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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1875)
fc- - Ltifc W --1 Hesperian Student. VOL. VnlveraMy or Nebraska. NO 4. Arm1 Qui non Erollolt.1oftolt. ISTfi. I South nml North. Tons of voluminious trash, have been written to show that northern climates rc best adapted to high moral and Intel lectual results. But, while it must be con ceded that, for the last thrco hundred years, the northern nations of Europe and America have outranked all tlio rest of mankind in intellectual vitality and me chanical progress, the fact may not be disguised that wo owe our paramount stimulation and relative excess of activity to the Protestant Reformation. That great and sudden burst of ideal ani spiritual illumination Hooded the northern regions of the world alone. The iron power of the papacy was too strong in its native scats to be materially weakened. More tner, theie were other causes operating in the south, such as the steady familiarity of the Latin race with despotic institu tions, and the supremacy of the Turks a storms. Besides, the sjune solar fervor that animates vegetation to n degree un known in these climates, rouses the ner vous capabilities, and fills with burning passion, tho children of the south. We should not forget, in the laud of our na. live scats, that all of the religions which have ever obtained a hold on tho reverence ami affections of mankind, have proceed, ed cither from tropical or semi-tropical re gions; from Palestine, from Arabia, from Egypt, from Greece, from Persia, or from India. Our Lord and Ills' Apostles, Mo hammed, Zoroastres, Buddha, the Egyp tian priests, and tiic Brahmans, were all inhabitants of hot climates. Every coir qucror, too, that the world remembers excepting, perhaps, Timour and Ghengis every -first-class hunter of men in the civilized parts of the earth Alexander, Hannibal, Ceasar, Napoleon, was born in tho region of lite olive, the flg, and the palm. The mighty masters of subtle and I sonorous thought who were divinely set barbaric Asiatic horde in all the coun tries occupied by the descendants of the , intil0 beginning of the world to educate Greeks, to prevent a ready acceptance ot anlm. nficr generations of their kind, liberal opinions by those who should nat urally have been tho leaders in every great movement. It was not the fault of the (outhcrn climate, nor the native effemina cy of the southern people, that made it possible for the North to gain its present intellectual and material preponderance. The same climate had fostered, and the same people had accomplished, through long ages, nearly all that is worth reading about in history not decidedly modern. For thousands of years, the nations of northern Europe were little else than sav ngetribes, migrating southward like wild beasts in search of more abundant spoil, while all the time, the races inhabiting the eastern shores of tho Mediterranean or the moie delightful portions of Asia, were enjoying a relatively high and stable civilization. And, were it not for the comfort and convenience which modern inventions bring home to the dwellers of the north; were it not for the warmth and pood-chcer of our houbehold equipments which the last three hundred years have produced, life, in the now most powerful countries of the world, would be utterly intolerable. The north is a step tno'hcr; but the south is the natural mother and nurse of men Local history originates in Baby Ionia. Theu we trace it into Egypt; and it is probable thut all migrations Into the north have been compulsory and therefore Involuntary. In tho absence of modern contrivances for comfort, the lives of the great maBS of the people in cold countries could never havo been easily sustained. As it Ib, the low temperature of the north is prolific of disease. Sixty per cent of the Now England people are said to have a consumptive talat, while anxiety and wasting toil are tho universal lot But in the genorous and breeding south, the fervor of the sun stimulates the fertil ity of tho earth and enables tho inhabitant to reserve his energies for something no bler than an annual half.year's struggle with the dostructivoness of cruel wintry Moses, Isaiah, David, Homer, Euclidi Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and the Apos tles and Primitive Fathers, had their be. ing almost within sound of the roll of Mediterranean waves. Painting and sculp lure, and all the grand architectural Italy when the Austrluns ceased to be hor masters. It Is almost tlmo to hear again from the emancipated and reviving spirit of Greece. Could Spain shake off the deadly serpent folds of the Papacy, and be penetrated by the gently -brooding and reforming spirit of a genuine, evangelical Christianity, slie might yet do nobler things than DeVega, Cervantes, and Mu- ritto, nave done. Uould the mixed popu lations of our own Sourthern States, of Mexico, and of the "West Indies, cither amalgamate on virtuous terms, or divide the lands among the various hostile shades of color, and separate each to its own; peace, labor, wealth, and Christiani ty would soon raise every faction to sur passing heights of moral and intellectual eminence. People who live in beautiful lands and under heavenly skies, if given equal chances, cannot fail to outstrip those whose powers are half exhausted In a mere struggle for existence in a life-long battle with cold and the poverty of nature. For It is by co means true, that men arc made bolder, hardier, and more steadily energetic, by having to resist and over come the rigors of a northern climate. Were this so, the Muscovite and the Swede should surpass all other men. But with out taking this fact into account, the common sentiment among us, finely ex- schools, save, perhaps, the Gothic, have pressed by Charles Klngsley's Ode to tl& ever found their highest expression couth of the Danube and tho Alps. The stu dent of art and architecture inevitably gravitates towards Italy and the Orient- The chill of the north w'nd, tho gray of the northern sky, and the demurer tints of the northern landscape, seem unequal to the adequate inspiration of the highest constituents of the artistic nature. Liter ary genius, too, finds that the south is the source of the most highly colored pas sional and dramatic subjects for romantic treatment. How much Shakespeare and his fellow-dramatists, how much Spencer and Milton owed to the Italian poets and novelists, everybody knows; that Teuny- enn line hffn Jl fltudcilt of Pctnircll, 111 Memoriam forcibly suggests; that Haw thorne's best novel, The Marble Faun ; and George Eliot's best novel, Jtomohi, are Italian studies: and that Byron, and Slid. Icy, Leigh Hunt, and Landor, and the Brownings, and Buchanan Bead, and innumerable other writers imbibed their best inspirations by long resi denco in Italy, are facts too familiar to require emphasis. That the intellectual activity of tho south is far less to-day than that of the north, mnstof course be conceded. It is now the misfortune of the most delightful regions of the world to be cither in the hands of unassimilated races, which, by reason of their unasslmilating tendencies, arc in tho condition of chronic revolution, or.of anunilluminatcd Roman priesthood who rejoice in an Index Hxpurgatorius, and, through the misemployed confes slonal, fetter all the higher aspirations and efforts of tho intellect. But it does not seem as if this condition of things can be permamcat. It was a great step for Xorlh Kaxt Wind, is probably this: "Let tho liK-cioup South-wind Ilreathc In lovers' g ighs. While tho lazy gallants IWk in ladiei' eyes. What doe ht but toten Heart alike and pen T 'Tit the hard grey weather lirteds hard Kngllth men. What' tho poft South-wct-ter? Tid tho ladies' breeze, Wringing homo their true-lou-n Out of all the peas: But the blaiJL Xotth-e aster. Through the enow-ntorm hurled, J)rires C"r Englteh hearts of oak Seaward round the world" But it must be conceded, that it was not the "hard grey weather" that bred the warriors of Sparta and of Alliens; or that inspired the heroes ol Carthage, and the world-couquering Roman legions; or that gave a long European supremacy, and a greater part of the New World, to Spain; nor was it "the black North-easter, through the snow-storm hurled," that stimulated the looms of Tyre, the inven live mind of Archimides, and drove the Phoenician, Venetian, Genoese, Spanish, and Portugese "heartB of oak seaward round tho world." The children of the South-wind are naturally the peers of their northern brethren; and, as I have remarked before, if the same influences could bo be brought to play upon them that have made us what we are; that is to say, if evangelical Protestantism could obtain a footing amongst them, their pres enco would Boon be felt along tho high-u-v-c c the world, as it has not been for many pas cnttries. It is a common fallacy, and one most unthinkingly assertedthat mankind nec essarily deteriorate in warm latitudes. Some are even bold enough to maintaiu that white skins will grow black, straight hair become wooly, and shitiB aud heels of the Caucasian pattern conform to the precise Scnegambian model, in tho re gions of equatorial Africa. We are told of wonderful instances of black Jows in Mozambique, and of black pure-blood Spanish families in Cuba, etc, whose an cestors were fairly white. But who knows anything with certainty of the ancestry of these people ? Who shall say that the ancient Jew or Spaniard was incapabloof proselytism or misccgnation, aud was more indifferent to passion and affection than to the preservation of Hebrew and Castillian blood in absolute purity? As well might it be assumed that the various mongrel colors to be foui.d in our South ern States and in Spanish America, are the result of climatic influences, and from such an assumption derive the conclusion that the entire population of those re gions is rapidly becoming dark skinned. As well might it be claimed that the ol ive hued Spaniard owes his complexion to the sun. when everybody knows that the Moojs erc masters of the Peninsula for 800 years, and that intcr-marrlagcs were of constant occurrence. But neith er does the leopard change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin. We know of a certainty that copper-colored races have occupied the northern half of this conti nent for half a thousand years, and they are not becoming whiter. Soil and cli mate have no perceptible exoteric or eso teric influence upon them. They are pre cisely what the' seem to have been from time immemorial; namely, a race of dusky-hued savages, long-waiting amidst the desolation of barbarism, and not to become white-skinned by exposure to a bleaching climate, butwhitc-soulcd by ac ceptance of Jesus Christ White-soulcd is as white as they inay ever expect to be; for it seems to have pleased God to mark the divided members of the one human family by many colors and many languag es, and to give them separate offices, and to enjoin charity and mutual assistance up qn all. People reared in the North, arc prone to exaggerate the depressing effects of of southern climates. Many of them may, and probably must, find them- unequal to rigorous mentaj where perpetual summer Like northern plants they alternations of frost and heat; selves work, reigns require and sudden and violent thermomctri cal changes are so inwoven with the habit of their lives, that i1 ey are unable to en dure a steady climate of any kind. But family and individual habits do not fail, after one or two generations, to adapt themselves to the situation. The people of the south experience as much difficul ty from our northern cold, as we do from their constant heat. It required hut seven months for the climate of Scotland to kill Madeleine, first queen of James V. and she was from no farther south than France. Many ol the reasons, assigned for the superiority of the North over the Souffc M i mlWA 1- t-
