The Elon College Weekly.
THE ELON G0LLE6E WEEKLY
Published every Tuesday durinjr the College
year by
The Weekly Publishing Company.
W. P. LAWRENCE.
J. W. BARNEY,
A. C. HALL.
AFFIE GRIFFIN
W. C. WICKER.
T. C. AMICK,
Editor.
As5K>ciate Editors.
Circulation Manager.
Business Manager.
CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT.
Cash Subscriptions
Time Subscriptions
(40 Weeks)
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75 Cents, j
All matters pertaining to subscriptions should
be addressed to W. C. Wicker, Elon College, E. C.
IMPORTANT.
The office of publication is Burlington. N. C.
The office of the Editor is Elon College. N.
C., where all communications relative to the
Weekly should be sent.
Entered as second-clas.? mail matter at the
TMDStoffice at Burlington, N. C..
TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1910
Last Issue of the Session.
This is the last issue of The Elon Col
lege Weekly for the session of 1909-’ 1 0.
The next issue will be published second
Tuesday in September. As a college
publication. The Weekly has met with a
favorable reception, and the publishers
feel encouraged. It is hoped that the
alumni and old students generally will
become subscribers during the first year s
life of The Weekly’s new series. It is
in this way a college paper comes to be
a medium of news between the college
and her members who have gone out
and are scattered in many places. The
subscription list is growing gradually and
will in time grow more rapidly as effort
is put forth to secure interested persons to
subscribe.
The Old Dominion’s Harvest of
Books for the Year 1909.
[A paper read in the College Audi
torium, Monday evening. May 30, 1910,
by Miss Beulah Foster, a representative
of the Psiphelian Society.—Ed.]
During Washington living's first visit to
the city of London, he chanced one day
while in the British Museum to come
upon, what to him, was a remarkable
scene. It was in the reading room of
this great institution. This discovery of
his has been interestingly told in a sketch
called " The Art of Book-Making."
Such a scene as Irving describes may be
witnessed today in any large and well
appointed library.
Having some curiosity myself to inquire
into actual book-making cf our own day,
I have taken it upon myself to make some
inquiry as to the actual production of lit
erature by Virginia and Virginians during
the year 1909. The experience has
proved both interesting and instructive—
interesting, because investigation at first
hand is always interesting, whether it be
of the making of literature or of a less ar
tistic and cultural commodity. It quick
ens the interest of the investigator and
adds to his delight. Too, such investiga
tion reveals the indifference, we might say
ignorance, of persons here and there, who
might be supposed to be of considerable
value in this kind of research. Then
again the cheerful and frank response
from others, prominent in the literary
world, adds to the pleasurable side of the
undertaking.
Such an investigation is instructive
because it reveals many things about the
present day activities in literature that one
otherwise would not even suspect. Of
course, the investigation I have made of
the actual production of literature by Vir
ginians in the year 1909 has not cov
ered the field entirely, and had it done so
the results of such thorough investigation
could not have been told in a paper so
limited as this.
The inquiry that 1 have been able to
make successfully, shows that Virginia is
producing a good deal more literature
than the average person supposes, and on
the greatest variety of subjects, and that
the mechanical make-up ranges all the
way from the paper-bound pamphlet to
the most expensively bound volume in
the art of book-making. 1 can here give
some little account of the dozens of books
produced by Virginians during the year,
adding here and there a word or two of
a biographical character.
Let us consider first, Thomas Nelson
Page, one of the most popular, as well
as one of the most noted, of living Vir
ginia writers, who was born in Hanover
county, Virginia, 1853. He spent the
first of his life in Richmond as a lawyer.
He produced and published only one
book during the year, a novel entitled
"John Marvel," which appeared first
in serial form in Scribner’s Magazine, it
is a live, vivid and human story of the
present day. containing characters both
from the North and South, and, though
the story opens in a Southern college, the
main incidents are located in a typical i
city of the Middle West. The author j
has no creed to expound except that of
wide Christian charity and helpfulness, i
Thomas Nelson Page has written his
masterpiece in this great novel. " His ‘
stories will become a lasting part of'
American literature," said the New
York Evening Post, and this splendid
story will take the first place among his
works. Although this is the only volume
published during 1909, he wrote three
valuable papers in the meantime : One
on Edgar Allan Poe, which he delivered
before Columbia University on the occa
sion of Poe’s Centenary; one on Lin
coln, which he delivered in Washington
on the occasion of Lincoln’s Centenary;
and the third one, a paper on Mount
Vernon, prepared for the Mount Ver
non Ladies’ Association of the Union.
Mr. Page wrote also during the year
several short stories, which are still in
manuscript and which will appear later
in magazines.
A noted book of the year, as the
Chicago Record-Herald points out, is
Miss Ellen Glasgow’s novel, " The
Romance of a Plain Man," published
by the Macmillan Company, which is
biographical. " The canvas is large,"
says the critic, " the figures, the effect cf
reality unfailing, the style full of charm."
The atmosphere of the book is fascinating
indeed, and it is unnecessary to say, char
acteristically Southern. The denouement,
moreover, is touching and points the fine
moral of a strong and original story.
Another reputation-makmg book is
"Manors of Virginia in Old Colonial
Times. " The New York Sun, October
23, 1909, says: " No pleasanter book Mantles,
can be imagined than Mrs. Edith Tunis
Sale’s ' Manors of Virginia in Old
Colonial Times,' published by J. B.
Lippincott Company. Twenty-four of
these old homesteads are described, some
still in the possession of families that owned
them originally; more, in fact, are thus
owned, than have passed into the hands
of strangers.
There is a delightful insight given into
the rare old manor houses, and through
it all the author has woven with deli
cacy, charm, and discriminating taste, the
tales and legends with which the manors
abound.
" The book is written soberly, holding
close to the facts, and it gives delightful
pictures of the most stately and pleasant
life America has seen."
For these and for the general make
up of the volume, the publishers are de
serving of much praise, as is pointed out
by The Dial, a semi-monthly journal of
literary criticisms and discussions, pub
lished at Chicago.
Beverly B. Mumford is a Virginia
writer on the law of nature and of nations.
His book, "Virginia’s Attitude Toward
Slavery and Secession," is a contribu
tion of histortcal value to those who
would think correctly and speak justly on
Virginia’s relation to the War between
the North and South.
But quite a different book is one on
Slavery and Secession. A review of the
book by Philip A. Bruce, in the Virginia
Historical Magazine, January, 1910,
states the following : "Taking the sub
ject of Virginia’s attitude towards slavery
and secession, all in all, it is the ablest
and fullest which we have of that subject
and is a complete vindicatipn of the
States throughout those perplexing times."
" 1 his book," say3 one opinion, " should
have a place in the library of every citi
zen of cultivation, and a perusal by every
one who should understand the causes
that divided Americans and the results
that have reunited them forever."
This book has had a wide circulation
and received the highest praise from all
who have read it, among whom are such
men as E. A. Alderman, President of
the University of Virginia; Albert B.
Hart, Professor of History in Harvard
University; W. Gordon McCabe, Pres
ident of Virginia Historical Society, and
Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton
University.
Many more writers could be named.
who have added to the literature of Vir
ginia during the year, if time and space
would allow.
These facts about the writers and the
books they have produced, give but a
glimpse into this interesting subject. The
time allotted to us prevents our going
further into details as to these and other
writers whom we have not so much as
mentioned. To give space enough for a
brief mention of each of the dozens of
other writers, and a few characteristic
criticisms of each book, would enlarge
this paper to the proportion of a consider
able pamphlet.
While the Old Dominion is today,
perhaps, not equal in the quality of its lit
erary productions to the high tone reached
and kept by the Southern Literary Mes
senger, published in Richmond, in the for
ties and fifties of the last century, when
Edgar Allan Poe was on the editorial
staff, and such writers as John Ruben
Thompson, John Pendleton Kennedy,
and Donald G. Michael (Ik Marvel)
contributed to it, yet Virginians are to
day perhaps surpassing in the breadth of
their literary productions any period of
the past. There is a greater variety of
subject matter, a richer romantic back
ground today for such international sons
and daughters as Thomas Nelson Page
and Mary Johnston, than even the South
ern Literary Messenger groups of writers
had or the later groups in which John
Esten Cooke and his brother poet, Philip
P. Cooke, were prominent members.
It will be observed that the few liter
ary opinions quoted in this paper rep
resent all parts of the critical press in
the United Slates. Had we been per
mitted to multiply these critical opinions
the effect would have been, not to con
tradict, but to emphasize and reinforce
the few we have collected and given.
As a result of the recent renaissance,
the great awakening in education, the
Old Dominion, a State exceedingly rich
in statesmanship, history and romance,
and richly gifted in a citizenship of
culture and ability today, may be ex
pected in the near future to yield liter
ature that shall give even greater dig
nity to the already enviable reputation
that Virginia has in the fields of honor
and statesmanship.
Since we make our own happiness,
we should think twice before we say this
is a sorry world.
1890 1910
ELON COLLEGE
A young, vigorous College for bolh men and women. On Southern Railway, sixty-five miles
west of Raleigh, the State capital, and seventeen milts tast of the thriving city of Greensboro.
The Location is telightful; Water Pure; Climate Healthful
Plant valued at 8150.000. is modern in comfort and convenience. Steam heat, electric lights, wa
ter and sewerage connections W’ilh all buildings. Courses Lead to A. B., Ph. B. and
A. M. Desrees.
of 8 weeks opens April 5, 1910. No tuition charges. Course approvel
± o . c j,y State and County Superintendents of Public Instruction.
EMMET L MOFFITT, A. M., LL. D., President.
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