CERTAIN DIVERSITIES OF AMERICAN LIFE

By Charles Dudley Warner

This is a very interesting age. Within the memory of men not yet come tomiddle life the time of the trotting horse has been reduced from twominutes forty seconds to two minutes eight and a quarter seconds. Duringthe past fifteen years a universal and wholesome pastime of boys has beendeveloped into a great national industry, thoroughly organized and almostaltogether relegated to professional hands, no longer the exercise of themillion but a spectacle for the million, and a game which rivals theStock Exchange as a means of winning money on the difference of opinionas to the skill of contending operators. 

The newspapers of the country--pretty accurate and sad indicators of thepopular taste--devote more daily columns in a week's time to chroniclingthe news about base-ball than to any other topic that interests theAmerican mind, and the most skillful player, the pitcher, often collegebred, whose entire prowess is devoted to not doing what he seems to bedoing, and who has become the hero of the American girl as the Olympianwrestler was of the Greek maiden and as the matador is of the Spanishsenorita, receives a larger salary for a few hours' exertion each weekthan any college president is paid for a year's intellectual toil. Suchhas been the progress in the interest in education during this periodthat the larger bulk of the news, and that most looked for, printed aboutthe colleges and universities, is that relating to the training, theprospects and achievements of the boat crews and the teams of base-balland foot-ball, and the victory of any crew or team is a better means ofattracting students to its college, a better advertisement, than successin any scholastic contest. A few years ago a tournament was organized inthe North between several colleges for competition in oratory andscholarship; it had a couple of contests and then died of inanition andwant of public interest. 

During the period I am speaking of there has been an enormous advance intechnical education, resulting in the establishment of splendid specialschools, essential to the development of our national resources; a growthof the popular idea that education should be practical, --that is, such aneducation as can be immediately applied to earning a living and acquiringwealth speedily, --and an increasing extension of the elective system incolleges, --based almost solely on the notion, having in view, of course, the practical education, that the inclinations of a young man of eighteenare a better guide as to what is best for his mental development andequipment for life than all the experience of his predecessors. 

In this period, which you will note is more distinguished by the desirefor the accumulation of money than far the general production of wealth, the standard of a fortune has shifted from a fair competence to that ofmillions of money, so that he is no longer rich who has a hundredthousand dollars, but he only who possesses property valued at manymillions, and the men most widely known the country through, most talkedabout, whose doings and sayings are most chronicled in the journals, whose example is most attractive and stimulating to the minds of youth, are not the scholars, the scientists, the men of, letters, not even theorators and statesmen, but those who, by any means, have amassed enormousfortunes. We judge the future of a generation by its ideals. 

Regarding education from the point of view of its equipment of a man tomake money, and enjoy the luxury which money can command, it must be moreand more practical, that is, it must be adapted not even to the higheraim of increasing the general wealth of the world, by increasingproduction and diminishing waste both of labor and capital, but to thelower aim of getting personal possession of it; so that a striking socialfeature of the period is that one-half--that is hardly an overestimate--one-half of the activity in America of which we speak with so muchenthusiasm, is not directed to the production of wealth, to increasingits volume, but to getting the money of other people away from them. Inbarbarous ages this object was accomplished by violence; it is nowattained by skill and adroitness. We still punish those who gain propertyby violence; those who get it by smartness and cleverness, we try toimitate, and sometimes we reward them with public office. 

It appears, therefore, that speed, -the ability to move rapidly from placeto place, --a disproportionate reward of physical over intellectualscience, an intense desire to be rich, which is strong enough to compeleven education to grind in the mill of the Philistines, and an inordinateelevation in public consideration of rich men simply because they arerich, are characteristics of this little point of time on which we stand. They are not the only characteristics; in a reasonably optimistic view, the age is distinguished for unexampled achievements, and foropportunities for the well-being of humanity never before in all historyattainable. But these characteristics are so prominent as to beget thefear that we are losing the sense of the relative value of things in thislife. 

Few persons come to middle life without some conception of these relativevalues. It is in the heat and struggle that we fail to appreciate what inthe attainment will be most satisfactory to us. After it is over we areapt to see that our possessions do not bring the happiness we expected;or that we have neglected to cultivate the powers and tastes that canmake life enjoyable. We come to know, to use a truism, that a person'shighest satisfaction depends not upon his exterior acquisitions, but uponwhat he himself is. There is no escape from this conclusion. The physicalsatisfactions are limited and fallacious, the intellectual and moralsatisfactions are unlimited. In the last analysis, a man has to live withhimself, to be his own companion, and in the last resort the question is, what can he get out of himself. In the end, his life is worth just whathe has become. And I need not say that the mistake commonly made is as torelative values, --that the things of sense are as important as the thingsof the mind. You make that mistake when you devote your best energies toyour possession of material substance, and neglect the enlargement, thetraining, the enrichment of the mind. You make the same mistake in a lessdegree, when you bend to the popular ignorance and conceit so far as todirect your college education to sordid ends. The certain end of yieldingto this so-called practical spirit was expressed by a member of aNorthern State legislature who said, "We don't want colleges, we wantworkshops. " It was expressed in another way by a representative of thelower house in Washington who said, "The average ignorance of the countryhas a right to be represented here. " It is not for me to say whether itis represented there. Naturally, I say, we ought by the time of middlelife to come to a conception of what sort of things are of most value. Byanalogy, in the continual growth of the Republic, we ought to have aperception of what we have accomplished and acquired, and some clear viewof our tendencies. We take justifiable pride in the glittering figures ofour extension of territory, our numerical growth, in the increase ofwealth, and in our rise to the potential position of almost the firstnation in the world. A more pertinent inquiry is, what sort of peoplehave we become? What are we intellectually and morally? For after all theman is the thing, the production of the right sort of men and women isall that gives a nation value. When I read of the establishment of agreat industrial centre in which twenty thousand people are employed inthe increase of the amount of steel in the world, before I decide whetherit would be a good thing for the Republic to create another industrialcity of the same sort, I want to know what sort of people the twentythousand are, how they live, what their morals are, what intellectuallife they have, what their enjoyment of life is, what they talk about andthink about, and what chance they have of getting into any higher life. It does not seem to me a sufficient gain in this situation that we areimmensely increasing the amount of steel in the world, or that twentymore people are enabled on account of this to indulge in an unexampled, unintellectual luxury. We want more steel, no doubt, but haven't we witenough to get that and at the same time to increase among the producersof it the number of men and women whose horizons are extended, who arecompanionable, intelligent beings, adding something to the intellectualand moral force upon which the real progress of the Republic depends?

There is no place where I would choose to speak more plainly of ournational situation today than in the South, and at the University of theSouth; in the South, because it is more plainly in a transition state, and at the University of the South, because it is here and in similarinstitutions that the question of the higher or lower plane of life inthe South is to be determined. 

To a philosophical observer of the Republic, at the end of the hundredyears, I should say that the important facts are not its industrialenergy, its wealth, or its population, but the stability of the federalpower, and the integrity of the individual States. That is to say, thatstress and trial have welded us into an indestructible nation; and not ofless consequence is the fact that the life of the Union is in the life ofthe States. The next most encouraging augury for a great future is themarvelous diversity among the members of this republican body. If nothingwould be more speedily fatal to our plan of government than increasingcentralization, nothing would be more hopeless in our development thanincreasing monotony, the certain end of which is mediocrity. 

Speaking as one whose highest pride it is to be a citizen of a great andinvincible Republic to those whose minds kindle with a like patriotism, Ican say that I am glad there are East and North and South, and West, Middle, Northwest, and Southwest, with as many diversities of climate, temperament, habits, idiosyncrasies, genius, as these names imply. ThankHeaven we are not all alike; and so long as we have a common purpose inthe Union, and mutual toleration, respect, and sympathy, the greater willbe our achievement and the nobler our total development, if every sectionis true to the evolution of its local traits. The superficial foreignobserver finds sameness in our different States, tiresome family likenessin our cities, hideous monotony in our villages, and a certain commonatmosphere of life, which increasing facility of communication tends toincrease. This is a view from a railway train. But as soon as you observeclosely, you find in each city a peculiar physiognomy, and a peculiarspirit remarkable considering the freedom of movement and intercourse, and you find the organized action of each State sui generis to a degreesurprising considering the general similarity of our laws andinstitutions. In each section differences of speech, of habits ofthought, of temperament prevail. Massachusetts is unlike Louisiana, Florida unlike Tennessee, Georgia is unlike California, Pennsylvania isunlike Minnesota, and so on, and the unlikeness is not alone or chieflyin physical features. By the different style of living I can tell when Icross the line between Connecticut and New York as certainly as when Icross the line between Vermont and Canada. The Virginian expanded inKentucky is not the same man he was at home, and the New England Yankeelet loose in the West takes on proportions that would astonish hisgrandfather. Everywhere there is a variety in local sentiment, action, and development. Sit down in the seats of the State governments and studythe methods of treatment of essentially the common institutions ofgovernment, of charity and discipline, and you will be impressed with thevariety of local spirit and performance in the Union. And this, diversityis so important, this contribution of diverse elements is so necessary tothe complex strength and prosperity of the whole, that one must view withalarm all federal interference and tendency to greater centralization. 

And not less to be dreaded than monotony from the governmental point ofview, is the obliteration of variety in social life and in literarydevelopment. It is not enough for a nation to be great and strong, itmust be interesting, and interesting it cannot be without cultivation oflocal variety. Better obtrusive peculiarities than universal sameness. Itis out of variety as well as complexity in American life, and not inhomogeneity and imitation, that we are to expect a civilizationnoteworthy in the progress of the human race. 

Let us come a little closer to our subject in details. For a hundredyears the South was developed on its own lines, with astonishingly littleexterior bias. This comparative isolation was due partly to theinstitution of slavery, partly to devotion to the production of two orthree great staples. While its commercial connection with the North wasintimate and vital, its literary relation with the North was slight. Withfew exceptions Northern authors were not read in the South, and theliterary movement of its neighbors, such as it was, from 1820 to 1860, scarcely affected it. With the exception of Louisiana, which wasabsolutely ignorant of American literature and drew its inspiration andassumed its critical point of view almost wholly from the French, theSouth was English, but mainly English of the time of Walter Scott andGeorge the Third. While Scott was read at the North for his knowledge ofhuman nature, as he always will be read, the chivalric age which moves inhis pages was taken more seriously at the South, as if it were ofcontinuing importance in life. In any of its rich private libraries youfind yourself in the age of Pope and Dryden, and the classics werepursued in the spirit of Oxford and Cambridge in the time of Johnson. Itwas little disturbed by the intellectual and ethical agitation of modernEngland or of modern New England. During this period, while the Southexcelled in the production of statesmen, orators, trained politicians, great judges, and brilliant lawyers, it produced almost no literature, that is, no indigenous literature, except a few poems and--a few humorouscharacter-sketches; its general writing was ornately classic, and itsfiction romantic on the lines of the foreign romances. 

From this isolation one thing was developed, and another thing might indue time be expected. The thing developed was a social life, in thefavored class, which has an almost unique charm, a power of beingagreeable, a sympathetic cordiality, an impulsive warmth, a frankness inthe expression of emotion, and that delightful quality of manner whichputs the world at ease and makes life pleasant. The Southerners are nomore sincere than the Northerners, but they have less reserve, and in thesocial traits that charm all who come in contact with them, they have anelement of immense value in the variety of American life. 

The thing that might have been expected in due time, and when the callcame--and it is curious to note that the call and cause of anyrenaissance are always from the outside--was a literary expression freshand indigenous. This expectation, in a brief period since the war, hasbeen realized by a remarkable performance and is now stimulated by aremarkable promise. The acclaim with which the Southern literature hasbeen received is partly due to its novelty, the new life it exhibited, but more to the recognition in it of a fresh flavor, a literary qualitydistinctly original and of permanent importance. This production, thefirst fruits of which are so engaging in quality, cannot grow and broadeninto a stable, varied literature without scholarship and hard work, andwithout a sympathetic local audience. But the momentary concern is thatit should develop on its own lines and in its own spirit, and not underthe influence of London or Boston or New York. I do not mean by this thatit should continue to attract attention by peculiarities of dialect-whichis only an incidental, temporary phenomenon, that speedily becomeswearisome, whether "cracker" or negro or Yankee--but by being true to theessential spirit and temperament of Southern life. 

During this period there was at the North, and especially in the East, great intellectual activity and agitation, and agitation ethical andmoral as well as intellectual. There was awakening, investigation, questioning, doubt. There was a great deal of froth thrown to thesurface. In the free action of individual thought and expression greweccentricities of belief and of practice, and a crop of so-called "isms, "more or less temporary, unprofitable, and pernicious. Public opinionattained an astonishing degree of freedom, --I never heard of anycommunity that was altogether free of its tyranny. At least extraordinarylatitude was permitted in the development of extreme ideas, new, fantastic, radical, or conservative. For instance, slavery was attackedand slavery was defended on the same platform, with almost equal freedom. Indeed, for many years, if there was any exception to the generaltoleration it was in the social ostracism of those who held and expressedextreme opinions in regard to immediate emancipation, and werestigmatized as abolitionists. There was a general ferment of new ideas, not always fruitful in the direction taken, but hopeful in view of thefact that growth and movement are better than stagnation and decay. Youcan do something with a ship that has headway; it will drift upon therocks if it has not. With much foam and froth, sure to attend agitation, there was immense vital energy, intense life. 

Out of this stir and agitation came the aggressive, conquering spiritthat carried civilization straight across the continent, that built upcities and States, that developed wealth, and by invention, ingenuity, and energy performed miracles in the way of the subjugation of nature andthe assimilation of societies. Out of this free agitation sprang aliterary product, great in quantity and to some degree distinguished inquality, groups of historians, poets, novelists, essayists, biographers, scientific writers. A conspicuous agency of the period was the lectureplatform, which did something in the spread and popularization ofinformation, but much more in the stimulation of independent thought andthe awakening of the mind to use its own powers. 

Along with this and out of this went on the movement of popular educationand of the high and specialized education. More remarkable than theachievements of the common schools has been the development of thecolleges, both in the departments of the humanities and of science. If Iwere writing of education generally, I might have something to say of themeasurable disappointment of the results of the common schools as atpresent conducted, both as to the diffusion of information and as to thediscipline of the mind and the inculcation of ethical principles; whichsimply means that they need improvement. But the higher education hasbeen transformed, and mainly by the application of scientific methods, and of the philosophic spirit, to the study of history, economics, andthe classics. When we are called to defend the pursuit of metaphysics orthe study of the classics, either as indispensable to the discipline orto the enlargement of the mind, we are not called on to defend themethods of a generation ago. The study of Greek is no longer an exercisein the study of linguistics or the inspection of specimens of an obsoleteliterature, but the acquaintance with historic thought, habits, andpolity, with a portion of the continuous history of the human mind, whichhas a vital relation to our own life. 

However much or little there may be of permanent value in the vastproduction of northern literature, judged by continental or even Englishstandards, the time has came when American scholarship in science, inlanguage, in occidental or oriental letters, in philosophic andhistorical methods, can court comparison with any other. In some branchesof research the peers of our scholars must be sought not in England butin Germany. So that in one of the best fruits of a period of intellectualagitation, scholarship, the restless movement has thoroughly vindicateditself. 

I have called your attention to this movement in order to say that it wasneither accidental nor isolated. It was in the historic line, it was fedand stimulated by all that had gone before, and by all contemporaryactivity everywhere. New England, for instance, was alert and progressivebecause it kept its doors and windows open. It was hospitable in itsintellectual freedom, both of trial and debate, to new ideas. It was intouch with the universal movement of humanity and of human thought andspeculation. You lose some quiet by this attitude, some repose that ispleasant and even desirable perhaps, you entertain many errors, you maytry many useless experiments, but you gain life and are in the way ofbetter things. New England, whatever else we may say about it, was in theworld. There was no stir of thought, of investigation, of research, ofthe recasting of old ideas into new forms of life, in Germany, in France, in Italy, in England, anywhere, that did not touch it and to which it didnot respond with the sympathy that common humanity has in the universalprogress. It kept this touch not only in the evolution and expression ofthought and emotion which we call literature (whether original orimitative), but in the application of philosophic methods to education, in the attempted regeneration of society and the amelioration of itsconditions by schemes of reform and discipline, relating to theinstitutions of benevolence and to the control of the vicious andcriminal. With all these efforts go along always much falsesentimentality and pseudo-philanthropy, but little by little gain is madethat could not be made in a state of isolation and stagnation. 

In fact there is one historic stream of human thought, aspiration, andprogress; it is practically continuous, and with all its diversity oflocal color and movement it is a unit. If you are in it, you move; if youare out of it, you are in an eddy. The eddy may have a provincialcurrent, but it is not in the great stream, and when it has gone roundand round for a century, it is still an eddy, and will not carry youanywhere in particular. The value of the modern method of teaching andstudy is that it teaches the solidarity of human history, the continuanceof human thought, in literature, government, philosophy, the unity of thedivine purpose, and that nothing that has anywhere befallen the humanrace is alien to us. 

I am not undervaluing the part, the important part, played byconservatism, the conservatism that holds on to what has been gained ifit is good, that insists on discipline and heed to the plain teaching ofexperience, that refuses to go into hysterics of enthusiasm over everyflighty suggestion, or to follow every leader simply because he proposessomething new and strange--I do not mean the conservatism that refuses totry anything simply because it is new, and prefers to energetic life thestagnation that inevitably leads to decay. Isolation from the greathistoric stream of thought and agitation is stagnation. While this istrue, and always has been true in history, it is also true, in regard tothe beneficent diversity of American life, which is composed of so manyelements and forces, as I have often thought and said, that what has beencalled the Southern conservatism in respect to beliefs and certain socialproblems, may have a very important part to play in the development ofthe life of the Republic. 

I shall not be misunderstood here, where the claims of the higher lifeare insisted on and the necessity of pure, accurate scholarship isrecognized, in saying that this expectation in regard to the Southdepends upon the cultivation and diffusion of the highest scholarship inall its historic consciousness and critical precision. This sort ofscholarship, of widely apprehending intellectual activity, keeping stepwith modern ideas so far as they are historically grounded, is of thefirst importance. Everywhere indeed, in our industrial age, --in a societyinclined to materialism, scholarship, pure and simple scholarship for itsown sake, no less in Ohio than in Tennessee, is the thing to be insistedon. If I may refer to an institution, which used to be midway between theNorth and the South, and which I may speak of without suspicion of bias, an institution where the studies of metaphysics, the philosophy ofhistory, the classics and pure science are as much insisted on as thestudy of applied sciences, the College of New Jersey at Princeton, thequestion in regard to a candidate for a professorship or instructorship, is not whether he was born North or South, whether he served in one armyor another or in neither, whether he is a Democrat or a Republican or aMugwump, what religious denomination he belongs to, but is he a scholarand has he a high character? There is no provincialism in scholarship. 

We are not now considering the matter of the agreeableness of one societyor another, whether life is on the whole pleasanter in certain conditionsat the North or at the South, whether there is not a charm sometimes inisolation and even in provincialism. It is a fair question to ask, whateffect upon individual lives and character is produced by an industrialand commercial spirit, and by one less restless and more domestic. Butthe South is now face to face with certain problems which relate her, inevitably, to the moving forces of the world. One of these is thedevelopment of her natural resources and the change and diversity of herindustries. On the industrial side there is pressing need of institutionsof technology, of schools of applied science, for the diffusion oftechnical information and skill in regard to mining and manufacturing, and also to agriculture, so that worn-out lands may be reclaimed and goodlands be kept up to the highest point of production. Neither mines, forests, quarries, water-ways, nor textile fabrics can be handled to bestadvantage without scientific knowledge and skilled labor. The South iseverywhere demanding these aids to her industrial development. But justin the proportion that she gets them, and because she has them, will bethe need of higher education. The only safety against the influence of arolling mill is a college, the only safety against the practical andmaterializing tendency of an industrial school is the increased study ofwhatever contributes to the higher and non-sordid life of the mind. TheSouth would make a poor exchange for her former condition in any amountof industrial success without a corresponding development of the highestintellectual life. 

But, besides the industrial problem, there is the race problem. It is themost serious in the conditions under which it is presented that ever inall history confronted a free people. Whichever way you regard it, it isthe nearest insoluble. Under the Constitution it is wisely left to theaction of the individual States. The heavy responsibility is with them. In the nature of things it is a matter of the deepest concern to thewhole Republic, for the prosperity of every part is vital to theprosperity of the whole. In working it out you are entitled, from theoutside, to the most impartial attempt to understand its real nature, tothe utmost patience with the facts of human nature, to the most profoundand most helpful sympathy. It is monstrous to me that the situationshould be made on either side a political occasion for private ambitionor for party ends. 

I would speak of this subject with the utmost frankness if I knew what tosay. It is not much of a confession to say that I do not. The more Istudy it the less I know, and those among you who give it the mostanxious thought are the most perplexed, the subject has so manyconflicting aspects. In the first place there is the evolution of anundeveloped race. Every race has a right to fair play in the world and tomake the most of its capacities, and to the help of the more favored inthe attempt. If the suggestion recently made of a wholesale migration toMexico were carried out, the South would be relieved in many ways, thoughthe labor problem would be a serious one for a long time, but the"elevation" would be lost sight of or relegated to a foreign missionaryenterprise; and as for results to the colored people themselves, there isthe example of Hayti. If another suggestion, that of abandoning certainStates to this race, were carried out, there is the example of Haytiagain, and, besides, an anomaly introduced into the Republic foreign toits traditions, spirit, aspirations, and process of assimilation, aliento the entire historic movement of the Aryan races, and infinitely moredangerous to the idea of the Republic than if solid Ireland were dumpeddown in the Mississippi valley as an independent State. 

On the other hand, there rests upon you the responsibility of maintaininga civilization--the civilization of America, not of Hayti or of Guatemalawhich we have so hardly won. It is neither to be expected nor desiredthat you should be ruled by an undeveloped race, ignorant of law, letters, history, politics, political economy. There is no right anywherein numbers or unintelligence to rule intelligence. It is a travesty ofcivilization. No Northern State that I know of would submit to be ruledby an undeveloped race. And human nature is exactly in the South what itis in the North. That is one impregnable fact, to be taken as the basisof all our calculations; the whites of the South will not, cannot, bedominated, as matters now stand, by the colored race. 

But, then, there is the suffrage, the universal, unqualified suffrage. And here is the dilemma. Suffrage once given, cannot be suppressed ordenied, perverted by chicane or bribery without incalculable damage tothe whole political body. Irregular methods once indulged in for onepurpose, and towards one class, so sap the moral sense that they come tobe used for all purposes. The danger is ultimately as great to those whosuppress or pervert as it is to the suppressed and corrupted. It is thedemoralization of all sound political action and life. I know whereof Ispeak. In the North, bribery in elections and intimidation are fatal topublic morality. The legislature elected by bribery is a bribable body. 

I believe that the fathers were right in making government depend uponthe consent of the governed. I believe there has been as yet discoveredno other basis of government so safe, so stable as popular suffrage, butthe fathers never contemplated a suffrage without intelligence. It is acontradiction of terms. A proletariat without any political rights in arepublic is no more dangerous than an unintelligent mob which can be usedin elections by demagogues. Universal suffrage is not a universalpanacea; it may be the best device attainable, but it is certain of abusewithout safeguards. One of the absolutely necessary safeguards is aneducational qualification. No one ought anywhere to exercise it whocannot read and write, and if I had my way, no one should cast a ballotwho had not a fair conception of the effect of it, shown by a higher testof intelligence than the mere fact of ability to scrawl his name and tospell out a line or two in the Constitution. This much the State for itsown protection is bound to require, for suffrage is an expediency, not aright belonging to universal humanity regardless of intelligence or ofcharacter. 

The charge is, with regard to this universal suffrage, that you take thefruits of increased representation produced by it, and then deny it to aportion of the voters whose action was expected to produce a differentpolitical result. I cannot but regard it as a blunder in statesmanship togive suffrage without an educational qualification, and to deem itpossible to put ignorance over intelligence. You are not, responsible forthe situation, but you are none the less in an illogical position beforethe law. Now, would you not gain more in a rectification of your positionthan you would lose in other ways, by making suffrage depend upon aneducational qualification? I do not mean gain party-wise, but inpolitical morals and general prosperity. Time would certainly be gainedby this, and it is possible in this shifting world, in the growth ofindustries and the flow of populations, that before the question ofsupremacy was again upon you, foreign and industrial immigration wouldrestore the race balance. 

We come now to education. The colored race being here, I assume that itseducation, with the probabilities this involves of its elevation, is aduty as well as a necessity. I speak both of the inherent justice thereis in giving every human being the chance of bettering his condition andincreasing his happiness that lies in education--unless our whole theoryof modern life is wrong--and also of the political and social dangerthere is in a degraded class numerically strong. Granted integralmembership in a body politic, education is a necessity. I am aware of thedanger of half education, of that smattering of knowledge which onlybreeds conceit, adroitness, and a consciousness of physical power, without due responsibility and moral restraint. Education makes a racemore powerful both for evil and for good. I see the danger that manyapprehend. And the outlook, with any amount of education, would behopeless, not only as regards the negro and those in neighborhoodrelations with him, if education should not bring with it thrift, senseof responsibility as a citizen, and virtue. What the negro race under themost favorable conditions is capable of remains to be shown; history doesnot help us much to determine thus far. It has always been a long pullfor any race to rise out of primitive conditions; but I am sure for itsown sake, and for the sake of the republic where it dwells, everythoughtful person must desire the most speedy intellectual and moraldevelopment possible of the African race. And I mean as a race. 

Some distinguished English writers have suggested, with approval, thatthe solution of the race problem in this country is fusion, and I haveeven heard discouraged Southerners accept it as a possibility. The resultof their observation of the amalgamation of races and colors in Egypt, inSyria, and Mexico, must be very different from mine. When races ofdifferent color mingle there is almost invariably loss of physicalstamina, and the lower moral qualities of each are developed in thecombination. No race that regards its own future would desire it. Theabsorption theory as applied to America is, it seems to me, chimerical. 

But to return to education. It should always be fitted to the stage ofdevelopment. It should always mean discipline, the training of the powersand capacities. The early pioneers who planted civilization on theWatauga, the Holston, the Kentucky, the Cumberland, had not much broadlearning--they would not have been worse if they had had more but theyhad courage, they were trained in self-reliance, virile common sense, andgood judgment, they had inherited the instinct and capacity ofself-government, they were religious, with all their coarseness they hadthe fundamental elements of nobility, the domestic virtues, and thepublic spirit needed in the foundation of states. Their education in allthe manly arts and crafts of the backwoodsman fitted them very well forthe work they had to do. I should say that the education of the coloredrace in America should be fundamental. I have not much confidence in anornamental top-dressing of philosophy, theology, and classic learningupon the foundation of an unformed and unstable mental and moralcondition. Somehow, character must be built up, and character dependsupon industry, upon thrift, upon morals, upon correct ethicalperceptions. To have control of one's powers, to have skill in labor, sothat work in any occupation shall be intelligent, to have self-respect, which commonly comes from trained capacity, to know how to live, to havea clean, orderly house, to be grounded in honesty and the domesticvirtues, --these are the essentials of progress. I suppose that theeducation to produce these must be an elemental and practical one, onethat fits for the duties of life and not for some imaginary sphere abovethem. 

To put it in a word, and not denying that there must be schools forteaching the teachers, with the understanding that the teachers should beable to teach what the mass most needs to know--what the race needs forits own good today, are industrial and manual training schools, with thevaried and practical discipline and arts of life which they impart. 

What then? What of the 'modus vivendi' of the two races occupying thesame soil? As I said before, I do not know. Providence works slowly. Timeand patience only solve such enigmas. The impossible is not expected ofman, only that he shall do today the duty nearest to him. It is easy, yousay, for an outsider to preach waiting, patience, forbearance, sympathy, helpfulness. Well, these are the important lessons we get out of history. We struggle, and fume, and fret, and accomplish little in our brief hour, but somehow the world gets on. Fortunately for us, we cannot do today thework of tomorrow. All the gospel in the world can be boiled down into asingle precept. Do right now. I have observed that the boy who starts inthe morning with a determination to behave himself till bedtime, usuallygets through the day without a thrashing. 

But of one thing I am sure. In the rush of industries, in the raceproblem, it is more and more incumbent upon such institutions as theUniversity of the South to maintain the highest standard of purescholarship, to increase the number of men and women devoted to theintellectual life. Long ago, in the middle of the seventeenth century, John Ward of Stratford-on-Avon, clergyman and physician, wrote in hisdiary: "The wealth of a nation depends upon its populousness, and itspopulousness depends upon the liberty of conscience that is granted toit, for this calls in strangers and promotes trading. " Great is theattraction of a benign climate and of a fruitful soil, but a greaterattraction is an intelligent people, that values the best things in life, a society hospitable, companionable, instinct with intellectual life, awake to the great ideas that make life interesting. 

As I travel through the South and become acquainted with its magnificentresources and opportunities, and know better and love more the admirablequalities of its people, I cannot but muse in a fond prophecy upon thebrilliant part it is to play in the diversified life and the great futureof the American Republic. But, North and South, we have a hard fight withmaterializing tendencies. God bless the University of the South!