From an article on educational reform at the South, in the same "Review," 1856, I take the following indications of what, among other Northern doings, are considered to imperil the South:—
"'Lovell's United States Speaker,' the 'National Reader,' the 'Young
Ladies' Reader,' 'Columbian Orator,' 'Scott's Lessons,' the 'Village
Reader,' and numerous others, have been used for years, and are all, in
some respects, valuable compilations. We apprehend, however, there are
few parents or teachers who are familiar with the whole of their contents,
or they would demand expurgated editions for the use of their children.
The sickly sentimentality of the poet Cowper, whose ear became so 'pained,'
and his soul 'sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage,' that it
made him cry out in agony for 'a lodge in some vast wilderness,' where
he might commune with howling wolves and panthers on the blessings of
liberty (?), stamps its infectious poison upon many of the pages of these
works.". . .
"From the American First Class Book, page 185, we quote another more modern sentiment, which bears no less higher authority than the name of the great Massachusetts statesman, Mr. Webster:"
Having burnt or expurgated Webster and Cowper, is it
to be imagined that the leaders of opinion in the South
would yet be willing to permit familiar intercourse between
themselves and a people who allowed a book containing 'Such
lines as these to circulate freely?—
"What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and Godlike reason,
To rust unused."
What a dangerous sentiment to come by any chance to a slave! Is it not? Are you, then, prepared to burn your Shakespeare? I will not ask if you will have another book "expurgated," of all passages the tendency of which is to set the bondmen free.
