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PROCEEDINGS OF THE Twenty-second Annual Session OF THE State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina RALEIGH DECEMBER 7-8, 1922 Compiled by R. B. HOUSE, Secretary 3 -J J ) 5 5 3 > i •) -> :> ~> 0)3 3 J ) 3 3 >3 * ' 3 3 5 3 > 3 , 3 3 3 > 3 3 3 ' !< 3 RALEIGH Bynum Printing Company State Printers 1923 The North Carolina Historical Commission T. M. PiTTMAN, Chairman, Henderson M. C. S. Noble, Chapel Hill Heriot Clarkson, Charlotte Frank Wood, Edenton W. N. Everett, Raleigh D. H. Hill, Secretary, Raleigh R. B, House, Archivist, Raleigh c ' c < r c ' * * c c < c < Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina 1921-1922 President William K. Boyd, Durham. First Vice-President S. A. Ashe, Raleigh. Second Vice-President Mrs. D. H. Blair, Greensboro. Third Vice-President John Jordan Douglass, Wadesboro. Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh. Executive Committee (With above officers) W. C. Jackson, Greensboro. D. H. Hill, Raleigh, J. G. deR. Hamilton, Chapel Hill Clarence Poe, Raleigh. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 1922-1923 President Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem. First Vice-President Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire, Raleigh. Second Vice-President Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest. Third Vice-President Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, Raleigh. Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh. Executive Committee (With above officers) R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. W. K. Boyd, Chapel Hill. Gen. J. S. Carr, Durham. Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh, John J. Blair, Raleigh. PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION "The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of State litera-ture and history ; "The encouragement of public and school libraries ; "The establishment of an historical museum ; "The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people ; "The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina ; and "The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising genera-tions." ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of the Association. The dues are one dollar a year, to be paid to the secretary. RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ( Organized October, 1900 ) Fiscal Paid-up Years Presidents Secretaries Membership 1900-1901 Walter Clark Alex. J. Feild 150 1901-1902 Henry G. Connor Alex. J. Feild 139 1902-1903 W. L. PoTEAT George S. Fraps 73 1903-1904 C. Alphonso Smith Clarence Poe 127 1904-1905 Robert W. Winston Clarence Poe 109 1905-1906 Charles B. Aycock Clarence Poe 185 1906-1907 W. D. Pruden Clarence Poe 301 1907-1908 Robert Bingham Clarence Poe 273 1908-1909 Junius Davis , Clarence Poe 311 1909-1910 Platt D. Walker Clarence Poe 440 1910-1911 Edward K. Graham Clarence Poe 425 1911-1912 R. D.W.Connor Clarence Poe 479 1912-1913 W. P. Few R. D. W. Connor 476 1913-1914 Archibald Henderson R. D. W. Connor 435 1914-1915 Clarence Poe R. D. W. Connor 412 1915-1916 Howard E. Rondthaler R. D. W. Connor 501 1916-1917 H.A.London R. D. W. Connor 521 1917-1918 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 453 1918-1919 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 377 1919-1920 J. G. deR. Hamilton R. D. W. Connor 493 1920-1921 D.H.Hill R. B. House 430 1921-1922 W.K.Boyd R. B. House 430 1922-1923 Adelaide lliiEs R. B. House 450 THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP Established 1905 ; discontinued 1922 The Conditions of Award Officially Set Forth by Mrs. Patterson To the President and Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina: As a memorial to my father, and with a view to stimulating effort among the writers of North Carolina, and to awaken among the people of the State an interest in their own literature, I desire to present to your Society a loving cup, upon the following stipulations, which I trust will meet with your ap-proval and will be found to be just and practicable : 1. The cup will be known as the "William Houston Patterson Memorial Cup." 2. It will be awarded at each annual meeting of your Association for ten successive years, beginning with October, 1905, 3. It will be given to that resident of the State who during the twelve months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the year of the award has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard to its length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius. The work must be published during the said twelve months, and no manuscript nor any unpublished writings will be considered. 4. The name of the successful competitor will be engraved upon the cup, with the date of award, and it will remain in his possession until October 1st of the following year, when it shall be returned to the Treasurer of the Association, to be by him held in trust until the new award of your annual meeting that month. It will become the permanent possession of the one winning it oftenest during the ten years, provided he shall have won it three times. Should no one, at the expiration of that period, have won it so often, the competition shall continue until that result is reached. The names of only those competitors who shall be living at the time of the final award shall be considered in the permanent disposition of the cup. 5. The Board of Award shall consist of the President of the Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina, who will act as chairman, and of the occupants of the chairs of English Literature at the University of North Carolina, at Davidson College, at Wake Forest College, and at the State Col-lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Raleigh, and of the chairs of History at the University of North Carolina and Trinity College. 6. If any of these gentlemen should decline or be unable to serve, their successors shall be appointed by the remaining members of the board, and these appointees may act for the whole unexpired term or for a shorter time, as the board may determine. Notice of the inability of any member to act must be given at the beginning of the year during which he declines to serve, so that there may be a full committee during the entire term of each year. 7. The publication of a member of the board will be considered and passed upon in the same manner as that of any other writer. Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson. SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION According to a resolution adopted at the 19€8 session of tlie Literary and Historical Association, it is also provided that no author desiring to have his work considered in connection with the award of the cup shall communicate with any member of the committee, either personally or through a representa-tive. Books or other publications to be considered, together with any com-munication regarding them, must be sent to the Secretary of the Association and by him presented to the chairman of the committee for consideration. AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 1905 John Chaeles McNeill, for poems later reprinted in book form as "Songs, Merry and Sad." 1906 Edwin Mims, for "Life of Sidney Lanier." 1907 Kemp Plummer Battle, for "History of the University of North Caro-lina." 1908 — Samuel A'Court Ashe, for "History of North Carolina." 1909 Clarence Poe, for "A Southerner in Europe." 1910—R. D. W. Connor, for "Cornelius Harnett : An Essay in North Carolina History." 1911 Archibald Henderson, for "George Bernard Shaw : His Life and Works." 1912—Clarence Poe, for "Where Half the World is Waking Up." 1913 Horace Kephart, for "Our Southern Highlanders." 1914—J. G. deR. Hamilton, for "Reconstruction in North Carolina." 1915 William Louis Poteat, for "The New Peace." 1916—No award. 1917 Mrs. Olive Tilford Dargan, for "The Cycle's Rim." 1918—No award. 1919—No award. 1920 Miss Winifred Kirkland, for "The New Death." 1921—No award. 1922 Josephus Daniels, for "Our Navy at War." FINAL DISPOSITION OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP Raleigh, N. C, March 16, 1923. Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson, Winston-Salem, N. C. Dear Mrs. Patterson :—At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical Association yesterday, it was decided to discontinue tlie award of the Patterson Memorial Cup and to deposit the cup as a per-manent memorial in the Hall of History. This decision was reached only after it had been ascertained that such disposition was agreeable to you. As you will remember, the original contest was to continue for ten years, with the idea that if any one author should win the cup three times it would become his property. Although Dr. Clarence Poe won the cup twice, the con-dition of winning it three times was not met by any one author. The contest was therefore continued indefinitely, at the discretion of the executive com-mittee. The following situation has arisen : the space on the cup for engrav-ing the names of the winners has been entirely filled, and since the cup has met adequately the purpose for which it was established, it is deemed best to establish the cup, as it is now engraved, as a permanent memorial in the Hall of History. The effectiveness of the cup as a stimulant to literary effort in North Caro-lina will be clear to you from the record of its award. In retiring the cup, the executive committee reserves the right to establish again, as soon as practicable, some other form of literary reward, so that it will gratify you to know that the idea established by you in the award of the Patterson Cup is likely to be a permanent stimulant to literary effort in the State. It is hardly necessary to express to you the deep appreciation, not only of the Literary and Historical Association itself, but of all the people of North Carolina, for your sincere interest and cooperation in the purposes of the State Literary and Historical Association. With best wishes and highest regards, Sincerely yours, Adelaide Fries, President. R. B. House, Secretary. WHAT THE ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE; SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT 1. Rural libraries. 2. ''North Carolina Day" in the schools. 3. The North Carolina Historical Commission. 4. Vance statue in Statuary Hall. 5. Fireproof State Library Building and Hall of Records. 6. Civil War battlefields marked to show North Carolina's record. 7. North Carolina's war record defended and war claims vindicated. 8. Patterson Memorial Cup. Contents Page Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session . 9 The American Revolution and Reform in the South, by W. K. Boyd 14 When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Caro-lina, 1890-1900, by John E. White 33 Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World, by Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain 45 Missions of the Moravians of North Carolina Among the Southern Indian Tribes, by Edmund Schwarze 53 Concerning a History of North Carolina Administrative Departments, by C. C. Pearson , 70 Use of Books and Libraries in North Carolina, by L. R. Wilson 73 North Carolina Bibliography, 1921-1922, by Mary B. Palmer 87 The Cult of the Second Best, by Walter Lippmann 90 Members, 1921-1922 97 Proceedings and Addresses of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session Raleigh, December 7-8, 1922 Thursday Evening, December 7th The twenty-second annual session of the State Literary and Histori-cal Association of JSTorth Carolina was called to order in the auditorium of the Woman's Club of Raleigh, Thursday evening, December 7th, at 8 o'clock, with President W. K, Boyd in the chair. The session was opened with invocation by Rev. Henry G. Lane, pastor of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Raleigh. Dr. Boyd then read the annual ad-dress of the president. He was followed by Dr. John E. White, Presi-dent of Anderson College, who addressed the Association on "When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in l^orth Carolina, 1890- 1900." After Dr. White's address there was a reception for the mem-bers of the Association, the Folk Lore Society, and their guests, in the Club Building. Friday Morning, December 8th The Friday morning session, December 8th, was called to order by President Boyd at 11 o'clock a. m., in the House of Representatives. The President presented to the Association Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, of Raleigh, who read a paper entitled, "Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World." She was followed by Dr. Edmund Schwarze, of Winston-Salem, who read a paper on "Missions of the Moravians in l^orth Carolina Among Southern Indian Tribes." The President then presented Dr. C. C. Pearson, of Wake Forest College, who read a paper on "Concerning a History of IN^orth Carolina Admin-istrative Departments." He was followed by Dr. L. R. Wilson, of the University of N'orth Carolina, whose subject v/as "Use of Books and Libraries in l^orth Carolina." Miss Mary B. Palmer, who was to read the bibliography of ISTprth Carolina for the year 1921-1922, was unable to be present. She sent in her paper for publication, and Miss Carrie L. Broughton, State Librarian, made an exhibit of books of the year. L 10 Twenty-second Annual Session At the conclusion of tlie exercises the following business was trans-acted : The president appointed the following : Committee on Nominations—W. C. Jackson, W. W. Pierson, Miss Carrie L. Broughton. Committee on Resolutions—D. H. Hill, Marshall DeL. Haywood, Charles Lee Smith. Committee on a North Carolina Poetry Society—C. A. Hibbard, Miss I^ell B. Lewis, Roger McCutcheon, Gerald Johnson. This last committee was appointed in response to the following resolution : "Having canvassed the situation, and feeling that there is a definite interest in the criticism and writing of verse, we respectfully petition the President of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association to appoint a com-mittee of organization with a view to promoting a poetry society for North Carolina. ,,,^ ^ ^. "N. I. White, "Nell Battle Lewis, "John Jordan Douglass, "C. A. Hibbard, Chairman." General Julian S. Carr obtained the floor on behalf of the Sir Walter Raleigh Memorial Committee. In the course of his remarks he endorsed in high terms the services of W. J. Peele in the work on the memorial and as a founder of ISTorth Carolina State College, and the Literary and Historical Association. He offered the following resolution, which was carried : Resolved, That the movement inaugurated by the North Carolina Historical Society in the year 1902 to erect a memorial to Sir Walter Raleigh in the city of Raleigh be properly reorganized and recognized by this Society. Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton offered the following resolution, which was carried : "We, the North Carolina Society, Daughters of the Revolution, wish to express ourselves as solidly behind the movement to erect the Sir Walter Raleigh monument, and will do everything possible to assist General Carr and others interested in this movement. (Signed) "Mary Hilliard Hinton, Regent. "Nina Holland Covington, Recording Secretary." >- State Literary and Historical Association 11 This was followed by a tliird resolution made by Dr. J. Y. Joyner, and carried, as follows : Moved, that General Carr be made Chairman of the Sir Walter Raleigh Memorial Committee of twenty-five, and that the chairman, the incoming president and the secretary of this association be authorized to select and announce the other members of this committee. The president, through the secretary, reported the following revised constitution, which was carried unanimously : NAME This association shall be called the State Literary and Historical Associa-tion of North Carolina. PURPOSES The purposes of this association shall be the collection, preservation, pro-duction, and dissemination of our State literature and history ; the encourage-ment of public and school libraries ; the establishment of an historical museum ; the inculcation of a literary spirit among our people ; the correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina ; and the engender-ing of a healthy State pride among the rising generations. OFFICERS The officers of the association shall be a president, first, second, and third vice-presidents, and a secretary, whose terms of office shall be for one year and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. They shall be elected by the association at its annual meetings, except that vacancies in any office may be filled by the executive committee until the meeting of the association occurring next thereafter. The president shall preside over all the meetings of the association, and appoint all members of committees, except where it is otherwise provided, and look after the general interest of the association. In case of the death or resignation of the president, his successor shall be selected by the executive committee from the vice-presidents. The secretary shall be the administrative officer of the association. He shall keep the books and funds, receive money for the association, and dis-burse it for purposes authorized by the executive committee. He shall strive by all practicable means to increase the membership and influence of the association. COMMITTEES There shall be an executive committee, composed of the president, the sec-retary, and six others, two of whom shall be appointed each year by the incoming president, to serve three years : Provided, that at the annual ses-sion, 1922, four members shall be elected by the association, as follows : two members to serve one year, and two to serve two years. The president, sec-retary, and any other three members shall constitute a quorum for the trans-action of business. 12 Twenty-second Annual Session The executive committee shall make programs and arrangements for all meetings of the association, supervise all business matters, receive all reports of officers, endeavor especially to secure from philanthropic citizens donations toward a permanent fund of endowment, and in general promote the purpose of the association. The executive committee shall be subject to the general supervision of the association. There shall be such other committees appointed by the president to serve during his term of office for such time and such purposes as he shall see fit. MEMBERSHIP All persons interested in its purposes and desiring to have a part in pro-moting them are eligible to membership in the association. They will be duly enrolled upon receipt of the annual membership fee. FEES The annual membership fee shall be one dollar, to be paid to the secretary. MEETINGS There shall be one regular annual meeting, the time and place of which shall be determined by the executive committee. Other meetings may be arranged by the executive committee. AUXILIARY SOCIETIES Auxiliary societies may be organized, with the advice of, and under the supervision of, the executive committee. Fkiday Afternoon, December 8th In the rooms of the iSTorth Carolina Historical Commission, Chair-man W. C. Jackson called to order a conference of I*^orth Carolina his-tory teachers. Discussion was led by Mr. Charles L. Coon and Mr. Guy B. Phillips, and participated in by numerous teachers of history. The conference was held Friday afternoon, December 8th. Friday Evening, December 8th On Friday evening, December 8th, President Boyd called the meeting to order in the auditorium of Meredith College. He presented Prof. Louis Graves, of the University of ISTorth Carolina, who presented the speaker of the evening, Mr. Walter Lippmann, of the 'New York World. Mr. Lippmann read a paper on "The Cult of the Second Best," after which there was brief discussion by question and answer between Mr. Lippmann and his audience. At the conclusion of the address Dr. T. P. Harrison, of the State College, in a brief and graceful speech rendered the report of the Patterson Cup Committee, awarding the cup for 1922 to Hon. Josephus Daniels, for his book, "Our l^avy at War." State Literary and Historical Association 13 The Committee on Resolutions reported the following resolution, which was carried : Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina commends the establishment of county libraries, and urges county authorities to consider this plan as the most feasible to promote county-wide library service. D. H. Hill, Chairman. The Committee on ^dominations reported as follows : Officers: President—Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem; 1st Vice- President—Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh; 2d Vice-President — Dr. Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest; 3d Vice-President—Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, Raleigh; Secretary—R. B. House, Raleigh. Members of the Executive Committee: R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill; W. K. Boyd, Durham; Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh; C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. The Association adjourned sine die. ADDRESSES The American Revolution and Reform in the South By Wm.. K. Boyd President State Literary and Historical Association The past decade lias witnessed a profound change in the public opinion and policies of the United States. In 1914 we had placed new wine in old bottles and under the domination of a party noted for its conservatism we were experimenting with governmental supervision of business and finance, adopting a new program of taxation, and con-sidering certain measures leading to social democracy; then toward the end of the World War we championed a policy of international co-operation. Today we have reached a point of extreme reaction. Alarmed at the forces unloosed by the cataclysm in Europe we have conceived a nebulous state of normalcy; for national self-preservation we have retired behind the cloak of isolation, political and economic. Alarmed at the prevalence of new political and social ideals, free speech is limited, free teaching is restricted, personal liberty to travel to and fro is denied, and the alien is restrained from seeking in America a refuge from old world conditions. Moreover, in reaction against any-thing new we have fallen back in national administration into the old trough dedicated to the sacred theory of the separation of the powers. Today we stand as the most conservative rather than the most progres-sive and forward-looking of the great nations of the world. The present confusion in opinion, the uncertainty in the national state of mind, should be stimulating to those who are historically minded. This is not the first period in our national life when existing institutions and the social structure have been questioned ; by no means the first time when some have turned blindly to the ancient landmarks and others have sought an anchorage in new principles. While history never repeats and comparisons are always dangerous, there are certain phenomena of parallel interest with the present turmoil and uncer-tainty; and today the conservative and the radical could do no better than to recall and examine from the angle of institutional reform and social change that decade which saw the birth of the Republic. For the American Revolution was not merely a revolt against the mother country resulting in independence; it also unloosed forces in America that few foresaw at the beginning of the struggle, and these forces State Literaky and Historical Association 15 produced changes at home as profound and lasting as did the entry of a new member into the family of nations. And nowhere were those changes more apparent than in the Southern States. It was by virtue of the leadership taken in the reform of social and institutional life that the South was enabled to assert its great influence in shaping the affairs of the nation during the generation after the war; for states-manship is never bred in a static atmosphere; for it the spirit of dynamic change is essential; and nowhere in America was that spirit stronger in the later eighteenth century than in the South. I take therefore as the theme of my address the spirit of the Ameri-can Revolution and its reaction on the institutional and social struc-ture of the South, the conflict between conservatism and radicalism during that epoch-making period in this our home region. To that end, let us first consider the background which precipitated the issues. From the early days down to 1776 certain fundamental influences shaped Southern society. First of these was that of family. In no other region of English America did kinship, locality, and descent have quite the importance that prevailed south of the Potomac. For this there were various reasons. One was economic. In the pioneer days land was granted by headrights. Once the land was surveyed and entered, wife and children were also of value in clearing the forest, cultivating the soil, and in administering the property. Social de-mands also made the family of distinct value. There were few amuse-ments, and the distance from settlement to settlement was great. There-fore if relaxation or a change from immediate surroundings was de-sired, family and kindred were the only opportunity. Blood rela-tionship meant companionship, sympathy, and that relaxation which later ages have found in golf clubs and pleasure resorts. To the same end worked a tradition brought from the old world. IN^o worthier ambition occurred to an Englishman than to found a family which would preserve its identity from generation to generation. In the South encouragement in that purpose existed in the land law. Gen-erally the property of persons dying intestate passed to the oldest son, and this custom of the law stimulated testators to give preference to one heir over others. Moreover, it was possible through entails to insure inheritance in one line of descent. So the unity of family prop-erty was established, and on the basis of that unity there developed an aristocracy of land and family. Thus economic conditions, the need for companionship, tradition and the law gave to the family a peculiar position; indeed in the South the family had something of the sanctity enjoyed by the church in New England. It was in the home, not the church, that the great epochs of human life were usually celebrated; 16 Twenty-second Annual Session there occurred the christenings and marriages, there in garden or neighboring field was the burial ground, and often the only churches of the community were the private chapels of the great landowners. The family was the inner shrine of southern life. Second only to the family in importance was the system of local government. Indeed the two were intimately connected. In England a part of the family ideal was for one or more members to take an active part in public affairs. This tradition followed the colonists to the new world, and in the South the opportunity was at hand in the county court, the prevailing unit of local government. Though vary-ing as to detail from colony to colony, the county court everywhere had this in common : its members, the justices of the peace, were appointed, not elected. The other officers of the county were also appointed, either by the court or by the Governor. The powers of these justices were not merely judicial; they were also governmental and administrative. To be a county justice was a position of no mean importance, and it is no wonder that well-established families centered their attention first of all on membership in the county court. Generation after generation members of the same family were to be found on the local bench. The office was a stepping-stone to other positions; to the Legislature, the governor's council, and the office of sheriff. Thus there developed a ruling class whose members were bound to each other by ties of public service. Its support was indispensable to any one desiring to enter public life. Like England, also, was the law. Each colony inherited the common law and the statutes enacted by Parliament before its foundation. Local conditions made possible many modifications of this principle. In IsTew England, especially, there were many variations, but in the South there was a larger fidelity to English heritage. The law of inheritance and wills, equity and the land law, procedure and the division of the courts into courts of law and courts of equity—^these matters illustrate the fidelity to British jurisprudence. How strong was the example of con-temporary England is well illustrated by the application of benefit of clergy. This custom of the law, by which severe penalties for crime were ameliorated, was adopted in Virginia. In 1732, in language almost identical with that of the statute of 5 Anne 6, the Virginia Legislature declared : If any person be convicted of felony, for which he ought to have the benefit of clergy, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act, he shall not be required to read, but, without any reading, shall be allowed, taken, and reputed to be, and punished as, a clerk convict. State Literary and Historical Association 17 Thus branding and corporal punishment became a substitute for hanging by the neck until dead in offenses that were clergiable. This adaptation of English practice was not confined to Virginia; it was found also in the Carolinas and Georgia, and was not abolished until long after the Revolution. An important element in the colonial life of the South was religion. The warm climate, the close contact of the people with the forces of nature, and the comparative loneliness due to sparse settlements begot a peculiar emotional temperament. This was a good background for religious thought and feeling; for solitude leads to introspection, nature suggests an unseen presence, and warmth of climate creates a suscepti-bility to emotional appeal. Unfortunately the history of religion was characterized by a contest between privilege and equality. In Vir-ginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, the Church of England was estab-lished and the law of the time discriminated in its favor. The persecution of Puritans and the exclusion of Quakers in Virginia during the seventeenth century, and the question of the extension of the Toleration Act to Dissenters in the eighteenth century, are familiar themes in the colony's history. More than this, the law of Virginia declared that any one brought up in the Christian faith who denied the being of God or the Trinity, that the Christian religion is true, or that the scriptures are of divine authority should lose his capacity to hold office on first conviction, on a second his right to sue, receive gifts and legacies, or to serve as guardian or executor, and he was also to suffer three years' imprisonment. In l^orth Carolina the clergymen not of the established Church were subject to militia and road service, and in South Carolina the parish organization was made a unit of civil government whereby the low country controlled the alien settlements of the frontier. In spite of these discriminations the Dis-senters increased in numbers until they were in the majority and the contest between England and the colonies which ushered in the Revolu-tion was paralleled by a controversy no less notable between the Angli-cans and Dissenters for toleration and equality before the law. Education and intellectual life also bore the stamp of old world tra-ditions. The English ideal that education is the function of the family and the individual except in the case of indigent children prevailed. Hence it was that the only provision for public education in colonial law was exactly that which also existed in England, the training of indigent children and orphans through apprenticeship. Suggestive of England also was the foundation of privately supported or endowed free schools to which poor children were usually admitted free. A 18 Twenty-second Annual Session number of these free schools were to be found in Virginia and South Carolina, and in the latter colony such schools were supported by clubs or societies. The nature of the curriculum in these institutions is unknown, but an advertisement for a master to teach a free school in Princess Anne County in 1784 required of the candidate ability to teach the Latin and Greek languages and surveying. It is not diffi-cult to see in these schools an effort to duplicate in America the work of the endowed grammar schools in England. A few academies identi-fied with the Church of England existed. There were also academies established by the Presbyterian clergy of the Carolinas in the genera-tion preceding the Revolution; but their growth and expansion was limited by the policy of the British Government which would not permit them to be chartered. Indeed, toward the support of schools by public money the British Government was strongly averse; money emitted for that purpose by the I^orth Carolina Assembly in 1754 and spent for the colonial cause in the French and Indian War was not refunded. Yet there was a high type of intellectual life among the large planters. In South Carolina the dominant interest was science and medicine. In Virginia it was law and philosophy, and politics. Robert Carter read philosophy with his wife; Jefferson also dabbled in the subject; the opinions of the Virginia jurists show a wide knowledge of the English common law; and surely no profounder student of politics lived than Madison. "In spite of the Virginian's love for dissipation," wrote Lian-court, "the taste for reading is commoner there, among men of the first class than in any other part of America." However, intellectual life did not find expression in the production of books, rather it found an outlet through the spoken word. Politics and litigation were something more than a personal stake; they were a game to be played for the game's sake, methods of intellectual discipline. There was thus injected into public affairs a sort of splendid disinterestedness. It was this phase of southern character that William Ellery Channing had in mind when he wrote from Richmond in 1799 : I blush for my own people when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yan-kee with the genuine confidence of a Virginian. . . . There is one single trait that attaches me to the people I live with more than all the virtues of New England : they love money less than we do ; they are more disinterested ; their patriotism is not tied to their pursestrings. Social conditions were characterized by privilege based not on blood, but on wealth. I^^owhere in America were there greater inequalities, and of these inequalities Virginia was most notable. Wrote Isaac Weld : State Literary and Historical Association 19 Instead of the land being equally divided, numerous estates are held by a few individuals, who derive large incomes from them, whilst the generality of the people are in a state of mediocrity. Most of the men, also, who possess these large estates, having secured a liberal education, which the others have not, the distinction between them is still more observable. (Travels, I, 146.) These words aptly describe the larger planter class—a class so numer-ous in South Carolina, less extensive in ISTorth Carolina, and barely existent in Georgia. But there was also a large middle class, small planters and farmers, professional men, mechanics and yoemen. They composed at least half of the population in Virginia and more than half in ISTorth Carolina. Many of them accumulated property or attained intellectual distinction, and thereby rose into the ranks of the aris-tocracy. One can almost identify this class by the descriptions of their houses, as when a traveler mentions houses built of wood, with wooden chimneys coated with clay, whose owners "being in general ignorant of the comfort of reading and writing, they want nothing in their whole house but a bed, dining-room, and a drawing-room for company." Finally there were the poor whites—rude, shiftless, and unambitious. "It is in this country that I saw poor persons for the first time after I passed the sea," wrote Chastellux, "the presence of wretched, miser-able huts inhabited by whites whose wan looks and ragged garments indicated the direst poverty." However, the proportion of this class to the total population was less "than in any other country of the uni-verse." ]^ot poverty per se, but the contrast between poverty and riches impressed the observer. Between Richmond and Fredericksburg one might meet a "family party traveling along in as elegant a coach as is usually met with in the neighborhood of London, and attended by several gayly dressed footmen." He might also meet a "ragged black boy or girl driving a lean cow and a mule; sometimes a lean bull or two, riding or driving as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon, if it may be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the team and its driver." Regarding class distinctions and class feeling we have little informa-tion from the natives themselves, especially from members of the humbler class. Preeminent among such accounts is the testimony of Devereux Jarrett, a Methodist minister : We were accustomed to look upon what were called gentle folks as beings of a superior order. For my part, I was quite shy of them and kept off at a humble distance. A periwig in those days was a distinguishing badge of gentle folks, and when I saw a man riding the road, near our house, with a wig on, it would so alarm my fears and give me such a disagreeable feeling that I dare say I would run off as for my life. Such ideas of the difference between gentle and simple were, I believe, universal among my rank. {Life, p. 14.) 20 Twenty-second Annual Session That slavery tended to intensify class distinctions is an axiom to wliich Jefferson bore ample testimony. But to tlie serious inquirer tlie more notable characteristic of Southern slavery in the later eighteenth century was its unprofitableness and a widespread desire to see it abol-ished. Weld wrote: The number of slaves increased most rapidly, so that there is scarcely any State but what is overstocked. This is a circumstance complained of by every planter, as the maintenance of more than are requisite for the culture of the estate is attended with great expense. (Travels, I, 147.) In 1774 the wife of Robert Carter agreed with Philip Fithian, the family tutor, that if all the slaves were sold on the plantation, and the money put at interest, there would be a "greater yearly income than what is now received from their working the lands," to say nothing of the risk and trouble assumed by the master as to crops and negroes. And this opinion was confirmed in greater detail by St. George Tucker in 1804: It would be a very high estimate should one suppose the generality of farmers to make ten per cent per annum upon the whole value of their lands and slaves. I incline to believe that very few exceed eight per cent, and out of this the clothing and provisions of their slaves and horses employed in making the crop ought to be deducted. A net profit of five per cent is proba-bly more than remains to one in twenty for the support of himself and his family. If he wants money to increase his stock, even the legal demands and speculators' pay, without scruple will amount to fourfold, perhaps tenfold, his profits. (Comnientaries on Blackstone.) In South Carolina also there was a similar sentiment. LaRochefou-cauld- Liancourt, writing in 1799, made a careful estimate of the eco-nomic profits of slave labor in that State and concluded that it was $68 per head and that white labor would bring a larger return. , This condition was one basis of a widespread desire to see slavery abolished. Finch wrote: Before I visited the Southern States, I supposed that all the planters were in favor of the system of slavery. But I did not meet with a single indi-vidual who did not regret having this species of property, and shew a wish to remedy it, if there was any possible mode by which it could be accomplished. (Travels, 240.) Said E-ussel Goodrich before the Alexandria Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, in 1791 : But let our planters become farmers—it would be a memorable idea ; our fields, touched with a magic wand, would bloom ; our slaves become freemen ; our improvement excite universal attention. State Litekaey and Historical Association 21 Such were the institutions and economic conditions peculiar to the South in the eighteenth century. It was a land of many contrasts. Political oligarchies ruled, yet there was a certain disinterested devo-tion to the public service, and the section's greatest contribution to national life was in the domain of political thought. Refinement and culture of a high type existed, but along with it much ignorance and coarseness. Love of liberty was challenged by the existence of chattel slavery. The bounty of nature was rebuked by wasteful production. Souls susceptible to religious appeal were steeped in material aims and deistic philosophy. What traits of character distinguished the South-erner from his neighbor northward? What kind of men and women did such conditions produce? The answer is suggested by a remark of Bernard in his Retrospects. Speaking of the Virginia planters he says, "Like the old feudal barons, their whole life is a temptation through absence of restraint." Life in a vast, bountiful and unde-veloped region, life in intimate contact with the blind forces of nature, life without the limitations of a small unit of local government, life without adequate means of intellectual discipline or adequate religious institutions, life with hosts of dependent servile blacks; under such conditions character was molded with no restraint from without; men and women developed according to the dictates of emotion and will. Thus the Southerner was notable for his individuality, for his non-conformity to type or pattern. This individuality, resulting from ab-sence of restraint, in turn produced certain traits well outlined by Thomas Jefferson when contrasting N'orthern and Southern character: N. S. cool fiery sober voluptuous laborious indolent persevering unsteady independent independent jealous of their own liberties zealous for liberty, but trampling and just to those of others. on that of others. Upon such a region and such a people the American Revolution had a profound reaction. Its justification was found in the compact theory of government popularized by the Declaration of Independence. That all men are created equal meant, in the light of the revenue controversy, equality of economic liberties. That all governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed meant in the relation of colonies to the mother country, self-governing but component parts of a British Empire. These were concepts which only radicals and obscure J I 22 Twenty-second Annual Session men then grasped ; wlien they were rejected by the authorities in power independence was the only alternative. But when the choice of inde-pendence was made, what were the implications of that equality and that government by consent to the citizens of the states in revolt? Spe-cifically, what were their implications in a section with a well-established landed aristocracy, ruled by petty judicial oligarchies, more English than American in its system of law, without educational opportunities for all, where the concept of liberty was challenged by chattel slavery and religion was characterized by the privilege of one denomination? It is worthy of note that the man who more than any other realized the contrast between the political theory of the Revolution and the institutions and conditions peculiar to the South was Thomas Jeffer-son. Within three months after the Declaration was adopted he re-signed from the Continental Congress, returned to Virginia, and be-came a member of the Legislature with the distinct purpose of agitating democratic reform. He says: When I left Congress, in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our wliole code must be revised, adapted to our republican form of government, and now that we had no negations or councils, governors and kings to restrain us from doing right, that it should be corrected in all its parts, with a single eye to reason, and the good of those for whose government it was formed. {Memoir.) In one direction the course of reform was already under way, that of religious freedom. In June the Virginia Convention had adopted a constitution, and in the Bill of Rights there was a declaration that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience." This meant the abolition of religious discrimination, that persecutions were no longer possible, and that men of all religious persuasions could participate in government if they met the proper secular tests. It was far in advance of ]N"orth Caro-lina's, for there the right to hold office was denied to those who rejected the being of Grod, the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old and ISTew Testaments. In Georgia, likewise, the constitution of 1777 declared for freedom of religion but required all members of the Legislature to be of the Protestant religion, and not until 1790 was the principle of religious freedom fully triumphant in South Carolina. Thus Virginia led the South; moreover it led the nation, for in no other of the first state constitutions was the principle of unrestricted religious freedom enun-ciated ; only Rhode Island, which continued its colonial charter, reached a similar plane. More than this, the Virginia declaration was the first of the kind to be embodied in a modern constitution anywhere. State Literary and Historical Association 23 However a question of equal importance was not settled, the relation-ship between the State and the established church. Many of the Dis-senters held that the Virginia declaration destroyed that relationship; the Anglicans that it did not. Thus when the Legislature assembled in October there were many petitions; some, mainly from Presbyterians and Baptists, prayed for a final separation of church and state; others, submitted by Anglicans and members of the Methodist societies, asked for a continuation of the establishment. Of the committee to which these were referred Jefferson was a member. His sympathies were entirely for disestablishment, but against him were Edmund Pen-dleton, the jurist, and Robert Carter Nicholas, patriot. For two months there was a deadlock. Then as a compromise the English statutes which made criminal religious opinions were declared invalid, the Dis-senters were exempted from the payment of church taxes, and all others were likewise exempted for one year. This was practically, but not theoretically, disestablishment. Coercion over opinion had previously gone, and taxes now relinquished were never reimposed. It is somewhat difficult for us today to realize the significance of these changes in organic law. The men who promoted them were of English extraction, and for a thousand years there had been in the mother country an established church, the acknowledgment in law and institutions of national allegiance to God. For a group of provincials, English in origin and tradition, ruthlessly and suddenly to sever the historic relationship between religion and government marked them as radicals. States embarking on such a policy were entering an uncharted sea and there were grave predictions as to the future. In fact in Vir-ginia many believed that standards of conduct were lowered and the morals of the people corrupted by this break Avith the past. Typical was Richard Henry Lee. He wrote: Refiners may weave reason into as fine a fabric as tliey please, but the experience of all times shows religion to be the guardian of morals ; and he must be a very inattentive observer in our country who does not see that avarice is accomplishing the destruction of religion for want of legal obliga-tion to contribute something to its support. (Lee, Lee, II, 5.) l^aturally the traditionalists gathered strength and in 1784 they sub-mitted to the Legislature two measures, one to incorporate such religious societies as would apply for incorporation, the other that the people ought to pay "a moderate tax or contribution annually for the support of the Christian religion." Both these resolutions were adopted and the Episcopal Church, applying for incorporation, was promptly chartered. However the second resolution, calling for taxation, required a statute; 24 Twenty-second Annual Session through the influence of Madison the bill was deferred until the next session in order to sound the sentiment of the people. There followed a notable campaign, and when the Legislature next met it was evident that Virginians had spoken against any renewal of church taxes. Taking advantage of the situation, a bill for religious freedom written by Jeffer-son was introduced and was adopted. It established nothing new; but it did state in form of statute the ideal of complete religious liberty; while toleration widely existed no State hitherto had enacted that prin-ciple into statute law. This distinction again belongs to Virginia. The incorporation of the Episcopal Church was repealed, and this was fol-lowed by the policy of confiscating its property, a process not completed until 1802. In one other Southern state the religious problem proved serious. That was South Carolina. There disestablishment was a political issue bound up with the reform of representation. The constitution of 1777 made a compromise. The privilege of the Anglican Church was re-moved by admitting other churches to incorporation, but the ideal of a relationship between religion and government was preserved, for it declared that the Christian Protestant religion should be the religion of the State and every member of the House of Representatives should be of that faith. This was not in harmony with the democratic spirit of the time and in 1790 the religious qualification was abolished and the free exercise of religion was guaranteed. What was the significance of this controversy over religious liberty and disestablishment ? It was something more than a contest for private judgment; it Avas a part of the democratic movement of the time, in-spired by the doctrine of the equality of man and the consent of the governed. It was also a phase of the contest for power between the tidewater and the piedmont regions. The results of the movement were vastly important. It reacted on the general state of culture. In 'New England intellectual life tended toward the spiritual; it was dominated by theology; in the South it was materialistic, leaning toward law, philosophy, and deism. I!^ow the triumph of religious liberty and dis-establishment at first strengthened the forces of materialism and deism, and the cause of religion, whether ritualistic or evangelical, was re-tarded. Said Isaac Weld : Throughout the lower part of Virginia—that is, between the mountains and the sea—the people have scarcely any sense of religion, and in the country the churches are falling into decay. As I rode along, I scarcely observed one that was not in a ruinous condition, with the windows broken, doors dropping off the hinges, and lying open to the pigs and cattle wandering about the weeds. State Litebaky and Historical Association 25 ^N'o greater revolution occurred in the life of the Southern people than that in the early years of the nineteenth century when, through a series of revivals, the mind of the masses was swung from the popular skepti-cism of the day to the fervid acceptance of the orthodox teachings of the evangelical churches. Finally the religious controversy had an influence on political his-tory. Jefferson espoused the cause of the religious liberty. He was widely denounced for this policy and his record was cited against him in the presidential campaigns of 1796 and 1800. Madison's share in the movement was also capitalized by his opponents. But both men had won the admiration and loyalty of thousands of Dissenters, who were for the most part small farmers and men of small means. It was therefore easy to organize them into opposition to an economic policy hostile to their interests, the policy best represented by the Hamiltonian financial measures. Indeed as a tribute to Jefferson a new church or-ganized in 1792 was named for his party, the Republican Methodist Church. The problem of religion was by no means the only reaction of the political philosophy of the Revolution on Southern society. Besides an established church there existed an aristocracy of wealth and politi-cal power. How far could it be justified during a war waged in behalf of equality of economic liberties and government by consent? Again the principal stage of the controversy was Virginia. There the basis of the aristocracy was the land law. Towards entails the policy of the colony was more conservative than England, for while entails might be docked by judicial proceeding in the mother country, in the colony an act of the legislature was essential unless the property was less than £200 in value. Primogeniture was strictly enforced and inheritance always descended. Because of entails and primogeniture there arose in tidewater Virginia "a distinct set of families" who formed a kind of patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and luxury of their establishments. From this order the King habitually selected his Coun-cillors of State, the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to the interests and will of the Crown. Indeed society tended to stratifica-tion. At the apex were the great landowners, protected by the laws of inheritance. Below them were the half breeds, younger sons who inherited the pride but not the wealth of their parents; next the pre-tenders, men who had acquired wealth and property by their own efforts and were anxious to rise into the aristocratic class. Finally were the yeomen or great mass of small farmers, caring little for social dis-tinction, on whom depended the real progress of Virginia. 26 Twenty-second Annual Session More distinctly than in the question of religion the leadership in land reform was assumed hj Jefferson. In October 1776, while the dis-cussion of the church question was under way, he introduced a bill "to enable tenants in taille to convey land in fee simple." After strenuous opposition it was adopted. At one stroke the privileged position of en-tailed property was overthrown, for, said the law, all that "hath or hereafter may have" an estate in fee taille should stand in possession of the same "in full and absolute fee simple." That so radical a measure should have been so readily adopted is remarkable ; it is ample evidence that the Revolution was more than a revolt against England. Jefferson's aim in changing the land law was to "make an opening for the aris-tocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions." But the abolition of entails Avas only the beginning of legal reform; there remained primogeniture, the criminal law, and the whole British heritage. These matters were referred to a committee of five. It made a report in 1779 ; only a few of its recommendations were then adopted, but in 1784 through the influence of Madison the report was published, and the second bulwark of landed aristocracy, primogeniture, was abolished. In its place was adopted a statute of descents. The eighteen clauses of this law are unsurpassed in all America as a species of revolt against British heritage. The rule of inheritance of the common law required the property of one dying intestate always to descend, never to ascend. A father could not inherit from a son, nor a grandfather from a grandson. Also the male issue was always preferred before the female ; if there were no male heir the female heirs inherited equally. On the failure of lineal descendants the only collateral relations who could inherit were those "of the blood of the first purchaser" ; that is, a kins-man, say a cousin of ten or twenty removes, would be preferred to a half brother. J^ow this whole structure of inheritance which had been built up in England and had been transplanted to Virginia, Avas swept away and intestate estates were directed to pass in equal shares to the children and their descendants; if there were none, to the father; if there was no father living, then to the mother, brothers, sisters, and their descendants; and if these were failing, the estate should be divided into two parts, one to go to the maternal kindred and the other to the paternal kindred. This law removed the last privilege of the landed aristocracy. Its author was Jefferson. In the committee on revision Pendleton opposed it and wished to preserve the tradition of primogeniture by adopting the Hebrew principle of giving "a double portion to the elder son." Says Jefferson : State Literary and Historical Association 27 I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double the work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion ; but being on a par in his power and wants with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the decision of the other members. Virginia was not alone in the reform of tlie land law. In South Carolina entails had been abolished in 1732 and in 1790 the rule of primogeniture was likewise set aside. Georgia in the constitution of 1777 prohibited primogeniture and required an equal division of prop-erty among the heirs. IN'ot until 1784 was the reform accomplished in JNTorth Carolina, but the change was not so drastic as elsewhere, for male heirs were given preference over females; subsequent laws of 1795 and 1808 placed the matter on a practical parity with Virginia law. That the course of land legislation influenced southern society pro-foundly was the conviction of native observers and foreign travellers. Not merely were existing entails destroyed, not merely was primogeni-ture abolished, but custom supported the principle. "The cases are rare, very rare," says Tucker, "in which a parent makes by his will a much more unequal division of property among his children than the law itself would make." Thus came a fairer distribution of wealth. There is no longer a class of persons possessed of large inherited estates, who, in a luxurious and ostentatious style of living, greatly exceed the rest of the community ; a much larger number of those who are wealthy have ac-quired their estates by their own talents or enterprise ; and most of these last are commonly content with reaching the average of that more moderate standard of expense which public opinion requires, rather than the higher scale which it tolerates. Thus there were formerly many in Virginia who drove a coach and six, and now such an equipage is never seen. There were probably twice or three times as many four-horse carriages before the Revo-lution as there are at present, but the number of two-horse carriages may be now ten or even twenty times as great as at the former period. A few fami-lies, too, could boast of more plate than can now be met wuth ; but the whole quantity in the country has increased twenty if not fifty fold. {Life of Jeffer-son, p. 93.) A similar result is attributed to the abolition of primogeniture in South Carolina. Murray wrote : The planters are generally impoverished by the division of property ; they have lost many of their patrician notions (call them, if you will, prejudices). The increased commerce has raised to affluence, and consequently into fashion-able society, many merchants with whom the planters would not associate on terms of intimacy fifty years ago ; thus, while the society of Boston, Philadel-phia, and New York is daily becoming more aristocratic, that of the Carolina capital is becoming more republican. (Travels, II, 188.) 28 Twenty-second Annual Session Undoubtedly the Revolution wrought a change in the institution of private property and thereby altered the social structure. But the doctrine of the equality of man went further ; it questioned the existing attitude of the law toward crime and the criminal and ushered in the modern humanitarian spirit. To the conservative mind of the eighteenth century severe penalties were essential ; the protection of property was a supreme aim of government and the reform of the criminal was ignored. To the reformer, inspired by the doctrine of equality, penalties must be examined in the light of reason and the life and character of the criminal deserved consideration. Again the conflict between the forces of conservatism and reform centered in Virginia. There twenty-seven offenses incurred the penalty of death and among non-capital punish-ments were the lash, the stocks, slitting of ears, and branding. Again also the pioneer in the movement for reform was Thomas Jeiferson. He was the author of a bill proportioning crimes and punishments, the pioneer of the modern humanitarian spirit. Says the statute : And whereas the reformation of offenders, though an object worthy the attention of the laws, is not effected at all by capital punishments, which exterminate instead of reforming, and should be the last melancholy resource against those whose existence is become inconsistent with the safety of their fellow-citizens, which also weakens the State by cutting off so many, who, if reformed, might be restored sound members to society, who, even under a course of correction, might be rendered useful in various labors for the public, and would be, living, an example and long-continued spectacle to deter others from committing the like offenses. And forasmuch as the experience of all ages and countries hath shewn that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prosecu-tions, to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias ; and by producing in many instances a total dispensation and impunity under the names of pardon and benefit of clergy ; when, if the punishment were only proportioned to the injury, men would feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the laws observed ; and the power of dispensation, so dangerous and mischievous, which produces crimes by holding up a hope of impunity, might totally be abolished, so that men, while contemplating to perpetrate a crime, would see their punishment ensuing as necessity, as effects their causes, etc. For such reasons the revisors proposed to reduce the twenty-seven capital crimes to two, treason and murder, and one-half of the property of those convicted should be forfeited to the next of kin of the one killed; corporal punishment and imprisonment were to be the penalties for most other offenses; however, for a few crimes, such as disfiguring another, "by cutting out or disabling the tongue, slitting or cutting off a nose, lip, or ear, branding, otherwise shall be maimed" the principle of the lex talionis was to be adopted. This latter feature of the bill did not meet the approval of Jefferson. He wrote: State Litebaey and Historical Association 29 The Lex Talionis, although a restitution of the Common Law, to the sim-plicity of which we have generally found it so difficult to return, will be revolting to the humanized feelings of modern times. An eye for an eye, and a hand for a hand, and a tooth for a tooth, will exhibit spectacles in execu-tion whose moral effect would be questionable ; and even the memhrum pro memhro of Bracton, or the punishment of the offending member, although long authorized by our law, for the same offense in a slave, has, you know, been not long since repealed in conformity with public sentiment. This needs reconsideration. The proposed reform met bitter opposition. Minds that could not resist the cause of religious freedom, the separation of church and state, and the reform of the land law, would not yield to the heresy that penalties should be in proportion to the crime and the causes for execution be reduced to two. And so in 1785 Jefferson's bill was re-jected. However, the revision of the criminal law was bound up with another issue : that of the survival of British statutes. The Convention of 1776 had declared the statutes prior to James I binding on Virginia. The abolition of this ordinance now became the objective of the re-formers. It was accomplished in 1789 when the legislature repealed the ordinance. A new^ commission was then appointed to revise the law and at length in 1792 a code was reported and adopted in which all English statutes were declared to have no force in Virginia. With the law thus purged of British heritage, the humanitarian spirit had freer play and in 1796, the same session in which the first public school law was adopted and a plan for gradual emancipation of slavery considered, a bill was introduced to amend the penal laws by reducing the death penalties to two, and imposing on non-capital offenses service in a penitentiary where the character of the criminal might be reformed. A new champion of the cause now appeared, George Keith Taylor. In a notable speech he assembled all the arguments of the time in favor of humanitarianism. The existing penalties, he declared, were in violation of natural rights, for in the state of nature each man defends himself, but when he repels the mischief the "law commands him to pardon the offender." Life can be taken only in case of murder. "Against all other offenses I can either obtain effectual security at first, or effectual recom-pense afterwards. But against the murderer I can obtain neither. . . . JSTecessity therefore compels me to put him to death." This law of nature becomes the fundamental law of states because, under the social compact from which governments have their origin, no power to impose the death penalty except for murder is granted. It is 30 Twenty-second Annual, Session also wasteful, for society loses units of production and no recompense is made to the person injured. Benefit of clergy as means of ameliorat-ing the law simply makes the offender a marked man. Every one avoids him, no one chooses to give employment to a felon ; but he must live, and, consequently, deprived of all means of honest subsistence, is compelled to continue his former course of iniquity. ISTor are harsh penalties in conformity to the philosophy of law. In a warm climate people are indolent and hate work; compulsory labor, therefore, is a better deterrent to crime than the threat of death. Severe laws do not improve manners; therefore adopt penalties that appeal to the sense of shame. Put into the criminal code something of the spirit of forgiveness and kindness of Christianity. Finally, let laws harmonize with the needs of population and let them not needlessly diminish the number of laborers in a land where labor is scarce. Such were typical arguments of Taylor; they reflect as wide a read-ing in the social and political philosophy of the time as do writings of Jefferson or Madison. As a result the bill was not tabled but was adopted. The capital crimes were reduced to two, benefit of clergy was abolished, except for slaves, and the penitentiary was substituted for other offenses that had been capital. Closely akin to the nascent sense of humanitarianism was the new spirit in education. As soon as the British administration collapsed, a new ideal of the obligation of the government toward intellectual training appeared; instead of a responsibility confined to the orphans and the poor, came a general obligation. Thus the State constitutions of J^^orth Carolina and Georgia clearly proclaimed the principle of State support of schools and universities. Moreover, education should be reformed and adapted to American needs rather than to European heritage. Thus during the war the Virginians reorganized the con-servative College of William and Mary into a university and there were established a school of modern languages, a professorship of law, the first in the United States, and one of medicine, the second in the coun-try. Georgia in 1783 adopted a comprehensive scheme for public high schools, one for each county, and in 1785 a plan for a State University which would include all the institutions of education in the State, and stimulate the cause of literature, was adopted. It was too advanced for actual conditions and so it remained for JSTorth Carolina to make the first practical educational achievement of the new era, the opening of the University in 1795. There is no greater tragedy in all southern history, with the exception of the survival of slavery, than the failure of the revolutionary philosophy in the realm of education. The traditions State Literaey and Historical Association 31 of the past, the aversion to taxation, and the impractical, even aris-tocratic, character of the ideal which looked for political leadership rather than elevation of the masses, fixed its doom. A similar fate awaited the anti-slavery sentiment; to the doctrine of the equality of man, human bondage was intolerable, but no practical method of emancipation which would evade a race problem was ever formulated. From the facts and tendencies thus outlined it is evident that the American Revolution wrought a profound reaction on the institutions and social structure of the South of colonial days. The results were religious freedom, a greater equality of property rights, reform of the criminal laws, efforts at public education and the emancipation of slaves. 'No wiser definition of history was ever made than the statement that it is philosophy teaching by example. What then, in the broader mean-ing of these terms, should the example of the Revolution contribute to our knowledge of the philosophy of politics and the nature of free society ? First of all, no great war can occur without making some modification or radical change in the internal life of the belligerent nations. Indeed I believe that war is often but one manifestation of a spirit of change or revolution working in civil as well as martial fields. At times reaction checks or opposes this spirit of change but in the end reaction gives way and readjustment takes place. Shakespeare grasped this idea in Julius Caesar; he put into the mouth of Brutus just before the battle of Phillippi the memorable words : There is a tide in tlie affairs of men tliat leads onward. It is the task of the thoughtful and earnest citizen to know this tide, to work with it, to guide and direct it, never to seek to impede it. Such is statesmanship. The great failure of Brutus was not the loss of a battle but his failure to realize that the foundations of the Republic were already gone and that the irresistible tide of the age was toward imperialism. No fine trait of personal character, no patriotic devotion to the past can obscure this fundamental fault—that the man had not the brains to understand forces greater than his own convictions. In the period of the Revolution Jefferson and Madison caught the meaning of the revolt against Great Britain and swung with the tide. This is the basis of their statesmanship. Those who opposed them, though estimable in personal character, have today a minor place on the page of history. Another reflection which must come if any comparison be drawn be-tween the problems of the Revolution and those of today, is the futility 32 Twenty-second Annual Session of applying to one age tlie political and social philosophy of the past. The apostles of progressivism reject the social compact theory as a basis for their program. They see in the natural right of the individ-ual to life, liberty, and happiness, laissez faire individualism. In con-trast how often do we hear conservatives say, "Give us the democracy of Jeiferson." But viewed in the light of conditions as they existed in the eighteenth century the Jeffersonian ideal could be attained only by the abolition of special privilege, whether it was the privilege of church or landowner, by a new treatment of the criminal and of the enemies of, society, and a new sense of state control over intellectual discipline. This in that day and time was radicalism. Apply seriously the principle of the equality of man and the consent of the governed, even the right to life, liberty, and happiness, to modern conditions and what will be the fate of tax exemption and certain financial problems, the present atti-tude of courts toward labor, and even the curriculum of our schools and colleges? If any have doubts let them read Jefferson's remarks or, better still, those of his friend John Taylor, on such matters as the nature of industry, the character of government bond issues, the nature of banking, and the best working type of democracy. In conclusion I wish to raise this pertinent question: how much of the past really lives today, how much of it do we really inherit? The answer, I believe, is, of the forms very much, of the spirit very little. Let me illustrate. The statutes of descents adopted in the period of the Revolution still live; but the condition against which they were aimed, an unequal distribution of wealth, again exists, and in the light of this fact the statutes are ineffective formulse. The humanitarian sentiment of the Revolution today has many monuments in the shape of penal institutions; but how often is the spirit and purpose, the reformation of the offender, submerged by the monuments? Again, religious freedom undoubtedly has survived. But the principle on which that freedom is based, the liberty of the human spirit and its right to opinion, is seri-ously challenged. Words and sentiments expressed freely by Jefferson and Lincoln, when today uttered, too often bring prosecution and im-prisonment. The old conception of the fathers, that thought and speech must be free, no longer exists. We live in an age of restraint, not of absence of restraint. 'Now, since the forms rather than the spirit of the past survive, is not he who really achieves something, whether he calls it conservatism or not, breaking new ground, and is he not therefore potentially a radical ? When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Carolina 1890-1900 By John E. White President Anderson College Of course I am greatly pleased to be here as the guest of the N^orth Carolina Literary and Historical Association, but if I should attempt to tell you why I am so pleased it would involve me at once with an old problem which has worried me enough already—the problem of the sensitive psychosis of the ISTorth Carolinian living away from home. It is difficult to explain that man satisfactorily. Some months ago I sought out the old Moravian Cemetery in Winston-Salem and was there trying to locate without immediate success the grave of John Henry Boner. An elderly gentleman walking by observed my search and guided me to the spot. "Are you interested in his poetry?'' he asked. "Yes—no ; I am more interested in the man. He is the man who broke his heart trying to interpret the sorrow and justify the conscience of a ISTorth Carolinian forced to live somewhere else." Standing there with this kind old gentleman, a minister of the Moravian church, I repeated the lines which North Carolinians know and love so well. Why is it the "Tarheel" exile reacts within himself so keenly and yet so unsatisfactorily to his own conscience? He has all the inward-ness of an interminable identity with l^orth Carolina; cherishes the sense of it as a good fortune ; avows the pride of it everywhere ardently ; and yet feels that he is somehow guilty of a dreadful inconsistency. Have you not noticed that he is the most over-conscious J^^orth Caro-linian in the world ? I suppose it is because he has spoiled his right to be. He tries to make up to his conscience by protests of devotion. He revels in the zeal of the repentant renegade. I have often heard him at it on his visits home, fervently insisting that "Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred," he is going to die sometime far, far away, " 'Mid pleasures and palaces," and that if anybody should inquire about the lonely corpse, just tell them it's "A Tar Heel dead." Sometimes I have fancied that the elder brothers hear this prodigal's proposition impatiently and doubtfully, distrusting so much "Tar Heel" virtue that has to make apologies and excuses for itself. The elder 34 Twenty-second Annual Session brothers never do understand and never can understand. It is only the prodigal who knows. And what he knows is this : that though he may die condemned he never was really guilty. In his Reminiscences, Alex-ander H. Stephens refers to a conversation with Reagan, of Texas, his fellow prisoner at Fort Warren after Lee's surrender, about their asso-ciation and associates in Congress before the Civil War. He recalled a certain congressman named Felix O'Connell, and asked Reagan if he remembered him. '^Yes, he was a very profane man and nearly always drunk." "That is true," said Stephens, "but he was the most religious man in Congress and about the only one who made it a point to attend the chaplain's prayer reverently. One day after his morning devotions in the House he took a seat beside me and said, ^Mr. Stephens, you are a Christian, aren't you? I have something to say to you, something that gnaws at my heart. My wife is a beautiful Christian, a saint on earth, and when she dies she will go right straight to heaven.' Then with broken voice he said, ^Mr. Stephens, I am afraid it will be the last I will see of her and that when I die I will go right straight to hell. But what I want to say to you is that if the good Lord does send me to hell He will lose one of the best friends He ever had in this world.' " ]^ow, I might have been invited somewhere else by some other literary and historical society, without wondering why; but sent for to come here under such dignified auspices, it is very different. I have heard of an Irishman who on being asked by a kind-hearted person if he would have a drink of good old apple brandy, made no reply at first, but struck an attitude and stood gazing up into the sky. "What are you looking at, Mike?" inquired his friend. "Bedad, sir," said Mike, "I thought an angel spoke to me." Somewhat so did I feel at first, Mr. President, when I received the invitation to be your guest this evening. The second reflection on the invitation was more sobering. I began to question whether I was prepared to accept its scrutiny. Down in Atlanta we had a Deacon who was reported to his fellow Deacons as inclined to indulge over-much on occasions. A committee was appointed to visit him. They did so in due and solemn form. "Brother Henry," said the spokesman, "do you ever drink?" He looked at the committee, who were his companions and personal friends, and said, "Brethren, before I answer, may I ask you if this is an invitation or an investigation?" Your invitation to me, I assure you, was not accepted without hesitation. It was the suggestion of your secretary that gave me at length enough confidence to venture. He indicated that I might deal profitably with ISTorth Carolina events from 1890 to 1900. I had been in a position to observe and somewhat to participate in the agitations of that period in State Literary and Historical Association 35 this State with reference to education. There were incidents and in-fluences of historical fact and value in those times, of which no fair record had heen made. Could I not, after the chastening of twenty years' absence from the State, set them in dispassionate order with emphasis only upon their bearing on the greater matters which followed after? So I am here to speak to you on "When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in l^orth Carolina.'' I have referred to the disadvantages of the exile. There are some compensations. Distance does lend enchantment, and detachment does minister to judgment. I can, for instance, report on the impression I^orth Carolina is now making for herself in the South and in the nation with more appreciation than if I were a part of it. You who are doing the work are conscious of disappointments and dissatisfactions with the State's achievements which do not trouble me. What is it that people in every section of this country are saying about ISTorth Carolina ? They are saying to one another in critical comparisons, that J^orth Carolina is the premier commonwealth of the South in progressive movements and that she is measuring pace with any State in the Union. Her achievements within twenty years have struck across the imagination of the whole country as remarkable and almost revolu-tionary. She has moved from the seventh place to the twenty-seventh in the value of manufactured products. She is a file leader of the nation in contribution of Federal taxes in support of the government. In the textile industry she contributes more to the demand markets and in the promotion of income to the cotton farmers of the South than any other State. She produces fifty per cent of all the lumber manufactured in the United States. She has first rank in minerals. So the reports run all along the line, of good roads and material improvements. But these things are not what attract the most astonished attention abroad. It is what the State has done in public education that makes greatest amazement. This is the achievement of fundamental relations to all other progress. The Astounding Contrast The educational expert coming from elsewhere to survey the widely-reported progress in North Carolina would observe two facts of con-clusive import about what he finds in actual operation. First: That the State has committed itself unreservedly to the ac-ceptance and demonstration of the democratic theory of education. What is it? It is the theory in repugnance of the aristocratic theory in education. It proposes education by the State in logical construction ; that is, big and broad foundations first, with superstructures in their 36 Twenty-second Annual Session practical order. To be explicit, tlie common schools first, secondary schools second, collegiate and technical institutions third, and without a blind alley anywhere. Second: That popular education in i^orth Carolina is really popular. It is enthroned in the imagination and conscience of the people. Its enterprise rests securely in the affections of the citizen heart. ISTow what is the historical bearing of these two facts of attainment in 1922 on the situation of education in ISTorth Carolina from 1890 to 1900? Simply this—Within less than a quarter of a century, JSTorth Carolina has shifted her whole front in popular education. It is a complete reversal of disposition and habit for a whole people. As a social phenomenon it is most remarkable. In 1890, the undemocratic theory of education prevailed in the practical attitude of J^orth Carolina educational leaders. That leader-ship was absorbed mainly with higher education and with the emphasis of it. It was in general their conception that education would percolate in intelligence through trained leadership down to the people. At any rate, in the lack of demand from the masses justifying taxation and legislative appropriations to the common schools they found encourag-ment for the aristocratic policy of trying to build from the top down-ward. The historian will explain this without difficulty. It will be remembered that Virginia had long been reckoned as the State of edu-cational eminence in the South. Her theory was the aristocratic theory. The University of Virginia indicated the ideal of Southern statecraft in education. Thomas Jefferson led the way. His monument was seen and revered in the University at Charlottesville. ISTo one took the pains to notice that theoretically his original program of education provided for a structure based upon an adequate system of common schools. It was only evident that he had consumed his practical passion on the University. The University of ISTorth Carolina followed the Virginia model. The effect of it through the years fixed the status of the common schools as of subordinate importance. The University at Chapel Hill, chartered in 1789, existed in glory and wide prestige for fifty years before there was any movement to establish a public elementary school in ISJ'orth Carolina. The law of 1839 providing for the first elementary public school was timorous, tentative and without great purpose to overcome the backwardness of public opinion. From 1839 to 1860, there appeared one man only with a passion for popular education. Calvin H. Wiley did his heroic stint of pleading with enough discourage-ment to break his heart. It drove him at last back to the quiet of a Presbyterian pastorate. The public school system from his day on. State Literaky and Historical Association 37 existed and carried on meagerly under depression and with, no influential diampionship. It was not popular with the educators, nor with the people. Its maintenance was openly questioned in college centers. In 1880 the students at the University debated the question: "Ought the Public School System of IsTorth Carolina to be Abolished?" Interest-ing enough, as his biographer indicates, this debate was promoted by Charles B. Aycock, of Wayne County, then on the eve of graduation. In 1889, the anniversary celebration at Wake Forest College provided a similar debate on the question : ''Resolved, That the present Public School System in ISTorth Carolina is worthy of support.'^ When the vote was taken by the large audience, the negative won overwhelmingly. Again, curious enough, your speaker this evening represented the negative and was warmly congratulated that lie had shown conclusively that the public school system was not worthy of support. If the repre-sentatives of the public school system were asked why something was not done to improve and extend the system and make the common schools more worthy of respect, they had their answer. The Supreme Court of the State up to 1900 bad held that free schools were not "a necessary purpose" and therefore were confined within the constitutional limita-tions of taxes. That doctrine was laid down in Paysour vs. Commis-sioners from. Gaston County, Judge Merriman dissenting. This meant that for the common schools only a bone was left to pick after the 66 2-3 cents limit for State and county purposes of administration had been reached. What was left could only be applied to common schools. It was true, of course, that the constitution of the State carried the mandatory clause—"a four months' public school shall be maintained in every district." But the Supreme Court was not greatly impressed by that and did not regard the common schools as constituting "a neces-sary purpose." Thus the State of N^orth Carolina stood in 1890. I^o one seemed greatly troubled by it. Secondary education by the State was of course impossible, except in a few cities. In the incorporated towns under municipal taxation there were only eight graded schools with high school instruction, and only two of them attempted as much as the tenth grade. In the country districts the elementary public schools, lately defined by the Public School Commission of North Caro-lina as "the basic institution of democracy," averaged sixty days a year in disreputable and despised one-room houses. Only half of the children of school age pretended to attend them at all. The little dole of money available in a district was the perquisite of inefficiency and often im-patiently absorbed as an inconvenience by private schools to get the public school out of the way. 38 Twenty-second Annual Session When the Tide Began to Tuen Take your stand there in 1890 and tell me wliat outlook is there for popular education in J^orth Carolina? Is there anything on the hori-zon of hope to justify the faint prophesy of what would actually occur in twenty years? Apparently nothing. The tide is set stubbornly in difficulty, indifference and prejudice. I^orth Carolina was on the eve of a transformation with noboby expecting it. Within five years a cur-rent will be stirred in an unexpected quarter—an agitation will sud-denly spring up which will become positive and powerful in appeal for the common schools. That agitation, controversial, factional, and seemingly reactionary at outset, will challenge public interest in the common schools and will begin to turn the thoughts of public men and the feelings of the people fiom apathy to a fighting resolution. How-ever men may differ in their estimate of the worthiness or the unworthi-ness of the initial impulse of the propaganda of the Baptists and Meth-odists of those days, there are two features of it no one will dispute. It was impressive in volume, characterized by great earnestness, and commanded public response. The other feature was this : The agitation after 1895 concentered immediately in demands for adequate practical attention to the common schools. This is the story I have come to tell you. In 1893 a change of administration at the University of ISTorth Caro-lina brought to that institution an assertive and aggressive leadership. This leadership went out after students and increased appropriations. Expressions emanated therefrom concerning the denominational colleges which were sharply resented. The old but suppressed antagonism be-tween the State college and the denominational college flamed out. The county scholarship system, increasing appropriations from the legisla-ture, and the alleged use of the State's money in loans to individual stu-dents created a situation of acute resentment. The first gun of the battle was fired by Dr. Charles E. Taylor, of Wake Forest College, in a pamphlet on "How Far Should a State Undertake to Educate?" In calm argumentative style this widely distributed pamphlet confirmed the State's right and duty to furnish primary education free to all, but dis|)uted the State's function of free higher education. The response of protest was first heard in resolutions passed by the Roanoke Union of the Tar Biver Association in the summer of 1893. The Baptist iVsso-ciations followed in the same line of discussion. The controversy gained headway, and at the Baptist State Convention in Elizabeth City, Decem-ber, 1893, a resolution by Dr. J. D. Huffham was adopted which pro-vided for a committee of five to seek concert of action by all the denomi- State Literary and Historical Association 39 national colleges, to memorialize the legislature, and to "secure if pos-sible such arrangements as will enable the schools founded and con-trolled by citizens to do their work without unnecessary competition with the State schools." In 1894 the agitation was pressed further to the front by Dr. C. Durham, the field marshal of the Baptists. At the associations of that year and on through the next year to the day of his death in October, 1895, Dr. Durham concentrated all the passion and ability of his great personality in speeches which drew and held multitudes everywhere to sympathetic attention. The emphasis of his campaign turned more and more from the invidious note of protest against the University to the generous and patriotic appeal to JSTorth Carolinians to do their duty by the children of the State. Concurrently, in 1895, the first newspaper 'in the State to place the deplorable condi-tions of popular education before the public was the Biblical Recorder, then edited by Mr. J. W. Bailey. He opened up a consistent, reason-able, and increasing propaganda, showing week after week, in detail of facts and figures and arguments, what the low estate of the public school system portended for IsTorth Carolina civilization. In 1896 Dr. Durham's successor and Dr. John C. Kilgo of Trinity College joined with the editor of the Recorder with all their might, and the definite campaign for the common schools began to have a program with its objective in direct action for their relief. Already the new Superin-tendent of Education, Mr. Charles H. Mebane, elected by the Populist upheaval, had placed himself in cooperative relations with the Baptist and Methodist movement. The political conditions at that time favored the consolidation of influences for the change of State policies in edu-cation. The Populist influence woke up the Democratic masses to the sense of their powers of self-assertion. When that movement was over in 1898, the channels of popular sensation had been permanently widened and deepened in JSTorth Carolina. The Baptist Associations, and in a large degree the district Methodist Conferences, in that situa-tion became public forums of the people, not for political discussion but for educational arousement. They passed unanimous resolutions, phrased in positive terms of demand, for a change of emphasis in edu-cation and for practical proposals to extend and improve the common schools. Three years, 1896-1898, it went on in that fashion until every section of the State had been affected and the people lined up so far as Baptists and Methodists could be properly organized for such a cause. There were two points vividly urged in behalf of popular education. First: A change of policy, which meant a change of thinking on the part of leaders, from the aristocratic theory to the democratic theory of the public school system. It was argued after this style : "Let us 40 Twenty-second Annual Session stop stacking our educational fodder from the top downward and do it according to common sense and experience, by laying the foundations first and then build thereon." It was envisioned that the public school system had no logical appeal for confidence until this was done, and that when it was done every educational interest of the State would flourish, no matter how the winds blew and the floods came, because it would be founded upon a rock. The proposition of course required direct appropriations from the Legislature to the common schools before any appropriations to higher education shotild be increased. The plea was for the established priority of the elementary schools in claims on educational statecraft. Second: A change of heart on the part of the people who were im-mediately concerned. The condition of their schools was portrayed in heavy lines. Their inefiiciency, brevity, and poverty of equipment were held up in rags and tatters. There was little note of controversy in these appeals—it was patriotic and pathetic. The spirit of cooperation with any hand stretched out for the healing of the open sore of ISTorth Carolina life was not only possible but desirable so far as the leaders of the campaign were concerned. In 1897 Dr. Charles D. Mclver, who was outside the breastworks of the Baptist and Methodist agitation, and Mr. J. W. Bailey, who was distinctly a leader on the inside of it, were associated together respectively as chairman and secretary of a movement to promote a special-tax campaign. Alas for that, it was a dismal disappointment. Out of 938 districts, only seven voted the special tax. After that essay it was more evident than ever that the tide would not turn until a positive beginning had been made in the form of a pronounced policy of the General Assembly. In 1898 this was the battle-cry. The General Assembly must show the people that the State's policy was going in for the relief of the common schools and the~ precedence of their claims in all educational legislation. The Constitution was invoked as a challenge to the candidates for the Legis-lature since they were to swear to support and sustain it. They were questioned on the stump : "Will you put the common schools first in appropriation for education? Will you favor legislation to carry out as fast and far as possible the mandatory cause of the Constitution?" The election occurred in August, 1898. It soon became known that the return of the Democratic party to power would bring to Raleigh a General Assembly constituted largely of Baptists and Methodists with-out any significance of sectarianism, but with the great significance of fact that the Legislature was overwhelmingly strong for putting the common schools on a forward-moving program of legislation. The group of men who had led the agitation caused a bill to be drawn State Literary and Historical Association 41 appropriating out of the public treasury $100,000 for the common schools. Mr. Charles H. Mebane's was the hand that drew that bill. It was typewritten in copy in the office of the Mission Board of the Baptist State Convention and placed in the hands of its champions in the Senate and the House : Mr. Stephen Mclntyre, of Robeson, and John B. Holman, of Iredell. It went through triumphantly, though not without opposition, both from the inside and from the outside of the Legislature. Historically this action marked the sharp, initial, practical beginning of that turn in the tide for popular education which in the next fifteen years would flood the State with enthusiasm for the present public school system in North Carolina. In the nature of reminiscence of the good fighting of that year, I venture to recall that the Democratic State Executive Committee had realized that the campaign of the Biblical Recorder and others had won out. From that committee assurance was voluntarily proffered that no bills carrying appropriations for higher education would be permitted to pass the Legislature without the consent of those who were leading the fight in the State for the primacy of the common schools. The pledge of the Democratic leaders came to test before the joint com-mittee on appropriations in the Legislature at its first meeting, and the State Executive Committee made good its unasked-for pledge abso-lutely. The appropriations desired by the University, the State Normal College, and the A. and M. College were referred to the generosity of Mr. Bailey and Mr. White. I am glad to tell you that they were as generous as possible under the circumstances, and that from that inci-dent onward a new entente of fellowship and sympathy between the State colleges and the denominational colleges began a development uninterrupted at this hour. The Great Consummation With the dawn of 1900, seven years lay behind in which the gospel of popular education had been preached from platforms and pulpits reaching to every community in North Carolina. Public sentiment in the rural districts, aroused and sometimes inflamed, had been confirmed in repeated resolutions of public assemblies. The moribund situation had given way at the end of 1899 to the sense of something moving in a new direction for the public schools. With the dawn of 1900 con-ditions justified the leaders of the Democratic party in believing that a constitutional amendment carrying the 1908 educational qualifica-tional clause for white people could be passed. We know what hap-pened in North Carolina in that year. North Carolina in all her his-tory has never known anything better than what did happen. Due 42 Twenty-second Annual Session credit certainly must be given to tlie constitutional amendment for its coercive effect as law upon popular education. But the greatest thing that happened was Charles B. Aycock. I^orth Carolina found her captain, gave him his own trumpet to blow, and the children's children standard to bear. Alas our captain ! our captain ! Among all the things cherished and preserved by your speaker of a somewhat oratorical life, nothing is more cherished than a copy of the Raleigh Morning Post of January 1, 1899, which reports in eight columns an address made in behalf of popular education before the joint session of the House and Senate on the night of December 31, 1898, in which this prophecy of a great Captain was pleaded : The president of a theological seminary was asked the other day what in his opinion was the greatest need of foreign missions. He reflected, and re-plied, "A great missionary." If I were asked what the indispensable necessity of popular education in North Carolina is at this hour, I would reflect and reply, "A great public man whose heart and brain, time, talents, energy, everything, is devoted to the cause of the wool-hatted and barefooted army of over 600,000 children whose only hope for instruction is in the public schools." I remarked to a gentleman yesterday that North Carolina offered the greatest opportunity for statesmanship in America. What I meant was that the con-dition of public education in this State, the deplorable situation with regards to our public schools in North Carolina afforded the greatest possible oppor-tunity for some able man to be transformed from a politician into a states-man. And I believe it with all my heart that the man in the next ten years of North Carolina life who has been fashioned by nature and experience for public leadership, and who will be beside himself a fool, a crank, a dedicated, sanctified agitator for better public schools, whether parties nominate or people elect to office, or not, whether he offend or whether he please the news-papers, will create a career so persistent in its claims upon the conscience of our people, and so write himself into the history of a vital progress, and so entwine his life into the lives of thousands born and unborn, that sooner or later, when truth gets a hearing, as in God's good time it always does, that in the summing-up of achievement and the distribution of laurels, the sage of history will write his name in letters of fadeless luster. Too eloquent by half, but a Hebrew prophet would have been very well satisfied with what was confirmed of its prophecy in JSTorth Caro-lina in the career of Charles B. Aycock. The Democratic State Convention of April, 1900, that gave him its ^'harvest of hearts" and his nomination for Governor, met in the con-sciousness of great and deep emotions. It had its mind on the nomi-nation of a man without particular regard for his gubernatorial quali-ties as an administrator. It had the sense of a new day which de-manded a champion of democracy with especial reference to education. Before Aycock was nominated, a platform had been adopted for him to stand on. One of its planks was this : State Literary and Historical Association 43 We heartily commend the action of the General Assembly of 1899 for appro-priating $100,000 for the benefit of the public schools in the State, and pledge ourselves to increase the school fund so as to make at least a four-months term in each year in every school district in the State. I have pleasure in remembering the phraseology because I stood by the typewriter that clicked it off on the little slip of paper w^hich was handed in to the Committee on Platform through the Hon. Mike Jus-tice, of Rutherford. It is needless to say that Charles B. Aycock ap-proved and in his inaugural address quoted it as the keynote pledge of the campaign he had made for the amendment. The election of Gov-ernor Aycock relieved the Baptist Associations and the Methodist Con-ferences instantly of every ounce of necessity to concern themselves in resolutions about the common schools in ISTorth Carolina. It put an end to persistent editorials and passionate speeches on that subject. Quite naturally to say, from the day he was elected to this hour there has never been a flutter of agitation in that quarter. There is no question in anybody's mind, for history has guaranteed that, as to who did the grand deed of individual leadership which swept the tide for popular education in JSTorth Carolina. The man's picture hangs in my home conspicuously among my household gods—Abraham Lincoln, Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson—and I look at his face every day. The night before he died in Birmingham I walked up and down with him in the shed of the old union depot in Atlanta, and we talked of things that were and are and were to be—of the past and the future of his career. His was a nature of all generosity. He said in kind refer-ence to two men whose names I will not call, "Our educational move-ment in ISTorth Carolina, beginning with the campaign for the amend-ment, found the soil prepared for it." We know the story of 1901 to 1922. Everybody knows it, and every-body honors the men of it. We know that J. Y. Joyner became the organizing genius and the practical administrator of the great change. We know that E. C. Brooks and his colleagues have confirmed and greatly continued the advance of the public school system. 'No one will be allowed to forget the consuming zeal of Charles D. Mclver and others. I have only given you a leaf of unwritten record which the historian cannot neglect. The pioneering of effective propaganda for the common schools in North Carolina was as I have related it. We were the first to break with a shout that had. echoes in it into the dreary and complacent sea of inertia and stolid prejudice. The shibboleths of that agitation became the principles of this progress which tingles in the hearts and dances in the eyes of I^orth Carolinians at home and abroad in 1922. 44 Twenty-second Annual Session It was read in the newspapers a few months ago that when Marshal Foch, the Generalissimo of the World War, in his American tour came to the city of Detroit he was wearied to exhaustion. The clamorous applause of the multitude had ceased to arouse his interest. There the mayor of the city turned to him and told him a little story of how Hennipin had sailed into the Detroit River in 1679 and had written these words in his diary: Those wlio will one day have the happiness to possess this fertile plain and pleasant strait will be very much obliged to those who have shown the way. At these words the tears rushed to the eyes of the great soldier. Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World By Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain History is an ordering and condensing of social detail so as to present facts as truth. Because the study of small communities and the influence going out from them is an introduction, and indeed the best of introductions to history in its broader sense, and because such study is thoroughly fasci-nating by reason of its own intrinsic interest, I have chosen for my subject the work of two editors, whose personalities and the ideas they advocated are intimately twined into the progress of our county. More than a century ago Joseph Gales became editor of the first newspaper established at the capital of I^orth Carolina. It was a Jeffersonian sheet; it represented popular aspirations, and was the channel through which many ideas of those fermenting times were brought home to the minds, and influenced the opinions of the citizens of old ISTorth Carolina. Joseph Gales came here in the last months of 1799. He was a re-markable man for ability, for adventure, and for wide experience of men. The fact that he was self-educated, and was at the same time an experienced journalist, made him the more skillful in sowing ideas among the plain people of our community; and he must surely have furnished the kindly leisures of our great-grandfathers with much first-hand matter to discuss. His sympathy with his chosen home, and his thorough identification of himself with it, made him a man who would be readily liked and often quoted. ^ot many newspapers were published then, but those few were thoroughly read. They led public opinion. They were not so often as today mere followers of the prevalent beliefs, and intensifiers of the prejudices of their readers. Instead of walking but a few steps in front of the largest, noisiest crowd, as some so-called "yellow journals" have done, they had more originality. They were formative influences, even as viewed through the diminishing telescope of the lapse of time. Gales had been a poor boy, born in Yorkshire, England, apprenticed to a printer; and he set up for himself in due time his own newspaper in Sheflield, already a great manufacturing town. He and his paper were identified with the best liberal Whig ideals of England, just subsequent to the defeat of the British at Yorktown—the time when Pitt and the statesmen with him bethought themselves of the reason- 46 Twenty-second Annual Session ableness of those demands, which, when denied to their colonies had brought on the successful war of the Revolution. In the England of that time reform, scientific discovery, the growth of manufacturing, the increase of dissent, and the rosy dawn of the French Revolution were all mixed into a web of rapid changes. Among the advocates of the several measures of reform. Gales, by means of his influential paper, was the peer of any. He was assisted in his editorship by a wife whose antecedents were more cultured than his own, but who shared his opinions, and was a woman of the greatest talent and spirit. She was one of the early "Blue Stockings." She wrote novels, and although the work of her pioneer efforts at self-expression, as well as that of all the rest of her sister authoresses, not excepting the great Mrs. Hannah Moore herself, has gone completely out of fashion, yet their influence on their age was great. Dr. Samuel Johnson said of these ladies : "A woman's preaching or writing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all." So spoke the Great Lexicographer, that knock-down joker. Gales's partner in his publishing business in Sheffield was James Montgomery, a writer of hymns, which are still to be found in our hymn books. "Hail to the Lord's Anointed" is one, and "Hark the Song of Jubilee!" another. In the second we can still feel the breath of new hope for humanity such as men felt when France convened her first "States General." The hymn might be called a sanctified "Ca Ira." vGales must have been aware of the first Sunday school in 1781. He afterwards became the first Sunday school superintendent in Raleigh, when union services for the little city were held in the old State House. >ile was a religious man. He felt a devoted admiration for Dr. Priestley of Birmingham. He did not on that account feel afraid to show friend-ship to Thomas Paine, that celebrated Deistic Quaker whose opportune book, "The Rights of Man," set American sentiment unitedly in the direction of the Revolution, and just in the nick of time. Although Paine was later furnished with horns and a tail by the popular imagination, after his other work, "The Age of Reason," was printed, in which he insisted that belief in God must go the same way /as submission to kings; yet he was a writer of power who had great influence in his day. Mrs. Gales said of him, when she entertained him in her house, that she found him "a gentle, kindly soul." Dr. Priestley, the learned Unitarian divine, who interspersed his treatises on theology and early excursions into the "Higher Criticism," the first that we hear of, with books about his own scientific discoveries, State Literary^ and Historical Association 47 was also an intimate friend of the Galeses, and both he and his friends were caught in the same back-wash of conservative sentiment when the French killed their king. So terribly did this deed shock Englishmen that the partisans of the Prench Revolution in England, of whom Edmund Burke was one, could scarcely disown all ideas connected with it hastily enough; and because some convinced liberals. Radicals they were then called, continued to demand prison reform and the suppression of "Rotten Boroughs," they were subjected to the persecution of Tory mobs. Dr. Priestley's labora-tory apparatus was thrown into the street in Birmingham, in the same way as the types of Joseph Gales' printing office in Sheffield. Both were indicted for treason. Both had to flee to America. Joseph Gales remained two years in Schleswig-Holstein, then a part of Denmark, there awaiting his wife, and after her coming, failing immediate departure, as they planned, because a seaworthy vessel was not at once available. Mrs. Gales, no clinging vine she, sold out the business successfully before she went to Denmark, and the pair with their family reached Philadelphia safely in 1-795. I would like to stop and turn back here, to tell in detail how bravelyX Mrs. Gales faced her own mob, how she was protected in her home by the working men of Sheffield, after her husband's flight, and how, when they had begun their voyage across the ocean, when their vessel was taken by pirates, she talked these sea-hawks into letting their prey sail on unharmed to America. Arriving there, how she reproved Willie Jones for profane swearing, how she wrote the first novel ever printed \ in ISTorth Carolina—the first, and for so very long, the only one. "-^ Also it would be good hunting to describe the time when the Tory authorities had to send for Joseph Gales, the printer, to quiet a wild Sheffield mob, which he was able to pacify; and to tell how Gales used his unexpected delay in Holland to learn two new languages, and the then unusual art of shorthandJ How also he grew friendly with many celebrated Emigres, and how Madame de Genlis wished to adopt the baby Altona Gales, and again, how they saw General Pichegru, of the red Revolutionary Army of Prance, go skating to the conquest of Hol-land over the ice of the River Elbe. After all these exciting experiences the pair must have been glad to reach a quiet haven and a life of less uncertainty, when, in the fall of 1799, they came to Raleigh to start the Raleigh Register. Among the IN'orth Carolina delegation to Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, were Nathaniel Macon and Willie Jones. Both were Jeffersonians. Then as now people were divided into two opinions. 48 Twenty-second Annual Session Conservatives wlio did not fully trust tlie common man, liberals who were willing to try him. At that time, much more than today, party lines were strictly drawn between these two camps. Jefferson, who was a strong enthusiast for the French ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, gave his name to the rising party representing these senti-ments. ]^orth Carolina had at that time more population than ISTew York State. President Adams and the Federalists had lately passed the "Alien and Sedition Acts," which were most unpopular. JSTorth Carolina was a close State politically, and the Jeffersonians saw their opportunity. They were glad to discover in Joseph Gales, lately come to Philadel-phia, an able man whose political opinions were distinctly Jeffersonian, who could worthily edit the paper they wished to start in Raleigh, that new little Capital-in-the-woods. Gales' new paper was the old Sheffield one revived. It bore the same name. The Register. It was decorated with the same emblem, or head-ing, of the liberty pole and cap, and it expressed the same sympathy for the under dog. It professed also the same passion for reform as when it had been issued in Sheffield. Its editor was from henceforth a part of this city. He was its mayor for term after term. He be-came State Printer after the Jeffersonians or "Republicans" came into power. I He opened a book shop when he arrived in Raleigh, and among his first list of books for sale we find the authors Godwin, Paine, Rousseau and Adam Smith. In one of his early editorials occur these words : "What is the world but one wide family on which the Common Parent looks with the eye of equal protection." Again, "To choose a good \cause is to select one which selfish men dislike." His paper became a great disseminator of information on agricul-tural subjects; it published careful accounts of the discoveries and improvements which came so thickly in the beginning of the century past. JMr. Gales was always a friend to every idea which meant prog-ress or benefit to those who could not help themselves. Education, Temperance, Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Care of the Insane, Internal Impro^ments—in all these questions he was far ahead of his fellow citizensj He trained three generations of editors. His son and his son-in-law were partners in establishing and editing the National Intelligencer, the first Washington newspaper, which gave authoritative reports of the debates of Congress. Another son and a son's son were successively editors of Raleigh. His descendants are many and worthy today. I State Literaey and Historical Association 49 Such a man's influence is impossible to estimate, difficult to limit. I think we can take for granted for that time, as for this, the dearth of constructive reasoning and the lack of educational progressive leader-ship, and may be allowed to justify high praise of a man who supplied both to his State for many years, and indirectly to his country. Some one has said that the axis of the earth sticks out visibly at the place which each of us calls home. In connecting the life of Mr. Gales with our center, we noted the beginning, how it was rooted in signifi-cant times of his native England, while the flowering came with us. American history has not hitherto taken enough notice of or given enough credit to our "Americans by Choice." The second of these chosen sowers of seed, of whom I am to speak, had indeed his day in the great world, and a glorious one; but it was here on our own soil, here on our own red clay hills that he had his origin. Some day we will better value the distinction which this gives us. The recently published Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, by Hen-drick, is an admirably planned book, with skillful selection of those letters which best show the mind of the man. It has one fault which slaps a Wake County, ^orth Carolina, person smartly in the face. Mr. Hendrick always thinks of Walter Page as a world figure. He would rather have him, as it seems, just happen, like Melchisedec, without genealogy or local attachment. He emphasizes this. He takes pains to tell us that Mr. Page's education was almost wholly obtained out-side of JNTorth Carolina, and ignores the home influence on a young man's life and thought. He stresses the fact that Mr. Page was unap-preciated, and therefore had to leave us. l^ow when a man's forbears have lived for three generations in a locality, and when he himself has continuously remained there until his later teens, he can never lose the mark of his nativitv, even if he wishes it very earnestly. Mr. Page never wished anything like that for a moment. People who knew him, and who knew his "folks," will main-tain that he is no "bud variation" or "mutation." He was the "square-root of his ancestors." That exquisite precision of his in the use of words, whereby things are said finally, and the nerve of a fallacy is punctured so that it can never squirm again, is not unknown as a talent in some of his kin. As a boy he could marshal his thoughts and tell them in plain, well-selected words. That he was well educated was his own doing. It was the quality of the man who went to Johns Hopkins, and to Germany, which made the education effective. 50 Twenty-second Annual Session When lie came to Raleigli to edit tlie Chronicle lie had become a m.ost active principle, fit to stir up a passive society. Some people are born with the love of the past in their hearts, and others with the question-ing of existing institutions upon their lips. Of the latter was young Walter Page. Imagine such a man, in the vigor of his independent youth, turned loose in a land of sore memories. Here at that time it was like the home of the old, where all is kept sacred; a place where, after supreme effort relaxed, the daily habit was to "sit in the sun and tell old tales." Being the man he was, he felt scant sympathy with all this, as a regnant mood. He did not truly estimate the depth of the post-war ennui. He did not think seriously enough of the old soldier's inevitable worship of the past. They say that even today, in this America, there are young men who cannot get away from the World War, who cannot march breast forward into the new day. They turn back mentally, because they feel that their greatest significance as individuals is already past. Mr. Page loved N^orth Carolina. He saw her possibilities. He knew her latent power. He inspired many of those who have brought about, since then, the things that have counted for progress. He shot his ideas, like arrows, into the hearts of his circle of young men friends. The things he told us, the shrewd comments he injected under our hides by his keen criticism, we have never forgotten. Even till this day we are taking the time to prove that he overstated, by doing all those things which he evidently feared we might not do. Prophets have been noted for telling unpleasant truths from the earliest times, and every young man who begins reformer is made to suffer for it. Very soon, because we could not pay him a living for his wares, he went to fill a more conspicuous place than that of the small town editor of a weekly newspaper. The editorship of several significant periodicals culminated for him in the chair of the staid, long-established, oracular Atlantic Monthly of Boston. Prom that he went to become founder of The World's Worh, more his own pattern of a monthly. When he left ISTorth Carolina he took her with him. As often as he visited his old home he brought her some solution to her problems. A man is—precisely what he does. For the great "State College" which calls its thousand young men each year and teaches them to use the State's resources, for the ISTorth Carolina Woman's College which util-izes the real value of our girls' brains, so long a waste product—for the first and for the second of these educational achievements I am not State Literaky and Historical Association 51 going to give him all the credit. Let him portion out the praise who can: so much to Page, so much to the Watauga Club, so much to those other notable apostles of better education, such as Mclver and Aycock. Whatever was done then, Page was there, in word and inspiration, at the doing of it. But perhaps his greatest service to his own State was his interest in the health welfare of our Southern country. When Dr. Stiles, of the Education Bureau, gave in Raleigh his first semi-public lecture on the discovery of the cause of the malady which was killing so many at the South, I sat upon the front bench to hear him, the only woman there, eyed as a strange cat in the garret by the group of physicians, plus a few cotton mill executives, there assembled. The great calming satisfaction, felt when the true reason for a strange and baffling phenomenon is laid in one's hand to keep forever, was my abundant reward when I went away. We know all about these things now. A cotton mill village, a country school, may be as rosy and as healthy as to its children as the best resi-dence street. This also by the help of Walter Page. Yes, he has kept us on our toes, to show how well we can do, ^'but and if we would." We should thank him, we should honor him, we should never take it out in roasting his one novel, "The Southerner," because in it he never quite guessed the feelings of the old Confederate soldier, first defeated, and then "excoriated" by Reconstruction doings ! All the story of the great World War is not yet written. Page's acting of his own part as Ambassador to Great Britain, which I admire exceedingly, is however ready for posterity's verdict. Some recent reviewer has called him the "Modern Franklin," inas-much as he was the interpreter of things American to the great British Empire, when, lacking mutual understanding, we might have gone under together along with our common civilization. He seems also to have had laid on him the task of expressing Eng-land's inarticulate soul to America, to have combated successfully the dogged determination of certain elements not to consider the inevita-bility of our joining the Allies. International sympathy and international friendship was better than too much raw international candor; and here again I shall claim that old kinship; that Wake County, JN^orth Carolina, folhsyness, alive in her distinguished son, played a part in saving the world when it rein-forced the greater qualities possessed by Walter Hines Page. In l!^orth Carolina we enjoy people, we like kindly gossip, we discuss and taste the differences of personality among our friends with loving discrimina-tion, as some more sophisticated societies forget to do. • • • • • • • ••• •» • - . » » o » » • ^ » > « * ) > « >«• * * ^ m 4 * * • •• % • a • • • •• t « « » » • . , > > , ' I * > > » 5 c f 52 Twenty-second Annual Session Mr. Page filled tlie conceptions of tlie English as to true democratic ways and easy manners. He liked their individuality, and they felt it; he became to them a more idealistic Franklin, a truly democratic rep-resentative of a great Democracy. He was precisely the man; they esteemed him. Besides all this, we read in his letters how well his heart remembered the things his boyhood knew. How clearly we hear this when he chooses to touch that key. How he recalled the heart of the struggling woods where he roamed as a boy; how he remembered the smells of growing things outdoors under our sweltering summer sun ; how he saw in his mind's eye the glorious color of a clay bank in the golden light of autumn, and heard the whirr of the partridge startling out of the blackberry thicket in early winter. JSTature he knew and loved as his boyhood had found it. The pine trees were always ^'kind to him." How dear to him was that "Little grove of long-leaved pines" in the country he called his own ! Yes, I take issue with his excellent biographer ; he was a Southerner. He was far more that person than the gentleman in question might ever be able to guess. Because of that fact and that nurture he was a most important link, I am tempted to say the most important link in the final will united to victory of the Allies. c t . t c c c a I c t at » « * t « «• • * It a • Missions of the Moravians in North Carolina Among Southern Indian Tribes By Edmund Schwarze, Ph.D. Pastor Calvai-y Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, N. C. History and fiction of which the American Indian is the subject are invested with peculiar fascination and interest. Those who remember
Object Description
Description
Title | Proceedings of the twenty-second annual session of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina |
Other Title | Proceedings of the 22nd annual session of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina |
Date | 1923 |
Table Of Contents | Includes American Revolution and reform in the South; When the tide began to turn for popular education in North Carolina, 1890-1900; Two Wake County editors whose work has influenced the world; Missions of the Moravians of North Carolina among the southern Indian tribes; Concerning a history of North Carolina administrative departments; Use of books and libraries in North Carolina; Cult of the second best. |
Digital Characteristics-A | 101 p.; 8.47 MB |
Series | Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission; Bulletin no. 30 of the North Carolina Historical Commission |
Pres File Name-M | pubs_slnc_serial_minutesncliterary1922.pdf; publicationsofno1920nort.pdf |
Pres Local File Path-M | Preservation_content\StatePubs\pubs_slnc\images_master |
Full Text | PROCEEDINGS OF THE Twenty-second Annual Session OF THE State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina RALEIGH DECEMBER 7-8, 1922 Compiled by R. B. HOUSE, Secretary 3 -J J ) 5 5 3 > i •) -> :> ~> 0)3 3 J ) 3 3 >3 * ' 3 3 5 3 > 3 , 3 3 3 > 3 3 3 ' !< 3 RALEIGH Bynum Printing Company State Printers 1923 The North Carolina Historical Commission T. M. PiTTMAN, Chairman, Henderson M. C. S. Noble, Chapel Hill Heriot Clarkson, Charlotte Frank Wood, Edenton W. N. Everett, Raleigh D. H. Hill, Secretary, Raleigh R. B, House, Archivist, Raleigh c ' c < r c ' * * c c < c < Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina 1921-1922 President William K. Boyd, Durham. First Vice-President S. A. Ashe, Raleigh. Second Vice-President Mrs. D. H. Blair, Greensboro. Third Vice-President John Jordan Douglass, Wadesboro. Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh. Executive Committee (With above officers) W. C. Jackson, Greensboro. D. H. Hill, Raleigh, J. G. deR. Hamilton, Chapel Hill Clarence Poe, Raleigh. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. 1922-1923 President Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem. First Vice-President Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire, Raleigh. Second Vice-President Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest. Third Vice-President Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, Raleigh. Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh. Executive Committee (With above officers) R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. W. K. Boyd, Chapel Hill. Gen. J. S. Carr, Durham. Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh, John J. Blair, Raleigh. PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION "The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of State litera-ture and history ; "The encouragement of public and school libraries ; "The establishment of an historical museum ; "The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people ; "The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina ; and "The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising genera-tions." ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of the Association. The dues are one dollar a year, to be paid to the secretary. RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ( Organized October, 1900 ) Fiscal Paid-up Years Presidents Secretaries Membership 1900-1901 Walter Clark Alex. J. Feild 150 1901-1902 Henry G. Connor Alex. J. Feild 139 1902-1903 W. L. PoTEAT George S. Fraps 73 1903-1904 C. Alphonso Smith Clarence Poe 127 1904-1905 Robert W. Winston Clarence Poe 109 1905-1906 Charles B. Aycock Clarence Poe 185 1906-1907 W. D. Pruden Clarence Poe 301 1907-1908 Robert Bingham Clarence Poe 273 1908-1909 Junius Davis , Clarence Poe 311 1909-1910 Platt D. Walker Clarence Poe 440 1910-1911 Edward K. Graham Clarence Poe 425 1911-1912 R. D.W.Connor Clarence Poe 479 1912-1913 W. P. Few R. D. W. Connor 476 1913-1914 Archibald Henderson R. D. W. Connor 435 1914-1915 Clarence Poe R. D. W. Connor 412 1915-1916 Howard E. Rondthaler R. D. W. Connor 501 1916-1917 H.A.London R. D. W. Connor 521 1917-1918 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 453 1918-1919 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 377 1919-1920 J. G. deR. Hamilton R. D. W. Connor 493 1920-1921 D.H.Hill R. B. House 430 1921-1922 W.K.Boyd R. B. House 430 1922-1923 Adelaide lliiEs R. B. House 450 THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP Established 1905 ; discontinued 1922 The Conditions of Award Officially Set Forth by Mrs. Patterson To the President and Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina: As a memorial to my father, and with a view to stimulating effort among the writers of North Carolina, and to awaken among the people of the State an interest in their own literature, I desire to present to your Society a loving cup, upon the following stipulations, which I trust will meet with your ap-proval and will be found to be just and practicable : 1. The cup will be known as the "William Houston Patterson Memorial Cup." 2. It will be awarded at each annual meeting of your Association for ten successive years, beginning with October, 1905, 3. It will be given to that resident of the State who during the twelve months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the year of the award has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard to its length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius. The work must be published during the said twelve months, and no manuscript nor any unpublished writings will be considered. 4. The name of the successful competitor will be engraved upon the cup, with the date of award, and it will remain in his possession until October 1st of the following year, when it shall be returned to the Treasurer of the Association, to be by him held in trust until the new award of your annual meeting that month. It will become the permanent possession of the one winning it oftenest during the ten years, provided he shall have won it three times. Should no one, at the expiration of that period, have won it so often, the competition shall continue until that result is reached. The names of only those competitors who shall be living at the time of the final award shall be considered in the permanent disposition of the cup. 5. The Board of Award shall consist of the President of the Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina, who will act as chairman, and of the occupants of the chairs of English Literature at the University of North Carolina, at Davidson College, at Wake Forest College, and at the State Col-lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Raleigh, and of the chairs of History at the University of North Carolina and Trinity College. 6. If any of these gentlemen should decline or be unable to serve, their successors shall be appointed by the remaining members of the board, and these appointees may act for the whole unexpired term or for a shorter time, as the board may determine. Notice of the inability of any member to act must be given at the beginning of the year during which he declines to serve, so that there may be a full committee during the entire term of each year. 7. The publication of a member of the board will be considered and passed upon in the same manner as that of any other writer. Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson. SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION According to a resolution adopted at the 19€8 session of tlie Literary and Historical Association, it is also provided that no author desiring to have his work considered in connection with the award of the cup shall communicate with any member of the committee, either personally or through a representa-tive. Books or other publications to be considered, together with any com-munication regarding them, must be sent to the Secretary of the Association and by him presented to the chairman of the committee for consideration. AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP 1905 John Chaeles McNeill, for poems later reprinted in book form as "Songs, Merry and Sad." 1906 Edwin Mims, for "Life of Sidney Lanier." 1907 Kemp Plummer Battle, for "History of the University of North Caro-lina." 1908 — Samuel A'Court Ashe, for "History of North Carolina." 1909 Clarence Poe, for "A Southerner in Europe." 1910—R. D. W. Connor, for "Cornelius Harnett : An Essay in North Carolina History." 1911 Archibald Henderson, for "George Bernard Shaw : His Life and Works." 1912—Clarence Poe, for "Where Half the World is Waking Up." 1913 Horace Kephart, for "Our Southern Highlanders." 1914—J. G. deR. Hamilton, for "Reconstruction in North Carolina." 1915 William Louis Poteat, for "The New Peace." 1916—No award. 1917 Mrs. Olive Tilford Dargan, for "The Cycle's Rim." 1918—No award. 1919—No award. 1920 Miss Winifred Kirkland, for "The New Death." 1921—No award. 1922 Josephus Daniels, for "Our Navy at War." FINAL DISPOSITION OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP Raleigh, N. C, March 16, 1923. Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson, Winston-Salem, N. C. Dear Mrs. Patterson :—At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical Association yesterday, it was decided to discontinue tlie award of the Patterson Memorial Cup and to deposit the cup as a per-manent memorial in the Hall of History. This decision was reached only after it had been ascertained that such disposition was agreeable to you. As you will remember, the original contest was to continue for ten years, with the idea that if any one author should win the cup three times it would become his property. Although Dr. Clarence Poe won the cup twice, the con-dition of winning it three times was not met by any one author. The contest was therefore continued indefinitely, at the discretion of the executive com-mittee. The following situation has arisen : the space on the cup for engrav-ing the names of the winners has been entirely filled, and since the cup has met adequately the purpose for which it was established, it is deemed best to establish the cup, as it is now engraved, as a permanent memorial in the Hall of History. The effectiveness of the cup as a stimulant to literary effort in North Caro-lina will be clear to you from the record of its award. In retiring the cup, the executive committee reserves the right to establish again, as soon as practicable, some other form of literary reward, so that it will gratify you to know that the idea established by you in the award of the Patterson Cup is likely to be a permanent stimulant to literary effort in the State. It is hardly necessary to express to you the deep appreciation, not only of the Literary and Historical Association itself, but of all the people of North Carolina, for your sincere interest and cooperation in the purposes of the State Literary and Historical Association. With best wishes and highest regards, Sincerely yours, Adelaide Fries, President. R. B. House, Secretary. WHAT THE ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE; SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT 1. Rural libraries. 2. ''North Carolina Day" in the schools. 3. The North Carolina Historical Commission. 4. Vance statue in Statuary Hall. 5. Fireproof State Library Building and Hall of Records. 6. Civil War battlefields marked to show North Carolina's record. 7. North Carolina's war record defended and war claims vindicated. 8. Patterson Memorial Cup. Contents Page Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session . 9 The American Revolution and Reform in the South, by W. K. Boyd 14 When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Caro-lina, 1890-1900, by John E. White 33 Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World, by Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain 45 Missions of the Moravians of North Carolina Among the Southern Indian Tribes, by Edmund Schwarze 53 Concerning a History of North Carolina Administrative Departments, by C. C. Pearson , 70 Use of Books and Libraries in North Carolina, by L. R. Wilson 73 North Carolina Bibliography, 1921-1922, by Mary B. Palmer 87 The Cult of the Second Best, by Walter Lippmann 90 Members, 1921-1922 97 Proceedings and Addresses of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session Raleigh, December 7-8, 1922 Thursday Evening, December 7th The twenty-second annual session of the State Literary and Histori-cal Association of JSTorth Carolina was called to order in the auditorium of the Woman's Club of Raleigh, Thursday evening, December 7th, at 8 o'clock, with President W. K, Boyd in the chair. The session was opened with invocation by Rev. Henry G. Lane, pastor of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Raleigh. Dr. Boyd then read the annual ad-dress of the president. He was followed by Dr. John E. White, Presi-dent of Anderson College, who addressed the Association on "When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in l^orth Carolina, 1890- 1900." After Dr. White's address there was a reception for the mem-bers of the Association, the Folk Lore Society, and their guests, in the Club Building. Friday Morning, December 8th The Friday morning session, December 8th, was called to order by President Boyd at 11 o'clock a. m., in the House of Representatives. The President presented to the Association Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, of Raleigh, who read a paper entitled, "Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World." She was followed by Dr. Edmund Schwarze, of Winston-Salem, who read a paper on "Missions of the Moravians in l^orth Carolina Among Southern Indian Tribes." The President then presented Dr. C. C. Pearson, of Wake Forest College, who read a paper on "Concerning a History of IN^orth Carolina Admin-istrative Departments." He was followed by Dr. L. R. Wilson, of the University of N'orth Carolina, whose subject v/as "Use of Books and Libraries in l^orth Carolina." Miss Mary B. Palmer, who was to read the bibliography of ISTprth Carolina for the year 1921-1922, was unable to be present. She sent in her paper for publication, and Miss Carrie L. Broughton, State Librarian, made an exhibit of books of the year. L 10 Twenty-second Annual Session At the conclusion of tlie exercises the following business was trans-acted : The president appointed the following : Committee on Nominations—W. C. Jackson, W. W. Pierson, Miss Carrie L. Broughton. Committee on Resolutions—D. H. Hill, Marshall DeL. Haywood, Charles Lee Smith. Committee on a North Carolina Poetry Society—C. A. Hibbard, Miss I^ell B. Lewis, Roger McCutcheon, Gerald Johnson. This last committee was appointed in response to the following resolution : "Having canvassed the situation, and feeling that there is a definite interest in the criticism and writing of verse, we respectfully petition the President of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association to appoint a com-mittee of organization with a view to promoting a poetry society for North Carolina. ,,,^ ^ ^. "N. I. White, "Nell Battle Lewis, "John Jordan Douglass, "C. A. Hibbard, Chairman." General Julian S. Carr obtained the floor on behalf of the Sir Walter Raleigh Memorial Committee. In the course of his remarks he endorsed in high terms the services of W. J. Peele in the work on the memorial and as a founder of ISTorth Carolina State College, and the Literary and Historical Association. He offered the following resolution, which was carried : Resolved, That the movement inaugurated by the North Carolina Historical Society in the year 1902 to erect a memorial to Sir Walter Raleigh in the city of Raleigh be properly reorganized and recognized by this Society. Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton offered the following resolution, which was carried : "We, the North Carolina Society, Daughters of the Revolution, wish to express ourselves as solidly behind the movement to erect the Sir Walter Raleigh monument, and will do everything possible to assist General Carr and others interested in this movement. (Signed) "Mary Hilliard Hinton, Regent. "Nina Holland Covington, Recording Secretary." >- State Literary and Historical Association 11 This was followed by a tliird resolution made by Dr. J. Y. Joyner, and carried, as follows : Moved, that General Carr be made Chairman of the Sir Walter Raleigh Memorial Committee of twenty-five, and that the chairman, the incoming president and the secretary of this association be authorized to select and announce the other members of this committee. The president, through the secretary, reported the following revised constitution, which was carried unanimously : NAME This association shall be called the State Literary and Historical Associa-tion of North Carolina. PURPOSES The purposes of this association shall be the collection, preservation, pro-duction, and dissemination of our State literature and history ; the encourage-ment of public and school libraries ; the establishment of an historical museum ; the inculcation of a literary spirit among our people ; the correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina ; and the engender-ing of a healthy State pride among the rising generations. OFFICERS The officers of the association shall be a president, first, second, and third vice-presidents, and a secretary, whose terms of office shall be for one year and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. They shall be elected by the association at its annual meetings, except that vacancies in any office may be filled by the executive committee until the meeting of the association occurring next thereafter. The president shall preside over all the meetings of the association, and appoint all members of committees, except where it is otherwise provided, and look after the general interest of the association. In case of the death or resignation of the president, his successor shall be selected by the executive committee from the vice-presidents. The secretary shall be the administrative officer of the association. He shall keep the books and funds, receive money for the association, and dis-burse it for purposes authorized by the executive committee. He shall strive by all practicable means to increase the membership and influence of the association. COMMITTEES There shall be an executive committee, composed of the president, the sec-retary, and six others, two of whom shall be appointed each year by the incoming president, to serve three years : Provided, that at the annual ses-sion, 1922, four members shall be elected by the association, as follows : two members to serve one year, and two to serve two years. The president, sec-retary, and any other three members shall constitute a quorum for the trans-action of business. 12 Twenty-second Annual Session The executive committee shall make programs and arrangements for all meetings of the association, supervise all business matters, receive all reports of officers, endeavor especially to secure from philanthropic citizens donations toward a permanent fund of endowment, and in general promote the purpose of the association. The executive committee shall be subject to the general supervision of the association. There shall be such other committees appointed by the president to serve during his term of office for such time and such purposes as he shall see fit. MEMBERSHIP All persons interested in its purposes and desiring to have a part in pro-moting them are eligible to membership in the association. They will be duly enrolled upon receipt of the annual membership fee. FEES The annual membership fee shall be one dollar, to be paid to the secretary. MEETINGS There shall be one regular annual meeting, the time and place of which shall be determined by the executive committee. Other meetings may be arranged by the executive committee. AUXILIARY SOCIETIES Auxiliary societies may be organized, with the advice of, and under the supervision of, the executive committee. Fkiday Afternoon, December 8th In the rooms of the iSTorth Carolina Historical Commission, Chair-man W. C. Jackson called to order a conference of I*^orth Carolina his-tory teachers. Discussion was led by Mr. Charles L. Coon and Mr. Guy B. Phillips, and participated in by numerous teachers of history. The conference was held Friday afternoon, December 8th. Friday Evening, December 8th On Friday evening, December 8th, President Boyd called the meeting to order in the auditorium of Meredith College. He presented Prof. Louis Graves, of the University of ISTorth Carolina, who presented the speaker of the evening, Mr. Walter Lippmann, of the 'New York World. Mr. Lippmann read a paper on "The Cult of the Second Best," after which there was brief discussion by question and answer between Mr. Lippmann and his audience. At the conclusion of the address Dr. T. P. Harrison, of the State College, in a brief and graceful speech rendered the report of the Patterson Cup Committee, awarding the cup for 1922 to Hon. Josephus Daniels, for his book, "Our l^avy at War." State Literary and Historical Association 13 The Committee on Resolutions reported the following resolution, which was carried : Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina commends the establishment of county libraries, and urges county authorities to consider this plan as the most feasible to promote county-wide library service. D. H. Hill, Chairman. The Committee on ^dominations reported as follows : Officers: President—Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem; 1st Vice- President—Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh; 2d Vice-President — Dr. Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest; 3d Vice-President—Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, Raleigh; Secretary—R. B. House, Raleigh. Members of the Executive Committee: R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill; W. K. Boyd, Durham; Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh; C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest. The Association adjourned sine die. ADDRESSES The American Revolution and Reform in the South By Wm.. K. Boyd President State Literary and Historical Association The past decade lias witnessed a profound change in the public opinion and policies of the United States. In 1914 we had placed new wine in old bottles and under the domination of a party noted for its conservatism we were experimenting with governmental supervision of business and finance, adopting a new program of taxation, and con-sidering certain measures leading to social democracy; then toward the end of the World War we championed a policy of international co-operation. Today we have reached a point of extreme reaction. Alarmed at the forces unloosed by the cataclysm in Europe we have conceived a nebulous state of normalcy; for national self-preservation we have retired behind the cloak of isolation, political and economic. Alarmed at the prevalence of new political and social ideals, free speech is limited, free teaching is restricted, personal liberty to travel to and fro is denied, and the alien is restrained from seeking in America a refuge from old world conditions. Moreover, in reaction against any-thing new we have fallen back in national administration into the old trough dedicated to the sacred theory of the separation of the powers. Today we stand as the most conservative rather than the most progres-sive and forward-looking of the great nations of the world. The present confusion in opinion, the uncertainty in the national state of mind, should be stimulating to those who are historically minded. This is not the first period in our national life when existing institutions and the social structure have been questioned ; by no means the first time when some have turned blindly to the ancient landmarks and others have sought an anchorage in new principles. While history never repeats and comparisons are always dangerous, there are certain phenomena of parallel interest with the present turmoil and uncer-tainty; and today the conservative and the radical could do no better than to recall and examine from the angle of institutional reform and social change that decade which saw the birth of the Republic. For the American Revolution was not merely a revolt against the mother country resulting in independence; it also unloosed forces in America that few foresaw at the beginning of the struggle, and these forces State Literaky and Historical Association 15 produced changes at home as profound and lasting as did the entry of a new member into the family of nations. And nowhere were those changes more apparent than in the Southern States. It was by virtue of the leadership taken in the reform of social and institutional life that the South was enabled to assert its great influence in shaping the affairs of the nation during the generation after the war; for states-manship is never bred in a static atmosphere; for it the spirit of dynamic change is essential; and nowhere in America was that spirit stronger in the later eighteenth century than in the South. I take therefore as the theme of my address the spirit of the Ameri-can Revolution and its reaction on the institutional and social struc-ture of the South, the conflict between conservatism and radicalism during that epoch-making period in this our home region. To that end, let us first consider the background which precipitated the issues. From the early days down to 1776 certain fundamental influences shaped Southern society. First of these was that of family. In no other region of English America did kinship, locality, and descent have quite the importance that prevailed south of the Potomac. For this there were various reasons. One was economic. In the pioneer days land was granted by headrights. Once the land was surveyed and entered, wife and children were also of value in clearing the forest, cultivating the soil, and in administering the property. Social de-mands also made the family of distinct value. There were few amuse-ments, and the distance from settlement to settlement was great. There-fore if relaxation or a change from immediate surroundings was de-sired, family and kindred were the only opportunity. Blood rela-tionship meant companionship, sympathy, and that relaxation which later ages have found in golf clubs and pleasure resorts. To the same end worked a tradition brought from the old world. IN^o worthier ambition occurred to an Englishman than to found a family which would preserve its identity from generation to generation. In the South encouragement in that purpose existed in the land law. Gen-erally the property of persons dying intestate passed to the oldest son, and this custom of the law stimulated testators to give preference to one heir over others. Moreover, it was possible through entails to insure inheritance in one line of descent. So the unity of family prop-erty was established, and on the basis of that unity there developed an aristocracy of land and family. Thus economic conditions, the need for companionship, tradition and the law gave to the family a peculiar position; indeed in the South the family had something of the sanctity enjoyed by the church in New England. It was in the home, not the church, that the great epochs of human life were usually celebrated; 16 Twenty-second Annual Session there occurred the christenings and marriages, there in garden or neighboring field was the burial ground, and often the only churches of the community were the private chapels of the great landowners. The family was the inner shrine of southern life. Second only to the family in importance was the system of local government. Indeed the two were intimately connected. In England a part of the family ideal was for one or more members to take an active part in public affairs. This tradition followed the colonists to the new world, and in the South the opportunity was at hand in the county court, the prevailing unit of local government. Though vary-ing as to detail from colony to colony, the county court everywhere had this in common : its members, the justices of the peace, were appointed, not elected. The other officers of the county were also appointed, either by the court or by the Governor. The powers of these justices were not merely judicial; they were also governmental and administrative. To be a county justice was a position of no mean importance, and it is no wonder that well-established families centered their attention first of all on membership in the county court. Generation after generation members of the same family were to be found on the local bench. The office was a stepping-stone to other positions; to the Legislature, the governor's council, and the office of sheriff. Thus there developed a ruling class whose members were bound to each other by ties of public service. Its support was indispensable to any one desiring to enter public life. Like England, also, was the law. Each colony inherited the common law and the statutes enacted by Parliament before its foundation. Local conditions made possible many modifications of this principle. In IsTew England, especially, there were many variations, but in the South there was a larger fidelity to English heritage. The law of inheritance and wills, equity and the land law, procedure and the division of the courts into courts of law and courts of equity—^these matters illustrate the fidelity to British jurisprudence. How strong was the example of con-temporary England is well illustrated by the application of benefit of clergy. This custom of the law, by which severe penalties for crime were ameliorated, was adopted in Virginia. In 1732, in language almost identical with that of the statute of 5 Anne 6, the Virginia Legislature declared : If any person be convicted of felony, for which he ought to have the benefit of clergy, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act, he shall not be required to read, but, without any reading, shall be allowed, taken, and reputed to be, and punished as, a clerk convict. State Literary and Historical Association 17 Thus branding and corporal punishment became a substitute for hanging by the neck until dead in offenses that were clergiable. This adaptation of English practice was not confined to Virginia; it was found also in the Carolinas and Georgia, and was not abolished until long after the Revolution. An important element in the colonial life of the South was religion. The warm climate, the close contact of the people with the forces of nature, and the comparative loneliness due to sparse settlements begot a peculiar emotional temperament. This was a good background for religious thought and feeling; for solitude leads to introspection, nature suggests an unseen presence, and warmth of climate creates a suscepti-bility to emotional appeal. Unfortunately the history of religion was characterized by a contest between privilege and equality. In Vir-ginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, the Church of England was estab-lished and the law of the time discriminated in its favor. The persecution of Puritans and the exclusion of Quakers in Virginia during the seventeenth century, and the question of the extension of the Toleration Act to Dissenters in the eighteenth century, are familiar themes in the colony's history. More than this, the law of Virginia declared that any one brought up in the Christian faith who denied the being of God or the Trinity, that the Christian religion is true, or that the scriptures are of divine authority should lose his capacity to hold office on first conviction, on a second his right to sue, receive gifts and legacies, or to serve as guardian or executor, and he was also to suffer three years' imprisonment. In l^orth Carolina the clergymen not of the established Church were subject to militia and road service, and in South Carolina the parish organization was made a unit of civil government whereby the low country controlled the alien settlements of the frontier. In spite of these discriminations the Dis-senters increased in numbers until they were in the majority and the contest between England and the colonies which ushered in the Revolu-tion was paralleled by a controversy no less notable between the Angli-cans and Dissenters for toleration and equality before the law. Education and intellectual life also bore the stamp of old world tra-ditions. The English ideal that education is the function of the family and the individual except in the case of indigent children prevailed. Hence it was that the only provision for public education in colonial law was exactly that which also existed in England, the training of indigent children and orphans through apprenticeship. Suggestive of England also was the foundation of privately supported or endowed free schools to which poor children were usually admitted free. A 18 Twenty-second Annual Session number of these free schools were to be found in Virginia and South Carolina, and in the latter colony such schools were supported by clubs or societies. The nature of the curriculum in these institutions is unknown, but an advertisement for a master to teach a free school in Princess Anne County in 1784 required of the candidate ability to teach the Latin and Greek languages and surveying. It is not diffi-cult to see in these schools an effort to duplicate in America the work of the endowed grammar schools in England. A few academies identi-fied with the Church of England existed. There were also academies established by the Presbyterian clergy of the Carolinas in the genera-tion preceding the Revolution; but their growth and expansion was limited by the policy of the British Government which would not permit them to be chartered. Indeed, toward the support of schools by public money the British Government was strongly averse; money emitted for that purpose by the I^orth Carolina Assembly in 1754 and spent for the colonial cause in the French and Indian War was not refunded. Yet there was a high type of intellectual life among the large planters. In South Carolina the dominant interest was science and medicine. In Virginia it was law and philosophy, and politics. Robert Carter read philosophy with his wife; Jefferson also dabbled in the subject; the opinions of the Virginia jurists show a wide knowledge of the English common law; and surely no profounder student of politics lived than Madison. "In spite of the Virginian's love for dissipation," wrote Lian-court, "the taste for reading is commoner there, among men of the first class than in any other part of America." However, intellectual life did not find expression in the production of books, rather it found an outlet through the spoken word. Politics and litigation were something more than a personal stake; they were a game to be played for the game's sake, methods of intellectual discipline. There was thus injected into public affairs a sort of splendid disinterestedness. It was this phase of southern character that William Ellery Channing had in mind when he wrote from Richmond in 1799 : I blush for my own people when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yan-kee with the genuine confidence of a Virginian. . . . There is one single trait that attaches me to the people I live with more than all the virtues of New England : they love money less than we do ; they are more disinterested ; their patriotism is not tied to their pursestrings. Social conditions were characterized by privilege based not on blood, but on wealth. I^^owhere in America were there greater inequalities, and of these inequalities Virginia was most notable. Wrote Isaac Weld : State Literary and Historical Association 19 Instead of the land being equally divided, numerous estates are held by a few individuals, who derive large incomes from them, whilst the generality of the people are in a state of mediocrity. Most of the men, also, who possess these large estates, having secured a liberal education, which the others have not, the distinction between them is still more observable. (Travels, I, 146.) These words aptly describe the larger planter class—a class so numer-ous in South Carolina, less extensive in ISTorth Carolina, and barely existent in Georgia. But there was also a large middle class, small planters and farmers, professional men, mechanics and yoemen. They composed at least half of the population in Virginia and more than half in ISTorth Carolina. Many of them accumulated property or attained intellectual distinction, and thereby rose into the ranks of the aris-tocracy. One can almost identify this class by the descriptions of their houses, as when a traveler mentions houses built of wood, with wooden chimneys coated with clay, whose owners "being in general ignorant of the comfort of reading and writing, they want nothing in their whole house but a bed, dining-room, and a drawing-room for company." Finally there were the poor whites—rude, shiftless, and unambitious. "It is in this country that I saw poor persons for the first time after I passed the sea," wrote Chastellux, "the presence of wretched, miser-able huts inhabited by whites whose wan looks and ragged garments indicated the direst poverty." However, the proportion of this class to the total population was less "than in any other country of the uni-verse." ]^ot poverty per se, but the contrast between poverty and riches impressed the observer. Between Richmond and Fredericksburg one might meet a "family party traveling along in as elegant a coach as is usually met with in the neighborhood of London, and attended by several gayly dressed footmen." He might also meet a "ragged black boy or girl driving a lean cow and a mule; sometimes a lean bull or two, riding or driving as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon, if it may be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the team and its driver." Regarding class distinctions and class feeling we have little informa-tion from the natives themselves, especially from members of the humbler class. Preeminent among such accounts is the testimony of Devereux Jarrett, a Methodist minister : We were accustomed to look upon what were called gentle folks as beings of a superior order. For my part, I was quite shy of them and kept off at a humble distance. A periwig in those days was a distinguishing badge of gentle folks, and when I saw a man riding the road, near our house, with a wig on, it would so alarm my fears and give me such a disagreeable feeling that I dare say I would run off as for my life. Such ideas of the difference between gentle and simple were, I believe, universal among my rank. {Life, p. 14.) 20 Twenty-second Annual Session That slavery tended to intensify class distinctions is an axiom to wliich Jefferson bore ample testimony. But to tlie serious inquirer tlie more notable characteristic of Southern slavery in the later eighteenth century was its unprofitableness and a widespread desire to see it abol-ished. Weld wrote: The number of slaves increased most rapidly, so that there is scarcely any State but what is overstocked. This is a circumstance complained of by every planter, as the maintenance of more than are requisite for the culture of the estate is attended with great expense. (Travels, I, 147.) In 1774 the wife of Robert Carter agreed with Philip Fithian, the family tutor, that if all the slaves were sold on the plantation, and the money put at interest, there would be a "greater yearly income than what is now received from their working the lands," to say nothing of the risk and trouble assumed by the master as to crops and negroes. And this opinion was confirmed in greater detail by St. George Tucker in 1804: It would be a very high estimate should one suppose the generality of farmers to make ten per cent per annum upon the whole value of their lands and slaves. I incline to believe that very few exceed eight per cent, and out of this the clothing and provisions of their slaves and horses employed in making the crop ought to be deducted. A net profit of five per cent is proba-bly more than remains to one in twenty for the support of himself and his family. If he wants money to increase his stock, even the legal demands and speculators' pay, without scruple will amount to fourfold, perhaps tenfold, his profits. (Comnientaries on Blackstone.) In South Carolina also there was a similar sentiment. LaRochefou-cauld- Liancourt, writing in 1799, made a careful estimate of the eco-nomic profits of slave labor in that State and concluded that it was $68 per head and that white labor would bring a larger return. , This condition was one basis of a widespread desire to see slavery abolished. Finch wrote: Before I visited the Southern States, I supposed that all the planters were in favor of the system of slavery. But I did not meet with a single indi-vidual who did not regret having this species of property, and shew a wish to remedy it, if there was any possible mode by which it could be accomplished. (Travels, 240.) Said E-ussel Goodrich before the Alexandria Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, in 1791 : But let our planters become farmers—it would be a memorable idea ; our fields, touched with a magic wand, would bloom ; our slaves become freemen ; our improvement excite universal attention. State Litekaey and Historical Association 21 Such were the institutions and economic conditions peculiar to the South in the eighteenth century. It was a land of many contrasts. Political oligarchies ruled, yet there was a certain disinterested devo-tion to the public service, and the section's greatest contribution to national life was in the domain of political thought. Refinement and culture of a high type existed, but along with it much ignorance and coarseness. Love of liberty was challenged by the existence of chattel slavery. The bounty of nature was rebuked by wasteful production. Souls susceptible to religious appeal were steeped in material aims and deistic philosophy. What traits of character distinguished the South-erner from his neighbor northward? What kind of men and women did such conditions produce? The answer is suggested by a remark of Bernard in his Retrospects. Speaking of the Virginia planters he says, "Like the old feudal barons, their whole life is a temptation through absence of restraint." Life in a vast, bountiful and unde-veloped region, life in intimate contact with the blind forces of nature, life without the limitations of a small unit of local government, life without adequate means of intellectual discipline or adequate religious institutions, life with hosts of dependent servile blacks; under such conditions character was molded with no restraint from without; men and women developed according to the dictates of emotion and will. Thus the Southerner was notable for his individuality, for his non-conformity to type or pattern. This individuality, resulting from ab-sence of restraint, in turn produced certain traits well outlined by Thomas Jefferson when contrasting N'orthern and Southern character: N. S. cool fiery sober voluptuous laborious indolent persevering unsteady independent independent jealous of their own liberties zealous for liberty, but trampling and just to those of others. on that of others. Upon such a region and such a people the American Revolution had a profound reaction. Its justification was found in the compact theory of government popularized by the Declaration of Independence. That all men are created equal meant, in the light of the revenue controversy, equality of economic liberties. That all governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed meant in the relation of colonies to the mother country, self-governing but component parts of a British Empire. These were concepts which only radicals and obscure J I 22 Twenty-second Annual Session men then grasped ; wlien they were rejected by the authorities in power independence was the only alternative. But when the choice of inde-pendence was made, what were the implications of that equality and that government by consent to the citizens of the states in revolt? Spe-cifically, what were their implications in a section with a well-established landed aristocracy, ruled by petty judicial oligarchies, more English than American in its system of law, without educational opportunities for all, where the concept of liberty was challenged by chattel slavery and religion was characterized by the privilege of one denomination? It is worthy of note that the man who more than any other realized the contrast between the political theory of the Revolution and the institutions and conditions peculiar to the South was Thomas Jeffer-son. Within three months after the Declaration was adopted he re-signed from the Continental Congress, returned to Virginia, and be-came a member of the Legislature with the distinct purpose of agitating democratic reform. He says: When I left Congress, in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our wliole code must be revised, adapted to our republican form of government, and now that we had no negations or councils, governors and kings to restrain us from doing right, that it should be corrected in all its parts, with a single eye to reason, and the good of those for whose government it was formed. {Memoir.) In one direction the course of reform was already under way, that of religious freedom. In June the Virginia Convention had adopted a constitution, and in the Bill of Rights there was a declaration that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience." This meant the abolition of religious discrimination, that persecutions were no longer possible, and that men of all religious persuasions could participate in government if they met the proper secular tests. It was far in advance of ]N"orth Caro-lina's, for there the right to hold office was denied to those who rejected the being of Grod, the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old and ISTew Testaments. In Georgia, likewise, the constitution of 1777 declared for freedom of religion but required all members of the Legislature to be of the Protestant religion, and not until 1790 was the principle of religious freedom fully triumphant in South Carolina. Thus Virginia led the South; moreover it led the nation, for in no other of the first state constitutions was the principle of unrestricted religious freedom enun-ciated ; only Rhode Island, which continued its colonial charter, reached a similar plane. More than this, the Virginia declaration was the first of the kind to be embodied in a modern constitution anywhere. State Literary and Historical Association 23 However a question of equal importance was not settled, the relation-ship between the State and the established church. Many of the Dis-senters held that the Virginia declaration destroyed that relationship; the Anglicans that it did not. Thus when the Legislature assembled in October there were many petitions; some, mainly from Presbyterians and Baptists, prayed for a final separation of church and state; others, submitted by Anglicans and members of the Methodist societies, asked for a continuation of the establishment. Of the committee to which these were referred Jefferson was a member. His sympathies were entirely for disestablishment, but against him were Edmund Pen-dleton, the jurist, and Robert Carter Nicholas, patriot. For two months there was a deadlock. Then as a compromise the English statutes which made criminal religious opinions were declared invalid, the Dis-senters were exempted from the payment of church taxes, and all others were likewise exempted for one year. This was practically, but not theoretically, disestablishment. Coercion over opinion had previously gone, and taxes now relinquished were never reimposed. It is somewhat difficult for us today to realize the significance of these changes in organic law. The men who promoted them were of English extraction, and for a thousand years there had been in the mother country an established church, the acknowledgment in law and institutions of national allegiance to God. For a group of provincials, English in origin and tradition, ruthlessly and suddenly to sever the historic relationship between religion and government marked them as radicals. States embarking on such a policy were entering an uncharted sea and there were grave predictions as to the future. In fact in Vir-ginia many believed that standards of conduct were lowered and the morals of the people corrupted by this break Avith the past. Typical was Richard Henry Lee. He wrote: Refiners may weave reason into as fine a fabric as tliey please, but the experience of all times shows religion to be the guardian of morals ; and he must be a very inattentive observer in our country who does not see that avarice is accomplishing the destruction of religion for want of legal obliga-tion to contribute something to its support. (Lee, Lee, II, 5.) l^aturally the traditionalists gathered strength and in 1784 they sub-mitted to the Legislature two measures, one to incorporate such religious societies as would apply for incorporation, the other that the people ought to pay "a moderate tax or contribution annually for the support of the Christian religion." Both these resolutions were adopted and the Episcopal Church, applying for incorporation, was promptly chartered. However the second resolution, calling for taxation, required a statute; 24 Twenty-second Annual Session through the influence of Madison the bill was deferred until the next session in order to sound the sentiment of the people. There followed a notable campaign, and when the Legislature next met it was evident that Virginians had spoken against any renewal of church taxes. Taking advantage of the situation, a bill for religious freedom written by Jeffer-son was introduced and was adopted. It established nothing new; but it did state in form of statute the ideal of complete religious liberty; while toleration widely existed no State hitherto had enacted that prin-ciple into statute law. This distinction again belongs to Virginia. The incorporation of the Episcopal Church was repealed, and this was fol-lowed by the policy of confiscating its property, a process not completed until 1802. In one other Southern state the religious problem proved serious. That was South Carolina. There disestablishment was a political issue bound up with the reform of representation. The constitution of 1777 made a compromise. The privilege of the Anglican Church was re-moved by admitting other churches to incorporation, but the ideal of a relationship between religion and government was preserved, for it declared that the Christian Protestant religion should be the religion of the State and every member of the House of Representatives should be of that faith. This was not in harmony with the democratic spirit of the time and in 1790 the religious qualification was abolished and the free exercise of religion was guaranteed. What was the significance of this controversy over religious liberty and disestablishment ? It was something more than a contest for private judgment; it Avas a part of the democratic movement of the time, in-spired by the doctrine of the equality of man and the consent of the governed. It was also a phase of the contest for power between the tidewater and the piedmont regions. The results of the movement were vastly important. It reacted on the general state of culture. In 'New England intellectual life tended toward the spiritual; it was dominated by theology; in the South it was materialistic, leaning toward law, philosophy, and deism. I!^ow the triumph of religious liberty and dis-establishment at first strengthened the forces of materialism and deism, and the cause of religion, whether ritualistic or evangelical, was re-tarded. Said Isaac Weld : Throughout the lower part of Virginia—that is, between the mountains and the sea—the people have scarcely any sense of religion, and in the country the churches are falling into decay. As I rode along, I scarcely observed one that was not in a ruinous condition, with the windows broken, doors dropping off the hinges, and lying open to the pigs and cattle wandering about the weeds. State Litebaky and Historical Association 25 ^N'o greater revolution occurred in the life of the Southern people than that in the early years of the nineteenth century when, through a series of revivals, the mind of the masses was swung from the popular skepti-cism of the day to the fervid acceptance of the orthodox teachings of the evangelical churches. Finally the religious controversy had an influence on political his-tory. Jefferson espoused the cause of the religious liberty. He was widely denounced for this policy and his record was cited against him in the presidential campaigns of 1796 and 1800. Madison's share in the movement was also capitalized by his opponents. But both men had won the admiration and loyalty of thousands of Dissenters, who were for the most part small farmers and men of small means. It was therefore easy to organize them into opposition to an economic policy hostile to their interests, the policy best represented by the Hamiltonian financial measures. Indeed as a tribute to Jefferson a new church or-ganized in 1792 was named for his party, the Republican Methodist Church. The problem of religion was by no means the only reaction of the political philosophy of the Revolution on Southern society. Besides an established church there existed an aristocracy of wealth and politi-cal power. How far could it be justified during a war waged in behalf of equality of economic liberties and government by consent? Again the principal stage of the controversy was Virginia. There the basis of the aristocracy was the land law. Towards entails the policy of the colony was more conservative than England, for while entails might be docked by judicial proceeding in the mother country, in the colony an act of the legislature was essential unless the property was less than £200 in value. Primogeniture was strictly enforced and inheritance always descended. Because of entails and primogeniture there arose in tidewater Virginia "a distinct set of families" who formed a kind of patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and luxury of their establishments. From this order the King habitually selected his Coun-cillors of State, the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to the interests and will of the Crown. Indeed society tended to stratifica-tion. At the apex were the great landowners, protected by the laws of inheritance. Below them were the half breeds, younger sons who inherited the pride but not the wealth of their parents; next the pre-tenders, men who had acquired wealth and property by their own efforts and were anxious to rise into the aristocratic class. Finally were the yeomen or great mass of small farmers, caring little for social dis-tinction, on whom depended the real progress of Virginia. 26 Twenty-second Annual Session More distinctly than in the question of religion the leadership in land reform was assumed hj Jefferson. In October 1776, while the dis-cussion of the church question was under way, he introduced a bill "to enable tenants in taille to convey land in fee simple." After strenuous opposition it was adopted. At one stroke the privileged position of en-tailed property was overthrown, for, said the law, all that "hath or hereafter may have" an estate in fee taille should stand in possession of the same "in full and absolute fee simple." That so radical a measure should have been so readily adopted is remarkable ; it is ample evidence that the Revolution was more than a revolt against England. Jefferson's aim in changing the land law was to "make an opening for the aris-tocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions." But the abolition of entails Avas only the beginning of legal reform; there remained primogeniture, the criminal law, and the whole British heritage. These matters were referred to a committee of five. It made a report in 1779 ; only a few of its recommendations were then adopted, but in 1784 through the influence of Madison the report was published, and the second bulwark of landed aristocracy, primogeniture, was abolished. In its place was adopted a statute of descents. The eighteen clauses of this law are unsurpassed in all America as a species of revolt against British heritage. The rule of inheritance of the common law required the property of one dying intestate always to descend, never to ascend. A father could not inherit from a son, nor a grandfather from a grandson. Also the male issue was always preferred before the female ; if there were no male heir the female heirs inherited equally. On the failure of lineal descendants the only collateral relations who could inherit were those "of the blood of the first purchaser" ; that is, a kins-man, say a cousin of ten or twenty removes, would be preferred to a half brother. J^ow this whole structure of inheritance which had been built up in England and had been transplanted to Virginia, Avas swept away and intestate estates were directed to pass in equal shares to the children and their descendants; if there were none, to the father; if there was no father living, then to the mother, brothers, sisters, and their descendants; and if these were failing, the estate should be divided into two parts, one to go to the maternal kindred and the other to the paternal kindred. This law removed the last privilege of the landed aristocracy. Its author was Jefferson. In the committee on revision Pendleton opposed it and wished to preserve the tradition of primogeniture by adopting the Hebrew principle of giving "a double portion to the elder son." Says Jefferson : State Literary and Historical Association 27 I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double the work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion ; but being on a par in his power and wants with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the decision of the other members. Virginia was not alone in the reform of tlie land law. In South Carolina entails had been abolished in 1732 and in 1790 the rule of primogeniture was likewise set aside. Georgia in the constitution of 1777 prohibited primogeniture and required an equal division of prop-erty among the heirs. IN'ot until 1784 was the reform accomplished in JNTorth Carolina, but the change was not so drastic as elsewhere, for male heirs were given preference over females; subsequent laws of 1795 and 1808 placed the matter on a practical parity with Virginia law. That the course of land legislation influenced southern society pro-foundly was the conviction of native observers and foreign travellers. Not merely were existing entails destroyed, not merely was primogeni-ture abolished, but custom supported the principle. "The cases are rare, very rare," says Tucker, "in which a parent makes by his will a much more unequal division of property among his children than the law itself would make." Thus came a fairer distribution of wealth. There is no longer a class of persons possessed of large inherited estates, who, in a luxurious and ostentatious style of living, greatly exceed the rest of the community ; a much larger number of those who are wealthy have ac-quired their estates by their own talents or enterprise ; and most of these last are commonly content with reaching the average of that more moderate standard of expense which public opinion requires, rather than the higher scale which it tolerates. Thus there were formerly many in Virginia who drove a coach and six, and now such an equipage is never seen. There were probably twice or three times as many four-horse carriages before the Revo-lution as there are at present, but the number of two-horse carriages may be now ten or even twenty times as great as at the former period. A few fami-lies, too, could boast of more plate than can now be met wuth ; but the whole quantity in the country has increased twenty if not fifty fold. {Life of Jeffer-son, p. 93.) A similar result is attributed to the abolition of primogeniture in South Carolina. Murray wrote : The planters are generally impoverished by the division of property ; they have lost many of their patrician notions (call them, if you will, prejudices). The increased commerce has raised to affluence, and consequently into fashion-able society, many merchants with whom the planters would not associate on terms of intimacy fifty years ago ; thus, while the society of Boston, Philadel-phia, and New York is daily becoming more aristocratic, that of the Carolina capital is becoming more republican. (Travels, II, 188.) 28 Twenty-second Annual Session Undoubtedly the Revolution wrought a change in the institution of private property and thereby altered the social structure. But the doctrine of the equality of man went further ; it questioned the existing attitude of the law toward crime and the criminal and ushered in the modern humanitarian spirit. To the conservative mind of the eighteenth century severe penalties were essential ; the protection of property was a supreme aim of government and the reform of the criminal was ignored. To the reformer, inspired by the doctrine of equality, penalties must be examined in the light of reason and the life and character of the criminal deserved consideration. Again the conflict between the forces of conservatism and reform centered in Virginia. There twenty-seven offenses incurred the penalty of death and among non-capital punish-ments were the lash, the stocks, slitting of ears, and branding. Again also the pioneer in the movement for reform was Thomas Jeiferson. He was the author of a bill proportioning crimes and punishments, the pioneer of the modern humanitarian spirit. Says the statute : And whereas the reformation of offenders, though an object worthy the attention of the laws, is not effected at all by capital punishments, which exterminate instead of reforming, and should be the last melancholy resource against those whose existence is become inconsistent with the safety of their fellow-citizens, which also weakens the State by cutting off so many, who, if reformed, might be restored sound members to society, who, even under a course of correction, might be rendered useful in various labors for the public, and would be, living, an example and long-continued spectacle to deter others from committing the like offenses. And forasmuch as the experience of all ages and countries hath shewn that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prosecu-tions, to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias ; and by producing in many instances a total dispensation and impunity under the names of pardon and benefit of clergy ; when, if the punishment were only proportioned to the injury, men would feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the laws observed ; and the power of dispensation, so dangerous and mischievous, which produces crimes by holding up a hope of impunity, might totally be abolished, so that men, while contemplating to perpetrate a crime, would see their punishment ensuing as necessity, as effects their causes, etc. For such reasons the revisors proposed to reduce the twenty-seven capital crimes to two, treason and murder, and one-half of the property of those convicted should be forfeited to the next of kin of the one killed; corporal punishment and imprisonment were to be the penalties for most other offenses; however, for a few crimes, such as disfiguring another, "by cutting out or disabling the tongue, slitting or cutting off a nose, lip, or ear, branding, otherwise shall be maimed" the principle of the lex talionis was to be adopted. This latter feature of the bill did not meet the approval of Jefferson. He wrote: State Litebaey and Historical Association 29 The Lex Talionis, although a restitution of the Common Law, to the sim-plicity of which we have generally found it so difficult to return, will be revolting to the humanized feelings of modern times. An eye for an eye, and a hand for a hand, and a tooth for a tooth, will exhibit spectacles in execu-tion whose moral effect would be questionable ; and even the memhrum pro memhro of Bracton, or the punishment of the offending member, although long authorized by our law, for the same offense in a slave, has, you know, been not long since repealed in conformity with public sentiment. This needs reconsideration. The proposed reform met bitter opposition. Minds that could not resist the cause of religious freedom, the separation of church and state, and the reform of the land law, would not yield to the heresy that penalties should be in proportion to the crime and the causes for execution be reduced to two. And so in 1785 Jefferson's bill was re-jected. However, the revision of the criminal law was bound up with another issue : that of the survival of British statutes. The Convention of 1776 had declared the statutes prior to James I binding on Virginia. The abolition of this ordinance now became the objective of the re-formers. It was accomplished in 1789 when the legislature repealed the ordinance. A new^ commission was then appointed to revise the law and at length in 1792 a code was reported and adopted in which all English statutes were declared to have no force in Virginia. With the law thus purged of British heritage, the humanitarian spirit had freer play and in 1796, the same session in which the first public school law was adopted and a plan for gradual emancipation of slavery considered, a bill was introduced to amend the penal laws by reducing the death penalties to two, and imposing on non-capital offenses service in a penitentiary where the character of the criminal might be reformed. A new champion of the cause now appeared, George Keith Taylor. In a notable speech he assembled all the arguments of the time in favor of humanitarianism. The existing penalties, he declared, were in violation of natural rights, for in the state of nature each man defends himself, but when he repels the mischief the "law commands him to pardon the offender." Life can be taken only in case of murder. "Against all other offenses I can either obtain effectual security at first, or effectual recom-pense afterwards. But against the murderer I can obtain neither. . . . JSTecessity therefore compels me to put him to death." This law of nature becomes the fundamental law of states because, under the social compact from which governments have their origin, no power to impose the death penalty except for murder is granted. It is 30 Twenty-second Annual, Session also wasteful, for society loses units of production and no recompense is made to the person injured. Benefit of clergy as means of ameliorat-ing the law simply makes the offender a marked man. Every one avoids him, no one chooses to give employment to a felon ; but he must live, and, consequently, deprived of all means of honest subsistence, is compelled to continue his former course of iniquity. ISTor are harsh penalties in conformity to the philosophy of law. In a warm climate people are indolent and hate work; compulsory labor, therefore, is a better deterrent to crime than the threat of death. Severe laws do not improve manners; therefore adopt penalties that appeal to the sense of shame. Put into the criminal code something of the spirit of forgiveness and kindness of Christianity. Finally, let laws harmonize with the needs of population and let them not needlessly diminish the number of laborers in a land where labor is scarce. Such were typical arguments of Taylor; they reflect as wide a read-ing in the social and political philosophy of the time as do writings of Jefferson or Madison. As a result the bill was not tabled but was adopted. The capital crimes were reduced to two, benefit of clergy was abolished, except for slaves, and the penitentiary was substituted for other offenses that had been capital. Closely akin to the nascent sense of humanitarianism was the new spirit in education. As soon as the British administration collapsed, a new ideal of the obligation of the government toward intellectual training appeared; instead of a responsibility confined to the orphans and the poor, came a general obligation. Thus the State constitutions of J^^orth Carolina and Georgia clearly proclaimed the principle of State support of schools and universities. Moreover, education should be reformed and adapted to American needs rather than to European heritage. Thus during the war the Virginians reorganized the con-servative College of William and Mary into a university and there were established a school of modern languages, a professorship of law, the first in the United States, and one of medicine, the second in the coun-try. Georgia in 1783 adopted a comprehensive scheme for public high schools, one for each county, and in 1785 a plan for a State University which would include all the institutions of education in the State, and stimulate the cause of literature, was adopted. It was too advanced for actual conditions and so it remained for JSTorth Carolina to make the first practical educational achievement of the new era, the opening of the University in 1795. There is no greater tragedy in all southern history, with the exception of the survival of slavery, than the failure of the revolutionary philosophy in the realm of education. The traditions State Literaey and Historical Association 31 of the past, the aversion to taxation, and the impractical, even aris-tocratic, character of the ideal which looked for political leadership rather than elevation of the masses, fixed its doom. A similar fate awaited the anti-slavery sentiment; to the doctrine of the equality of man, human bondage was intolerable, but no practical method of emancipation which would evade a race problem was ever formulated. From the facts and tendencies thus outlined it is evident that the American Revolution wrought a profound reaction on the institutions and social structure of the South of colonial days. The results were religious freedom, a greater equality of property rights, reform of the criminal laws, efforts at public education and the emancipation of slaves. 'No wiser definition of history was ever made than the statement that it is philosophy teaching by example. What then, in the broader mean-ing of these terms, should the example of the Revolution contribute to our knowledge of the philosophy of politics and the nature of free society ? First of all, no great war can occur without making some modification or radical change in the internal life of the belligerent nations. Indeed I believe that war is often but one manifestation of a spirit of change or revolution working in civil as well as martial fields. At times reaction checks or opposes this spirit of change but in the end reaction gives way and readjustment takes place. Shakespeare grasped this idea in Julius Caesar; he put into the mouth of Brutus just before the battle of Phillippi the memorable words : There is a tide in tlie affairs of men tliat leads onward. It is the task of the thoughtful and earnest citizen to know this tide, to work with it, to guide and direct it, never to seek to impede it. Such is statesmanship. The great failure of Brutus was not the loss of a battle but his failure to realize that the foundations of the Republic were already gone and that the irresistible tide of the age was toward imperialism. No fine trait of personal character, no patriotic devotion to the past can obscure this fundamental fault—that the man had not the brains to understand forces greater than his own convictions. In the period of the Revolution Jefferson and Madison caught the meaning of the revolt against Great Britain and swung with the tide. This is the basis of their statesmanship. Those who opposed them, though estimable in personal character, have today a minor place on the page of history. Another reflection which must come if any comparison be drawn be-tween the problems of the Revolution and those of today, is the futility 32 Twenty-second Annual Session of applying to one age tlie political and social philosophy of the past. The apostles of progressivism reject the social compact theory as a basis for their program. They see in the natural right of the individ-ual to life, liberty, and happiness, laissez faire individualism. In con-trast how often do we hear conservatives say, "Give us the democracy of Jeiferson." But viewed in the light of conditions as they existed in the eighteenth century the Jeffersonian ideal could be attained only by the abolition of special privilege, whether it was the privilege of church or landowner, by a new treatment of the criminal and of the enemies of, society, and a new sense of state control over intellectual discipline. This in that day and time was radicalism. Apply seriously the principle of the equality of man and the consent of the governed, even the right to life, liberty, and happiness, to modern conditions and what will be the fate of tax exemption and certain financial problems, the present atti-tude of courts toward labor, and even the curriculum of our schools and colleges? If any have doubts let them read Jefferson's remarks or, better still, those of his friend John Taylor, on such matters as the nature of industry, the character of government bond issues, the nature of banking, and the best working type of democracy. In conclusion I wish to raise this pertinent question: how much of the past really lives today, how much of it do we really inherit? The answer, I believe, is, of the forms very much, of the spirit very little. Let me illustrate. The statutes of descents adopted in the period of the Revolution still live; but the condition against which they were aimed, an unequal distribution of wealth, again exists, and in the light of this fact the statutes are ineffective formulse. The humanitarian sentiment of the Revolution today has many monuments in the shape of penal institutions; but how often is the spirit and purpose, the reformation of the offender, submerged by the monuments? Again, religious freedom undoubtedly has survived. But the principle on which that freedom is based, the liberty of the human spirit and its right to opinion, is seri-ously challenged. Words and sentiments expressed freely by Jefferson and Lincoln, when today uttered, too often bring prosecution and im-prisonment. The old conception of the fathers, that thought and speech must be free, no longer exists. We live in an age of restraint, not of absence of restraint. 'Now, since the forms rather than the spirit of the past survive, is not he who really achieves something, whether he calls it conservatism or not, breaking new ground, and is he not therefore potentially a radical ? When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Carolina 1890-1900 By John E. White President Anderson College Of course I am greatly pleased to be here as the guest of the N^orth Carolina Literary and Historical Association, but if I should attempt to tell you why I am so pleased it would involve me at once with an old problem which has worried me enough already—the problem of the sensitive psychosis of the ISTorth Carolinian living away from home. It is difficult to explain that man satisfactorily. Some months ago I sought out the old Moravian Cemetery in Winston-Salem and was there trying to locate without immediate success the grave of John Henry Boner. An elderly gentleman walking by observed my search and guided me to the spot. "Are you interested in his poetry?'' he asked. "Yes—no ; I am more interested in the man. He is the man who broke his heart trying to interpret the sorrow and justify the conscience of a ISTorth Carolinian forced to live somewhere else." Standing there with this kind old gentleman, a minister of the Moravian church, I repeated the lines which North Carolinians know and love so well. Why is it the "Tarheel" exile reacts within himself so keenly and yet so unsatisfactorily to his own conscience? He has all the inward-ness of an interminable identity with l^orth Carolina; cherishes the sense of it as a good fortune ; avows the pride of it everywhere ardently ; and yet feels that he is somehow guilty of a dreadful inconsistency. Have you not noticed that he is the most over-conscious J^^orth Caro-linian in the world ? I suppose it is because he has spoiled his right to be. He tries to make up to his conscience by protests of devotion. He revels in the zeal of the repentant renegade. I have often heard him at it on his visits home, fervently insisting that "Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred," he is going to die sometime far, far away, " 'Mid pleasures and palaces," and that if anybody should inquire about the lonely corpse, just tell them it's "A Tar Heel dead." Sometimes I have fancied that the elder brothers hear this prodigal's proposition impatiently and doubtfully, distrusting so much "Tar Heel" virtue that has to make apologies and excuses for itself. The elder 34 Twenty-second Annual Session brothers never do understand and never can understand. It is only the prodigal who knows. And what he knows is this : that though he may die condemned he never was really guilty. In his Reminiscences, Alex-ander H. Stephens refers to a conversation with Reagan, of Texas, his fellow prisoner at Fort Warren after Lee's surrender, about their asso-ciation and associates in Congress before the Civil War. He recalled a certain congressman named Felix O'Connell, and asked Reagan if he remembered him. '^Yes, he was a very profane man and nearly always drunk." "That is true," said Stephens, "but he was the most religious man in Congress and about the only one who made it a point to attend the chaplain's prayer reverently. One day after his morning devotions in the House he took a seat beside me and said, ^Mr. Stephens, you are a Christian, aren't you? I have something to say to you, something that gnaws at my heart. My wife is a beautiful Christian, a saint on earth, and when she dies she will go right straight to heaven.' Then with broken voice he said, ^Mr. Stephens, I am afraid it will be the last I will see of her and that when I die I will go right straight to hell. But what I want to say to you is that if the good Lord does send me to hell He will lose one of the best friends He ever had in this world.' " ]^ow, I might have been invited somewhere else by some other literary and historical society, without wondering why; but sent for to come here under such dignified auspices, it is very different. I have heard of an Irishman who on being asked by a kind-hearted person if he would have a drink of good old apple brandy, made no reply at first, but struck an attitude and stood gazing up into the sky. "What are you looking at, Mike?" inquired his friend. "Bedad, sir," said Mike, "I thought an angel spoke to me." Somewhat so did I feel at first, Mr. President, when I received the invitation to be your guest this evening. The second reflection on the invitation was more sobering. I began to question whether I was prepared to accept its scrutiny. Down in Atlanta we had a Deacon who was reported to his fellow Deacons as inclined to indulge over-much on occasions. A committee was appointed to visit him. They did so in due and solemn form. "Brother Henry," said the spokesman, "do you ever drink?" He looked at the committee, who were his companions and personal friends, and said, "Brethren, before I answer, may I ask you if this is an invitation or an investigation?" Your invitation to me, I assure you, was not accepted without hesitation. It was the suggestion of your secretary that gave me at length enough confidence to venture. He indicated that I might deal profitably with ISTorth Carolina events from 1890 to 1900. I had been in a position to observe and somewhat to participate in the agitations of that period in State Literary and Historical Association 35 this State with reference to education. There were incidents and in-fluences of historical fact and value in those times, of which no fair record had heen made. Could I not, after the chastening of twenty years' absence from the State, set them in dispassionate order with emphasis only upon their bearing on the greater matters which followed after? So I am here to speak to you on "When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in l^orth Carolina.'' I have referred to the disadvantages of the exile. There are some compensations. Distance does lend enchantment, and detachment does minister to judgment. I can, for instance, report on the impression I^orth Carolina is now making for herself in the South and in the nation with more appreciation than if I were a part of it. You who are doing the work are conscious of disappointments and dissatisfactions with the State's achievements which do not trouble me. What is it that people in every section of this country are saying about ISTorth Carolina ? They are saying to one another in critical comparisons, that J^orth Carolina is the premier commonwealth of the South in progressive movements and that she is measuring pace with any State in the Union. Her achievements within twenty years have struck across the imagination of the whole country as remarkable and almost revolu-tionary. She has moved from the seventh place to the twenty-seventh in the value of manufactured products. She is a file leader of the nation in contribution of Federal taxes in support of the government. In the textile industry she contributes more to the demand markets and in the promotion of income to the cotton farmers of the South than any other State. She produces fifty per cent of all the lumber manufactured in the United States. She has first rank in minerals. So the reports run all along the line, of good roads and material improvements. But these things are not what attract the most astonished attention abroad. It is what the State has done in public education that makes greatest amazement. This is the achievement of fundamental relations to all other progress. The Astounding Contrast The educational expert coming from elsewhere to survey the widely-reported progress in North Carolina would observe two facts of con-clusive import about what he finds in actual operation. First: That the State has committed itself unreservedly to the ac-ceptance and demonstration of the democratic theory of education. What is it? It is the theory in repugnance of the aristocratic theory in education. It proposes education by the State in logical construction ; that is, big and broad foundations first, with superstructures in their 36 Twenty-second Annual Session practical order. To be explicit, tlie common schools first, secondary schools second, collegiate and technical institutions third, and without a blind alley anywhere. Second: That popular education in i^orth Carolina is really popular. It is enthroned in the imagination and conscience of the people. Its enterprise rests securely in the affections of the citizen heart. ISTow what is the historical bearing of these two facts of attainment in 1922 on the situation of education in ISTorth Carolina from 1890 to 1900? Simply this—Within less than a quarter of a century, JSTorth Carolina has shifted her whole front in popular education. It is a complete reversal of disposition and habit for a whole people. As a social phenomenon it is most remarkable. In 1890, the undemocratic theory of education prevailed in the practical attitude of J^orth Carolina educational leaders. That leader-ship was absorbed mainly with higher education and with the emphasis of it. It was in general their conception that education would percolate in intelligence through trained leadership down to the people. At any rate, in the lack of demand from the masses justifying taxation and legislative appropriations to the common schools they found encourag-ment for the aristocratic policy of trying to build from the top down-ward. The historian will explain this without difficulty. It will be remembered that Virginia had long been reckoned as the State of edu-cational eminence in the South. Her theory was the aristocratic theory. The University of Virginia indicated the ideal of Southern statecraft in education. Thomas Jefferson led the way. His monument was seen and revered in the University at Charlottesville. ISTo one took the pains to notice that theoretically his original program of education provided for a structure based upon an adequate system of common schools. It was only evident that he had consumed his practical passion on the University. The University of ISTorth Carolina followed the Virginia model. The effect of it through the years fixed the status of the common schools as of subordinate importance. The University at Chapel Hill, chartered in 1789, existed in glory and wide prestige for fifty years before there was any movement to establish a public elementary school in ISJ'orth Carolina. The law of 1839 providing for the first elementary public school was timorous, tentative and without great purpose to overcome the backwardness of public opinion. From 1839 to 1860, there appeared one man only with a passion for popular education. Calvin H. Wiley did his heroic stint of pleading with enough discourage-ment to break his heart. It drove him at last back to the quiet of a Presbyterian pastorate. The public school system from his day on. State Literaky and Historical Association 37 existed and carried on meagerly under depression and with, no influential diampionship. It was not popular with the educators, nor with the people. Its maintenance was openly questioned in college centers. In 1880 the students at the University debated the question: "Ought the Public School System of IsTorth Carolina to be Abolished?" Interest-ing enough, as his biographer indicates, this debate was promoted by Charles B. Aycock, of Wayne County, then on the eve of graduation. In 1889, the anniversary celebration at Wake Forest College provided a similar debate on the question : ''Resolved, That the present Public School System in ISTorth Carolina is worthy of support.'^ When the vote was taken by the large audience, the negative won overwhelmingly. Again, curious enough, your speaker this evening represented the negative and was warmly congratulated that lie had shown conclusively that the public school system was not worthy of support. If the repre-sentatives of the public school system were asked why something was not done to improve and extend the system and make the common schools more worthy of respect, they had their answer. The Supreme Court of the State up to 1900 bad held that free schools were not "a necessary purpose" and therefore were confined within the constitutional limita-tions of taxes. That doctrine was laid down in Paysour vs. Commis-sioners from. Gaston County, Judge Merriman dissenting. This meant that for the common schools only a bone was left to pick after the 66 2-3 cents limit for State and county purposes of administration had been reached. What was left could only be applied to common schools. It was true, of course, that the constitution of the State carried the mandatory clause—"a four months' public school shall be maintained in every district." But the Supreme Court was not greatly impressed by that and did not regard the common schools as constituting "a neces-sary purpose." Thus the State of N^orth Carolina stood in 1890. I^o one seemed greatly troubled by it. Secondary education by the State was of course impossible, except in a few cities. In the incorporated towns under municipal taxation there were only eight graded schools with high school instruction, and only two of them attempted as much as the tenth grade. In the country districts the elementary public schools, lately defined by the Public School Commission of North Caro-lina as "the basic institution of democracy," averaged sixty days a year in disreputable and despised one-room houses. Only half of the children of school age pretended to attend them at all. The little dole of money available in a district was the perquisite of inefficiency and often im-patiently absorbed as an inconvenience by private schools to get the public school out of the way. 38 Twenty-second Annual Session When the Tide Began to Tuen Take your stand there in 1890 and tell me wliat outlook is there for popular education in J^orth Carolina? Is there anything on the hori-zon of hope to justify the faint prophesy of what would actually occur in twenty years? Apparently nothing. The tide is set stubbornly in difficulty, indifference and prejudice. I^orth Carolina was on the eve of a transformation with noboby expecting it. Within five years a cur-rent will be stirred in an unexpected quarter—an agitation will sud-denly spring up which will become positive and powerful in appeal for the common schools. That agitation, controversial, factional, and seemingly reactionary at outset, will challenge public interest in the common schools and will begin to turn the thoughts of public men and the feelings of the people fiom apathy to a fighting resolution. How-ever men may differ in their estimate of the worthiness or the unworthi-ness of the initial impulse of the propaganda of the Baptists and Meth-odists of those days, there are two features of it no one will dispute. It was impressive in volume, characterized by great earnestness, and commanded public response. The other feature was this : The agitation after 1895 concentered immediately in demands for adequate practical attention to the common schools. This is the story I have come to tell you. In 1893 a change of administration at the University of ISTorth Caro-lina brought to that institution an assertive and aggressive leadership. This leadership went out after students and increased appropriations. Expressions emanated therefrom concerning the denominational colleges which were sharply resented. The old but suppressed antagonism be-tween the State college and the denominational college flamed out. The county scholarship system, increasing appropriations from the legisla-ture, and the alleged use of the State's money in loans to individual stu-dents created a situation of acute resentment. The first gun of the battle was fired by Dr. Charles E. Taylor, of Wake Forest College, in a pamphlet on "How Far Should a State Undertake to Educate?" In calm argumentative style this widely distributed pamphlet confirmed the State's right and duty to furnish primary education free to all, but dis|)uted the State's function of free higher education. The response of protest was first heard in resolutions passed by the Roanoke Union of the Tar Biver Association in the summer of 1893. The Baptist iVsso-ciations followed in the same line of discussion. The controversy gained headway, and at the Baptist State Convention in Elizabeth City, Decem-ber, 1893, a resolution by Dr. J. D. Huffham was adopted which pro-vided for a committee of five to seek concert of action by all the denomi- State Literary and Historical Association 39 national colleges, to memorialize the legislature, and to "secure if pos-sible such arrangements as will enable the schools founded and con-trolled by citizens to do their work without unnecessary competition with the State schools." In 1894 the agitation was pressed further to the front by Dr. C. Durham, the field marshal of the Baptists. At the associations of that year and on through the next year to the day of his death in October, 1895, Dr. Durham concentrated all the passion and ability of his great personality in speeches which drew and held multitudes everywhere to sympathetic attention. The emphasis of his campaign turned more and more from the invidious note of protest against the University to the generous and patriotic appeal to JSTorth Carolinians to do their duty by the children of the State. Concurrently, in 1895, the first newspaper 'in the State to place the deplorable condi-tions of popular education before the public was the Biblical Recorder, then edited by Mr. J. W. Bailey. He opened up a consistent, reason-able, and increasing propaganda, showing week after week, in detail of facts and figures and arguments, what the low estate of the public school system portended for IsTorth Carolina civilization. In 1896 Dr. Durham's successor and Dr. John C. Kilgo of Trinity College joined with the editor of the Recorder with all their might, and the definite campaign for the common schools began to have a program with its objective in direct action for their relief. Already the new Superin-tendent of Education, Mr. Charles H. Mebane, elected by the Populist upheaval, had placed himself in cooperative relations with the Baptist and Methodist movement. The political conditions at that time favored the consolidation of influences for the change of State policies in edu-cation. The Populist influence woke up the Democratic masses to the sense of their powers of self-assertion. When that movement was over in 1898, the channels of popular sensation had been permanently widened and deepened in JSTorth Carolina. The Baptist Associations, and in a large degree the district Methodist Conferences, in that situa-tion became public forums of the people, not for political discussion but for educational arousement. They passed unanimous resolutions, phrased in positive terms of demand, for a change of emphasis in edu-cation and for practical proposals to extend and improve the common schools. Three years, 1896-1898, it went on in that fashion until every section of the State had been affected and the people lined up so far as Baptists and Methodists could be properly organized for such a cause. There were two points vividly urged in behalf of popular education. First: A change of policy, which meant a change of thinking on the part of leaders, from the aristocratic theory to the democratic theory of the public school system. It was argued after this style : "Let us 40 Twenty-second Annual Session stop stacking our educational fodder from the top downward and do it according to common sense and experience, by laying the foundations first and then build thereon." It was envisioned that the public school system had no logical appeal for confidence until this was done, and that when it was done every educational interest of the State would flourish, no matter how the winds blew and the floods came, because it would be founded upon a rock. The proposition of course required direct appropriations from the Legislature to the common schools before any appropriations to higher education shotild be increased. The plea was for the established priority of the elementary schools in claims on educational statecraft. Second: A change of heart on the part of the people who were im-mediately concerned. The condition of their schools was portrayed in heavy lines. Their inefiiciency, brevity, and poverty of equipment were held up in rags and tatters. There was little note of controversy in these appeals—it was patriotic and pathetic. The spirit of cooperation with any hand stretched out for the healing of the open sore of ISTorth Carolina life was not only possible but desirable so far as the leaders of the campaign were concerned. In 1897 Dr. Charles D. Mclver, who was outside the breastworks of the Baptist and Methodist agitation, and Mr. J. W. Bailey, who was distinctly a leader on the inside of it, were associated together respectively as chairman and secretary of a movement to promote a special-tax campaign. Alas for that, it was a dismal disappointment. Out of 938 districts, only seven voted the special tax. After that essay it was more evident than ever that the tide would not turn until a positive beginning had been made in the form of a pronounced policy of the General Assembly. In 1898 this was the battle-cry. The General Assembly must show the people that the State's policy was going in for the relief of the common schools and the~ precedence of their claims in all educational legislation. The Constitution was invoked as a challenge to the candidates for the Legis-lature since they were to swear to support and sustain it. They were questioned on the stump : "Will you put the common schools first in appropriation for education? Will you favor legislation to carry out as fast and far as possible the mandatory cause of the Constitution?" The election occurred in August, 1898. It soon became known that the return of the Democratic party to power would bring to Raleigh a General Assembly constituted largely of Baptists and Methodists with-out any significance of sectarianism, but with the great significance of fact that the Legislature was overwhelmingly strong for putting the common schools on a forward-moving program of legislation. The group of men who had led the agitation caused a bill to be drawn State Literary and Historical Association 41 appropriating out of the public treasury $100,000 for the common schools. Mr. Charles H. Mebane's was the hand that drew that bill. It was typewritten in copy in the office of the Mission Board of the Baptist State Convention and placed in the hands of its champions in the Senate and the House : Mr. Stephen Mclntyre, of Robeson, and John B. Holman, of Iredell. It went through triumphantly, though not without opposition, both from the inside and from the outside of the Legislature. Historically this action marked the sharp, initial, practical beginning of that turn in the tide for popular education which in the next fifteen years would flood the State with enthusiasm for the present public school system in North Carolina. In the nature of reminiscence of the good fighting of that year, I venture to recall that the Democratic State Executive Committee had realized that the campaign of the Biblical Recorder and others had won out. From that committee assurance was voluntarily proffered that no bills carrying appropriations for higher education would be permitted to pass the Legislature without the consent of those who were leading the fight in the State for the primacy of the common schools. The pledge of the Democratic leaders came to test before the joint com-mittee on appropriations in the Legislature at its first meeting, and the State Executive Committee made good its unasked-for pledge abso-lutely. The appropriations desired by the University, the State Normal College, and the A. and M. College were referred to the generosity of Mr. Bailey and Mr. White. I am glad to tell you that they were as generous as possible under the circumstances, and that from that inci-dent onward a new entente of fellowship and sympathy between the State colleges and the denominational colleges began a development uninterrupted at this hour. The Great Consummation With the dawn of 1900, seven years lay behind in which the gospel of popular education had been preached from platforms and pulpits reaching to every community in North Carolina. Public sentiment in the rural districts, aroused and sometimes inflamed, had been confirmed in repeated resolutions of public assemblies. The moribund situation had given way at the end of 1899 to the sense of something moving in a new direction for the public schools. With the dawn of 1900 con-ditions justified the leaders of the Democratic party in believing that a constitutional amendment carrying the 1908 educational qualifica-tional clause for white people could be passed. We know what hap-pened in North Carolina in that year. North Carolina in all her his-tory has never known anything better than what did happen. Due 42 Twenty-second Annual Session credit certainly must be given to tlie constitutional amendment for its coercive effect as law upon popular education. But the greatest thing that happened was Charles B. Aycock. I^orth Carolina found her captain, gave him his own trumpet to blow, and the children's children standard to bear. Alas our captain ! our captain ! Among all the things cherished and preserved by your speaker of a somewhat oratorical life, nothing is more cherished than a copy of the Raleigh Morning Post of January 1, 1899, which reports in eight columns an address made in behalf of popular education before the joint session of the House and Senate on the night of December 31, 1898, in which this prophecy of a great Captain was pleaded : The president of a theological seminary was asked the other day what in his opinion was the greatest need of foreign missions. He reflected, and re-plied, "A great missionary." If I were asked what the indispensable necessity of popular education in North Carolina is at this hour, I would reflect and reply, "A great public man whose heart and brain, time, talents, energy, everything, is devoted to the cause of the wool-hatted and barefooted army of over 600,000 children whose only hope for instruction is in the public schools." I remarked to a gentleman yesterday that North Carolina offered the greatest opportunity for statesmanship in America. What I meant was that the con-dition of public education in this State, the deplorable situation with regards to our public schools in North Carolina afforded the greatest possible oppor-tunity for some able man to be transformed from a politician into a states-man. And I believe it with all my heart that the man in the next ten years of North Carolina life who has been fashioned by nature and experience for public leadership, and who will be beside himself a fool, a crank, a dedicated, sanctified agitator for better public schools, whether parties nominate or people elect to office, or not, whether he offend or whether he please the news-papers, will create a career so persistent in its claims upon the conscience of our people, and so write himself into the history of a vital progress, and so entwine his life into the lives of thousands born and unborn, that sooner or later, when truth gets a hearing, as in God's good time it always does, that in the summing-up of achievement and the distribution of laurels, the sage of history will write his name in letters of fadeless luster. Too eloquent by half, but a Hebrew prophet would have been very well satisfied with what was confirmed of its prophecy in JSTorth Caro-lina in the career of Charles B. Aycock. The Democratic State Convention of April, 1900, that gave him its ^'harvest of hearts" and his nomination for Governor, met in the con-sciousness of great and deep emotions. It had its mind on the nomi-nation of a man without particular regard for his gubernatorial quali-ties as an administrator. It had the sense of a new day which de-manded a champion of democracy with especial reference to education. Before Aycock was nominated, a platform had been adopted for him to stand on. One of its planks was this : State Literary and Historical Association 43 We heartily commend the action of the General Assembly of 1899 for appro-priating $100,000 for the benefit of the public schools in the State, and pledge ourselves to increase the school fund so as to make at least a four-months term in each year in every school district in the State. I have pleasure in remembering the phraseology because I stood by the typewriter that clicked it off on the little slip of paper w^hich was handed in to the Committee on Platform through the Hon. Mike Jus-tice, of Rutherford. It is needless to say that Charles B. Aycock ap-proved and in his inaugural address quoted it as the keynote pledge of the campaign he had made for the amendment. The election of Gov-ernor Aycock relieved the Baptist Associations and the Methodist Con-ferences instantly of every ounce of necessity to concern themselves in resolutions about the common schools in ISTorth Carolina. It put an end to persistent editorials and passionate speeches on that subject. Quite naturally to say, from the day he was elected to this hour there has never been a flutter of agitation in that quarter. There is no question in anybody's mind, for history has guaranteed that, as to who did the grand deed of individual leadership which swept the tide for popular education in JSTorth Carolina. The man's picture hangs in my home conspicuously among my household gods—Abraham Lincoln, Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson—and I look at his face every day. The night before he died in Birmingham I walked up and down with him in the shed of the old union depot in Atlanta, and we talked of things that were and are and were to be—of the past and the future of his career. His was a nature of all generosity. He said in kind refer-ence to two men whose names I will not call, "Our educational move-ment in ISTorth Carolina, beginning with the campaign for the amend-ment, found the soil prepared for it." We know the story of 1901 to 1922. Everybody knows it, and every-body honors the men of it. We know that J. Y. Joyner became the organizing genius and the practical administrator of the great change. We know that E. C. Brooks and his colleagues have confirmed and greatly continued the advance of the public school system. 'No one will be allowed to forget the consuming zeal of Charles D. Mclver and others. I have only given you a leaf of unwritten record which the historian cannot neglect. The pioneering of effective propaganda for the common schools in North Carolina was as I have related it. We were the first to break with a shout that had. echoes in it into the dreary and complacent sea of inertia and stolid prejudice. The shibboleths of that agitation became the principles of this progress which tingles in the hearts and dances in the eyes of I^orth Carolinians at home and abroad in 1922. 44 Twenty-second Annual Session It was read in the newspapers a few months ago that when Marshal Foch, the Generalissimo of the World War, in his American tour came to the city of Detroit he was wearied to exhaustion. The clamorous applause of the multitude had ceased to arouse his interest. There the mayor of the city turned to him and told him a little story of how Hennipin had sailed into the Detroit River in 1679 and had written these words in his diary: Those wlio will one day have the happiness to possess this fertile plain and pleasant strait will be very much obliged to those who have shown the way. At these words the tears rushed to the eyes of the great soldier. Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World By Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain History is an ordering and condensing of social detail so as to present facts as truth. Because the study of small communities and the influence going out from them is an introduction, and indeed the best of introductions to history in its broader sense, and because such study is thoroughly fasci-nating by reason of its own intrinsic interest, I have chosen for my subject the work of two editors, whose personalities and the ideas they advocated are intimately twined into the progress of our county. More than a century ago Joseph Gales became editor of the first newspaper established at the capital of I^orth Carolina. It was a Jeffersonian sheet; it represented popular aspirations, and was the channel through which many ideas of those fermenting times were brought home to the minds, and influenced the opinions of the citizens of old ISTorth Carolina. Joseph Gales came here in the last months of 1799. He was a re-markable man for ability, for adventure, and for wide experience of men. The fact that he was self-educated, and was at the same time an experienced journalist, made him the more skillful in sowing ideas among the plain people of our community; and he must surely have furnished the kindly leisures of our great-grandfathers with much first-hand matter to discuss. His sympathy with his chosen home, and his thorough identification of himself with it, made him a man who would be readily liked and often quoted. ^ot many newspapers were published then, but those few were thoroughly read. They led public opinion. They were not so often as today mere followers of the prevalent beliefs, and intensifiers of the prejudices of their readers. Instead of walking but a few steps in front of the largest, noisiest crowd, as some so-called "yellow journals" have done, they had more originality. They were formative influences, even as viewed through the diminishing telescope of the lapse of time. Gales had been a poor boy, born in Yorkshire, England, apprenticed to a printer; and he set up for himself in due time his own newspaper in Sheflield, already a great manufacturing town. He and his paper were identified with the best liberal Whig ideals of England, just subsequent to the defeat of the British at Yorktown—the time when Pitt and the statesmen with him bethought themselves of the reason- 46 Twenty-second Annual Session ableness of those demands, which, when denied to their colonies had brought on the successful war of the Revolution. In the England of that time reform, scientific discovery, the growth of manufacturing, the increase of dissent, and the rosy dawn of the French Revolution were all mixed into a web of rapid changes. Among the advocates of the several measures of reform. Gales, by means of his influential paper, was the peer of any. He was assisted in his editorship by a wife whose antecedents were more cultured than his own, but who shared his opinions, and was a woman of the greatest talent and spirit. She was one of the early "Blue Stockings." She wrote novels, and although the work of her pioneer efforts at self-expression, as well as that of all the rest of her sister authoresses, not excepting the great Mrs. Hannah Moore herself, has gone completely out of fashion, yet their influence on their age was great. Dr. Samuel Johnson said of these ladies : "A woman's preaching or writing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all." So spoke the Great Lexicographer, that knock-down joker. Gales's partner in his publishing business in Sheffield was James Montgomery, a writer of hymns, which are still to be found in our hymn books. "Hail to the Lord's Anointed" is one, and "Hark the Song of Jubilee!" another. In the second we can still feel the breath of new hope for humanity such as men felt when France convened her first "States General." The hymn might be called a sanctified "Ca Ira." vGales must have been aware of the first Sunday school in 1781. He afterwards became the first Sunday school superintendent in Raleigh, when union services for the little city were held in the old State House. >ile was a religious man. He felt a devoted admiration for Dr. Priestley of Birmingham. He did not on that account feel afraid to show friend-ship to Thomas Paine, that celebrated Deistic Quaker whose opportune book, "The Rights of Man," set American sentiment unitedly in the direction of the Revolution, and just in the nick of time. Although Paine was later furnished with horns and a tail by the popular imagination, after his other work, "The Age of Reason," was printed, in which he insisted that belief in God must go the same way /as submission to kings; yet he was a writer of power who had great influence in his day. Mrs. Gales said of him, when she entertained him in her house, that she found him "a gentle, kindly soul." Dr. Priestley, the learned Unitarian divine, who interspersed his treatises on theology and early excursions into the "Higher Criticism," the first that we hear of, with books about his own scientific discoveries, State Literary^ and Historical Association 47 was also an intimate friend of the Galeses, and both he and his friends were caught in the same back-wash of conservative sentiment when the French killed their king. So terribly did this deed shock Englishmen that the partisans of the Prench Revolution in England, of whom Edmund Burke was one, could scarcely disown all ideas connected with it hastily enough; and because some convinced liberals. Radicals they were then called, continued to demand prison reform and the suppression of "Rotten Boroughs," they were subjected to the persecution of Tory mobs. Dr. Priestley's labora-tory apparatus was thrown into the street in Birmingham, in the same way as the types of Joseph Gales' printing office in Sheffield. Both were indicted for treason. Both had to flee to America. Joseph Gales remained two years in Schleswig-Holstein, then a part of Denmark, there awaiting his wife, and after her coming, failing immediate departure, as they planned, because a seaworthy vessel was not at once available. Mrs. Gales, no clinging vine she, sold out the business successfully before she went to Denmark, and the pair with their family reached Philadelphia safely in 1-795. I would like to stop and turn back here, to tell in detail how bravelyX Mrs. Gales faced her own mob, how she was protected in her home by the working men of Sheffield, after her husband's flight, and how, when they had begun their voyage across the ocean, when their vessel was taken by pirates, she talked these sea-hawks into letting their prey sail on unharmed to America. Arriving there, how she reproved Willie Jones for profane swearing, how she wrote the first novel ever printed \ in ISTorth Carolina—the first, and for so very long, the only one. "-^ Also it would be good hunting to describe the time when the Tory authorities had to send for Joseph Gales, the printer, to quiet a wild Sheffield mob, which he was able to pacify; and to tell how Gales used his unexpected delay in Holland to learn two new languages, and the then unusual art of shorthandJ How also he grew friendly with many celebrated Emigres, and how Madame de Genlis wished to adopt the baby Altona Gales, and again, how they saw General Pichegru, of the red Revolutionary Army of Prance, go skating to the conquest of Hol-land over the ice of the River Elbe. After all these exciting experiences the pair must have been glad to reach a quiet haven and a life of less uncertainty, when, in the fall of 1799, they came to Raleigh to start the Raleigh Register. Among the IN'orth Carolina delegation to Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, were Nathaniel Macon and Willie Jones. Both were Jeffersonians. Then as now people were divided into two opinions. 48 Twenty-second Annual Session Conservatives wlio did not fully trust tlie common man, liberals who were willing to try him. At that time, much more than today, party lines were strictly drawn between these two camps. Jefferson, who was a strong enthusiast for the French ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, gave his name to the rising party representing these senti-ments. ]^orth Carolina had at that time more population than ISTew York State. President Adams and the Federalists had lately passed the "Alien and Sedition Acts," which were most unpopular. JSTorth Carolina was a close State politically, and the Jeffersonians saw their opportunity. They were glad to discover in Joseph Gales, lately come to Philadel-phia, an able man whose political opinions were distinctly Jeffersonian, who could worthily edit the paper they wished to start in Raleigh, that new little Capital-in-the-woods. Gales' new paper was the old Sheffield one revived. It bore the same name. The Register. It was decorated with the same emblem, or head-ing, of the liberty pole and cap, and it expressed the same sympathy for the under dog. It professed also the same passion for reform as when it had been issued in Sheffield. Its editor was from henceforth a part of this city. He was its mayor for term after term. He be-came State Printer after the Jeffersonians or "Republicans" came into power. I He opened a book shop when he arrived in Raleigh, and among his first list of books for sale we find the authors Godwin, Paine, Rousseau and Adam Smith. In one of his early editorials occur these words : "What is the world but one wide family on which the Common Parent looks with the eye of equal protection." Again, "To choose a good \cause is to select one which selfish men dislike." His paper became a great disseminator of information on agricul-tural subjects; it published careful accounts of the discoveries and improvements which came so thickly in the beginning of the century past. JMr. Gales was always a friend to every idea which meant prog-ress or benefit to those who could not help themselves. Education, Temperance, Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Care of the Insane, Internal Impro^ments—in all these questions he was far ahead of his fellow citizensj He trained three generations of editors. His son and his son-in-law were partners in establishing and editing the National Intelligencer, the first Washington newspaper, which gave authoritative reports of the debates of Congress. Another son and a son's son were successively editors of Raleigh. His descendants are many and worthy today. I State Literaey and Historical Association 49 Such a man's influence is impossible to estimate, difficult to limit. I think we can take for granted for that time, as for this, the dearth of constructive reasoning and the lack of educational progressive leader-ship, and may be allowed to justify high praise of a man who supplied both to his State for many years, and indirectly to his country. Some one has said that the axis of the earth sticks out visibly at the place which each of us calls home. In connecting the life of Mr. Gales with our center, we noted the beginning, how it was rooted in signifi-cant times of his native England, while the flowering came with us. American history has not hitherto taken enough notice of or given enough credit to our "Americans by Choice." The second of these chosen sowers of seed, of whom I am to speak, had indeed his day in the great world, and a glorious one; but it was here on our own soil, here on our own red clay hills that he had his origin. Some day we will better value the distinction which this gives us. The recently published Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, by Hen-drick, is an admirably planned book, with skillful selection of those letters which best show the mind of the man. It has one fault which slaps a Wake County, ^orth Carolina, person smartly in the face. Mr. Hendrick always thinks of Walter Page as a world figure. He would rather have him, as it seems, just happen, like Melchisedec, without genealogy or local attachment. He emphasizes this. He takes pains to tell us that Mr. Page's education was almost wholly obtained out-side of JNTorth Carolina, and ignores the home influence on a young man's life and thought. He stresses the fact that Mr. Page was unap-preciated, and therefore had to leave us. l^ow when a man's forbears have lived for three generations in a locality, and when he himself has continuously remained there until his later teens, he can never lose the mark of his nativitv, even if he wishes it very earnestly. Mr. Page never wished anything like that for a moment. People who knew him, and who knew his "folks," will main-tain that he is no "bud variation" or "mutation." He was the "square-root of his ancestors." That exquisite precision of his in the use of words, whereby things are said finally, and the nerve of a fallacy is punctured so that it can never squirm again, is not unknown as a talent in some of his kin. As a boy he could marshal his thoughts and tell them in plain, well-selected words. That he was well educated was his own doing. It was the quality of the man who went to Johns Hopkins, and to Germany, which made the education effective. 50 Twenty-second Annual Session When lie came to Raleigli to edit tlie Chronicle lie had become a m.ost active principle, fit to stir up a passive society. Some people are born with the love of the past in their hearts, and others with the question-ing of existing institutions upon their lips. Of the latter was young Walter Page. Imagine such a man, in the vigor of his independent youth, turned loose in a land of sore memories. Here at that time it was like the home of the old, where all is kept sacred; a place where, after supreme effort relaxed, the daily habit was to "sit in the sun and tell old tales." Being the man he was, he felt scant sympathy with all this, as a regnant mood. He did not truly estimate the depth of the post-war ennui. He did not think seriously enough of the old soldier's inevitable worship of the past. They say that even today, in this America, there are young men who cannot get away from the World War, who cannot march breast forward into the new day. They turn back mentally, because they feel that their greatest significance as individuals is already past. Mr. Page loved N^orth Carolina. He saw her possibilities. He knew her latent power. He inspired many of those who have brought about, since then, the things that have counted for progress. He shot his ideas, like arrows, into the hearts of his circle of young men friends. The things he told us, the shrewd comments he injected under our hides by his keen criticism, we have never forgotten. Even till this day we are taking the time to prove that he overstated, by doing all those things which he evidently feared we might not do. Prophets have been noted for telling unpleasant truths from the earliest times, and every young man who begins reformer is made to suffer for it. Very soon, because we could not pay him a living for his wares, he went to fill a more conspicuous place than that of the small town editor of a weekly newspaper. The editorship of several significant periodicals culminated for him in the chair of the staid, long-established, oracular Atlantic Monthly of Boston. Prom that he went to become founder of The World's Worh, more his own pattern of a monthly. When he left ISTorth Carolina he took her with him. As often as he visited his old home he brought her some solution to her problems. A man is—precisely what he does. For the great "State College" which calls its thousand young men each year and teaches them to use the State's resources, for the ISTorth Carolina Woman's College which util-izes the real value of our girls' brains, so long a waste product—for the first and for the second of these educational achievements I am not State Literaky and Historical Association 51 going to give him all the credit. Let him portion out the praise who can: so much to Page, so much to the Watauga Club, so much to those other notable apostles of better education, such as Mclver and Aycock. Whatever was done then, Page was there, in word and inspiration, at the doing of it. But perhaps his greatest service to his own State was his interest in the health welfare of our Southern country. When Dr. Stiles, of the Education Bureau, gave in Raleigh his first semi-public lecture on the discovery of the cause of the malady which was killing so many at the South, I sat upon the front bench to hear him, the only woman there, eyed as a strange cat in the garret by the group of physicians, plus a few cotton mill executives, there assembled. The great calming satisfaction, felt when the true reason for a strange and baffling phenomenon is laid in one's hand to keep forever, was my abundant reward when I went away. We know all about these things now. A cotton mill village, a country school, may be as rosy and as healthy as to its children as the best resi-dence street. This also by the help of Walter Page. Yes, he has kept us on our toes, to show how well we can do, ^'but and if we would." We should thank him, we should honor him, we should never take it out in roasting his one novel, "The Southerner," because in it he never quite guessed the feelings of the old Confederate soldier, first defeated, and then "excoriated" by Reconstruction doings ! All the story of the great World War is not yet written. Page's acting of his own part as Ambassador to Great Britain, which I admire exceedingly, is however ready for posterity's verdict. Some recent reviewer has called him the "Modern Franklin," inas-much as he was the interpreter of things American to the great British Empire, when, lacking mutual understanding, we might have gone under together along with our common civilization. He seems also to have had laid on him the task of expressing Eng-land's inarticulate soul to America, to have combated successfully the dogged determination of certain elements not to consider the inevita-bility of our joining the Allies. International sympathy and international friendship was better than too much raw international candor; and here again I shall claim that old kinship; that Wake County, JN^orth Carolina, folhsyness, alive in her distinguished son, played a part in saving the world when it rein-forced the greater qualities possessed by Walter Hines Page. In l!^orth Carolina we enjoy people, we like kindly gossip, we discuss and taste the differences of personality among our friends with loving discrimina-tion, as some more sophisticated societies forget to do. • • • • • • • ••• •» • - . » » o » » • ^ » > « * ) > « >«• * * ^ m 4 * * • •• % • a • • • •• t « « » » • . , > > , ' I * > > » 5 c f 52 Twenty-second Annual Session Mr. Page filled tlie conceptions of tlie English as to true democratic ways and easy manners. He liked their individuality, and they felt it; he became to them a more idealistic Franklin, a truly democratic rep-resentative of a great Democracy. He was precisely the man; they esteemed him. Besides all this, we read in his letters how well his heart remembered the things his boyhood knew. How clearly we hear this when he chooses to touch that key. How he recalled the heart of the struggling woods where he roamed as a boy; how he remembered the smells of growing things outdoors under our sweltering summer sun ; how he saw in his mind's eye the glorious color of a clay bank in the golden light of autumn, and heard the whirr of the partridge startling out of the blackberry thicket in early winter. JSTature he knew and loved as his boyhood had found it. The pine trees were always ^'kind to him." How dear to him was that "Little grove of long-leaved pines" in the country he called his own ! Yes, I take issue with his excellent biographer ; he was a Southerner. He was far more that person than the gentleman in question might ever be able to guess. Because of that fact and that nurture he was a most important link, I am tempted to say the most important link in the final will united to victory of the Allies. c t . t c c c a I c t at » « * t « «• • * It a • Missions of the Moravians in North Carolina Among Southern Indian Tribes By Edmund Schwarze, Ph.D. Pastor Calvai-y Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, N. C. History and fiction of which the American Indian is the subject are invested with peculiar fascination and interest. Those who remember |
OCLC number | 19882765 |