THE HIGHLANDERS
OF THE SOUTH

^^r

¦st

n
WMk
¦fz-'-yy.'-. -.. -.'¦:•--' ''. ' ¦'-
>
MM
uf||||Li,ii|
llllgll
uw
^^
, ^-.^..
^P^^r^
-^"w^P'
H
^v/--:j
^^^|i^^s
MUEL H.THOMPSON
1911

THE HIGHLANDERS
OF THE SOUTH

By
SAMUEL H. THOMPSON

NEWYORK: EATON& MAINS
CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM

Copyright, 1910, by
EATON & MAINS

TO MR. JOHN W. FISHER AND MR. JOHN
A. PATTEN, WHO, WITH OTHER LOYAL
LAYMEN IN THE FIELD, HAVE, WITH
MONEY AND THROUGH PERSONAL SERV
ICE, AIDED THE HIGHLANDER OF THE
SOUTH, THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS APPRE
CIATIVELY DEDICATED.

I From Whence They Come  13
II Where They Live  19
III Their Characteristics  26
IV Their Manners and Customs  29
V What They Do  34
VI Their Service  38
VII What They Do Not Know  44
VIII The Problem  54
IX Other Denominations  65
X The Methodist Episcopal Church  69
XI The Progress of the South  72
XII Unto the Last  .- ,-  79

ILLUSTRATIONS
The Home Place  Frontispiece FACINO PAGB
A Genuine "Razorback"  31
An Old Church in which Methodists Continue to
Worship  SO
A Weaver and Lover of Cats  79

FOREWORD
In the gathering of materials for this brief ac
count the writer has sought to strike a happy
medium between any existing extremes ; he has
endeavored to be conservative in all things, and
he has been careful to give only such statements
as may be readily substantiated.
With the hope of stirring the people everywhere
to a deeper sense of their obligation to their less
fortunate brothers, and with the desire to create
within the minds of those who can the spirit of
helpfulness to those who cannot but would if they
could, is this little volume sent forth.
Samuel H. Thompson.
Chuckey, Tennessee.

INTRODUCTION
It was a very happy thought on the part of the
Home Missionary Board to ask Principal Samuel
H. Thompson to prepare this little volume descrip
tive of our work in the South. No one in all my
acquaintance is better prepared to do such work
intelligently and effectively than Principal Thomp
son. Here he has lived and wrought for years.
All who know him are deeply impressed with the
earnestness of his consecration and his splendid
service to the cause of Christian education in
Tennessee. As our great Church becomes aware of the
important work being done in this section the re
sult is sure to be a lively interest and a more active
cooperation. I am glad to bid this little volume a hearty God
speed and to hope for it a mission of blessing to
many lives.
William F. Anderson.

CHAPTER I
From Whence They Come
It is rather singular that a people migratory in
their habits may be able to trace their ancestry
for an almost unbroken period of nearly twenty
centuries. This is still more singular when we
consider that these people were probably continent
dwellers to begin with; later, islanders; after many
years they migrated to another island, and thence
to a great and rapidly developing continent — North
America. People migratory both by habit and by
nature usually lose sight of such remote things as
ancestry and lineage in the nearer and more per
sonal interest of posterity and sustenance there
for. Moreover, it would not be expected of a
people in the times of struggle where might makes
right, of conquest not only for gain but for life
as well, and of the making of a new home, that
they should preserve in fullness of detail such
records. Thus we find little written of the early
history of this people.
But from the time of the invasion of Ireland
about the beginning of the present era by some
foreign tribes, probably from the European con
tinent near by, forty-six in number, who were
victors on the Hibernian Isle, we have a practically
unbroken account of the people known to history
as the Scotch-Irish. Among the tribes above men
tioned was one known as the Scotriage, and sub
sequently by the Latinized form, Scoti. They
13

14 The Highlanders of the South
seem to have been victors over all other tribes and
to have led the later invasions of Britain. Early
they showed advanced elements of thrift and prog
ress. Cormac, a chief of the Irish Scoti, is said
to have introduced, as early as the third century,
water mills into Ireland, and to have established
schools for the study of law, military affairs, and
the annals of the country. Laws attributed to him
continued in force all through the Middle Ages. Is
it any wonder that the descendants of such chiefs
have been always a liberty-loving people ?
These Scoti chiefs and their progeny continued
to keep themselves known in the border warfare
of Ireland and Britain, including Scotland, to which
country they gave its present name, until the ac
cession of James VI of Scotland to the British
throne in 1603. Some vainly thought at this time
that because the Irish were the original "Scoti" the
Scottish king would sympathize with oppressed,
duke-ridden, and tax-burdened Ireland. But not
so. Could these same people look upon their
beloved isle from then to now they would see
but little difference so far as oppression is con
cerned. But they did not close their struggles for liberty
because of discouragement. Forced to take the
"Black Oath" of Charles I, they continued to be
objects of oppression, after having again migrated,
this time from Scotland to Ireland, early in the
seventeenth century, taking residence in the county
Ulster, known later as the Ulster Plantation. In
subsequent persecutions of trade by William III,
a liberal-minded man but forced as king to sup
press, if possible, the Irish woolen trade, the Ulster

From Whence They G)me 1 5
weavers were not crushed, but rather their industry
flourished. The Scots of Ulster were supplemented by some
Huguenot refugees, who established manufacturing
interests in the county. However, a little later
commercial restraints brought their interests to
naught. The sacramental test of 1704 was seemingly
just as hurtful to the Scottish Presbyterians in Ire
land as to the Irish Catholics, though the former
defended the town of Londonderry in favor of the
crown. But the last straw came in 1772, when the
"Steelboys" rose against the exactions of absentee
landlords, who often turned out Protestant yeomen
to get a higher rent from the Roman Catholic
cottiers. The dispossessed patriots, true to their
liberty and justice-loving inheritance, migrated to
the great American continent and carried with
them an undying hatred of England which had
much to say in the American Revolution so soon
to follow. Thus it is seen that not only for
injustice to America, but to other colonies as well,
did England have to account.
Prior to this time, however, many of the Scotch-
Irish, so called by their having gone from Scotland
to Ulster, had come to the southeastern coast of
North America, settling in the Carolinas, some
of them forming a part of the "Regulators" who
were defeated by the crown troops under Govemor
Tryon at the battle on the Alamance River early
in the seventies of the eighteenth century. They
had again resisted oppressive taxation, the tax this
time being levied to erect a mansion for the British
governor. Many of these defeated patriots had

l6 The Highlanders of the South
to flee into more remote sections, not a few going
into the territory out of which have since been
carved the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, and
helping to settle those unbroken forests.
While a large per cent of the some five millions
of people in the Southern Appalachians are Scotch-
Irish, it must not be supposed that all are of that
descent. There is a strain of other blood, but
doubtless the oldest strain is Scotch-Irish. Next
to these people come the Germans and Dutch —
"Black Dutch" they are called by many. Of more
recent years many emigrants to these fertile valleys
and well-timbered hills have been what are known
locally as "Pennsylvania Dutch," being descend
ants of early Dutch and German settlers in the land
of Pennsylvania. It must not be forgotten that
among many of the Southem peoples the word
"Dutch" is meant to imply Germans as well as the
people from Holland. These settlers, whether of
the pure German or Dutch strain, prove good and
valuable additions to the native population, being
industrious, energetic, thrifty, and economical. In
many instances they have a trade and ply it well.
Some of them are potters; others, carpenters,
masons, and blacksmiths. Not a few of the early
German settlers have given able and successful
ministers, one German family giving four sons to
this greatly needed profession. Another family of
German and Scotch-Irish blending has five
preachers, three sons and two sons-in-law. All of
these nationalities have contributed to the sturdy
yeomanry of the country districts. Nor should
we forget a few French people who came to the
Westem wilderness and contributed their share

From Whence They Come I7
in making a fertile field out of a dense forest.
Sometimes they were refugees; again, they came
of their own free will, seeking a new country.
England did not fail to contribute valuable material
from her overplus of island population — a popula
tion whose ancestors under Henry I, Henry III,
and King John first received a taste for constitu
tional liberty and slept not until possessed by them
on both sides the Atlantic.
Perhaps a few other nationalities have come, but
their influence is not so marked. Once in a great
while one finds an old Spanish name whose owner
doubtless descended from some follower of Cortez,
Pizzaro, or De Soto.
From such cosmopolitan sources one would
expect a cosmopolitan people. But such is hardly
the case, as will be seen later.
Out of this strange heterogeneous mass there
has evolved a compact whole presenting a solid
front against Romanism. Early came the Presby
terians, Methodists, and Baptists. It would seem
that the Methodist Church took the lead among the
common people. We read from a distinguished
historian of one of these mountain States, James
Phelan in his History of Tennessee: "These [the
Methodists] were fond of touching the emotions
and feelings of their congregations, and appealed
directly to their hearts. They brought religion
home to the hearts of their hearers, whereas
the old Presbyterians only tried to affect their
reason by the use of logic and of quotations from
the Bible, and by expositions of doctrine. The
Methodists soon outstripped the Presbyterians,
and have since spread all through the Southwest."

1 8 The Highlanders of the South
The same writer pays the following tribute to
the circuit-rider: "The circuit-rider has done more
to build up, broaden, and strengthen the Methodist
Church than all other human agencies combined.
As the number of preachers was insufficient to give
one to each congregation, it became necessary for
one preacher to take charge of several churches
and travel from one place to another. He also at
times organized new congregations. The circuit-
rider was generally a man of great bravery, and
was ready to face death at any time in order to
advance the cause of religion and to save a soul.
He was not often a man of much learning, but he
was pure as a child and kind and gentle. Frequent
mention is made by some of the early writers of the
circuit-rider, with his saddlebags, on a rawboned
horse, plodding unconcernedly through a forest
where a bullet from an Indian gun might at any
minute bring him to his death."
In connection with the establishment of churches
it is a significant fact that the Roman Catholics
never gained much ground among these mountain
people. However, in the opinion of the writer they
are gaining more now than ever before. They
are establishing little missions, with the hope of
making them larger, wherever they can get a few
souls. In the rapidly growing towns they seek to
be ready for the newcomers from the North and.
East. In some sections they send out literature
soliciting financial aid for what they term a worthy
and needy mission field. All they say may be true,
but if you are afraid of Romanism get ready to
combat it at once, and first of all and more effec
tively where it finds virgin soil.

CHAPTER II
Where They Live
A CLEAR estimate of any people cannot be
formed without a knowledge of the natural features
by which they are surrounded. Topography often
has as much to do with the formation of character
as racial inheritances. A man cannot be correctly
estimated unless the mountains that encompassed
him or the plains that spread out before his feet
or the rivers that nourished his vegetation are
known and measured. It may be that he dwells on
the highland, where the cool breezes of summer are
but httle more than the breath of winter; or that
his abode is in the valley, where the rudest blast
from the fiercest storms never reaches his humble
but homelike cabin. Perchance he dwells among
the fertile prairies or rolling lands of the great
West, whose virgin soil renders him independent
so far as the goods of this world are concerned.
But all these things are character-making elements.
Any good geography will show the natural
features of North America by the relief maps. The
Southern Appalachians are seen to be well supplied
with water whose drainage is most excellent. The
streams shown on the relief maps are perhaps the
least important save as a sort of receiving canal
for the other and smaller streams. In the thou
sands of valleys to be found among these moun
tains it is doubtful if you find one five miles long
destitute of running water in some form. Some->
19

20 The Highlanders of the South
times it is a rapidly flowing stream having its
source at the head of the valley, or, as sometimes
occurs, far up on the mountain side gushing forth
in purity and abundance. And it may be right
here that an illicit distillery exists and "moonshine"
whisky may flow as freely and almost as abun
dantly as the crystal water.
In this^ Appalachian system of about. X7§,QiQ0
square miles there dwell some four^r five_millions
of people who are essentially like other folks, and
who are first of all patriotic. A century and a
half ago this was practically an unbroken forest.
No one east at that time thought habitation in these
mountains possible, much less probable. It is re
membered that General Washington declared that
if the British should defeat him in the valleys of
the New England rivers and elsewhere he would
take his handful of troops beyond the Alleghanies
and there forever defy approach.
The Father of his Country was by no means
alone in regarding the Appalachians as the natural
western limit of the country, and the formidable
limit of all progress in the direction of the setting
sun. It would not be expected that a system of
mountains so large even as to have its northern
origin in Newfoundland and its southem disap
pearance among the hills of northern Alabama
would be a barrier to men who braved the Atlantic
for conscience' sake. Even larger barriers would
not have deterred them. As population increased
and men desired more forest area passes were
found in the mountains and the way was opened
for the pioneer, the advance guard of civilization.
Daniel Boone, the noted hunter and trapper, and

Where They Liv« 21
others of his kind who could not endure a neighbor
so close as five miles kept up a constant search for
new and untried hunting grounds. It was often
the purpose of the settlers to make for themselves a
little place of their own and discourage others
from taking land near by, thus reserving fertile
spots for their own kith and kin.
The mountains are not always high; nor are the
valleys always deep. Taking the Appalachians as
a whole, they vary from a few hundred feet above
sea level to the lofty height of almost seven thou
sand feet, as seen in Clingman's Dome, Mount
Mitchell, and others. It is true that habitations
are not found at many places on these highest
peaks, yet Cloudland, 6,394 feet in height, is a
great summer resort, and people do live there
through the winter. The hotel here is built
directly across the surveyed line between the States
of North Carolina and Tennessee.
From some of these mountain streams the smaller
towns and cities get their water supply, and that
abundantly, of the purest water known. We know
one little town whose supply of water comes from
a mountain spring the estimated capacity of which
is ten million gallons daily. Another use of these
rapidly flowing streams is to turn small corn mills
grinding perhaps ten to twenty bushels of meal
per day. A few turn roller flouring mills, but the
trade is almost entirely local custom. Recent
devastation of forests by lumber dealers has
brought innumerable steam saw mills, whose work
is not so commendable, because it means not only a
decrease of our Southern forests but the impover
ishment of the land as well. Mr. Graves and his

22 The Highlanders of the South
Forestry Commission would do well not merely to
pass through this section touching only the prin
cipal cities, but they should go deep into the moun
tains and there see what the onward march of so-
called civilization has done.
Aside from the finest of hemlock, poplar, cherry,
birch, oak, pine, gum, walnut, maple, and almost
every other species of timber found on this conti
nent, many herbs of medicinal properties grow in
abundance in these regions— even to this day the
"yarb doctor" is not so uncommon — ginseng, called
"sang" by the mountain people ; mandrake or may
apple, mullein, wild indigo, lady's slipper, black
snakeroot, burdock, lobelia. Poor Robinson's to
bacco, catnip, and many other herbs the essences
of which are often used as simple remedies by these
people, and frequently with more effect than "doc
tor stuff," as the people sometimes derisively refer
to the medicine given by practicing physicians.
Many of the useful minerals and some of the
precious metals are found in these mountains. Not
infrequently stories are told of men who mine their
own lead and run their own bullets in the hand-
ladle for the old-fashioned "bear gun" or smaller
squirrel rifle. Iron ore is perhaps the most abun
dant of the minerals found. The ore produced from
the mines of these mountains is said to be the
finest in the United States. In one of these
valleys there are ridges containing seemingly an
inexhaustible supply of iron ore assaying ninety-six
per cent pure iron, said to be the richest known out
side of Denmark. Nothing need be said of the
Virginia coal fields. Their riches are too widely
known to need comment here. Much zinc is

Where They Live 23
found, but not in pockets such as to be of great
value. Copper is found in some of the States, and
the mines therein worked to advantage, as at the
famous Ducktown or Copperhill mines in Tennes
see. Phosphate beds are so abundant as to be
making men rich. No finer marble is in the
country than here. Tennessee building stone is
famous throughout the nation. Land plaster (gyp
sum) has made many a poor farmer wealthy
despite his ignorance. Mica, feldspar, hematite,
and barytes are some of the many other useful
minerals found. Traces of gold and silver are
here, but not more than a few hundred thousand
dollars' worth of these metals have been mined.
They do not occur in great abundance.
Every stranger coming here is delighted with
the sublime scenery. Bishop Foster did not hesi
tate to say that it is as grand as any in the Alpine
regions. Others have testified to the gtandeutr
being unsurpassed by the Rockies and other famous
regions. There are many varieties of valleys and
hills occasioned by the numerous forms of the
mountains themselves. It is no uncommon thing
to be on some of these high peaks basking in the
sunshine while just below you a few hundred yards
may be a heavy cloud drenching any mountain
climber next below it. "The Battle above the
Clouds" is no myth.
The climate is most salubrious. People Hve to a
great age in these mountains. Their vigor and
agility are wonderful. We know a man in his
ninety-sixth year who frequently shaves himself,
and has no trouble to walk without a cane. The
story is told of a Northerner coming South in

24 The Highlanders of the South
search of health, and, finding what appeared a
delightful place in the mountains near Asheville,
he was about to engage lodging when he came
in contact with one of the natives in the front yard
of his own household. The native was shedding
tears as if in great pain, though he was to all ap
pearance threescore and ten. The stranger ac
costed him to know the cause of his distress when
the following conversation took place, as we have
it: "What is the cause of your distress, my friend?"
said the kindly disposed stranger.
"Pap whopped me," replied the native.
"Good gracious, man, where is your father?"
"Up in the loft puttin' granddad ter bed," was
the characteristic reply.
Thus you see people never die in these moun
tains. Without more levity, it is more evident
every year that eventually many parts of these
mountains will be utilized for the erection of
sanitariums for the treatment of consumption,
tuberculosis, bronchitis, and catarrhal diseases.
With all these attractions, the habitat of the
Southern Highlander is yet one of seclusion and
retirement. He really has not much ambition to
change it. But once he goes a-roaming he may
stay away for years. In some places he resents the
coming of the locomotive, and looks upon so tame
a thing as a pike road as an intrusion into his right
ful domain. In many counties not a railroad has
gone, and may not go for years. The narrow
mountain public roads are often impassable in
winter and the rainy season of the spring. Even
horsemen have a difficult time to get across the

Where They Live 25
mountains at such times. The only sure way is on
foot, and then you may be stopped by swollen
streams, fallen trees, or other barriers. The bridle
path is the most convenient and safest of all the
roads. Thus has the horizon of the mountaineer been
Hmited by the surrounding mountain tops and the
heads of the valleys in which his humble dwelling
has been located. His has been a time of rest
and peace and quiet. Has he profited by it?

CHAPTER III
Their Characteristics
If you should see a man make the sign of the
cross before eating you would not need to ask his
religion ; if you should hear hiir. say "hadn't ought
a done that," or "Cunnel Johnson, suh, of Geo'gia,"
you would at once recognize his home section.
In the same way would you know the mountain
man by the way he talks, acts, and has his
being. It does not seem out of place to put loyalty as
the first of the characteristics by which a man of
the Southern Appalachians should be known. He
may not have any Indian blood in his veins, but
loyalty, to him, can have but one meaning, and that
never to forget either friend or foe. Likes and
dislikes without any logical reason save that of an
unreasoning prejudice have cost many a man his
county office and many a church its opening wedge
into a community needing the influence only a
church could give. It is an old saying that if a
mountaineer likes you he will die for you, and if
he dislikes you you will in all probability die for
him. The writer fears this is all too true. Many
a time has this loyal mountaineer been known to
travel miles on foot, enduring severe cold and
pain and often hunger, to warn a friend thought
to be in danger. Doubtless he would be just as
zealous in the pursuit of an enemy. He has been
known to divide his last morsel of food with a way-
26

Their Characteristics 27
faring man, be he stranger or acquaintance. What
greater loyalty could one find anywhere?
He is essentially a man of the woods, and prefers
that his surroundings be such. "Store clothes"
may have come to many of these people, but the
real mountain man prefers his "double Dutch
breeches" and his brogan shoes tied with ground
hog hide; while his wife, warm-hearted soul that
she is, wants her "linsey-worsted" basque-and-
overskirt set off with a little "breakfast shawl" and
a large kerchief bound over her head. Glowing
colors appeal to the hardy and simple-hearted
mountaineers almost as much as to the aboriginal
tribes on other continents of which we hear so
much from traders and travelers. You often see
the mountain youth with a red handkerchief about
his neck, and if it is silk in quality and deep red
in color he is more the envy of his fellows. Not
less pleasing are these fast colors to the feminine
part of the inhabitants, bright red and deep blue
being their favorite colors. If you doubt this just
examine the calicoes and notions in a mountain
country store. It often matters not whether the
colors are fast or merely passing. The present
show is sufficient to sell the goods, and that is all
for which either the merchant or the customer
seems to care. Shirts, trousers, coat, shoes, socks,
and hat constitute the wardrobe of the average
Southem mountaineer. Very few of them wear
underclothes. Tbey are hardy, and nearly all of
them have early in life been subjected to some kind
of hardening process so that they do not mind
what many of us would term severe har(iships.
Unkemptness, to coin a word, would perhaps be

28 The Highlanders of the South
another characteristic of this son of the forest.
The longer he wears his hair, and the more un
combed, the more of a mountain man is he. Just
a few weeks ago the writer saw a mountaineer come
in astride of one of four mules drawing a lumber
wagon. On his head was the characteristic black
slouch hat covering long, flowing locks of hair as
black as the hat. His face had not seen razor or
scissors in months. Would you be surprised to
know that this man is a mountain correspondent to
a county newspaper? His letters are not silly,
by any means, but contain good sense in many
instances. Of course, they need some editorial cor
rection, but they are much better than no letters.
This man is a typical mountaineer.
I was about to say illiteracy is another char
acteristic, but I shall reserve the discussion on that
for another chapter. I think it but fair to say
that the average mountaineer uses tobacco in some
way; usually it is in all the ways known to man.
And he knows not when he began to use it. He
chews, smokes, snuffs, and doubtless sometimes
eats the weed. Yes, and he drinks the product of
his still, too. And he will swear some if he has
occasion. But these also are to be saved for a
later chapter.
With all these seemingly conflicting character
istics, he is kind, warm-hearted, cheerful, friendly,
amiable, and gentle as a child. He will go out of
his way to do you a favor, and you can count him
a "square man" every day in the week. He will
go with you to the last ditch, and cross it with you
if you need him.

CHAPTER IV
Their Manners and Customs
This Southem mountaineer is a queer mixture
of manners and brusqueness. He would extend to
you the hospitality of his home for days at a
time, but would resent any attempt on your part
to introduce modern manners even in the most
limited way, as the following incident will show.
A gentleman traveling in the mountains sought
shelter from the night in the humble home of one
of these honest fellows. He was told that he might
share the bed with the teacher of the mountain
"skule." The stranger graciously accepted the
conditions and bade his host a pleasant good-night.
The next moming, thinking to continue in the
apparent good graces of the owner of the house,
the stranger saluted him with a cheery "Good-
morning, sir."
"I staid hyar last night, tew; yer needn't be
speakin' ter me, stranger."
And the good old mountaineer meant just what
he said. No ceremonies for him. He had spoken
words of greeting upon the arrival of the stranger
the afternoon before, and they were enough
for him even though the visitor should remain
a guest a whole week. No unnecessary use of
words for him. One greeting was sufficient for
all time.
The mountaineer's manners are brusque and
often blunt, but beneath the rough exterior there
29

3© The Highlanders of the South
beats the kindliest heart kept in the warmest
breast any man ever knew.
Sensitive, too, is this man whose life is often one
of isolation and seclusion. Poverty seldom has a
thick skin. Let this Highlander of the South but
think you look upon him as one not up to the best
as the outside world calls the best, and from that
moment his manner toward you is cold and indiffer
ent, if not impolite. No man — not even an Indian
— can show more indifference and utter uncon
cern for present people and things than can this
mountaineer when he so chooses. A man at no
court, be he plenipotentiary or a mere attache,
needs more diplomacy and tact and ability than
does the man who comes to reach this untutored
child who has within him so much latent force,
strong and vigorous but undeveloped. Approach
him in the right way and you forever have the key
to his life, his habits, his hopes, his ambitions, and
all that he holds dear. But approach him without
skill, foresight, and judgment, and you are at once
tightly barred from ever gaining this entrance so
much sought and so badly needed.
In his habits, manners, and customs he is almost
y primitive. The hand loom is by no means a thing
of the past ; nor is the hand grater for making cora
meal. The geared or yoked oxen may be seen at
tached to a wooden plow. You can yet find the
puncheon floor and buildings covered with boards
held on by poles and logs and even rocks. Crude
utensils for tilling the soil may yet be found. Many
horseshoes and plow points — "bull tongues" — are
made in the ordinary blacksmith shop or forge.
Split baskets and splitbottom chairs are made by

Their Manners and Customs 3 1
these people, and they decorate their baskets with
gay colors made from their own compound of
bark, ooze, and wood coloring. Not a few make
their own shoes, and almost all stockings are home-
knit. Leather is tanned often at a little bark yard
whose capacity is from one to ten hides per day or
less. Harness or "gears," saddles, and other out
fits for horses are made at home by the oil lamp,
or perhaps oftener by the light from the pine torch.
He gets his meal at the little mountain mill, and his
flour, the little he uses, at a river mill some dis
tance from home. When it comes to a question of
milling he usually carries his grist on his shoulders
to the mill and retums with it in the same manner.
His meat or bacon he raises himself, seldom
butchering anything but a "razorback," a term sug
gested by the thinness of the animal and also by
the length of its nose. Needless to say that this
species of swine is of mixed blood. He comes to
his present state, however, largely by lack of care.
Never does he get any food save acorns and chest
nuts and fruit from such other trees as the woods
of the hills and mountains afford. From this for
aging direct is the hog butchered and used for
food. Now and then he is fed for a week or two
before going to grace the table of this man who
likes his corn pone and bacon.
Our mountaineer is a great lover of fun. Per
haps nothing keeps him from sleep. Responsibil
ities rest lightly upon his shoulders. If he has a
neighbor a mile away he is happy. One in speak
ing distance would make him no happier. No ten-
cent moving-picture performance or magic-lantern
show comes close without getting him for a patron.

32 The Highlanders of the South
He also goes to the county site to see the circus.
It is interesting on "show day" to watch them come
in all sorts of conveyances, from the pedestrian to
the wagon drawn by mules, horses, or oxen. Not
infrequently will you see one ox hooked to a wagon
taking the mountaineer and his family to see the
elephant. Here again you see the prevalence of
gay, gaudy colors. This mountain man will spend
all his savings at the circus. Sometimes he is
caught by the "three pea" man; again it is the
"wheel." He is great to take a game of chance.
He will also "take in" the big circus. Recently a
showman exhibiting in this mountain territory,
after a prosperous day, remarked, "There are
more fools and fifty-cent pieces in this county than
anywhere we have been save one place," and
he named a county in another mountain State.
If our mountain friend has meal enough for a
day or two he is not going to worry about the
rest. He believes in letting every day provide
for itself.
In the heart of these mountains you find the old-
fashioned wood-chopping and "quilting bee" where
the men cut wood and the women quilt. In the
afternoon or evening the young folks gather for
what they ordinarily term a "frolic," meaning a
gathering where they are free to play all sorts of
games, often dancing to the music of the violin or
banjo. The man who plays the fiddle or picks the
banjo is the hero of the occasion. He bears his
honors lightly, but the flaming red silk kerchief
inartistically knotted at the throat together with
his musical instrument is his badge of authority.
Everyone present looks up to him. He is usually

Their Manners and Customs 33
the most dignified person present, seldom speaking
unless spoken to.
It is also the custom of these mountain folk to
want to know all about any newcomer or stranger
who may be passing through. We have known
them to ask the traveler who he was, his business in
that part of the country, and whether or not he
meant to remain in the settlement overnight. We
knew one of the women to ask one of our Home
Missionary women who happened by accident to
be her traveling companion how long she meant to
stay, and what was her business, and she capped the
conversation by saying, "An' what did ye brung
with ye?"
Right here we might say a word about what this
man eats. He is not very choice of food. Nor is
he particular as to the quality of the cooking. The
women resent the coming of the cooking school,
and think if they cook like their mothers it ought to
be good enough for anyone. The writer visited a
District Conference in one of these mountain dis
tricts in an official capacity. He was assigned to
the home in which the district superintendent — then
called presiding elder, locally, "The Elder" — was
being entertained. It was, of course, considered
the best home in that community. There was not
a carpet on the floor. The women of the house
wore no shoes — ^went barefoot. Our food was
com pone and poorly baked flour pone, cane mo
lasses, meat broiled until it swam in its own grease,
a thick-crusted pie, and some sort of jelly which
shall be nameless. No greater work can be done
by any Church than to improve the culinary habits
of these people.

CHAPTER V
What They Do
I DO not want to say that this man is lazy or
indolent or shiftless, for he is not exactly either
of these, but rather a combination of all. A few
years ago the writer of this said in the columns of
a Southern magazine that the average man of the
South does not actually work more than half the
time. That statement has not been contradicted.
This applies all over the South, and is no more true
of the man of the mountains than of the man who
dwells in the fertile valleys away from any moun
tains at all. Some think that genius is the result
of rest, being accumulated by atavism through suc
cessive generations. If this be true the South, in
the opinion of the writer, should produce more
geniuses than any part of the country; for we do
rest. There are such extremes of poverty and
wealth, ignorance and culture, in the South that it
is difficult to classify them properly for all classes.
You find the wealthy landowner dwelling in an
elegant house on a farm or plantation of several
hundred acres while his nearest neighbor, usually
neighbors, may live in a hovel on the same farm
surrounded by dirt and squalor of the worst sort.
It is of the dweller in the hovel we wish to write.
His life, his surroundings, his temptations we de
sire to reach and help. Not that the other fellow
doesn't need help, but he is able to help himself.
He knows the things he needs, but for generations
34

What They Do 35
his people have been hoarders of dollars or hoarders
of remnants of blue-blooded aristocracy. They will
let go of neither. One is as great an evil as the
other. There is absolutely no sympathy between
this hoarder of aristocratic ancestry and the poor
hovel dweller. But more of that later.
Shall we call him a day laborer? I suppose so.
That is about the way most of them live. They are
witty, quick to see, but look with wonder upon
education and scholarship. We have seen them
open their eyes in astonishment when told that one
can read two lines at a time or peruse an ordinary
novel in a few hours. It is not always the day
laborer who is so amazed. Sometimes it is the
mountaineer who owns some hundreds of acres
of rock, gravel, and scrubby trees and calls it a
cattle range or sheep ranch.
A generation ago these people tilled the soil in
a small way, making their living selling a little com,
a little wheat, now and then a steer, or perchance
working by the month for the more successful
farmer in the lowlands. It was easier then than
now, because there was a govemment distillery
every few miles and the mountain farmer could
sell the com raised in his fertile valley or on his
rich hillside for a good price within a short distance
from his home. In those days corn was about all
he raised. That is the secret of the practical fail
ure of the government to break up the illicit distill
ing of liquor. Every few weeks now an illicit still
is "raided" by revenue officers and in some cases
hundreds of gallons of malt destroyed. The
mountaineer dwelling in the coves and hills often
times declares that God gave these things to him.

36 The Highlanders of the South
therefore he has a right to use them so as to make
a living the easiest way. Do you think these moun
tains need mission work? If it were not claiming
his inalienable right to make whisky without pay
ing revenue he would be claiming some other so-
called inalienable right, for his chief right seems
to be following the line of least resistance.
Now that the government is making strenuous
efforts to stop illicit distilling and "moonshining"
this hardy mountaineer must look elsewhere for a
living. Sometimes he hunts. Some dig ginseng
and other herbs, marketing them at the nearest
store. Others gather chestnuts in season, peel tan
bark, or do anything else that presents itself.
Suffice it to say that most of them do not work
when they have rations ahead for a day or two.
In recent years much of the timber is being
sawed and marketed. This gives employment to
all who care to work. With timber marketing has
come increased price for unskilled labor. Formerly
fifty or seventy-five cents was counted a good price
for day labor. Now it is usually one dollar. This
is true, however, only of the saw yards and logging
camps. On the farms the price remains low. Some
laborers — and they are not all negroes either — may
be had for fifty cents or less, and they board them
selves. Given a chance they become fairly good car
penters or blacksmiths or masons, but usually do
not accumulate wealth to any extent. Very few of
them become contractors even in the least sense of
that word. To become contractors they must
think, and that is hard work, and yet you cannot
beat one of them in a trade.

What They Do 37
Many of these people own their own homes — a
small house and a lot but little larger. Some are
fair renters; that is, they farm several acres of
another man's land. They sometimes get out to the
lowlands and there rent. Most of the people
referred to in this chapter belong to the class al
most wholly illiterate. They do not accumulate
property because they cannot calculate. Need I
ask. Do they need mission work or Church Ex
tension aid?

CHAPTER VI
Their Service
Before we enter upon a more technical discus
sion of the various conditions of this Southerner
not aforementioned we deem it wise to speak of
his service to his country.
"If we take the term Southern mountaineers in
its broader extent, all must agree that the service
rendered the nation by the mountaineers of the
South has been a notable one."^
Men like Boone, Crockett, Sevier, Bean, Robert
son, the Shelbys, the Donelsons, the Doaks, the
Carters, and the Bledsoes did an untold and an al
most unheralded good as those who blazed the
way for the coming of civilization. They not only
did good as frontiersmen, but later they helped the
infant republic to hold its own against the on
slaughts of the British. True, these men were
usually clad in buckskin and bearing their trusty
rifles, but no one doubted either their courage or
their aim. Fearless as tigers, they were as brave
as lions. Often they took their lives in their hands
and went in defense of the weak or to open un
trodden paths that the women and children might
follow. After his little cabin was built and his
small field cleared he had to be constantly on guard
in the cultivation of his crops. If he but went to
the spring half a hundred yards away for a
bucket of water he must take with him his trusty
'President S. T. Wilson, The Southern Mountaineers, p. 22.
38

Their Service 39
rifle. He plowed, or rather dug, and hoed corn
with this same rifle slung across his manly
shovilders. Later when he must sell the fur prod
ucts of the winter, or procure ammunition and
necessary clothing and articles of food, he must
go by stealth to the nearest trading post, usually a
fort, and there purchase needed supplies, always
going and coming at the imminent risk of his life.
You can safely say that individually and col
lectively the people of the South are patriotic, and
that they believe in the true God. Anarchy and
infidelity are practically unknown to the native
Southerner. His ancestors carried the Book with
them, and he has ever found it good enough for
him. His ideas of God, Providence, and subjects
of a like nature may be vague and regarded as
superstitious by some, but he is true to them and
mayhap his superstition helps him in being faith
ful. Likewise his fathers carried the law with
them. It was held as sacred as tbe Book itself. In
most instances the Book was law and is yet. The
mountain country justice of the peace often is
more just in meting out the law than is the city
judge who may have all the appearances of leam
ing and wisdom without any of the penetration
counting for so much in a judgment. We once
heard a district attorney characterize a certain
mountain country magistrate as being "able to see
a point in law through a brick wall." But we are
not to speak so much of these things as of actual
warfare. Aside from the early defenses against the In
dians, we first find this Southern mountaineer in
the Revolution, more particularly at the battle of

40 The Highlanders of the South
King's Mountain, 1 a cone-shaped hill in Lincoln
County, North Carolina. Here the British had
intrenched themselves under the command of Fer
guson, who declared "the Almighty himself could
not drive him from it." Nine hundred chosen men
armed with rifles surrounded the unbeliever and
completely routed his men after killing him.*
These nine hundred men were chosen from the
riflemen of the mountaineers. Thomas Jefferson
said of this battle, "That memorable victory was
the annunciation of that turn of the tide of suc
cess which terminated the Revolutionary War with
the seal of independence."^
These mountaineers were of great service in
the Indian wars. Long life in the woods and for
ests taught them to be as crafty as the red man
himself. He soon leamed to imitate the Indian's
decoy call for turkeys and other wild game. There
is on record the death of more than one redskin
taking quick passage to the "happy hunting
ground" while following up the answer to his
decoy sound. The Campbells, the Carters, the
Shelbys, Sevier, and Robertson, with their trusty
mountain riflemen, often outwitted the Indian in the
border warfare of that day. In cunning the white
man may not have been so great, but in craftiness
and strategy he soon outgrew him. Never in any
war, Indian or other, has this mountaineer failed
to respond to the call of his country. Look at
Jackson in the War of 1812, and do not forget
Ensign Sam Houston in the same war. Think of

1 Phelan, History of Tennessee, p, 29.
'Historians' History of the World, vol. xxiii, p. 277,
• Garrett and Goodpasture, History of Tennessee, p, 86.

Their Service 4I
the Seminole War, and of the Black Hawk War,
in which Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis
figured not without conspicuousness. Then the
civil war — who can tell their value in this great
straggle to preserve the liberty won more than three
quarters of a century before? Some will say that
the mountaineers had no use for slaves, therefore
they naturally took the opposition; others will say
the mountain man was carried off his feet by the
leadership of such men as Andrew Johnson and
William Gannaway Brownlow. True, these causes
had their bearing, but knowing the mountain man as
I do it seems to me that he agreed with Abraham
Lincoln in the thought that the one word Union
should mean more than all else. His ancestors had
seen Ireland fail and become oppressed because her
brave leaders lacked unity; they had seen Scotland
prevent oppression because of a united leadership.^
This ancestry had not forgotten to teach posterity
what unity meant. Then, too, he has always placed
his country first. Ignorant and illiterate though he
be, on questions of general govemment this man
thinks with remarkable clearness.
In the civil war two congressional districts in
Tennessee, the first and second, furnished more
volunteers for the Union service than any district
in the United States of a like population.* Per
haps the most attractive thing about this enlisting
is that it was almost entirely purely voluntary. In
many instances the men traveled at night in order
to evade the Confederate conscripting officers and
enter the Union army. Some men became famous

• D, H. Montgomery, English History, pp. 117, 118.
3 See civil war records of that period.

42 The Highlanders of the South
piloting refugees through the Confederate lines to
the Federal army and a place of Union safety;
Captain Daniel Ellis, who died about two years
ago, has a name far more than local. His book,
published by Harpers, had a wide sale and copies
of it are now much sought after by ex-Federal
soldiers. Only a short while ago the writer pro
cured one for the commandant of a State Soldiers'
Home in a Northern State. Other men became
almost as famous as did Captain Ellis. By the way.
Captain Ellis lived in the same county^ that gave
to the nation General Samuel P. Carter, who was
both a naval and an army officer — the only man
to bear such distinction, I am reliably informed.
General James Carter, of the regular army, comes
from the same county.
It might not be fair to say that these men saved
the Union, but there is no question about their
doing much toward it. In the far North or the
far South it was not hard to be a Union man or a
Confederate, respectively. But on middle ground,
where lines were sharply drawn, it was a matter
of much moment, requiring no little courage and
judgment. That these men never hesitated to strike
a blow for the the Union is sufficient evidence of
their integrity. But let us say here that "Stone
wall" Jackson was a mountain man.
The writer feels deeply his inability to tell as it
should be told the story of these brave people. The
way they fight for their rights and privileges can
be told only by one who could fittingly tell of the
deeds of a Bruce, a Wallace, or any Highland laird
of the olden times. Such names as MacNeil, Mac-
» Carter County, Tennessee.

Their Service 43
Donald, MacReynolds, MacAmis, Dunbar, and also
other "Macs" tell without further words what
might be expected of such a people bearing such
names and of such ancestry.
Then there is the war of Cuba's freedom. At
the first clarion call the men of the mountains went
forth to give their lives, if need be, for the liberty
of tbe dusky brother on the Pearl of the Antilles.
A friend whose hobby is statistics has informed us
that one of these mountain counties^ sent the larg
est per cent of volunteers to this war of any county
in the United States.
To quote President Wilson again: "This chapter
would be incomplete were it not to call attention,
before closing, to the service rendered their country
by individuals of this mountain region. A mere
mention of a few representative names will em
phasize the great part that, in spite of all their
seclusion, the Appalachians have had in the affairs
of the nation. There are the pioneers Boone,
Sevier, the Shelbys, Davy Crockett, and Sam
Houston; the Presidents Andrew Jackson, James
K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson; the famous Con
federates Zebulon B. Vance, John H. Reagan, and
"Stonewall" Jackson; the renowned Unionists Par
son Brownlow and Admiral Farragut; the inventor
Cyrus H. McCormick; and the man of the nation,
Abraham Lincoln. Surely the annals of the country
would be the poorer were the deeds of the men of
the Appalachians not found recorded in them."
' Greene County, Tennessea.

CHAPTER VII
What They Do Not Know
It may seem strange that a people so patriotic
and so thoroughly Protestant should be so careless
of their mental training. Their illiteracy is doubt
less more accidental than intentional. The writer
would naturally like to make some plausible excuse
for the ignorance and at the same time the inno
cence of this Southern mountaineer. He would
feel more justifiable in making excuse if the ig
norance applied alone to the mountain man of the
South. But since it is equally true of the dweller
on the plains and on the large plantation it seems
best to tell the plain unvarnished truth. We feel
that in very few instances have the exact facts been
known. It may not be too much to say that this is
as important a field for mission work as some of the
foreign fields. We will draw no conclusion, but
tell the truth as it is given us to see the truth, and
the reader may judge for himself.
It is safe to say that the greatest trouble in all
this land is that the educational facilities provided
by the States are wholly inadequate for the de
mands of the people. First of all, they do not reach
the people. In these United States it ought not to
be necessary for any Church to educate the people,
especially before they get through the eighth grade.
Some think a compulsory school law in all the
States would solve the problem. It probably would
help, but the number of schoolhouses would have
44

What They Do Not Know 45
to be doubled or the ones now in existence enlarged.
It is the opinion of the writer that the States try
to cover too much ground with the little money they
now have. They have money enough, perhaps, to
do fairly good work through five grades. Instead
of that they try to go through eleven grades and in
some instances twelve. The result is very imperfect
work. We should "lessen the denominator."
Parts of the following Southern States are in the
mountain region of the South: Georgia, Kentucky,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vir
ginia, and West Virginia.
The following tables compiled from the United
States Census of 1900 show some things. The per
cent of illiteracy is for native male citizens twenty-
one years of age and over, foreign-born citizens and
negroes of the same age. We take the seven
States in which are found the Southern Appa
lachians or their ranges :
Table I

Georgia 
Kentucky 
North Carolina 
South Carolina 
Tennessee 
Virginia 
West Virginia  10,7
Average totals  13,4 9,4 s°-2
Compare these figures with those of the United
States as a whole and we have the following: 13.4
and 4.9 ; 9.4 and 1 1.5 ; 50.2 and 47.4. Only the first
startle. The more enterprising foreigners come
South as traders, peddlers, and other business men.

PER

CENT

OP ILLITERATES

White

Foreign white

Negroes

II. 8

S-6

56-4

14.3

8,6

49

5

18,9

S-7
53
I
12-3
S-2
54
7
14,1
7-7
47
6
12.2
lO-S
52
s
10,7
22. s
37
8
46 The Highlanders of the South
Most of the negroes in the United States are in the
South. It is the illiteracy of the white man that
is so appalling. Feel as you please, the South is a
white man's country and will so continue for untold
generations. This is as it should be ; but this same
white man should not boast of his up-to-dateness
so long as this illiteracy is extant. Think what an
illiterate vote of more than 13 per cent of the total
might mean under certain conditions.
Of the States named above. West Virginia and
Kentucky have compulsory school laws. So have
North Carolina and Tennessee in part. You may,
however, count the compulsory school laws in these
States as a farce, since they are not enforced "to
hurt," as the little boy said about his father's
religion. To show cavtses for the existence of facts as given
in Table I we give other statistics. Where not
otherwise stated the figures are for 1906-7 as given
in the report of the Commissioner of Education for
the United States: Table II Per cent Per cent
of school of enrolled
population actually
('enrolled attending
United States  69.83 70.26
Georgia  63.18 62.41'
Kentucky  72.52' 61.78*
North Carolina  70.52' 65-87'
South Carolina  61 . 66 73 .49
Tennessee  77 .41' 69.17'
Virginia  58.61 59.35
West Virginia  74-96 65 . 60
Average totals  68.4 65.41
Make your own comparison.
• 1904-S. ^ 1903-3. ' 1905-6.

What They Do Not Know 47
The following is not void of interest :
Table III Average
Average number
number of days'
Average of days' attendance
number attendance by each
cf days for all gupil
school kept pupils enroBed
United States  151.2 74-3 106.2
Georgia  118' 45.8 73-6
Kentucky  90 40 . 3 55-6
North Carolina  95' 40.1' 57-6'
South Carolina  104.5 45 -S 73 -S
Tennessee  116 58.7' 80.2'
Virginia  134 47.3 80.5
West Virginia  127.5 62.3 83,1
Average totals  112. i 48,5 72
Again make your own comparison.
But what about Table IV? Examine it closely,
please : Table IV
Amount Amount Amount
raised per expended expended
capita of per capita per capita
scholastic of total of avg,
population population attendance
United States  $14,28 $3.90 $27.98
Georgia  $3-03' $0,98 $7-47
Kentucky  3.60 1.19' 8,59
North Carolina  3.06' 1.09' 7.82'
South Carolina  3.00 0.96 6,37
Tennessee  4-77 ^-49' 9.23'
Virginia  5,27 1.68 15.28
West Virginia  10.34 3.07 20,36
Average totals  $4.72 $1.49 $10.73
These four tables show us some things and in
part account for the frightful illiteracy of our
' 1904-3. "¦' 1902-3. • 1905-6,

48 The Highlanders of the South
Southern people. However, the main cause lies,
like everything else, in our unwillingness to pay
the price. In 1904 the United States as a whole
expended for public schools on each $100 of true
valuation on all real and personal property 25.5
cents. These seven States expended on the same
basis for the same year 21.6 cents. It is not neces
sary to call the reader's attention to the fact that
we are far behind the average on other things as
well as education. One more fact should be given.
Not long since the superintendent of public instruc
tion in one of these States made the statement dur
ing his service as head of the school interests of
his State for two terms that seventy-five per cent
of the schools were failures, and that because of
incompetent teachers ! In 1906-7 the United States
[ expended $6.43 per capita of teachers in pubUc
! normal schools for the training of teachers.^ The
] seven States in question expended $2.09 per capita
of teachers for the training of their teachers — about
one third the average for the whole country. What
can be expected of a people who do not demand and
provide skilled teachers? Can a stream rise higher
than its source? A distinguished educator who
spent some time in the South very frankly said
that he had never been in a place where such a
premium is placed on cheapness. Very few if any
of these States have laws requiring applicants for
license to teach to know more than the branches
they expect to teach. To illustrate: One may teach
a primary (fifth grade) school by having completed
the fifth grade work as prescribed by the school law
in most of the Southem States, and passing a satis-
' Report of the Commissioner oi Education, 1907, vol, ii.

What They Do Not Know 49
factory examination, the examination in many in
stances being little more than a farce. To get to
teach a public school in the mountain district often
places one high up among his fellows and usually
bestows upon him forever the title of "Professor" !
Why, do you know that of the native white male
voters in these seven States 13.4 per cent were illit
erate at the last census, while of the same class in
the United States as a whole only 4.9 per cent were
illiterate? We are nearly thrice the average for
illiteracy. But this is not all. Mere book learning
does not constitute an education. Neither does it
make for all there is of culture and refinement and
the things having an upward tendency. There is |
a dearth of general reading among our people. A \
county paper, a yellow journal or cheap novel, and j
an almanac issued by some irresponsible patent !
medicine concern is all you find in many of these |
mountain homes. Usually there is a Bible, but
the writer recently procured several dozen Bibles
for distribution by mountain preachers, and they
were not enough.
What sort of mental fiber can be built on the aver
age county newspaper? Many homes are without
even it, and are perhaps none the worse therefor.
There is a lack of good literature even in the home
of the average well-to-do farmer. A stock book,
a family doctor book, or an "Everybody's Lawyer"
often takes precedence over every other sort of
publication to enter such homes. The growing ,
mind has absolutely nothing to feed upon. It is
not an exaggeration to say that the farm live stock j
is often better cared for than the farm boy. The
mules and colts and calves and lambs and pigs bring

50 The Highlanders of the South
money at an early age. The boy doesn't. This
figure is by no means overdrawn.
May we say one or two things more? It would
be a good thing if every boy could be taught the
evil of expectorating on the floors of living rooms,
schoolrooms, and churches, and also sidewalks,
street cars, and railway coaches. Very few of these
mountain boys have an idea that spitting wherever
one pleases is unhealthy, to say nothing of the lack
of culture and refinement it implies. The lack of a
bath is not all. It is hard to get the boys and girls
to see the need of cleaning their shoes when enter
ing a house. Many of the men and women are the
same way. Now, please do not think I am think
ing of a few and make these statements accord
ingly. I am thinking of hundreds and thousands —
come and I will show you.
The few who attend church is another astonish
ing feature. According to a recent estimate made
by the Presbyterian Church, the branch known
locally as the Southern, there are three million white
children in the Southern States out of Sunday
school. Is this a field for mission work ?
There is more yet. In many of the so-called
local centers of civilization there are those who
have peculiar ideas about things. They think any
sort of an old schoolroom is sufficient. We knew
one woman, who in her imagination is a blue-
blooded aristocrat, to say it was a useless and fool
ish expenditure of money to paper a schoolroom!
Do you want to see her? This woman has a
diploma from a Southem college. Do you not think
we have problems aside from illiteracy? But they
are to be treated later.

AN OLD CHURCH IN WHICH METHODISTS CONTINUE TO WORSHIP

What They Do Not Know 51
We think schoolrooms and churches ought to be
better furnished than the best dwelling houses in
the community, and that the children should be
taught to care for them. Where are the boys and
girls to get an impetus to that which is higher if
not at school and church?
Just one more point and this chapter endeth —
though there is more to it. Do you think the man
who feels it is "stuck up" to shave oftener than
once a week or month, or change his linen every
two weeks, or bathe his feet at all, is in need of
missionary work? Do you think the woman who
cooks like "mam" did, who "dips" snuff all day long
and gives it to her children, who goes barefoot most
of the year, who perhaps changes dresses once a
week — not oftener — and who combs her hair once
a day — ^maybe — a fit subject for the missionary?
Do you ? Do you want to see such people ? Come.
They have good "mother wit," too.
Again I say there is more to literacy than reading
and writing. Such people as are mentioned in
this chapter we have not by the hundreds but by
the thousands.
Yes, and don't you think a young mother, good-
looking and well-to-do as such is counted in the
hills, who would start to a near-by town for a visit,
taking her two children along, and all their neces
sary belongings packed in two gaily painted peck
baskets, needs to be taught that such things as suit
cases and traveling bags have been invented? If
you want to see such, come.
These statistics tell a good story — some statistics
relating to an isolated township of average condi
tion, in a border county, in the Southern Appa-

52 The Highlanders of the South
lachians. Eighty-three families were considered
just as found by the person making the test :
I
Average distance to county seat, isJ miles.
" " " post office, 4i miles.
" " " public school, 2 J miles.
" " " doctor, 4 miles.
" " " church, 2} miles.
" " store, 3J miles.
II
Total area of farm land owned by the above families,
2,279 acres.
Average size of farm, 27 acres.
Total amount cultivated, 639 acres.
Average amount cultivated to farm, 7! acres.
Ill
Crops, gross, $13,018.
Crops, net, $12,379.
Seven made no crop.
Average to farm, $161. IV
Rations: Total amount, $4,438 for year 1908; average
per family, $53-47-
Meal: 64 raised, 19 bought.
Flour: Total, $1,532 ; average per family for flour, $18.30.
Pork: 45 raised, 38 bought.
Coffee: Total, $718,80; average for coffee per family,
$8.66.
Sugar: Total, $578; average for sugar per family, $6.90.
Molasses: 40 raised, 16 bought, 27 used none.
Tobacco and snuff: Total expenditure, $902; 13 raised
all or in part; average per family purchasing, $12 . 56.
Clothes: Total expenditure, $2,949; average per family,
$35-42. V
Taxes: Total amount, $204.60; average per family,
$2,46.
Men working road, 56.
Type of Houses:
Frame, 24;
Log, 44;
Box, IS. Total, 83.

What They Do Not Know 53
Average size of family, 5 J.
Number sleeping in room, 4J.
Number of beds in room, i to 4.
Average number of windows per house, i J.
Ventilation: Minus.
Sanitation: Minus.
Out closets, 6.
Cooking facilities: 68 families have stoves; 15 cook on
fire places.
Meals: 6g families have meals regularly; 14 families have
no regard for regularity.
Illegitimacy: i6f% of parents illegitimate; 8% of chil
dren illegitimate.
Physical conditions:
Prevalent diseases.
Tuberculosfs.
Venereal disease.
Hookworm disease.
Conditions affecting health:
Lack of ventilation and sanitation.
Monotony of diet.
Insufficient clothing.
Consanguinity. These figures and estimates are in no sense over
drawn, but are made by one very careful. They
can be duplicated in many instances. They almost
prove that the mountain man is not so very health
ful, after all.

CHAPTER VIII
The Problem
Far be it from us to minimize any racial prob
lems high-bred Southerners claim to be in exist
ence, but to our way of thinking the South, chival
rous, patriotic, impulsive, and valorous as she has
ever been and is yet, has but one problem. Shall
we name it? If so, what shall we call it? We
want to make every one of our some ten millions
of people in the South feel good, but we must name
that one problem ignorance, pure and simple. We
write this from the standpoint of one who was bom
and raised in one of the seceding States and who
has no thought other than that he shall spend his
days here. But that one word tells the truth and
the whole truth. The preceding chapter of facts
proves it. Now, may we give a few reasons why
this is true, absolutely true?
First of all, the South is yet much more of an
isolated place and section than we are wont to
think. We are progressive in a sense and our
leaders are broad and cosmopolitan thinkers, but
among many of the well-to-do you find that Lee
surrendered, but they never have. Why, I can show
you men on plantations of hundreds of acres who
yet believe in the divine right of human slavery, and
ivho expect if all the powers of the Federal govern
ment get into the hands of a certain political party
that they will get pay for slaves freed by tbe civil
war! Is that ignorance? This same man thinks
54

The Problem 55
he ought to have his slaves back. He has been to
college, too, and has been born since Appomattox.
These men dwell in the mountains of the South and
are just as pronounced as those who dwell farther
South where "cotton is king and sugar cane is
queen." These are the people who make the prob
lem difficult of solution. They are "hidebound,"
if I may use the word. They travel but little, and
then only in places where they know they will find
things suited to their tastes. Everything must be
Southern as taught to them for generations. The
poor white man or the man who has no blue-blooded
ancestry of which to boast can have no place with
them. They often live in lordly isolation with this
same poor white man to serve and wait and slave
and labor. As our free public schools advance it
is no uncommon thing to see the children of the
one and the other side by side in school keeping
pace an-d graduating together. But always there is
the gap or abyss between.
We write as an impartial observer, though our
fathers were slave owners.
It may seem strange, but certainly in no part of
the world are there people of a common ancestry
who are at such extremes of poverty and wealth, of
ignorance and leaming, of uncouthness and cul
ture, as you find in the Southern States. The
tragedy of the whole thing is that the man of
wealth, leaming, and culture has so little sympathy
with his brother of poverty, ignorance, and un
couthness. His is an education of aristocracy and
not of democracy. It is i>erhaps not too much to
say that in many instances he would sooner help
the negro than a poor white man. Many are

56 The Highlanders o{ the South
familiar with the saying in certain sections, "I'd
rather be a negro than a poor white man."
This same well-to-do white man in the South
often gets to be an editor, a member of the legis
lature, a congressman, or a United States senator.
He frequently continues to view the world through
the same inconsistent smoked glasses, as the fol
lowing incident will show. The Speaker referred
to was Hon. Thomas B. Reed, and the incident took
place in Washington in the first months of 1898,
immediately preceding the Spanish- American war:
"I remember a scene in the Speaker's office just
before the outbreak of war, which illustrates not
only his attitude in this matter, but the quickness
of his wit. I had gone to his office at his request
in relation to certain matters connected with the
business of the Coast Survey. As we sat talking
a Southern member of Congress burst into the
room, his face aflame with excitement, a newspaper
in his hand. Planting the paper on the table before
the Speaker, he demanded in an excited voice
whether a civilized nation would permit such
things as were there described within ninety miles
of its borders. Slowly adjusting his glasses, the
Speaker cast his eye over the paper. At the top, in
large headlines, was a story of the sufferings of the
reconcentrados. But about halfway down the page,
in smaller lines, was an account of an assault on a
negro postmaster in one of the Southern States.
Instead of reading the top lines, the Speaker read in
his drawling voice the lower set of headlines: 'The
Postmaster at Blank Shot — His Wife Ill-treated —
His House Burned.' 'Why, my friend,' said he,
in the same drawling tone, 'that can't be down

The Problem 57
South; that must be over in Cuba. If we had a
civilization like that we wouldn't want to spread it
over Cuba anyhow, would we?' By that time the
would-be saviour of Cuba was well on his way out
of the room."i
The one redeeming feature about this middle
class and "poor whites," for whose help this little
book is sent out, is that they may be made over in
one generation. Our schools and colleges are full
of touching incidents. The problem is not what
they can do, but how to get them to do it. These
classes have furnished men in every walk of life
from alderman to president; from circuit preacher
to the episcopacy ; from local magistrate to supreme
court judge; and from a country doctor to an
eminent physician and surgeon. Nor should we
leave out the country school-teacher who later be
came college professor and university president.
Since Dr. Wilson tells us to quote as we like
from The Southern Mountaineers, we take the fol
lowing as illustrative of the classes involved in the
problem :
"A century and a half have passed away, and the
men of the mountains of to-day are the descendants
of some of those sterling pioneers. They have held
lonely state for several generations in their Appa
lachian homes; but they are still there to give ac
count of themselves, and to face the providential
future. There have developed among these dwellers
in the mountains three distinct classes that must be
recognized by every judicious student of their
history. • Henry S. Pritchett in the North American Review for March,
1909, "Some Recollections of McKinley,"

58 The Highlanders of die South
"(i) There are the large numbers of them that
have occupied the fertile and extensive valleys of
the Shenandoah and East Tennessee, and other
rich valleys and plateaus, and have established
centers of trade and commerce that have developed
such prosperous cities and towns as Chattanooga,
Knoxville, Johnson City, Bristol, Asheville, Salem,
Roanoke, Lexington, Staunton, and Harrisonburg.
These mountaineers, or rather valley-dwellers, have
to deal only with such questions as affect other
intelligent sections of our land. They send out
missionaries to the ends of the earth, and have as
rich and pure a life as have any urban or country
people of our Southland. They outnumber the
other two classes combined. To apply to them any
hasty generalizations suggested by a study of the
third class is simply unpardonable.
"(2) Away from these centers of wealth or
competence, and culture, and refinement, there are
two other classes more affected by their mountain
environment than are these others that merely live
in sight of the mountains or in the highland com
munities that are 'lowland' in their development.
There are, first, the true, worthy mountaineers that
deserve far more of praise than of dispraise. While
their isolated and hard life, remote from the centers
of culture, has contracted their wants and the supply
of those wants, and has forced them to do without
a multitude of the 'necessities' and conveniences and
luxuries that seem indispensable to many other
people of the twentieth century, they have kept that
which is really worth while, namely, their virility
and force of character.
"The fact is that Nature, in accordance with her

The Problem 59
marvelous method of compensations, has endowed
these hardy mountaineers with some sterner qual
ities in lieu of the more Chesterfieldian ones of
more favored society; qualities that render them in
some respects stronger and more resourceful than
their more pampered kinsmen of the valley or the
plain. They have escaped many of the vices and
follies that are sapping the life of modem society.
They have nerves, in this day of neurasthenia and
neuremia. They know something of all the neces
sary arts, in these days when centralized labor gives
each workman only a part of one art to which to
apply^ himself.
"The mountaineer of this class eats what he
raises, and applies to the store for only coffee and
sugar to supplement what his acres produce. He'
does his own horseshoeing, carpentering, shoemak-J
ing, and sometimes he weaves homespun. He is
the most hospitable host on earth and heartily en
joys his guest, providing that guest has the courtesy
to show his appreciation of what is offered him.
His honesty coexists with native shrewdness that
is sometimes a revelation to the unscrupulous
visitor that would take advantage of him in a trade.
He is usually amply able to take care of himself.
Indeed, no American has a livelier native intelli
gence. "To speak of this class of mountaineers as merit
ing patronizing disdain is to show oneself to be a
most superficial observer. Many of these men of
the mountains do, perhaps, need much that can be
given from without the Appalachian, but they have
a reserve strength that, when aroused, will speedily
prove them the peers of any people.

6o The Highlanders of the South
"(3) There is a third and much smaller class of
mountaineers of which not so much good can be
said. They correspond to, while entirely different
from, that peculiar and pitiable lowland class of
humanity that was one of the indirect products of
the institution of slavery — 'the poor whites,' or
'mudsills,' as they used to be called. They are the
comparatively few, who are very incorrectly sup
posed by many readers of magazine articles to be
typical of the entire body of Southern mountaineers.
By this mistaken supposition a mighty injustice is
done to a very large majority of the dwellers in the
Appalachians. As fairly judge England by 'Dark
est England'; or London by Whitechapel; or New
York by the slums; or any community by the sub
merged tenth.
"This third class consists of the drift, the flotsam
and jetsam that are cast up here and there among
the mountains. They are the shiftless, ambitionless
degenerates, such as are found wherever men are
found. Usually they own little or no land and eke
out a precarious existence, as only a beneficent
Providence that cares for the birds and other deni
zens of the forest could explain.
"The proportion of Scotch-Irish names may
not be so great among these people, but many
such names are found among them. This class
would be a very hopeless one were it not for a
quality that will be referred to again — namely, the
fact that it can be made over in one generation.
"It need hardly be said that, as in all classifica
tions of men on the basis of character and condi
tion, there are many gradations among these three
classes; and, indeed, that the classes themselves

The Problem 6 1
merge into one another so that at times it is impos
sible to say just where one ends and another begins.
But why be too nice in determining metes and
bounds? Is there not even in the great metropolis
a slum problem, and is there not a Fifth Avenue
problem — both with indeterminate boundaries?
The worthiest question anyone can ask him
self is: How can I best help any brother man of
mine, of any rank and race, submerged or non-
submerged, to realize his high calling in Christ
Jesus ?"i
While we may not exactly agree with what Class
One is doing according to President Wilson, we
do know that Class Two and Class Three are the
people we want to reach. We feel safe in saying
also that it may not be easily done through Class
One, though that is the way it should be done.
Class One have sufficient advantages, comparatively
speaking. They need waking up.
Class Two is perhaps the strongest of the classes
and is possessed of the greatest possibilities. But
there will be more development in Class Three than
in any, once you get him aroused. He is the man
who is made over in one generation. It is he who
calls for the best there is in us.
With the first class able to take care of itself
and the second class willing to help it is up to us to
see to it that this third class, who doesn't care a
straw which way the wind blows, is made to care.
How shall we reach him? But do not forget that
in the humble opinion of the writer each of these
classes is a fit subject for more or less missionary
work — the first because he could do more if he
> President S. T. Wilsoo, The Southem Mountaineers, pp. 15-20.

62 The Highlanders of the South
were not "hidebound"; the second because he is
willing but does not know how; and the third be
cause he is almost helpless.
One of the first class said to a gentleman but
recently in discussing the work of the Board of
Education of our Church, and also the gifts of
Northern men to Southern educational and church
work, "Dam 'em, they took our property; let 'em
give us money." The words were prompted by
the remark that Southerners have no right to expect
Northern men to educate their children. This man
was born since the civil war, but he thinks he should
have pay for the slaves he failed to inherit. Does
he need missionary work? Don't you dare tell him
that, for he is sure he is "up-to-now." But I am
not writing this for him.
It is this prejudice of the well-to-do Southerner
against the lower class and less fortunate white
man and negro that really gives us any problem at
all. The mountain man is arbitrary in his feelings
as well as in other things, but his more fortunate
neighbor could help him if he would. But he will
not for at least another generation. One of these
"unterrified" recently remarked that the Masons
turned Mr. Taft down, since they made him a
Mason "at sight" ! He believed it because a neigh
bor had so informed him.
I admit that some things in this chapter may
seem a little "farfetched," but there is not a single
one of them that cannot be substantiated and even
duplicated almost any day. It is our business to
tell the truth. Do you think we have a problem in
these mountains? Do you think the words "race
problem" express the situation clearly for the

The Problem 63
South? Again we say the South has but one
problem — ignorance! Just come and see.
But before we close this chapter let us mention
one other thing tending to make the problem the
more difficult. Things in local communities are so
depressing. In church affairs in the country dis
tricts and even in the towns the preacher must be
the leading factor. He must have the life and en
ergy and push, or things stand still. The same is
true of the educator. Rarely does he find a man
who will take the initiative. Every fellow seems to
be following the line of least resistance — the same
old story of not caring which way the wind blows
or if it blows at all. But this is just another phase
of the problem, though a very true one and no less
difficult than the others. It is particularly true of
the man who shepherds a flock or leads a neighbor
hood in things educational. He has to make his
own atmosphere of energy and endeavor if he
breathes any.
Of course, the one and only method of redemp
tion is religion and education. It is difficult to say
which should come first. It seems that it takes the
education to make the religion "stick." The work
of the school should be spiritual, of course, but
among us no greater work can be done than train
ing the mind to stay at a thing as well as to get
at it.
It might be well enough to say that another
phase of the problem is the large families found in
these mountain homes. Not infrequently six or
eight or ten or even twelve persons cook, eat, and
sleep in one room, and it often not twenty feet
square! But there is plenty of ventilation. They

64 The Highlanders of the South
bring children into the world, but what about
preparing them for the responsibilities of Hfe?
One native says that up in the Cumberland Moun
tains women raise large families of children with
out the incumbency of a husband I If you doubt it
take a little trip up there or elsewhere in the
Southern Appalachians.
If we were writing this for Secretary Mason we
would include the mixed-blooded people as a part
of the problem and blame them to the well-to-do
Southerner.

CHAPTER IX
Other Denominations
Apropos of this little book for our own people
specially but for all generally, it is but meet that
a word be said about other denominations and what
they are doing for the strengthening of the reli
gious and educational fiber in a region not poor nor
poverty-stricken save in imagination. And do you
know any poverty direr or more pitiable than the
imaginary? I do not mean that we are rich, but
that we could do so much more than we do if we
could only see it that way — could but get the vision.
A boy was digging potatoes on a red hillside when
a passing stranger hailed him as to what he was
doing and what the yield per acre would be.
"Six or eight bushels," replied the boy.
"My, my, but you must have a difficult time mak
ing a living in such a country as this," commented
the stranger.
Other remarks of a similar nature, all breathing
sympathy, followed until the boy had as much as
he could endure, and suddenly cried out:
"I ain't as pore as yer think I am, stranger. I
don't own this land; I'm jist a wurkin it!"
Take the reverse of this story, investigate and
you will see that none of us in the South are as
poor as we think we are. We may be a bit slow,
but there is within us much latent power making us
rich beyond our fondest dreams once we realize
where our strength lies. 65

66 The Highlanders of the South
One would perhaps expect the Methodist Epis
copal Church, South, to have the greatest aggre
gate of wealth. And such is true. Since all
Churches place more stress upon the ministry and
preaching the Word than upon any other phase of
religion, we think it best to emphasize the educa
tional phase here. Hence our figures relate only
to schools and their work. Only white schools are
considered, the colored schools being left to Secre
tary Mason and like worthy men in other Churches.
We have tried to be very careful in compiling
our figures, but may have made some errors. Our
estimates are made for the States of Georgia, Ken
tucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Virginia, and West Virginia, and are taken from
the Southern Methodist Handbook for 1909. Ac
cording to this authority, this great Church has
within the limits of these States one university,
thirty colleges, and thirty-five academies and un
classified schools, with a total wealth of $5,866,-
327; an endowment fund for those schools of
$2,748,602, and an enrollment of 13,170 students.
True, this Church had its origin in the South in
times when blood was thicker than water, and when
men made church lines no less tense than those of
party, war, or principle. This is pretty fair prop
erty as an educational plant. Much business can be
done therewith.
We have the following for the Baptist Church in
these seven States taken from the American Baptist
Year Book for 1909: Five universities, sixteen
colleges, and thirty-five academies and smaller
schools. These show a total wealth of $2,868,485,
with $1,460,745 endowment and an enrollment of

Other Denominations 67
5,371 students. The Baptist Church has been in
these States a long while and has had no internecine
war to cut its power in twain as had some of the
other Churches. This is not a bad showing for the
Baptists. According to President Wilson in The Southern
Mountaineers, we gather some interesting facts
about the Presbyterian Church. The figures are
for the year 1905. Amount of endowment is not
available, but it is good. Since this estimate was
made there has been great increase in finances,
especially at Maryville, Tennessee, and also in
attendance within this splendid working Church.
But let us see for 1905. The Presbyterians then
had one university, five colleges, and fifty- four
academies and smaller schools, with a property
valuation of $1,934,620 and an enrollment of 8,478
students. Bear in mind that this Church pays the
largest amount per capita of membership for all
purposes of any Church in this country. Note also
that her property valuation is barely one-third that
of the Southern Methodists, but that she has almost
two thirds their enrollment. And do not forget that
this Church has fifty-four academies and smaller
schools, or exactly one half more than any other
Church operating in the South. To the writer's way
of seeing things, this Church is doing preeminently
the constructive and creative work in the South
to-day, and it is by means of its smaller schools,
whereby education is carried right up to the door
of the fellow who will get it in no other way. It
may be that we place too high an estimate on the
work of the smaller schools as feeders to the col
leges and larger schools, but look at results obtained

68 The Highlanders of the South
and certainly there is an admissible reason for the
judgment. These are the leading Churches in the South out
side our own, which is to be treated in a separate
chapter. So far as we are able to learn, the United Breth
ren Church has but one school in the South, and
that a very small one, the property being worth
about $18,000, the enrollment about 125, and the
grade hardly more than academic.
The Christian Church has a few small schools,
as do the Friends and a few of the smaller denomi
nations. As has been said, the Catholics are estab
lishing mission schools here and there where they
expect to get a strong hold.
Will you study this chapter?

CHAPTER X
The Methodist Episcopal Church
Since the reorganization of our Church in the
South nearly half a century ago we have had some
what of a strenuous life accompanied by a
rather marvelous growth. Our ministers have been
almost constantly on the firing-lines, so to speak.
In many instances church lines have been tense, and
even we have been told that we have no business in
the South. Other things have tended to discour
age the forwardness of our movements. Despite
these and many other things, we have gone steadily
forward until we are recognized now as one of the
three or four leading denominations in the Southern
States. Many things have converged to make us
this. As one man put it in talking to Bishop Quayle
recently, many like to belong to a whole and not to
a detached part. They like our Church because it
represents the original organization of Methodists.
Many others also see great promise for the future
in our Church, believing that as we make advances
we will bring influential help tending to make not
only for religious enterprise but for educational
advancement and gain as well. They look upon it
as a cosmopolitan Church from which reasonably
great and broad results for the general good may
be expected.
Led by godly men, our people have been always
spiritualizing and inspiring to others. Nor have
they feared to sacrifice personal conveniences and
69

JO The Highlanders of the South
desires for the common good. Possessed of "a
strange warming of the heart," they have pushed
forward into unthought-of places, carrying with
them the sign and the spirit by which they always
conquer. Too much cannot be said in praise of the
people called Methodists. Nor is it reasonable to
suppose that too much may be hoped for from them
in the future, considered in a reasonable way.
We have some excellent property and some very
fine church homes, but in this as well as in other
things there are extremes of poverty and wealth,
as illustrations would show.
When it comes to schools our Church compares
favorably with others respecting work done, but
not with respect to wealth. According to our Year
Book for 1909, we have one university in these
Southern States (these figures are concerning
schools for the whites), one college, and eleven
academies and smaller schools. These have an
aggregate wealth of $761,000, with an endowment
fund of $321,500 and an enrollment of 2,940.
Counting property valuation and equipment, you
will see that our number of students compares
very favorably with any of the other schools.
With a rapidly developing and vastly resourceful
country, it is fair to say that there is little danger
of being too optimistic about the future of our
Church in the South. It is rapidly taking hold of
the people and making for itself a recognition
among Churches and schools that is second to none.
Let not this be taken in adverse criticism, but it
appears to the writer that if we could put more
money into schools and churches farther up in the
mountains, remote from centers of learning and

The Methodist Episcopal Church 7I
religious culture, results would be greater and
more far-reaching. But that is a matter wholly
for our farseeing leaders to settle. Certain it is
that some of our best men have been started and
given the inspiration to go ahead in some one of
our little mountain schools. Our central university
at Chattanooga readily testifies to the truthfulness
of this statement, and it can do so among its best
students to-day. Lest it may be said we are unduly
prejudiced in favor of Methodist folk, we will close
this chapter without more words of praise and
prophecy for the magnificent Church which has
never forgotten the words of its great founder, who
wrought far better than he knew : "I look upon all
the world as my parish."
However, just to show our religious resources,
these figures, perhaps, are not out of place. Taking
the following Conferences, Saint Johns River,
Saint Louis, Alabama, Austin, Blue Ridge, Central
Tennessee, Georgia, Gulf, Holston, Kentucky, Mis
souri, and West Virginia, we have, according to our
Year Book, 1,133 preachers, 223,206 members,
221,541 Sunday school scholars, 2,943 churches
worth $6,200,560, and 728 parsonages worth
$1,425,118. This is a good plant with which to do
business for the Lord, but we as Methodists can
and will make it much more effective in the near
years to come.

CHAPTER XI
The Progress of the South
With the many things set down as being against
the South, there remains the indisputable fact that
we are making rapid advancement, and that this
progress is not confined to any particular locality,
but seems to be widespread. Factories and mills
have sprung up as if by magic. Where a short
time ago you found a Httle "corn cracker," mashing
a bushel or so of corn a day, you now see fine roller
mills, turning out daily several barrels of flour nicely
packed in bags supplying local trade and doing
some merchant milling.
In many instances where stood the blacksmith
shop or saw mill one sees an iron forge or a wood
working establishment, each giving employment to
many men. And no better laborer is found than
the Southem mountaineer. He has good nerve,
plenty of grit, and his intelligence is such that he
soon becomes a skilled laborer. Farther South the
cotton mills have given great opportunities for the
development of men of ability in the management
of large affairs in milling interests. The people
have not been slow to take advantage of all such
opportunities. Manufacturing interests and milling plants of
all kinds have proven almost veritable gold mines
to the South, but that which would appear of
greater and more permanent value is the awakened
and increasing vigorousness with which scientific
72

The Progress of the South 73
farming is pursued. We are many years behind
yet on this, but recent advances seem prophetic of
much greater things. As it has been for all historic
time, so it is now and will ever be, that the per
manency of any people depends upon the intelli
gence, skill, and success with which they till the
soil, care for its fertility, and minimize its waste.
And the strongest thing about farming here is that
the dignity of labor is becoming more and more to
be recognized as worth while, and that he who
labors honestly for the welfare of his own house
hold as well as that of others is respected, honored,
and commended.
Quoting from World's Work, June, 1907, from
which all the quotations in this chapter are taken,
we have :
"Fifty years ago, moreover, the farmers of the
Upland South wasted the lands — tilled a field reck
lessly for a few years, then cleared a 'new ground'
and abandoned the old to broomsage and gulHes;
but now this land-debauchery has ended. Crop
rotation and the legumes preserve the earth's fer
tility. Every year a crop of land-enriching cow-
peas may be sandwiched in between the staple crops
or cultivated in connection with them. Farmers no
longer scratch over five hundred acres to make
what intensive culture would produce on one
hundred. 'Don't go West to find a new plantation,'
says a new eastern-Carolina proverb; 'plow deeper
and you will find a new one just below the old one
you have been scratching on.'
"Two stories from real life will illustrate as
well as anything else the whole story of the
State's [North Carolina] farming progress.

74 The Highlanders of the South
" 'You see I could not afford to be govemor !'
The man who said this is not a congressman nor a
capitalist nor a manufacturer, but a humble, slave-
born negro farmer — Calvin Brock, of Wayne
County. He was talking to the govemor of North
Carolina, whose salary is only $4,000 annually and
whose clear profit is minus — while Calvin Brock
had made the year before a clear profit of $2,723.61
on fifteen acres of strawberries alone, besides culti
vating fifty acres of land in other crops. The black
Cincinnatus certainly could not afford to leave his
plow for the salary of the chief executive — although
he has never seen the inside of a schoolhouse and
only learned to read and write by copying and
conning a scrawled alphabet which a country car
penter penciled for him on a new pine shingle !
"Another experience is that of a white farmer in
an adjoining county who paid five hundred dollars
for a farm of fifty-three acres in 1899 — not quite
$10 an acre. Its former owner had acted on the
theory that he didn't own anything except three
inches of surface soil, and with such cultivation it
took four acres of the land to make a bale of cotton.
But that policy by no means commended itself to
the new owner. Thoroughly inoculated with the
idea of crop rotation and deep plowing, he aston
ished the soil itself by the energy of his reforms.
Hitching an eleven-hundred pound mule to an ordi
nary plow, he found that it would not penetrate the
brickyard that lay beneath the few inches of culti
vated upper crust. Then he hitched up two horses
and they broke off his plow, whereupon he swore
and sent to Chattanooga for a four-horse disk plow.
By this time the 'moss-backed' farmers who had

The Progress of the South 75
never averaged more than a quarter-bale per acre
had sworn that he would ruin his land forever with
his newfangled 'book-farming' ideas; but to no
effect. 'I surely can't make money by your plans,"
he retorted, 'and it can't be any worse to try the
book-farming ideas, as you call them. And as for
ruining the land, it's my own, I reckon, and I will
plow clean down half way to China if I want to.'
Of course, the man ought to have deepened his
seed-bed gradually, instead of bringing so much
subsoil to the surface at once, but liberal disk har
rowing largely overcame his errors here, and the
heavy cowpea crop and the bamyard manure did
the rest. The next year indicated the land's upward
trend ; and by proper rotation and cultivation he
brought it up until, in 1905, part of it made two
bales of cotton per acre; and this year, following
corn last year, he hopes for a two-bale average on
the entire field. To-day he wouldn't sell his $9.43
land of 1899 for $100 an acre; and why should he,
since even at that figure the buyer could pay for it
with the first year's cotton crop? His example is
but one of thousands that might be cited, and that
have proved as contagious as measles."
Then, the people are changing their attitude on
many questions. Half a century ago the planta
tion owners planned one of the professions for their
boys, usually the law. Not so now. Quoting again,
we read: "I asked a young man at one of the
Southern schools of technology why he chose this
training rather than training for one of the older
professions. 'My grandfather,' said he, 'was a
mighty man in theology in his day. He knocked
out his opponents and he battered the devil. My

76 The Highlanders of the South
father was a lawyer and a soldier. He fought the
United States by argument and in war. I notice
that the devil and the United States are both doing
business yet. I made up my mind, therefore, that
I would change the family job and do what I can
to build miHs and roads in Georgia.' "
Another instance : "Two men whose parents were
'poor white trash' have, without formal education,
in ten or a dozen years made property worth $200,-
000 by growing cotton ; and they manage their busi-
'. ness as systematically as any business in New York
' is managed.""I know a young man who declined a comfort
able salary and a post of honor in a Northern uni
versity because he wished to teach country youth at
his own Southern college on an insecure guarantee
(year by year) of only $500. There are hundreds
such." We read further relative to going South: "Go
South, young man ; but do not go unless you are
willing and able to do a man's work. If you
wish to practice the law or to preach, you wiH
not be so likely to succeed. These professions
are not particularly in need of recruits in the
South. If you are a teacher, and especially if
you think more of doing good work and of see
ing appreciative results of your work than of
earning a large income, you will find a field of
usefulness as wide as the most ardent ambition
could ask. If you are an engineer or any such
craftsman — a man who can build things — you will
find profitable work and plenty of it. The land
cries out for builders, developers, workers, prac
tical men; and great rewards await them. It has

TTie Progress of the South 77
(and to spare) philosophers and politicians and
professional men of all the old sorts."
The magazine from which we quote so liberally
in this chapter pays the highest tribute to the South
by the following, our final quotation :
"The South has worked out three fundamental
tasks which all the world may profit by:
"(i) How to teach the farmer who is now on the
land to double his crop ;
"(2) How to teach boys and girls practical trades
while they are 'getting their education' ;
"(3) How to govern cities without politics and
without graft."
Do you know of any section of this great nation
of which this may be said with a greater degree of
truthfulness? We do like honesty and fairness and
justice, and it does not hurt us to be told that we
possess these essentials, particularly when the
words come from fair-minded Northerners.
Another good sign is that people of the South
are coming to have a more sympathetic view of edu
cation in a general way. They no longer think it
should be confined to the wealthy and the large
plantation owner. Educational ideas are every
where widespread. One of the States, Tennessee,
appropriated more money for educational purposes)
at the 1909 session of its General Assembly than itj
had appropriated in the eight previous years. This)
State is also providing for three normal schools for/
the training of its white teachers, one to be located!
in each geographical division of the State. One'
normal school is also provided which shall be fof
the training of negro teachers exclusively. Nearly
all the other States in the South are taking the same

78 The Highlanders of the South
rapid strides in education. Of course, it will be
years before our standards of efficiency are up to
the other States of the nation, but be it remembered
we are going in that direction.
These educational advantages, together with the
iron, coal, cotton, rice, manufacturing, and small
fruit industries, cannot do other than attract the
eyes of the whole country toward the South.
More than a generation ago the slogan given out
by Horace Greeley was, "Go West, young man, and
grow up with the country." Is it too much to
expect that even in this generation we may hear the
words, "Go South, young man, and grow rich with
the country"?

A WE.WER .\ND LOVER OF CATS

CHAPTER XII
Unto the Last
In coming to the final chapter it may not be out
of place to call attention to the fact that many of
these mountain people are as clannish to-day as
were their ancestors among the Scottish hills cen
turies ago. Only such clannishness could make pos
sible the mountain feuds that existed for years in
some parts of the South. And they break out once
in a great while yet, but in a much subdued form.
The best illustration of clannishness outside the
feuds is in the family of the old lady with the cats
in her arms. She lives alone some distance from
any member of her immediate family, yet they come
to see her, supply wood and the necessaries of life,
and do all that is possible for her comfort. They
are good citizens and splendid neighbors.
To broaden out a little, we may say that the
South as a whole seems to be in an era of develop
ment. Our people are becoming more conservative
and are helping more than ever to give an opening
for the use of Northern capital, energy, and brains.
Not that we do not have all these — 'twouldn't be
Southern to admit it if we didn't have — but that
we need more.
Men are becoming less prejudiced toward the
education of the masses and the races, and more re
ceptive to all the Churches. This within itself is
good indication of sure and permanent progress.
As might be expected, the men bom since the
79

8o The Highlanders of the South
civil war are more conservative than their fathers,
and it is perhaps not too much to hope that the
second generation since that fearful struggle will
be yet far more helpful in the development of their
great and resourceful country.
Mr. Taft put it pretty well, as the following
will show :
"Party lines are breaking up, have indeed broken
up to an extent not generally realized. In part, this
explains Mr. Taft's rise to power ; and, at the same
time, it gives him a great opportunity. Can we not
now shake off a large part of the incubus which the
civil war left resting on our politics for over a
generation? Mr. Taft has stood firmly for the
essential rights of a colored race in the Philippines.
At the same time, he would not confer on them
political rights and duties far in advance of their
preparation. And he has a very sympathetic under
standing of the Southern white man's attitude. One
day in 1905, in the mid-Pacific, a little crowd of
Congressmen from the North and South were talk
ing of the 'race question' with him. The North
erners, of the civil-war generation, were stiff in
the prejudices which had been hardened in the old
contests over reconstruction. The Southerners,
young men, though also strong in their particular
prejudices, could still come halfway in the argu
ment. As the party broke up, Mr. Taft said quietly
to one of them: 'WeH, there is one thing that our
conversation shows us, anyway, and that is, we
younger men on both sides can get fairly close
together.' "^
> Taken from "Taft the Administrator,'' James A. LeRoy in the
Century Magazine for March, 1910.

Unto the Last 8 1
Mr. Taft's thought is further emphasized by a
few editorial lines taken from a little country weekly
newspaper a few days ago: "As fast as the South
can bring itself away from the narrow prejudices
of sentimental politics, just that fast it will be made
to blossom like a rose."
Then we are making substantial progress in an
educational way. In the American Educational
Review for May, 1909, we read :
"What Dr. Elmer Ellsworth Brown, United
States Commissioner of Education, is pleased to
term, in his latest report, 'one of the most striking
educational movements of our time,' is the educa
tional campaign now going on in the South, which,
as Dr. Brown says, 'is making a chapter of surpass
ing human interest in the history of American
civilization.' The public interest in education in the
South is now vastly greater than that displayed in
political events, and this, to those familiar with the
Southern States and Southern people, is regarded
as a turning of considerable magnitude. Every
week records a Southern educational event of
importance. "There is a steady increase in State appropria
tions, in many instances the school funds having
been more than doubled during the past three years.
For example, Tennessee has raised its annual State
appropriation from $407,644 in 1904 to $1,030,524
in 1907, and during the same period Georgia went
from $800,000 to $1,591,441.
"One of the marked features of the general
advance is the consolidation of the rural schools.
In Virginia 200 schools have been consolidated to
sixty; in four years Tennessee has reduced her

82 The Highlanders of the South
number of schools nearly 700 by a process of con
solidation; Florida shows a single colony where
forty-five schools have been made into fifteen; and
the number of school districts in Louisiana trans
porting pupils to central schools was a year ago
reported at thirty-seven, with fifty wagonettes used
in the service. In passing it is worth noting that
this consoHdation and centralization of schools is
helping along the good roads movement."
In an area representing about a third of one of
our Southern mountain States it is estimated that
more than 100,000 of the adult population, or about
twenty per cent of the entire population for this
area, are unconverted and without a church home.
This same State as a whole ranks forty-sixth
in the list of forty-eight States in native-
bom illiteracy. It pays seven dollars below the
average per capita for education in the United
States, and it pays practically nothing for the edu
cation and the training of its teachers. Its lengfth
of school term is less than six months, and it does
almost nothing for higher education. Below
seventy per cent of its scholastic population are
enrolled in its public schools, and below seventy-one
per cent of the enrolled attend regularly. The cost
for prisons and courthouses in this State is about
seventeen per cent more than for school buildings.
This State is a fair average for all the mountain
States of the South.
No one questions but that the solution to the
problem is largely a matter of education. The
Church that first plants a little mission among these
mountains followed by a school is the Church not
only to receive these people as faithful members,

Unto the Last 83
but it receives the hearty support of those who never
join any Church, which is often an opening wedge
for greater work in that community. The moun
taineer seldom travels farther than from one ridge
or valley to another. The church or school to get
him is the one to come right up to his door and
show him its beauties and advantages with little or
no effort on his part. He usually will not go away
from home to get culture, refinement, education,
and ethics; they must be brought to him, but not
on a silver platter.
No greater work has been done by our Church or
any other than, through its Home Missions and
Church Extension Board, placing one hundred
dollars or more in little mountain churches, thus
making possible their building. The tragedy of the
whole matter is that there are not more dollars to
go in these churches. Just now the writer has in
mind several churches in course of erection or
planned each of which must have one hundred
dollars or more from this Board or fail. And in
each place a church and the influences going with
it are badly needed. If the Board but had the
money !
Then there are our schools. No people have
minds more receptive to education than the three
classes herein mentioned. But they must have the
schools placed at their doors. The preparatory
school can do the greatest good of any school.
Once the mountaineer gets that much at home, he
can and often does go away to college and uni
versity. The illiteracy in many of our mountain
sections is appalling. In almost all the mountain
counties the illiterate voter holds the balance of

84 The Highlanders of the South
power in anything like a closely contested election.
Imagine possible results, if you please !
But the possibilities of the mountaineer are great.
He has back of him generations of almost perfect
health. His brain is perhaps the most perfect in
form of that of any people on earth. The elasticity
of its gray matter is surpassed only by its tenacity.
From the figures submitted it is seen that the
State provision for education is wholly inadequate.
Even in the opinion of the most sanguine and op
timistic Southerner the mountain States will not
for twenty-five years yet, at least, provide adequate
educational facilities for these Highlanders of the
South. Therefore, it is up not only to our own
Church but to other denominations as well to do
this. Cannot our Church get the ear of the thinking
North, the farsighted East, and the cosmopolitan
West in such a way as to move them to give of
their abundance to the development of the greatest
latent powers possessed by any peoples ?
A mission and a school mean a chapel and a col
lege. They also mean men for India, China, Japan,
Korea, and the islands of the sea. They mean
what is even of greater import — men to stay right
here among these mountains and help make the
Church a broader and a greater benefactor of the
human race than it has yet been. O, men of God,
will ye say us nay?
Our people can do more than they think for, but
they are not yet educated to it — they do not yet have
the vision of the heights they should reach. We
must help and get help right on until the vision
comes, as it surely will.

Unto the Last 85
A member of a Conference Church Extension
Board was asked by a Northerner visiting the South
as a Church official if it would be fair to recommend
help by the Church Extension Board for the erec
tion of a church in a certain small Southern town.
The Southem member replied in the affirmative,
much to the surprise of the visiting official, and
explained himself by saying: "The class at G 
is able to give to the Board twice the amount asked
by them as a loan and donation from the Board,
but they do not believe it. So long as people think
they are poor they are. We must help until our
people are educated to see the blessedness of giv-
ing." And thus it is ever with us — the specter of a past
glory standing in the way of a living duty and
obligation !
Church officials, like govemment officials, often
pass through without making close examination of
the situation. To merely visit an Annual Confer
ence does not mean much. But getting out into
the country with a Methodist circuit-rider means a
great deal. It means seeing the problem face to
face, leaming how it is solved, and getting a com
prehensive view of the great needs of our Church
to help the people in remote and untrodden places.
Come! You would be surprised to have a Methodist
preacher take you into a community far up in the
mountains where the moral relation of the sexes is
hardly more sacred than among the lower animals.
Yet this man is the only preacher to carry a message
of personal purity and cleanliness of life. Many,
many such communities have no preacher at all.

86 'The Highlanders of the South
And the people are native white Southern moun
taineers, too. Many such homes are bare of even
the commonest furniture and home comforts, not
having even a comb for the hair, and they almost
invariably wash the face at the spring branch where
there is one I
But yet even these people are full of sacrifice for
good once they get the idea — see the vision. Some
times when the boy gets the thought that the sister
should be educated she is sent to school while he
hires out to the more substantial farmer and helps
pay her tuition. Is not that a noble spirit — strange
mixture of good and evil? Do you not think such
a dormant spirit among a people to be numbered by
the hundreds of thousands is worth rendering more
than latent? Will you not with your money and
brains and energy help us to do it? Money helps
much, brains and energy help more, but your pres
ence is the greatest asset of all. Come ! See ! Do !

YALE UNIVERSITY UBRARY