Death of Bryan

In researching Donald Davidson for my thesis, I came across lots of stuff I would otherwise not have known. A good deal of it was about my hometown and state, some of which can be read in previous blog entries. One thing I haven't noted much here is how much the Dayton Trial of John T. Scopes, known commonly as the Monkey Trial, was a part of Davidson's thinking. Much of his shift to Southern Agrarianism came after the Scopes Trial was concluded. In his second volume on the history of the Tennessee River, he devotes many pages to a discussion of the trial and its effects on the culture of Tennessee and the South.
In this second volume I discovered that William Jennings Bryan, the Great Commoner who served to assist the prosecution in the case, gave his last public address in Winchester, TN (my hometown) before dying unexpectedly on July 25, 1925 on his way back to Chattanooga. According to The Truth and Herald (July 30, 1925) between 6,000 and 7,000 people attended the public address given by Bryan in Winchester.
I doubt anything Bryan said there was substantially different from what he said at any other time, but it was interesting to me that my little hometown had even been visited by someone like William Jennings Bryan, not to mention that he gave his last public address there.

Davidson on economic stability

The secret of Charleston's stability, if it was any secret, was only the old Southern principle that material considerations, however important, are means not ends, and should always be subdued to the ends they are supposed to serve, should never be allowed to dominate, never be mistaken for ends in themselves. If they are mistaken for ends, they dominate everything, and then you get instability. You get he average modern city, you get New York and Detroit, you get industrial civilization, world wars, Marxist communism, the New Deal.

Donald Davidson, "Some Day, In Old Charleston" Still Rebels, Still Yankees, 222.

Step Two

Well, my thesis has been accepted by my adviser. That means that I now send it to the other two members of my committee and they tell me what they think about it. My adviser made lots of comments and suggestions, as the other members will, I'm sure. Once I get all their feedback, I'll make changes and then defend the corrected version of my thesis. This will all need to happen before Thanksgiving. If all goes well, I will graduate with an M.A. in History.
I am very excited about this, and very appreciative of my adviser. He really went out of his way to help me when I came to him saying I needed to graduate this semester. The other members of my committee are all men I respect as well, so I am sure their comments are going to be valuable.
I'll keep the blog posted as to what happens and how it happens.

Knee Deep in Research

I haven't posted anything recently because I am knee deep in research. Every once in a while, until I get a draft of my thesis, I may post something I find interesting from my research.
Here is an interesting quote from Donald Davidson...
"A civilization cannot feed and flourish upon perishable things. Only imperishable at its center can give it life. Nothing is more imperishable than poetry. In comparison, the material works of science and industry are but fleeting trifles. No civilization of the past has ever lived without poetry. Our civilization can hardly be an exception."

Agrarianism

The more I read of Davidson, the more I get the impression that to him, Agrarianism meant a balance life. He didn't say it very well, all the time, but as I read more and more of what he wrote, he doesn't have a beef with machines per se. He has a problem with a messianic faith in machines. He doesn't have a problem with industry per se, he has a problem with a messianic faith in industrialism to relieve all our woes.
Davidson seems to hold on to Agrarianism as the best way to bring everything back into balance. A clear harmony between the life of the land and the life of the city seems to be in view with him. Now if I can just prove it.

Home ... where you least expect it

In researching the life and career of Donald Davidson and the Agrarians I have found many interesting notes about my own home, Middle Tennessee. For instance, Donald Davidson great-great-grandfather, Andrew Davidson put down roots near Shelbyville, TN after his first family was murdered by Shawnee Indians in Virginia. Donald's father spent some time in Winchester, TN (my hometown) at a teacher preparatory school I never knew existed.
Allen Tate's family often came down to Estill Springs for a family vacation. Apparently it used to be quite the wealthy Nashvillian hang out. Several of these men spent time in or around Sewanee and the University of the South. Tate edited the Sewanee Review for a while, as did Andrew Nelson Lytle. Lytle actually retired to Monteagle and died there in 1995.
This has been one of the interesting and exciting things about this research. It has given me a new glimpse of the home I grew up in and yet never really appreciated.

Davidson on Education

In an essay written in 1935 to document and explain the history of the book, I'll Take My Stand, Donald Davidson indicates that he and the other Agrarians wrote the book to Southerners as Southerners. He laments that perhaps, this was presumptuous. The Agrarians and the critics of the book did not even use the primary terms (Agrarianism and Industrialism) in the same way. Later he makes the following statement:

It was first of all a book for mature Southerners of the late nineteen-twenties, in the so-called New South - Southerners who, we trusted, were not so far gone in modern education as to require, for the act of comprehension, coloured charts, statistical tables, graphs, and journalistic monosullables, but were prepared to use intelligence and memory.

Wouldn't it be nice to have people like that? He didn't and I doubt we will either for a long time. But that is one of the things a good classical education seeks to remedy. The act of interacting with primary sources, as much as possible, helps build the kind of person who can use his intelligence and memory. Sure we use maps and sometimes charts to help us colect similar types of information. I think Davidson went a little too far. However, the modern education system, including modern journalism (which is supposed to be a primary agent of continuing education for adults) has reduced all learning to statistics, graphs, and monosyllables.

Hometown

I have lived in Greenville, SC for a little more than 8 years. Before that I lived in Chattanooga, TN for about 5 years. Yet for some reason, every time I go back to Winchester, TN to see my parents, I feel like I have come home. None of the places I have lived since high school have felt like home to me.
This gets even more interesting when I recognize that the overwhelming desire for many children that grow up in small towns (including myself) it to get out as fast as possible and as far away as possible. I remember the first time a student of mine here in Greenville told me he wanted to get out of this small town. I laughed at him and told him the population of the city of Greenville alone was greater than the entire county I grew up in. Yet, for some reason, I am trying to get back.
It may have something to do with the agrarian streak developing in me (I picked the topic for a reason, you know). It may simply be a product of my middle age (I am a thirty-something now). Whatever it is, I miss Skip's Grill. I miss the Oldham Theater. I miss the Blue Front Drug Store and the Creekside Market. I miss so much about that place that I don't want to leave once I have visited.
Yet this can't just turn into a trip down nostalgia lane. I have to do analysis, even on myself. While there last week I was saddened by how much Winchester looks like everywhere; which is another way of saying it looks like nowhere. James Kunstler's fascinating book The Geography of Nowhere, explains how this has happened all across America. This process has turned vital and regional communities into "developments" and places for "growth." I saw this with my own two eyes last week. Housing subdivisions have gone crazy in my hometown. This wouldn't be so bad if they had some character to them, but sadly they all look alike.
I can't for the life of me figure out why a vibrant community would want to approve a by-pass around their town. I guess on some level they figure it will keep very large trucks from barreling through the town. But it will also keep people who need to see Hammer's department store and the Winchester Speedway from ever setting their eyes on these places. Watch Cars for heaven's sake. I cried (and still cry) through parts of that movie because it reminded me so much of what is happening in our towns.
I will probably never move back to Winchester. One reason for this is the lack of community. Community it partly where you make it, but there must be some like-mindedness as well. We are very different from the folks we grew up with. Christianity is mostly a social religion in places like Winchester. I know there are many, very many, authentic Christians there. But for a gross amount of people, their is no life in their religion. We take our religion very seriously and have a church that does as well. There would be no place to worship there. There is also the problem of occupation and calling. I am a teacher, but am not state certified. I don't even have a education degree (for which I continue to be grateful). There are no private schools of the caliber I teach at in that part of Tennessee. There are some in more urban centers of Tennessee (like Franklin, Memphis, Knoxville, Murfreesboro, even Columbia). But in little ole Winchester there are no classical schools. It is very interesting to talk to people there about what I teach and how. They don't even have categories to put it in. "So do you teach history or literature?" "Well, both actually, and philsophy and art, with aesthetics and theology." (Insert puzzled face here)
After visiting my hometown, I have to work out the reasons I am grateful to live where I live and work where I work. I have to remind myself of what I would give up just to eat at Skip's once a week or so. I can't say I'd never do it if I had a real opporunity to, but it's not on the To Do list.