550 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



itself heard so clearly from so many directions, makes the need of some 

 provision for the best liberal training the more necessary; for unless 

 industrial education is informed and guided by such a spirit, the abyss 

 of a dull utilitarianism awaits it. 



The Spanish-American war revealed the south of these later days 

 to itself. It gave — happy gift ! — a new point from which to reckon 

 time, and showed how far, unknown to themselves, the old slave states 

 had moved since Appomattox. A tide of vigor swept through villages 

 and hamlets, bringing them, for the first time in a generation, in con- 

 tact with the life of the world. It is not fanciful to attribute the educa- 

 tional awakening of the south to-day in part, at least, to that contact 

 with outside affairs — to the sense of oneness with a great nation. But 

 whatever the cause, the fact is here to reckon with — a desire for educa- 

 tion throughout the south such as it has never known, and it is being 

 sought in many cases in the face of great difficulties and at the cost 

 of noble sacrifice. Many a southern man and woman, to-day buried 

 in obscure villages, have fairly earned a brevet for gallantry in action 

 in the struggle with stifling social conditions. There is no more present 

 duty for the x\merican people than to uphold their hands. When a 

 community's poverty, born of its ignorance, is such that the tax levy 

 yields but $18 a year for schools, the vicious circle must be broken from 

 outside. The state must care for those hamlets which can not care for 

 themselves, and by a parity of reasoning, the needs of the south are a 

 charge upon public-spirited men and women everywhere. The response 

 should be prompt and abundant. With the new-born desire for educa- 

 tion, the line of greatest efficiency for educational endowments is shifted 

 to the south; the need there is great and basal — and they are next 

 of kin. 



