Excellent higher institutions of learning have
multiplied. Writers and a reading public, both with progressive ideals,
have rapidly increased. In short, the South, like the East and the West,
has become more democratic and industrial, less completely agricultural,
and has paid more attention to the education of the masses.
It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the southern conservatism,
which had been fostered for generations, could at once be effaced. The
South still retains much of her innate love of aristocracy, loyalty to
tradition, disinclination to be guided by merely practical aims, and
aversion to rapid change. This condition is due partly to the fact that the
original conservative English stock, which is still dominant, has been more
persistent there and less modified by foreign immigration.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE.--The one who studies the greatest
authors of the South soon finds them worthy of note for certain qualities.
Poe was cosmopolitan enough to appeal to foreign lands even more forcibly
than to America, and yet we shall find that he has won the admiration of a
great part of the world for characteristics, many of which are too
essentially southern to be possessed in the same degree by authors in other
sections of the country.
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