title:
New England in Kentucky
creator:
Frost, William G. (William Goodell), 1854-1938
subject:
Sectionalism (United States)
subject:
Race Relations
description:
In this one-page article Berea College President William G. Frost briefly sets forth his ideas of the mountain people and a short history of Berea College.
description:
Transcript: June 6, 1895 THE ADVANCE THE CHILDREN'S DAY. BY BERTHA GERNEAUX DAVIS. Washington, D. C. Fleecy clouds are slowly rifting, And the sunshine earthward drifting Tender halo seems to make Round the children's upturned faces; Must I choose the shaded places, And an unsunned pathway take? When like gentle music stealing To their ears the distant pealing Of the church-bell makes their feet Hurry fast the meadow over, Heedless how the crimson clover By their passing grows more sweet, Shall I sadly follow after Where the echo of their laughter Soft, subdued, shall lead the wayΓÇö An intruder loth to enter Where they find themselves the center Of the flowers on Children's Day? For a moment must I falter Sear the lily at the altar, Then in silence stand apart, Though the children, braver being, Venture near enough for seeing Down into its golden heart? -Now the very earth rejoices; Sweeter than all summer voices On this Children's Day can beΓÇö Wild bird's call or brown bees hummingΓÇö Is a tender answer coming From my Father down to me. Where the yellow sunshine lingers Sow the slender petal fingers Of the lily beckon me, And no longer do I falterΓÇö Saying low before the altar, "What I have been I will be." Now the sun grows brighter, clearer, And the children drawing nearer, Need I longer stand away? And the answer finds me duly, In our Father's seeing, truly We are children, Children's Day. June 6, 1895 THE ADVANCE NEW ENGLAND IN KENTUCKY. BY PRES. WM. G. FROST. Berea College. The New England civilization has shown a marvelous virility in reproducing itself among distant and alien peoples. Tow-headed Scandinavian school boys in the Northwest, and woolly-headed Africans in Texas, declaim alike of ΓÇ£our Puritan sires.ΓÇ¥ Nor is it wholly an impertinence. Though not children after the flesh they are becoming children after the spirit, and heirs of the promises. This civilization is a rare product of racial peculiarities, providential leadings (an obsolete term for environment), and fruitful dominant ideas. Its spread has been marked alike by material prosperity and enlightened benevolence. From Beacon Hill, and all the other hills of New England, have gone forth great inventions, sagacious public policies, and a volume of wise individual benefactions which have moulded the destinies of our newer commonwealths. The query arises as to what insuperable barrier, if any, confines this influence so largely to lines of latitude. It modified the Empire State, dominated Ohio, and has shaped the best elements of state after state to the Pacific. Is its course complete? Of course there was a rival and repellant force in the South. This was not due to climate, for Kentucky and Virginia represent the true temperate zone; nor to racial tendencies, which are not so inherently diverse; but rather to an antagonistic set of dominant ideas. These were the feudal and aristocratic notions imported from the old world. Such notions were vigorous in all the colonies, but slavery gave them a special vitality and persistence in the South. That ΓÇ£section,ΓÇ¥ broadly speaking, never came to believe in the improvability of man. An impassable gulf separated the high and the low. The poor white man was content to be a feudal dependant of some great family. There was no independent middle class, and no common school. Longfellow's ΓÇ£Village BlacksmithΓÇ¥ could not have been conceived by a Southern poet. It is not too much to say that Kentucky occupies a pivotal position. She was the special daughter of Virginia, and since her aristocratic families did not suffer so severely in the war, she retains more of the old spirit than the parent state. And yet the ΓÇ£blue grass stateΓÇ¥ contains a substantial liberal element, and here we may look most hopefully for an effacing of sectional lines from which both North and South will be gainers. In fact, Providence has prepared the way and the work is already begun. The barrier is not climateΓÇöthere is no reason why all that is best in the ΓÇ£Yankee notionsΓÇ¥ should not flourish here as well as in Minnesota. In fact, the mountainous part, the southern Appalachians, have been described as ΓÇ£Vermont and New Hampshire shoved into the South.ΓÇ¥ Nor is the obstacle one of race. Kentucky was mainly settled by English or Scotch Irish colonists, many of them revolutionary soldiers. They are Americans of the Americans. The barrier lies in the dominant ideas, and the social estrangement based thereon. It is this estrangement between the two halves of America, lack of acquaintance and confidence, and divergence of social ideas, which constitute the ΓÇ¥Southern ProblemΓÇ¥ to-day. It is a matter larger than any ΓÇ£Race Problem.ΓÇ¥ If there were not one Negro in the South we should still have this estrangement. It is these conditions which give significance to the providential opening now before Berea College. That college represents Northern cooperation with a liberal movement on the part of the South itself. The opportunity for such cooperation is itself a providence. Our country will not be made one simply by the education of the Negro at the expense of the North. Aid in this direction was our first obvious duty, but no program of ΓÇ£moral reconstructionΓÇ¥ is at all complete which does not reckon with the Southern white man also. He is in the majority, and likely to remain so. He is our ΓÇ£kith and kin,ΓÇ¥ as proud as we are, and when we have a chance to cooperate with him in educational efforts it is a providence. There was an anti-slavery element in every Southern state, but after about 1850 the Southern abolitionists were put to silence or driven out. Cassius M. Clay of Madison County, Kentucky, refused to be driven. He was a graduate of Yale, and possessed the virtue which his neighbors most respectedΓÇöcourage. At his invitation the famous Kentucky preacher, John G. Fee, himself the son of a slave-holder and as fearless as Clay, founded an anti- slavery church in Madison County. He was assisted by the father of Senator Hawley of Connecticut. An anti-slavery community was built up around the church, which ran the gauntlet of mobs and persecution, and in 1855 two young men from Oberlin opened an anti-slavery school. The first principal was Rev. J. A. R. Rogers, from Connecticut, and the first president was Rev. Henry Fairchild from Oberlin, a native of Stockbridge, Mass. God watched that planting; fire did not consume it; war did not uproot it. In 1866 the first colored student was admitted and Berea became, to use the words of Gen. Armstrong, ΓÇ£the one spot in the South where the lion and the lamb lie down together.ΓÇ¥ The experience of nearly thirty years has shown that none of the anticipated evils have resulted, while it has wrought incalculable good to both races. The young Southerner is prepared to accept the standards of the Christian world at large. The Negro learns, as a prominent Southern politician put it, ΓÇ£to be neither cringing nor obtrusive.ΓÇ¥ Nearly a hundred students find their way to Berea from states north of the Ohio River, and these constitute an important element in the work of the school. As a young man from Illinois remarked at a recent gathering of students, ΓÇ£Sectional lines are best effaced by the feet of those who cross them.ΓÇ¥ Berea is located one hundred and thirty miles south of Cincinnati, near Boone's Gap, where the ΓÇ£blue grassΓÇ¥ ends, and the ΓÇ£mountainsΓÇ¥ begin. Besides gathering the children of the old anti-slavery Kentucky families, and others who had drawn in with them, Berea discovered the loyal ΓÇ£mountain whitesΓÇ¥ before the war, and did much toward keeping them loyal. These sturdy people are God's moral reserve. Uncontaminated with slavery, they are not Catholics, nor aliens, nor infidels. They come of vigorous English and Scotch-Irish stock, and only need the touch of education to make them what the Scotch are to England, and the Swiss to Europe. They will go out from their mountains to overflow wide regions for good or ill, and they are now ready to put themselves under the guidance of Berea teachers. There has never been a more fruitful soil for New England ideas than among this people. It is the old story of the New England college as a civilizer, and a church and state builder, only it is in a more interesting, and in many respects a more important, religion. It is nothing less than the hand of the Lord which has made this opening. Think of the son of the owner of two hundred slaves sitting in the same class with a colored student! Think of a young man speaking at a temperance meeting when his brother is in the penitentiary for ΓÇ£moonshining.ΓÇ¥ The Western frontier has fled away, and this is our last great piece of educational pioneering. It is in the very heart of our country, if we count the South a part of our country. To cooperate with this liberal movement on the part of the South, to follow the lead of Providence, to plant New England in Kentucky, is certainly one of the most inspiring enterprises of our day. For $2.00 you can receive The Advance for one year--fifty-two issues.
description:
Original Size: 9 x 13.5 in.
description:
Alternative Title: The Advance, June 6, 1895, p. 1285
publisher:
Special Collections and Archives, Hutchins Library, Berea College, Berea, Ky
contributor:
Publisher: The Advance Co.
date:
1895-06-06
date:
type:
image/jp2
format:
jp2
identifier:
BC-0303-MSS-00001a
identifier:
identifier:
source:
Berea College Records: RG 03/3.03: William Goodell Frost Papers. Berea College Special Collections and Archives
language:
en-us
relation:
Special Collections and Archives, Hutchins Library, Berea College, Berea, Ky
rights:
Resource provided for educational purposes. Please cite all references to item. Materials used for any commercial purpose (as opposed to an educational, non-profit use) must have the prior permission of the Berea College Head of Special Collections and Archives or copyright holder.