Not very long ago, during the Spanish-American War, there was commotion in a far Southern town, caused by a coterie of young men bitterly protesting against the sons of Confederate veterans wearing the blue and fighting under the old flag. An elderly man with “crow’s feet” at the comers of his eyes and silver in his hair, listened for a while in silence, but finally arose from his chair and said: “Young men, you are wrong. I followed the stars and bars for four long, weary years! I saw its colors go down at last and I straggled back to my native state, barefooted and in rags, only to find my home in ashes. I swore eternal enmity to the stars and stripes and to the blue. But one day, after the battle of Manila Bay had been fought, a Mississippi regiment went marching up the main street of my town and lo! my boy was in the ranks dressed in the Federal uniform. In my rage I rushed to the Colonel and shouted, “Take that blue uniform off these young men and let them put on the gray and show the world how the sons of Confederate veterans can fight!” but the Colonel smiled and shook his head and the regiment marched on eager for the fray. I went home in my fury more bitter against the North than ever before. But when one day they brought my boy home in his coffin and I looked down upon him pale and motionless, in his blue uniform and wrapped in the old flag, my animosity vanished in a moment and in my tears I said: ‘Henceforth that uniform is my uniform, that flag is my flag and this whole country is my country.’” This sentiment is not incompatible with loyalty to the gray nor to the folded stars and bars, but it is the expression of the only feeling that will ever unite all the sections of the Union.
SENATOR B. F. PETTUS.
We must recognize the fact that a new civilization has arisen in the South from the ashes of the old, and while her people cherish the past for its precious memories, their faces are turned toward the morning. They are not only producing more cotton than ever before, but building gigantic plants among its snow-white fields, and with the magic of modern machinery are transforming the raw material into finished fabrics; they are pulling down the hills and dragging forth their treasures of coal and iron, of marble, zinc and lead, and are converting them into all the finished implements of peace; they are harnessing their beautiful rivers to the thunder-clad steeds of the storm and turning the myriad wheels of industry with electric power; and they will some day out-herod Herod in the marts of the world.
The representatives and governors of the South, confronted with new and perilous problems, have had the courage to grapple with them, the brain to control them and the heart to turn many of them into blessings. They have brought wealth out of poverty and prosperity out of desolation; and Hope stands on the horizon with a new crown in her hand, beckoning this new civilization to a throne of power never dreamed of by the old. And yet, while the Southern people rejoice in the resurrection of their country from the dead and in the bright prospects spread out before them, let them never forget to worship at the shrine of memory nor to permit the glory of the blessed past to be dimmed by the splendor of the future.
POPULAR EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH.
By Henry N. Snyder, LL.D.
HENRY NELSON SNYDER, M.A., LITT.D., LL.D.
President Henry N. Snyder, of Wofford College, speaks to our readers in a thoughtful and commanding way on a question, that with the rapid and general development of the South is becoming more and more recognized as a vital popular problem.