -. ,sa;ulness; when our hall
q .tivated patches shall be convert
ed into broad and fertile iields; wnen
herds of cattle and flcct.s Of sheep
shall dot our hillsides; when a gully
shall be reckoned a disgrace and a
fire-ruined wood crime: when cab
irs and. ugly cottages shall be re-
placed by homes made beautiful by
loving care, however humble they
may be, and when thsckly settled
and we'll trained population shall
not only relieve country life of that
isolation which has most retarded
its development, but shall give need
ed support for all the conveniences
OF twentieth-certury rural life-ru-
raj telephones, water-Works, the
township high school with its public
library and lyceum course; schools
a center of intellectual and the
church OF spiritual activity, each
giving symmetry and beauty to a
community lift which finds its mat
erial basis in a high degree of efticl-
ency on the part of the average
man.
Even. as the painter when he goes
to his canvas. sees with his minds
eve some beautiful vision which he
is to work out, even so all OF us
should have before us as We 90
about our daily tasks this vision OF
the South that is to be, and the part,
however insignificant, that we may
have Ielping, its fultillment. We
should all of us like to live to see 1t
with our own eyes, as Moses yearn-
ed to see the promised Canaan to
which he led his people. But w,heth-
er we shall see it with the physical
eve or only in our dream. it is enough
that We may have hand in bring
ing it about, enough that we may
work intelligently and unselfishly to
hasten the coming rf this better
day.
And the one way is by giving the
child a chance. That boy of yours
who already has the basis of all
character in that he is learning to
work, that boy who warns his feet
cold mornings in the place where
the cows lay the night before'-he
is the hope of the South. That girl
Of yours, that girl OF your neigh.
bor's, whose mind and spirit will
some day give tone ard color to ev-
erything in a home-she is the hope
of the South And only through the
school they can be developed.
The boy and girl in the towns are
getting good schooling: the farm
boy and girl in the North and West
are getting good schooling. Shall II
ne, then, that among all our twen.
tieth century American youth the
Southern farm girl and boy alone
erter life's race Handicapped by
shackles of ignorance?
1t must not be so. The best in
yestment the South could make in
1910 would be to double its taxes
and double the patronage OF oul
high schools and colleges. Only by
providing the best OF facilities can
we attract to the South that tide ol
immigration which We need to in
crease our percentage Of white pop
ulation and to relieve rural life OF
isolation; and only by educating all
our people can we work our dream
of a South the beauty Of whose rur'
al and urban life, the intelligence
and efficiency of whose people. shall
make it indeed the foremost and the
fairest section of America.