Despite certain sporadic attempts in some of the States before the Civil War to provide a public school system, it remained for leaders like Atticus G. Haygood, J. L. M. Curry, Charles D. McIver, Edwin A. Alderman, and others in the '8os and '9os to lead a crusade for universal education, as the only genuine basis for a democracy. Thomas Jefferson's advocacy of a complete system of public education had borne but little fruit in the section that had accepted him as a political leader, but his ideas were now accepted as the gospel of political leaders like Charles B. Aycock of North Carolina. Men came to see that the con troversy over slavery and secession and the fatal results that had followed had deflected the South from its true course as defined by leaders who played such conspicuous parts in the early days of the republic. Walter Hines Page was one of the first to realize this unfulfilled career of the South and to lay down the programme for the rebuilding of old commonwealths; he and his co-workers in the Southern Education Board and Conference were willing to face the facts of illiteracy and its effect on the poverty, health and efficiency of the masses. They drew contrasts between Western and Southern States not at all favourable to the latter; they found inspiration in the work of Horace Mann in Massachusetts; they fought for the idea that taxation for education was the wisest economy and that the wealth of a State had in trust the social welfare of every human being.
These pioneers were followed by men in every State who have worked out in detail a comprehensive plan of education. State departments of education have increased from one man, generally a politician, to a body of a dozen or more experts in their respective fields. Teachers' colleges and departments of education in universities have been established that bring teacher training within reach of the most backward rural sections. School terms have been increased from four months or less to eight months or more; four-year high schools have been increased from too in 1900 to 2,500 in 1924, and the students in these schools from 165,coo in 1913 to more than half a million in 1926. Meanwhile, schools have been consolidated, buildings im proved, salaries of teachers raised. Even negro schools, hitherto supported by outside philanthropy, have received an increasing, though still inadequate, proportion of public funds. In North Carolina especially, the State department of education, so progres sive in its policies, has handled the whole problem of negro education with wisdom and generosity. The emphasis on agri cultural and industrial training in the Rosenwald schools and at Hampton and Tuskegee extends to the white schools and colleges.
In the field of higher education progress had gone on apace. In 1895 there were only seven institutions that could meet the minimum requirements of admission laid down by the newly organized Southern Association of Colleges; in 1928 there were more than a hundred that met still higher requirements. The various religious denominations, retiring gradually from the field of secondary education, have enlarged their funds for colleges and universities. Independent institutions like Vanderbilt, Tulane and Washington and Lee have received large funds from private sources and educational boards. Several State universities have received appropriations for maintenance and building that would have seemed miraculous 20 years earlier. Duke university, by reason of the benefactions of J. B. Duke, was in 1929 engaged in a building programme and in the reorganization of the institu tion that will make it in time one of the outstanding universities of America. The university of North Carolina is a striking illustra tion of the growth of a State university. Within 20 years its income grew from less than $100,000 to more than a million, while its building programme has included, among other buildings, a $500,000 chemistry building and a $600,000 library. Its faculty included a score or more of men with national reputations by reason of research they have done. What is true of this university is true, to a less degree, of other universities. The Medical school of Vanderbilt university, the Law school of the University of Virginia, the department of education in the Pea body college for teachers, the department of agriculture of the University of Tennessee, the engineering school of the Georgia School of Technology, compare with the best in America.
The Sewanee Review, maintained at the University of the South since 1892, the South Atlantic Quarterly established at Trinity college (Duke university) in 1902, the Journal of Social Forces at the University of North Carolina, the Virginia Quarterly Re view at the University of Virginia, the Southwest Review at Southern Methodist university, have been organs of liberal thought. Such books as Edgar Gardner Murphy's The Present South and Walter H. Page's The Rebuilding of Old Common wealths defined in clear, forceful and courageous words the issues dominant in Southern thought while an increasing number of biographies and histories have given evidence of a scientific and critical handling in striking contrast with the more sentimental books of an earlier period. A growing liberalism is manifest in some of the best newspapers.
Likewise there has been a notable change in the character and quality of creative literature. From 1875 through the '9os, Joel Chandler Harris, George W. Cable, Charles Egbert Craddock (Miss Murfree), Thomas Nelson Page, John Fox and Mary Johnston made full use of the picturesque types, romantic stories and atmosphere of the various parts of the South. The Southern colonel and his lady, the old-time negro, the creole, the moun taineer and the plantation legend were in line with the main tendency in American literature of the period. More recently there has been a marked tendency towards a critical handling of Southern material, even to the point of realism and naturalism. Dubose Heyward's Angel and Porgy, Julia Peterkin's Black April, Paul Green's In Abraham's Bosom, Stribling's Birthright and Teeftallow, Elizabeth Roberts' Time of Man, compare favourably with the best contemporary fiction and drama in literary technique and in objectivity of treatment. Especially noteworthy is "the revolt against chivalry in chivalry's old home" as seen in the novels of Frances Newman and Isa Glenn. Better balanced work is found in the stories of Corra Harris and Ellen Glasgow, the latter best representing in a series of novels the transition from the old South to the new. The contrast between the fiction of the two periods is similar to the contrast between the poetry of Henry Timrod and Sidney Lanier and that of John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Dubose Heyward and other members of poetry societies that have sprung up in Southern cities.
In these and other ways the stubborn individualism of the Southern people is being replaced by co-operative efforts for the good of communities and States. Municipal and State programmes of health and education are being projected. There is still a long way to go. One of the chief hindrances to development in the South is a too facile optimism with regard to actual achievement. There is too much of an insistence on poverty as a justification for delay, too much harking back to a golden age that never was, too much of a tendency to adopt local standards.
The fundamental question is whether the industrial and educa tional progress now so well under way will result in the loss of regional consciousness and traditions to such an extent that the South will become standardized along with the rest of the country. Will industrial development destroy something that is fine and unique in the Southern temperament and tradition? By reason of its backwardness, due to obvious historical reasons, the South may be able to avoid some of the extremes of modern life and thus make distinct contributions to the nation and to the world.
BIBLiooRAPHY.—Yale University Press, The Chronicles of American History; W. L. Fleming, The Sequel to Appomattox; Holland Thomp son, The New South; E. G. Murphy, The Present South (1904) ; Wal ter H. Page, The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths (1902) ; Edwin Mims, The Advancing South (1926) ; W. J. Robertson, The Changing South (1928) ; The South in the Building of the Nation (19°9-13) ; The Library of Southern Literature (19o7-13) ; Burton J. Hendrick, The Training of an American: Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page (1928) ; Southern number of the World's Work (June, i9o7) ; Southern number of the Review of Reviews (April, 1926) ; Southern number of the Annals of American Academy (191o). (E. Ms.)