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Among the Schools of Mississippi.
Clinton.
One Thursday night at Clinton will always be a
refreshing memory. I was walking for the first
time on historic ground. For more than half a
century Mississippi College has been the Mecca for
young men of Baptist parentage, while hundreds
of others have been blessed and enriched by breath
ing that classic, inspiring, Christian atmosphere.
For a long time, President Webb was the “patron
saint,” so to speak, of all that country. R. A.
Venable, too, fought his way up from the bottom to
where he married the President’s daughter, and got
to be President himself. For several years Dr.
William T. Lowrey, of the famous Lowrey family
in Mississippi (after serving Blue Mountain Col
lege as President for more than a dozen years) has
been laboring with conspicuous success as Presi
dent of Mississippi College. I was peculiarly struck
with one thing, showing, after all, the superiority of
men over equipment and the trappings of wealth.
The buildings of Mississippi College are neither
large nor imposing, but three hundred and fifty
young men this year are receiving that expansion
of life which comes from contact with a strong
and powerful faculty. But the buildings are also
coming. President Lowrey is just closing a suc
cessful campaign for raising $75,000, which, sup
plemented by the conditional $25,00 offered by the
general education Board of New York, will make
a round hundred thousand dollars for enlargement
and endowment. I shall never forget that pecu
liarly inspiring audience of over four hundred at
prayer meeting at Clinton; nor the privilege of talk
ing “just as much as I pleased” at Chapel next
morning; nor that other great audience at my lec
ture the following night, when Mississippi boys and
Hillman College girls called to me with beaming
faces “to do my best” for their sake—today, to
morrow, and “to-morrow’s to-morrow.” Dr. Pro
vine, the acting President, was the soul of hospi
tality, and the memory of President Lowrey’s home
like home and an hour of fellowship with that
grand old patriarch in Israel, Dr. H. P. Sproles,
linger with me like a fragrant breath from “Beu
lah Land.”
Starkville, and A. and M. College.
Perhaps no town in the South of two thousand
people has given more truly great men to the world
than Starkville, Mississippi.
This community has never allowed a saloon run
within its borders since it became a town. One
time a “dare devil” sort of a fellow tried it, but
the sturdy citzenship of the community appointed
themselves a committee to call on him, and when
that dignified, but businesslike conversation was
over, he read their blazing fiat on the ceiling of his
sky, and the saloon was closed forever-more. Out
of a citizenship like this grew such men as W. C.
Lattimore of Texas, Fred D. Hale of Wilmington,
N. C., President Tom Hale of the Southwestern Bap
tist University, Jackson, Tenn.; Prof. J. Freeman
Sellers, Dean of the Pharmacy School at Mercer Un
iversity, and other great men whose names would
elude me, but who, with these, are sweeping human
ity upward.
A Sabbath day in the home and church of M. K.
Thornton, Baptist pastor there, enjoying the fellow
ship of his delightful family and his cultured and
consecrated people—such a day put into shining
italics an affirmative answer to the hoary-headed
question— “Is life w’orth living?” There it was I
learned the story of the brave girl working as a
compositor in the office of a Starkville paper, who
refused to put a liquor advertisement in type.
The Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical Col
lege is situated on a beautiful, rolling campus, em
bracing several hundred acres just outside of Stark
ville. This school is larger than our own “Georgia
Tech”—but then, it has had much longer to grow.
Here that grand old Confederate chieftain and
Christian patriot, General Stephen D. Lee, wrought
for twenty years, leaving the inspiring splendor of
Jiis great personality behind.
The Golden Age for June 28, 1906.
Now President J. C. Hardy, a Christian educator
of powerful mold, is shaping the lives of more than
eight hundred young men who are going out as the
chief artisans of Mississippi’s future commercial
life. What an inspiring privilege to speak to such
a multitude when I kept on remembering that
each student before me was “some mother’s boy.”
But the deepest and highest joy came when,
among those who lingered to shake hands after my
lyceum lecture, came a bright member of the senior
class, saying with troubled face: “I had almost lost
my grip.” I pointed him to Christ the best I knew
how. That young man was happily converted that
night in the room of a Christian student and has
since united with the M. E. Church.
Here I met in the faculty two friends of other
days—Prof. Condray, whose genial face I first saw
at Ouachita College in Arkansas, and Prof. R. R.
Ray of North Carolina, who is “a bachelor, a
preacher, a scholar and a gentleman.”
The equipment of this great institution is superb
in every particular save one—the Legislature ought
to build an auditorium that would accommodate that
vast and growing student body, plus their widening
circle of friends, can attend together the inspiring
public occasions at the “A. and M.” At Acker
man I had only an hour or two between trains, but
I must needs spend it with Prof. Berry and his
bright boys and girls at the public school.
Blue Mountain Giris.
Blue Mountain College! In the language of Gus
Greene’s speech on “Scotland,” when I was a boy,
at old Crew Street School, Atlanta, “There’s magic
in the sound!” Blue Mountain! And beauty and
honor and romance and inspiration gather about the
name! I had dreamed about that “enchanted spot”
for almost a decade. For years I had kept on file
an invitation from President B. G. Lowery. And
that night when I faced my first Blue Mountain au
dience composed of the flower of Southern woman
hood in her more than four hundred girls, the chiv
alry of young manhood in the students of Mississip
pi Heights Academy, and the added charm of Blue
Mountain’s cultured and generous citizenship, a
wave of inspiration swept the chords of mind, heart
and soul, such as my being has seldom known.
And those girls—bless their merry hearts! How
the stars shone in their winsome faces and peals of
mirth went round and round when I told them how
the greenness of the trees grew greener, the fresh
ness of the breezes blew fresher and the blueness of
the skies looked bluer as my tardy train rolled near
er and nearer Blue Mountain—because—.because,
maybe, I remembered that a Georgia brother of
mine married a Blue Mountain college girl, under
circumstances highly romantic, and the thought
kept coming to me that maybe—maybe—my broth
er’s brother might do the self-same thing!
W. D. U.
Tennessee Division of the U. D. C.
The Tennessee Division of the United Daughters
of the Confederacy held a recent annual meeting at
Memphis. Mrs. A. B. White, the President, read
an interesting and elaborate report of the work of
this State Branch which included the following sub
jects :
Work of the Different Chapters; Work of the
History Committee; Visit to the Confederate Sol
diers Home; Descriptions of the Chapter Houses in
Various Sections; Funds for Caring for the Con
federate Graves and Building Monuments; Estab
lishing a Tennessee Room in the Confederate Mus
eum at Richmond; Organization of Children’s Aux
iliaries; the Preparation of a Confederate Cate
chism for the use of the Children’s Organizations;
and Donations for the Sam Davis Monument Fund.
This Chapter is, apparently doing excellent and
active work and must form a most important part
of the United Daughters Organization. In the
hands of the younger generation lies the preserva
tion of the Confederate spirit and the U. D. C. as
well as the U. S. C. V. are doing all in their power
to preserve and to create the best and highest in
terests of the order they represent.
Southern Memorial Association.
Another branch of Confederate work is being regu
larly carried on by the Southern Memorial Associa
tion of which Mrs. W. J. Behan of New Orleans is
president. At the last Annual Reunion of the U.
C. V. held in New Orleans the Memorial Association
also met and much good work was planned for the
coming year. Committees were appointed to act on
the following questions: Monuments; Finance;
Membership; Relics; Floral Designs for Memorial
Day; Soldiers Home; Memorial Book; Badges.
At the meeting referred to Miss A. Lobrano of
the Relief Committee presented to the Association
a handsome sword which was given to her father on
the Battlefield of New Orleans by Gen. Andrew
Jackson.
No “New” South.
There is no “New” South. The South of 1906
is the same South which freely offered her blood
and treasure upon the altar of freedom erected by
the colonies. The South of 1906 is the pure lineage
of the South of 1776, and upon her fair face the
bright light of the past shows no stain of dishonor.
Conscious of her patriotic rectitude, she cherishes
alike the memories of Yorktown and Appomatox.
To the American Union the South gave Washington,
Jefferson and Jackson and a fond mother she points
also to Lee, Davis, Jackson, Gordon and Wheeler
and says: “Those are my children.” The South
of 1906 is the same South of ante-bellum days, the
seat of culture and of chivalry, adjusting herself to
changed conditions and developing her unmeasured
resources, but proud of the records of her heroic
dead, of her scars and ruins.
Yes, give me a land with ruins widespread
Where the living tread light on the hearts of the
dead.
“Yes, give me a land where the battle’s red blast
Has flashed to the future the fame of the past.
Yes, give me a land that has legends and lays,
That tell of the memories of long cherished days.
Yes, give me a land with graves in each spot
And names in the graves that shall ne’er be forgot.
'*l*
For out of the gloom future brightness is born,
As after the night comes the sunrise of morn.
And each single wreck in the warpath of might
Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right.”
—Columbus Enquirer-Sun.
Georgia Division of the U. D. C.
It is said that the Georgia Division of the U. D.
C. have aroused severe antagonism by proposing to
erect a memorial tablet at Andersonville to Capt.
Henry Wirz who was executed after the w T ar. An
other tablet is proposed to be erected to Union Sol
diers who were permitted to go North but who re
turned to Andersonville prison in compliance with
their promise.
The recent issue of the Confederate Veteran con
tains many interesting articles of historic value re
garding the “Unwritten Chapters” of the great
War Between the States. Among these are recol
lections of the two great battles, one of Franklin
and one of the Wilderness—the former is by Dr.
C. G. Phillips (sur, 22nd. Miss. Reg.) of Lexington.
Miss., and the latter is by Jacob Heater. All such
contributions are of special value as having direct
historic significance.
Let not thy mind run on what thou lackest as
much as on what thou hast already.—Marcus Au
relius.
You will find that the best defense against gossip
is to fill your mind with higher and better things;
to keep your brain and your hands busied with
useful and ennobling work.—Ex.
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