Tendencies of Higher Life in the South

IN a recent number of The Atlantic I endeavored to describe certain characteristic features of the inhabitants of the various Southern States, and to discuss the condition of the section as a whole from the point of view of economics and politics. In the present paper I shall essay the more complex task of describing the progress that the South has made in literature and education, in manners and morals, or, to be brief, in the higher phases of culture.

I have attempted to determine what is the present status of criticism in the South and what the chances are for its development, since it is almost self-evident that it is only through adequate criticism of themselves that any people can hope to evolve a consistently great literature or a rational system of education, or to make appreciable progress in their manners and morals. That such an undertaking should be difficult follows from the elusive and indeterminate nature of those protean terms " criticism ” and the “critical spirit ” which we have so constantly to employ ; that it is doubly difficult in the case of the Southern people follows from the fact that few of them have ever been critical enough to gather materials that would be useful to the student of their culture. That this is true of the Old South has long been generally admitted, but that it is at least partly true of the New South is clear from a tribute lately paid to the literary ability of his forerunners by a Southern writer of wide and deserved reputation, who informs us gravely that “ there was sufficient poetry and wisdom delivered on the porticoes and in the halls of the Southern people to have enriched the ages, had it but been transmitted in permanent form,” — an extravagant statement, which would not be true of Athens in the days of Pericles.

It is fortunate for the purposes of the first branch of our inquiry that nowadays few intelligent persons will dispute the proposition that sound criticism is an indispensable basis for the development of a consistently great national literature ; it is unfortunate that so much has been said and written recently about the literary awakening of the South. That there has been an awakening, and that many individual Southern men and women have done excellent work in certain lines, is plain ; but the chorus of laudation that has followed in consequence has led to an almost complete ignoring of the fact that very little attention has been paid to criticism, and that there is as yet no stable foundation laid for the development of a literature of high and lasting value. What assurance have the editors and critics of other sections, who have so generously welcomed the young writers of the South, that the vaunted literary outburst illustrates anything more than that phase of the parable which relates to the seed that fell on stony ground, which sprang up, but soon withered because it had no depth of earth ?

It is by no means surprising that there is already a literature of the New South that possesses a certain original flavor and consequent value. There was never any great lack of mild literary aspiration in the Old South, as will be clear to every student who does not rely wholly on histories of literature compiled by Northern writers. There was never any dearth of intelligence, though it was generally diverted to other than literary channels, and suffered from the effects of the provincialism and kindred evils engendered by slavery. When, therefore, men’s minds were more or less liberated by the overthrow of the “peculiar institution,” and when, in the common upheaval, it behooved every one to exert to the utmost whatsoever talents he felt himself to possess, it was natural that here and there a man or a woman should turn to a way of making money that required for visible capital only a few postagestamps and sheets of paper. At first circumstances were unfavorable, even a veteran author like Simms finding little market for his wares. But with returning prosperity manifest on all sides publishers grew less cautious, and the magazines, which had taken a great leap forward in the fifties, became still more enterprising and influential. A change, too, had come over literature itself. The day of the romance and of the sprawling novel of domestic manners was past for the time being, and provincial fiction of a more or less realistic type was the prevailing mode. The short story, also, was gaining ground daily. For the short story and for provincial fiction in general the new Southern writers were well equipped. Their want of training, their inability to criticise themselves, their lack of grasp upon life in its complexity, stood less in their way in this genre of composition than would have been the case with any other form of literature, and they had admirable materials to work upon. The South as a field for fiction had never been really exploited, Simms and Esten Cooke having merely skimmed over its surface. The negro and the “poor white trash” and the primitive mountaineer were subjects fully equal in attractiveness to Mr. Hardy’s Wessex peasants, and it would have been a miracle of stupidity if, in the midst of the literary revival and in the heyday of provincial fiction, the writers of the New South had missed their golden opportunity.

It would not he fair or sensible, indeed, to deny or to detract from the merits of some of these authors, whose works have found their way wherever the English language is read, and whose names are familiar to all who care for good literature. The creator of Uncle Remus — or, if we prefer to be more accurate, his intermediary with the public — is not simply a man endowed with a genius for story-telling, but is truly a benefactor of his kind. The writers of fiction grouped around him have produced a body of work that will compare most favorably with whatever has been done in the last twenty years by their rivals of the East and West. In the higher domain of poetry, also, the South has one name which is steadily gaining lustre, although some of us may shake our heads and wonder at the phenomenon. Sidney Lanier is considered by many to be the best poet that this country has produced since the New England school was in its prime ; and though this may not seem to be high praise from some points of view, it has a distinct bearing on our endeavor to estimate the relative importance of the contributions made to American literature by the respective sections of the country. In face of these facts, it would be as idle as it would be wrong to belittle the work of the writers of the New South. But it is just as idle and just as wrong to magnify it. Say what we will, there is as yet no positive proof that, to borrow a figure of Whippie’s, these authors have struck a lead rather than an exceptionally rich pocket. Picturesque and attractive subjects lay ready to their hands, and they proceeded to exploit them with whatever of untrained talents or genius they possessed. Of careful analysis of social conditions, of profound study and comprehension of the principles of human action, and of serene, self-contained art there are still few traces in the Southern literature of the present generation. The most fruitful subject for fiction that ever novelist had —to wit, the social relations between the old aristocracy which has lost its wealth, and has been slowly losing its prestige, and the non-slaveholders and newcomers who have pushed themselves, by means of their freshly acquired money, into formerly exclusive circles of society or into the emerging middle class with its eager social aspirations — has been, comparatively speaking, untouched ; while the negro and the primitive mountaineer, who are sluggish obstructions to progress rather than active constituent forces therein, have been simply worked to death, to use an expressive if somewhat inelegant phrase.

But, some one may ask, while all this may be true of the writers of the New South, is it not also true of the writers of the entire country ? Can one point to a thoroughly great creative artist in prose or verse in America at the present time ? It is fortunate that an answer to this question is not important, since it would be attended necessarily with unpleasant consequences to the person rash enough to make it. What is important is the fact that there seems to be, in the East and in the West, a steady growth of the faculty for self-criticism, which is the only basis for a permanent literature, and which is at the same time an almost certain sign that a period of comparative literary sterility will be followed by one of healthy literary activity. Such a critical faculty, on the other hand, though by no means non-existent in the South, is nevertheless in a very rudimentary stage, and affords no clear warrant that the next generation of Southern writers will be able to maintain the position won by the painful and ever laudable labors of their predecessors, who since the close of the Civil War have demonstrated that, for native literary ability, the South is inferior to no other part of the Union.

That criticism in the South lags behind creative literature will be apparent to any one who will take the trouble to run over a list of the really important Southern books published since the war, or to read what passes for criticism with the easy-going people of that section. No stress need be laid on the absence of critical journals, for the whole country has too few of these, and they could not well be kept up outside the large publishing centres. One must emphasize, however, the gush that Southern newspapers continue to lavish upon every native who makes the least name for himself in literature, provided he does not run counter to the prejudices of his section. One must also consider the uncritical character of most of the textbooks on literature and history specially prepared for Southern schools, and the ingenuous naiveté, of the demand for such books, as well as the unremitting flow of bad rhetoric, bad logic, and bad history, in the shape of orations, pamphlets, and even volumes which give us metrical chronicles belated by five hundred years, and ethnological speculations as remarkable as those of a worthy clergyman who has recently connected the mound-builders of Tennessee with the inhabitants of the Ganges by discovering in the former traits and characteristics which he asserts to be “ positively Hindoic.” Other points to be noticed are the sensitiveness of Southern writers themselves, and of their friends and neighbors, to any treatment of theirwork that is not laudatory in the extreme; the almost complete lack on the part of the public of facilities for getting books — the bookstores are execrable, as a rule — and for keeping in touch with literature ; the apathy of the people with regard to literary matters in general, and their failure to recognize the transcendent importance of criticism and culture to the accomplishment of the political and economic reforms that are pressing upon them, — witness the late presidential campaign ; and finally, the baleful intolerance, political, religious, and other, which, though weakening, still manifests itself in the press, in the pulpit, on the rostrum, and in the parlor, whenever it becomes necessary to question, even in a tentative way, the importance, or the propriety, or the truth of any idea that has in any way been labeled Southern.

This lack of the critical spirit displays itself in a special degree in one particular department of human thought. Strange to say, this department is one in which the Southerner has from time immemorial considered himself most proficient. He has pointed with just pride to great lawyers and jurists like Wirt and Marshall, and to such legal texts as Benjamin on Sales, and he has always been glad to see his sons undertake the study of law ; yet it must be maintained that on no other subject are his ideas more confused. This is true not merely of constitutional law, in respect to which he makes serious errors because he does not take sufficient account of the lessons of constitutional history, but also of the most essential portion of juristic science, that which treats of the relation between the spread of ideas of legality and the political and social progress of a community. Law, like literature, in the South as in the rest of the country, is too often regarded as something to be studied apart; its relations to life are not thoroughly understood. Men will calmly admit that the law commands one thing, and then justify themselves for doing someYOL. nxxix. — xo. 476. 49 thing just the reverse; and yet they believe that they are orderly, law-abiding citizens, and are conscious of no self-stultification. They will redress injuries in a fashion permissible only in countries where law has no sway, and will nevertheless claim that their civilization is of the highest grade. They undertake to reform bad courts and bad codes by committing fresh offenses against that majesty of the law which, as good citizens, they are under a moral obligation to defend, yet in business and in private life they are in every respect thoroughly awake to the demands of duty and honor.

Now, there can be but one explanation of such a state of things ; and this is not found, as is usually supposed, in the presence of an alien and semi-barbarous race which has to be coerced by violent measures. It would seem possible to govern such a race without recourse to such measures ; witness the experience of the English at Hong-Kong. If it be not possible, then the South is in a most deplorable state, and the revolting crime which brings a swift death to its black perpetrators will be followed by a far worse consequence, — the deterioration of a noble people. The trouble lies deeper than race antagonism. It lies in the fact that the educated classes of the South have not clearly understood the relations of law to society. They have not seen that when once the authority of the law has been questioned or defied among a civilized people the wedge of anarchy has entered the social and political fabric, and that it is in the nature of things for one violation of the law to lead to another, and to open the way for the wedge.

This fact has been only slowly perceived in America at large, owing to the newness of the country and to the mixed nature of its population ; but while it is quite possible for a lynching to occur in Ohio, it would be surprising to find leading lawyers and clergymen of that State defending the perpetrators of the deed. The truth may as well be owned that the educated men of the South — the divines, and lawyers, and even teachers and writers— either have not clearly understood what they were doing when they abetted or silently watched the numerous lynchings and homicides that have taken place around them, or have simply been afraid to speak out. The probability is that they have not really understood the matter, on account of their ignorance or forgetfulness of the fundamental ideas of legal science and of the rudiments of comparative history. It is only such ignorance that can prevent them from seeing that their connivance in crime is leading to its increase in forms so aggravated that at times one rubs one’s eyes and wonders whether one is not reading an old chronicle rather than a modern newspaper. It is only such ignorance that keeps them from perceiving that the exercise of the natural authority they possess over uncultivated minds would quickly put a check on lynching and homicide. Nothing can be plainer than that a higher consideration for human life and property can speedily be secured in the South and in America at large, if the normal leaders of public opinion — the clergymen, the lawyers, the teachers, the editors, and the writers — will speak out, regardless of consequences. They are beginning to speak out in the South, and a few newspapers deserve high praise for the stand they have taken in the interest of law and morals. But criticism has still much to do in order to implant proper notions of legality in the minds of lawyers, who are supposed to be the guardians of that common law which is the proud heritage of English-speaking peoples, and proper notions of the sanctity of human life in the minds of clergymen, who are supposed to be the chosen ministers of the gospel of Christ.

The hindrances to the growth of a critical faculty that are enumerated above are not in the least exaggerated. The Southern critic of the present day is an isolated and struggling being, with few fellow workers whose successes he can emulate and whose mistakes he can avoid. Like the pioneers of old, he has to strike out alone through an unblazed forest, and to bide unaided the attacks of foes who rarely forsake the cover of their sheltering trees. Yet if his lot be hard, equally so, indeed, is the fate of the men who are allowed to exploit their own ignorance, and of the people who are gulled by such impostors. Sharp, plain criticism on the part of the daily press would speedily put an end to the production of the literary monstrosities that are so frequently issued in provincial towns, and would also destroy the market for the absurd " county histories” and other subscription books which wily agents, generally of alien birth, are daily unloading on innocent communities. The press does not speak out for fear of “ hurting some one’s feelings ; ” and so the ignoramus puts on his fool’s cap, and the agent pockets his cash. So, too, the unscrupulous politician, relying upon the credulity of his audience and the tender-heartedness of the press, can deliver unrebuked, even in the larger cities and in university towns, harangues in which he has no difficulty in making political economy, history, in short all learning, sacred and profane, in the words of the poet, " blush, turn giddy, rave, and die.”

The thorough-going pessimist, however, is quite as uncritical as the inveterate optimist ; and it is time to look on the bright side of things, — for there is a bright side The spirit of criticism, though not yet very active in the South, is by no means dead or dormant. Indeed, it is growing, and growing in a healthy way. Perhaps the most obvious sign of this growth is the fact, already mentioned, that intolerance of every kind is slowly passing away. A more concrete sign is the higher tone with regard to politics and lynching that some of the newspapers are able to take without losing many of their subscribers. But the best sign of all is the increase in the number of young men who are turning their backs upon the traditional professions of law, medicine, and divinity, and taking special courses of study in Germany or at the North, with the intention of devoting themselves to teaching. These young men are rapidly gaining control of the colleges and schools of the South, and while not radical in their tendencies, they are, on the whole, liberal rather than conservative. They have hitherto done little strictly literary criticism ; but they have imported critical and scientific methods into nearly every study, and the leaven is slowly but surely working. This is especially true of historical work, where the preconceived opinions of the average Southerner may be expected to be most influential. Thus far, few books have been written in which a bold stand has been taken with regard to questions that are at least smouldering, if not burning ; but every monograph that is issued furthers the progress of critical inquiry, and nearly all bring facts-to light that batter against tlig strongholds of prejudice. Even if there were no other evidence of progress, the work that is now being done by the various historical societies, from Richmond to New Orleans, would afford ample basis for a happy augury for the future.

Yet it is not in the literary or historical work of the New South, or in the increasing interest in art and science, that we find the most encouraging evidence of the growth of the faculty of self-criticism. Such evidence is furnished by an investigation of the progress that the New South has made in its systems of education, a progress which, beyond all doubt, marks the greatest advance that the present generation has made over its predecessors. Not that the ante-bellum South had no good colleges and cared little for the training of its youth. The old-time Southerner, whatever may be said to the contrary, valued education highly ; but it was the education of his own children and of his own class. It is just here that the great difference between the old and the new order of things becomes manifest. The son of poor or middle class parents to-day has a thousandfold better opportunity to get an education than such a youth had two generations since. With all its deficiencies, there is a working system of public instruction in the South at present; fifty years ago a few of the States had a poor system in practical operation, and others a worse one on paper. The truth is that the first requisite for good free schools was wanting in the Old South, — to wit, real and intelligent interest in the subject on the part of the better classes. They could not see that there was a necessary link of causation between wretched “ oldfield schools” and a shiftless class of poor whites. Nor were they much more alive to the necessity for good private schools in the towns ; for their civilization, delightful in many respects though it was, lacked the principle of solidarity. Here and there a good boarding or day school was in existence ; but one has only to read the advertisements inserted by the schools in the newspapers of the period in order to see how backward Southern education was.

Now all is changed. In nearly every city of importance may be found one or more good or fair private schools that prepare for college, and the number of country boarding-schools is increasing. Some States are still backward, it is true, and there are too many pretentious academies that give only a smattering of learning, — a condition of affairs that is not surprising when everything is considered. But the main progress has been made along just the right line, that of truly public education for both whites and blacks. There is nothing in the history of the South that reflects greater credit upon its white citizens than the way in which they have borne taxation in order to educate the children of their former slaves. That their action was manifestly dictated by an enlightened self-interest does not lessen the praise that is their due, for the prejudices which they had to overcome were enormous. They have spent millions for the education of a race that pays little in taxes, and is hardly capable of appreciating the benefits it receives. They have done this in spite of the fact that no good results of any moment will be seen by them or by their own children. They know the negro well, and they know that it is idle to hope that his race can be really elevated for centuries ; they know also that with him it is especially true that " a little learning is a dangerous thing; ” but they have acted on the principle that they must do for their wards (for the negro is the ward of the South, not of the nation) the best that is in their power, and so they have built schoolhouses and trained colored teachers, and are willing to raise whatever money may be necessary to render the work more efficient. If they have paid greater attention to their own needs, this is natural and plainly right, for the future of the South depends chiefly upon its white population. When the general poverty and the former supineness in the matter of public education are considered, the development of the white free schools in the South will seem no whit less remarkable than the interest that has been taken in the negro. The cities have shown surprising progress. Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, Norfolk, Nashville, Houston, and other places have established schools which even the wealthiest citizens often prefer to private academies. The white high school of Houston, for example, gives instruction in Latin and German for four years and in Greek for two, and its graduates can easily pass into almost any college of the section.

But the good work is not confined to the large cities. Even the smaller towns and villages are trying to secure well trained teachers and to keep their schools open for as many months as possible. In the rural districts, owing partly to sparseness of population, no such progress has been made, but schools are increasing in number, are open for longer periods, and are at least supplied with better teachers than was the case a decade ago. There is, of course, much to be desired everywhere. Ignorant politicians blunder incessantly in the selection of textbooks and of teachers ; salaries arc too low, and the women teachers especially are overworked ; mechanical methods of instruction prevail to a distressing extent ; the bane of commonplaceness has set its seal everywhere : but these are faults common to the system, and not peculiar to the South. There is, however, one difficulty that confronts the Southern educator to a greater degree than his brethren of the East and the West can have any any conception of, — the intellectual torpor of the lower classes. Not only is a larger and more inert mass of illiteracy to be overcome in the South than elsewhere, but there is less active and effectual desire for knowledge on the part of the common people, and perhaps, one is sometimes tempted to think, of the upper classes. Any one who has taught both in the South and in the West will immediately contrast the intellectual apathy of the one section with the almost pathetic desire for information characteristic of the other. Lack of genuine culture is apparent in both cases, but the field of the Southern teacher is and must long remain less fruitful of results. Yet there are signs that even this great stumblingblock is being removed through the selfsacrificing labor of men and women whose best and almost only reward will be the approval of their own consciences.

In the department of higher education the outlook is likewise hopeful. All the Southern States, with one or two exceptions, have at last followed the example of Virginia, and are supporting in good earnest the universities they founded years ago. These state institutions do not vie with the better Western ones as yet, but that could hardly be expected, and in spite of all obstacles they are steadily progressing, as will be apparent to any one who will consider the growth of the state universities of North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee. The same statement may be made of the two large Church universities, Vanderbilt and Sewanee. In all these institutions good work is being done on modern lines by thoroughly competent men. The day of the broken-down clergyman-professor is over, and the trained specialist has taken his place. This change is not altogether for the better, since the delightful personality of many a genial old-time teacher has not been fully replaced by that of the self-absorbed doctor of philosophy, who sticks to his own subject, and does not lead his students wandering over the fields of culture, especially of the classics, in which the South has always excelled ; but, on the whole, the combined forces of the specialists are producing more excellent results than the scattered forces of their easy-going predecessors ever did. In some of the denominational colleges, however, with which the South is literally cumbered, the old methods of instruction still prevail, or else have been replaced by methods that can be best described as “ half baked.”The small college that knows its own place and does its work thoroughly, like some of those long established in Virginia, is an excellent institution and ought to be preserved ; but a college that is little more than a bad high school should be got rid of at once. The South has not a few such institutions, yet they are not showing any intention at present of committing hara-kiri. In fact, their number is increasing, and the churches are being squarely rivaled by prohibitionists, by various secret orders, and, if report says true, even by railroad employees. There are twenty-odd “ universities ” in Tennessee, to match their equally numerous sisters in Ohio. Of such is the kingdom of ignorance.

Yet if the small ordinary colleges cumber the field of education in the South, this is certainly not the case with the technical schools, for both whites and blacks, that are springing up in every State. Alabama has already done well for each race in this respect, and her example is being widely followed. For the negro, this sort of education, as President Booker T. Washington has shown, will be of prime importance, but its value to the lower and middle classes of the Southern whites will be scarcely less. With all her lands and mineral treasures to be exploited, the South has paramount need of trained farmers and engineers and mechanics, and these she is now able to get from the ranks of her own sons. Then, again, the intellectual torpor of the negroes and the poor whites will be best reached through the channels of technical and manual education,— a consideration of great weight in view of what has just been said about the deficiencies of rural schools and the small colleges. The agricultural and mechanical institutes ought to have the youths who get a smattering of culture at the inferior denominational colleges, and are then let loose on the community to become incompetent preachers and lawyers and physicians.

It may be observed that although the provisions for legal and medical education are still lamentably poor in the South, except in a few localities, there is a consistent effort being made to improve them by state requirements, in medicine at least, and by associations with slowly improving standards of graduation. Among the academic institutions, too, steady progress is being made toward the maintenance of rigid entrance examinations, and toward the abolition of the pernicious custom of allowing high schools to give degrees. The best colleges and schools have lately formed an association for the furtherance of these objects, and uniformity of requirements for admission is now being aimed at, in accordance with the schemes already adopted in New England and the Middle States. Thus the good work is being carried on under ever brightening auspices, even women coming in at last for a fair share of their rights; but it must be admitted that the South is not rich enough, or is not sufficiently awake to the needs of its higher institutions, to endow them fully. They are all struggling under difficulties that money could at once remove, and they have as yet attracted the eyes of few philanthropists.

The education that schools give is not. however, more important than that given by the family, the results of which are seen in the manners and morals of the individual. the community, and the race. Few persons will be found bold enough to deny that the South is better provided with schools and colleges than ever before, but not a few pessimists and sentimentalists never tire of proclaiming that it is daily losing the refinement and charm of manners that once characterized it. " You may have more factories, and even better schools and colleges,” they say, “ but give us the courtly manners and the easy social life of our fathers, who thought money matters vulgar, and lived for God and for their fellow men rather than for themselves.” Put in this way the position of the sentimentalist has not a little apparent strength ; and when he goes on to draw an idyllic picture of plantation life, to sketch this and that Southern Sir Roger de Coverley, to claim that even the ordinary conversation of the old-time men was permeated with poetry and philosophy, it is small wonder that impressionable youths swear by the past, and declaim selections from Toombs and Yancey before admiring crowds at college commencements. But it would be just as easy to persuade the same youths to don armor and sally forth to rescue distressed damsels ; that is, it would be as easy if the said youths were at all logical and consistent. Like the poor the laudator temporis acti is always with us, and like the poor he takes no care of the progeny he may bring into the world.

He is always uncritical, — indeed, he despises criticism,—and when you pierce his sentimentalism he flies into a rage and calls you names.

There is a singular mixture of error and truth in the ideas popularly held about the Old South, and there is little study of the social characteristics of the New. We are always tempted to underestimate our contemporaries and to glorify our predecessors, and this is what the sentimentalist school of Southern writers has consistently done, if not directly, at least by implication. Southern gentlemen of " ’t is sixty years since ” were not all courtly, and their grandsons of to-day are not all lacking in polish. External manners have undoubtedly changed : there is now less suavity, less punctiliousness, less attention to small details, than of old ; but this was true of the South of 1860 as compared with that of 1760, and means nothing but progress in the direction of greater freedom and individuality in conformity with the rest of the world. If we are bent on lamenting the loss of courtly and chivalric manners, let us blame Washington for opposing George III.; or rather, let us blame time for having brought the Middle Ages to an end. Southern life in the past had its good side and its bad, determined, as the life of every generation is, by its environment. A careful Study of it will reveal many noble and many ignoble features, just as a study of the life of any people will. Old-time men who were models of polish often had brothers noted for their bearishness and lack of personal neatness. Some men were scrupulous with regard to their debts, while others never thought of paying them. Ante - bellum judges were sometimes removed for dishonesty, and family skeletons, if not illustrated by woodcuts in the newspapers, were familiarly described by every gossip. There were many charms and graces of life which depended upon the aristocratic cast of society, and which are consequently vanishing to - day ; but there were also many foibles, faults, and even vices engendered by slavery which are in like manner disappearing. There is now less hospitality than of old, but there is more thrift; there is less refined and leisurely contentment, but there is more successful energy; there is less courtliness, but there is more individual freedom and originality; there is less pensive sentiment, but there is more radiant hope.

But while nothing can be more illogical than the position taken by the extreme sentimentalists, it would be folly to assert that the new generation has made an unbroken and uniform progress, or that it is not, at least in one important particular, less fortunate than those which preceded it. We may waive mere questions of ceremony and etiquette, for, as we have seen, the fact that men bow less low than their planter ancestors did does not prove that the courtesy innate in the Southerner has deteriorated in quality. We must admit, however, that there has been a breaking-down of the barriers of society in many localities that has done little good either to the representatives of the old or to those of the new order of things. That the aristocracy of birth and wealth should pass away was one of the natural consequences of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox; but that it should be succeeded by an indiscriminate mixture of people and classes was by no means a necessary result. That a man should be allowed — nay, helped — to rise to any station in life that he is fitted to fill or adorn is one of the fundamental facts in democratic American life ; but that a society of long standing and prestige should throw down its barriers to any newcomer simply because he has made money is not democratic or American in any true sense, but is absurd and destructive of genuine culture and social progress. Yet this is just what has happened in many a Southern city. Instead of preserving intact, even in the midst of poverty, their social lines and standards, the older families have in too many instances let things take their course; have received into their homes men and women whose manners betray their unfitness for good society ; have allowed — nay, often encouraged — their sons and daughters to intermarry with the newcomers, and have then lamented to one another the degeneracy of modern times. If this premature promiscuity — which, combining with the free and familiar intercourse possible and proper in an aristocracy where every one knew every one else’s pedigree, has developed a “fast set” in many a once innocent and unsophisticated Southern city—were characteristic of the newer States only, one would not be so surprised, but, unfortunately, it is found throughout most of the South. Charleston, indeed, has made a brave fight to keep up social barriers, but her example has been little followed, and her people have been regarded as stiff and old-fashioned. This they may be in a measure, but the fact remains that they have had the sagacity to perceive that social promiscuity is a heavy price to pay for material prosperity.

The comparative lack of social barriers is, then, a feature of the New South which renders it to a certain extent inferior to the Old; but in the near future social lines will be more strictly drawn, without doubt, and in the mean time the deprecated promiscuity will have infused into the older families new and enterprising blood, and will have rendered the bourgeoisie somewhat more amenable to culture than is usually the case in other countries. Nor must it be forgotten that family traditions are still being cherished by survivors of the former régime, as well as by organizations of all sorts among the younger people. Some of these organizations are absurd enough, but they doubtless do good on the whole, and even the most recalcitrant representatives of the past serve as useful brakes upon a rapidly evolving society.

The more one investigates the South of to-day, the more one perceives that the pessimist has a very weak case ; and in no way can this encouraging judgment be better substantiated than by a careful study of the college youths whom the same unfortunate worthy is often able to impress temporarily. No teacher who has been brought into contact with students drawn from most of the Southern States can fail to conclude that they are in the main a remarkably fine body of young men. In essential charm of manners they are not inferior to their grandfathers ; in morals they are, on an average, distinctly better in some important respects, certain vices being now more frowned upon than was the case fifty years ago ; in knowledge of the world and in intellectual curiosity they are plainly superior ; in sheer mental power they are not inferior, at least; and in genial kindliness and bonhomie, and in that indefinable but supreme quality, manliness, they are capable of holding their own with the youth of any land and of any age. More high seriousness of purpose might be desired for them, and a better comprehension of the importance of the intellectual side of our nature, but being Southern boys, they have the defects of their own and of their progenitors’ qualities. Still, when all is said, they impress any fair judge as being just the stuff out of which a great civilization ought to be evolved. They are as good Americans, in the true sense of that term, as are to be found in any section of the Union; they have inherited the best qualities of their ancestors; they are free from the clogs of slavery; and if they have yet to struggle against political and religious intolerance, they will surely emerge the stronger for the contest. But now let us pass from manners, which are changing, to morals and religion, which ought to be less affected by innovation, in view of the Southerner’s intellectual conservatism,

In no respect save in regard to politics do the inhabitants of the various Southern States show more uniformity of character than in their attitude toward religion and morality. The ancient and inbred piety of the Anglo-Saxon has suffered little or no deterioration in his descendants south of the Potomac. There has always been a certain Puritan strain in the Southerner, even where he has no Scotch-Irish blood in his veins, and he has never quite reproduced the insouciance of the Cavalier whom he delights to talk about. He is, of course, a man of varied and strong passions, which he has never been noted for controlling, but at bottom he is more or less religious, and he holds morality in great esteem. He can, it is true, overlook or minimize certain violations of the Decalogue with a considerable amount of sang-froid, but they are such violations as have been rendered more or less natural by his environment. He has merely availed himself of a privilege which all nations have claimed, of reading the Commandments in various tones of emphasis. He has laid special stress on the ninth for generations, but until recently has slurred over the sixth. He hates a liar, but can shake hands with a man who has killed a fellow citizen, perhaps a near relative, in a street fight. This naturally seems queer to estimable gentlemen of other and more peaceful communities ; they would prefer to elect the liar to Congress, and to put the murderer in solitary confinement. We have already discussed the Southerner’s aberrations in the matter of lynching and homicide, and all we need notice here is the undoubted fact, which so many superficial investigators of human nature overlook, that men may be essentially pious and moral, and yet commit, or at any rate fail to condemn, violations of the moral code against which, if they lived under a different régime, they would be the first to inveigh. The Southerner is pious and moral, whatever the census statistics may say about his disregard of the sanctity of human life.

This need not be wondered at when we consider how far piety and morality are matters of feeling and training, and then remember the emotional and conservative character of the average Southerner. Modern liberalism of thought is naturally repugnant to him, and he has scarcely more use for an infidel than he has for a horse-thief. Reading and travel, to be sure, have somewhat modified this intolerance of late years, and various shades of unbelief will be encountered in the cities, in the newer commonwealths like Texas, and occasionally in the smaller towns. But as a rule, what a Southern clergyman has to contend against, in his work among the men of his parish, is not so much intellectual doubt as easy-going indifference. Yet even in the cities and among the men there is probably more attendance upon church than in any other part of the country, though this is chiefly true of the middle and lower classes. Among these, religion of an emotional type flourishes with a vigor that is almost preternatural. In many localities there is practically nothing but the church and its affiliated societies to dispute with the bar-room the laborer’s leisure hours ; and in such a contest the friend of culture cannot but side with the meeting-house, in spite of the apprehensions to which revivals, camp - meetings, and the other paraphernalia of emotional Christianity of a low type must give rise.

The religious eccentricities of AngloSaxons of the lower classes are sufficiently familiar, however, in all parts of this country and in England, and so is the dismal pall with which middle class piety has everywhere chosen to cover itself. Things are especially bad in the South in these respects, both on account of the emotional nature of the Southerner, and on account of the fact that there is not yet a sufficiently large foreign population to widen his ideas, and to teach him how to be God-fearing and happy at the same time. He certainly gets good and a fair amount of sober enjoyment out of his prayer-meetings and revivals and Sunday-school festivals, while it is reasonable to expect that the library, the museum, the art gallery, the concert hall and garden will in time come to liberalize him. Even now, on Sundays, he can take a spin on his “ wheel,” or a drive, or a horseback-ride, without exciting the animadversions that such depraved conduct would have elicited twenty years ago. And who knows but that, in the course of a few generations, he may get rid of the long black coat and the lugubrious countenance which make him an object of conspicuous solemnity as he walks to church, surrounded by his numerous progeny ?

The lower and middle classes, however, are not the most important to our present purpose. Emotional religiosity is to be expected of them, and of the whole mass of the negroes. What we are mainly concerned with is the relation of the upper classes to the liberalizing movements of thought that are sweeping over the Western world. As has been said, their attitude is conservative, yet it would be wrong to ignore the many evidences of progress that are to he seen on all sides. Within the various churches there has been a decided awakening to the necessity for vigorous work, both social and specifically religious. The sleepy, self - satisfied congregation, that never roused itself save when some innovation like decorating the church with flowers at Easter (holly at Christmas was a permissible and long-honored custom) was proposed, is a thing of the past. Clergymen have stopped preaching in black gowns or swallow - tailed coats. They even do much of their visiting on bicycles as naturally as the frontier preacher used to do his on horseback, with a rifle and a pair of saddle-bags as his chief accoutrements. It is true that these facts relate to mere externals, yet they serve to indicate that in weightier matters a change is at hand. Theoretically dogma still holds sway in all the churches, but it would be almost as strange to hear a “ fire and brimstone ” sermon in a fashionable church in the South as it would be to hear a similar deliverance in New York itself. Probably fewer persons would disavow belief in a material hell, or would rationalize on the subject of miracles, or would assume the truth of the theory of evolution, in the South than in the North or the West, but practically the average men of the three sections would understand one another on these points.

Still, it cannot be denied that religious intolerance has done much harm to the South in the past, and that it continues even now to exert its evil influence in the older States. Two of the most learned Biblical students of this country are Southern men, who could never have performed the best part of their work in their native section. Many a promising young man has left the South and gone North or West, because he found himself hampered by the religious, political, and social intolerance of his well meaning relatives and friends. No man likes either to be a pariah or to keep his religious and political opinions entirely to himself : hence when the Southerner outgrows the community in which he was born, he is tempted to transport his intellect and energy to a more propitious environment. This is true not merely of those who attach themselves to modern systems of non-religious thought, but of those whose æsthetic sense fails to be satisfied with the simpler and more primitive forms of worship so prevalent in the small towns and rural districts of the South. For such persons to associate themselves with either of the two great ritualistic churches would often bring suspicion of one sort or another upon them, and would certainly cause great heart-burnings to worthy families. So the young man often breaks the traces and goes to unnecessary extremes of irreligion, or finds a new and freer home for himself, or braves family displeasure by joining another church, or gives up the struggle and becomes a lukewarm member of a sect with which he has no sympathy. But on the whole, as we have seen, the lot of even these unfortunates is being lightened, and we are justified in concluding that while the South fortunately retains as a basis of character the inbred piety, integrity, and morality that characterized its citizens of the old régime in public and private life, it has nevertheless been affected by the liberalizing movements toward freedom of thought and action, and toward intensification of religious and moral earnestness, that have made themselves felt of recent years in all parts of the civilized world.

We have now traced, in a necessarily imperfect manner, the progress that the South has made in all the chief departments of culture, and have found that the outlook is in most respects distinctly encouraging. We have seen that criticism has yet much to do for the Southern mind, but we have also seen that the cause of popular education is making great headway. We have seen that political and religious intolerance is slowly but surely waning, and that manners and customs are losing the note of provinciality. We have seen that the Southerner’s basis of character is a fine one, and that he is becoming, year by year, more thoroughly nationalized. We are therefore justified in concluding that whatever progress he makes in the future will redound not merely to his own credit and happiness and to the fame of his great ancestors, but also to that national glory which should be the object of the aspirations and endeavors of every loyal American.

W. P. Trent.