Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1911-03-21

There is a part of the population of
the south which has attracted the at
tention within recent years of that class
of men and women who might be de-
scribed as persons who spend their
days rectifying Southern things. These
South-savers call the people to which
reference is meant by various names,
such as "the mountaineers,r 1.-THE poor
i whites of the Southern mountains,
Southern highlanders," etc. Upon our
fellow-citizens of the hill-country much
mistaken pity has been expended by
which many of them have been amused
at times and at other times affronted-
They have been pictured as an ignor-
ant, INDECENT, and dsorderly lot, very
far behind the times, and having the
merit only of being sprung from pure
Anglo-Saxon stocks.
/ have lived among them, and know
them They are not the people whom
the 'reformers' of the South have i'm
| agined, nor can one get a just idea of
them from the magazine articles and
popular novels which are printed TO set
| forth their characteristics. The people
of Georgia surely know that at least
our Georgia mountaineers are some
what Did we not get from among them
Joseph e. Brown, Logan Il. Bleckley, H.
". M. Miller, Hiram p Bell, Carleton
j. Welborn, Weir Boyd, James r. Brown,
w. p. Price, and others of like worth?
Has any other section of the State Civ
en- to the commonwealth more men of
power? The population Of the counties
from which these man sprang is scarce
| ly more than the population of one OF
our larger cities, but those counties have
gone far beyond most Of our urban coun-
ties in the number and quality of the
leaders which they have produced. And
the similar sections of other Southern
cdmmonwealths have been equally fruit
full of virtue and genius. If / am not
mistaken, Stonewall Jackson was one of
1.-THE poor whites of the mountains" of
Northern Virginia,
The people Of the mountains are not
faultless, but they possess many excel
lencies of peculiar richness. They are
courageous, candid and self-reliant in a
marked degree. They surmount difficult
ties which would appall many of the
stoutest hearts of other sections.
They are constantly confronted by diff
lhculties growing out of the topography
of their country which require much pa
tient effort to overcome. For example,
in the nature of the case they have great
obstacles to overcome in maintaining
good schools. The region is sparsely
settled, and the people live in what
might be called puddles of population.
The heights are not habitable, and so
| the people live for the most part in
groups settled in coves and valleys.
From one settlement to another Is a
greater distance than is found between
settlements In the more smooth and lev
ell sections of the state. Roads are not
so easily built or maintained, as is the
case in other parts. All these things
affect school attendance. A great num-
Der Of very small schools must be car
ried on, so as to reach the children, or
smaller number of boarding schoolss at
convenient points, in which cheap board
can be had, must be maintained, If the
children are to be taught. Both expe-
dents have been adopted and are being
used according as particular conditions
and needs require. OF course, after the
best is done that the people can do, many
children are left untaught, as children
are left untaught in our greatest cities.
But even the nllterate children of these
sections have a certain intellectual alert
ness peculiar to mountain people; the
! Inspiring natural scenery in which they
dwell is not without its effect upon them.
They live close to nature, and while they
are ignorant of many things found in
books, they acquire many things NOT
/ kOunQ IN DOOkSs anu lOA WAASh htOAC
boolkish people might well exchange some
| of their useless mental rubbish
And let no one suppose there are no
books in the mountains. They are not as
plentiful as they are in some other COM
munities, but most of them are master
pieces l have found in mountain homes
more copies of Bunyan's Pilgrim
Progress" than / have found in the same
number of urban homes. have found
4 old I n M
recall finding the novels of Dickens,
Thaekeray or Bulwer, in more than three
mountain homes; but 1 have found in
many Of them the works of Shakespeare,
| Mllton'sl Paradise Lost, ana the relig-
| ious works of the old Puritan and the
later Wesleyan divines. Books like these
are handed down from sire to son in the
mountains, and when country sale" is
held by administrators or executors or
others. the IiveIiest bidding is generally
for the books offered. Moreover, the
mountaineer reads the few books which
he has until they enter into his very
soul He reads very little of that class OF
books which we commonly call trash;
/ he reads a few works by the greatest au-
thors, and ne reads them over and over
until he masters them. Most and best of
all, he reads the English Bible, which
fact gives colour to his character and his
speech Some of the words which he
uses, and which amuse some of the half
educated summer-visitors whom he
meets are words which he derived from
the Bible. For example, he says "holp'
| for help" because he reads in the Scrip
lures such passages as that in the eighty
sixth Psalm where it is said thou Lord
hast holpen me and comforted me-" 1t
may be doubted that the urban people
with their slang and foreign phrases
speak as good English as does our Bible
reading mountaineer, Notwithstanding
they suppose him far less cultured than
themselves. Some years ago DR.. A. p.
Peabody said of the English Bible, 1T
has been an anchor to the language,
which, since it was published, has sus-
tanned less change than it previously sus-
tanned every fifty years. It arrested at
the happiest stage the Normanizing or
I.atinizing process that had been going on
for centuries before. and preserved for US
the rugged force of those Anglo-Saxon
words which were fast vanishing from
popular use. Our Bible is still the key
TO the best English diction; and by con-
yersance with it our children are made