poetic fancy prove as elusive as the pot of gold at the rainbow's foot! The Romans were wiser - Janus faced both ways: mindful of the past but believing in a future. Those who believe that with us idealism is dead, miss the vision of the present and the future, and their fate may be that of Lot's wife.

Coming now to our own time, and to the future, we are confronted with another epoch of material progress. It is the day when science teaches us more and more of her principles for practical application to the welfare of man. Indeed, science is for the Don Quixote of to-day the modern Sage Freston, who turns the windmills of progress into the Giant of Materialism. But whether Don Quixote will or no, in the South industrial growth is just beginning anew. As President Alderman has well said: "The South has regained the spirit of industrialism with which it started. Many details remain to be worked out, but the spirit is there. By industrialism I do not mean commercialism. Commercialism is a mere sordid theory of life. Industrialism is the scientific mastery of the raw material and its wise disposition according to the laws of trade. Thus considered industrialism is a mighty and a moral part of the movement of society. When the practice of industrialism catches up with the spirit, politics will be nationalized and thought liberalized in the South, for the economic structure of society is largely responsible for its ideals. Our real problem, therefore, is to try to industrialize our society without commercializing its soul. wonder if the thing is possible."

The answer, we submit, depends on just this one thing: the ideals which are to be presented to future generations of our people. If we continue to live only in the past, to hold up as our cultural ideals those of eighteenth century England, and as our ideals of social organization only those of the agricultural society of antebellum times, the thing is not possible: and the new South will know us not. If we keep our idealism, all we have of it, but let the present and the future develop ideals of their own, the New South will grow naturally out of the old South and preserve what is best and finest in it. Much will pass away. On the one hand we have already awakened from the dream of Revolutionary philosophers which proclaimed the equality of men:

Calhoun saw that clearly enough. On the other hand we have to surrender the idea that any formation of society at a given time can be permanent, and to recognize that a man's ancestry alone will not command respect or bearing in the world. In place of these we must first substitute a greater appreciation of individual worth, a recognition of talent as talent, of genius as genius, wherever it is found. Secondly, we shall have to persuade ourselves of the solidarity of society: to believe that, if men are not created equal, neither are they created independent of each other. The educated man of the New South shall not be idióτns, a "private citizen." It must be his ideal, as never before, to seek the good of all his people, saying with Terence, Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.

These are some of the ideals in which, to the writer's mind, the idealism of the next period of our history must express itself. If we endeavor to be more explicit, into how many fields are we led! As to learning, for example, we must try to make the South acquainted with pure science, then to spread far and wide the application of it, welcoming the growth of technical schools, agricultural colleges, and the like, as a necessary part of modern civilization. Science has another service to render,. The South needs to understand better what is meant by scholarship, in its modern sense, and to distinguish this from readiness in words or a pleasant personality. Another handmaid of science is criticism, fearless, constructive criticism, that which Matthew Arnold defined as "a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world"- implying, of course, the demonstration that what is not the best, is not the best. Along with criticism go inseparably freedom of expression and freedom of the press: by which is meant freedom from social disfavor as well as mere immunity from legal punishment. Even more important is Lehrfreiheit, the freedom of the academic chair.

Surely, if we think and speak with fearlessness and freedom, we must wish for everyone to do the same. The cause of public education is steadily gaining ground in the South, but it has been an uphill fight. Here in the educational field, is an expression of that social solidarity of which we have spoken.

Henceforth it must be the endeavor of every college and university, no matter what its foundation, to be in full sympathy with the public school systems of our Southern States, and to employ every occasion for helpful influence. "The world could not last but for the breath of the school children."

In these and in many ways unknown to us now, the future will call for our highest idealism: and the fruits will not be wanting. To those of our brethren who are fearful of change let us recall what Arnold thought one of the finest things in English literature. If ever there was an arch-conservative, it was Edmund Burke, but he wrote in 1791: "If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it: the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it, and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate."

ST. GEORGE L. SIOUSSAT.

The University of the South.

MORE LIGHT ON IBSEN'S YOUTH

So much has been written of late years about the great Norwegian dramatist that we receive with something of the shock of surprise a wholly new treatment of his character during the important years spent at the little town of Grimstad on the west shore of Norway, just before the student period in Christiania. In those years the earliest published poems and the first play, "Catilina," were written, and the period therefore has a direct bearing upon the development of Ibsen's genius. All earlier writers on Ibsen, from his biographer, Henrik Jæger, to the American tourist taking a snap shot at the poet on Carl Johannsgade, agree in describing him as a stern, self-centred man, abrupt of speech and formal of manner. Jæger even quotes a lady who had known Ibsen at Grimstad to prove that these qualities existed while he was still struggling with fortune as an apothecary's clerk.

Now one of Ibsen's two intimate friends from that time, Herr C. L. Due, for many years an official in the Norwegian Custom House, has contributed to the Christiania newspaper, Aftensposten, a series of articles entitled "From Henrik Ibsen's Youth," from which the new facts presented here are gathered. After describing his first meeting with Ibsen in the apothecary's shop, Herr Due relates an incident that fairly introduces us to the subject of the sketch. "Like so many young persons I engaged at that time in writing small poems. Having produced one of these of which I was proud, I took it along one evening to Ibsen's and confessed to him that I wrote verses. 'So, do you? Let me hear some!' was his reply. I then read my 'Sunset,' one of those expressions of melancholy, in which youth utters itself in natural description. After Ibsen had heard me he remarked, 'I write verses, too,' and at my request he read his last poem, 'Autumn.' The piece attracted me greatly and I exclaimed that it ought to be published. But this Ibsen thought out of the question, as no newspaper was issued in Grimstad and publication in a Christiania paper seemed to him impossible. As I was correspondent for the Christiania Post I proposed sending it to that paper and a few days later received a number which

contained in its first column the poem. I was very impatient until evening came and I could bring the paper to Ibsen. With hearty sympathy and with a certain triumph on my friend's account I showed him his 'first in print.' At first Ibsen grew pale with emotion, but soon joy surged up in his face and I am convinced that he never afterwards felt such keen pleasure at sight of his works. Ibsen wrote a little later a poem on the death of Oehlenschläger, entitled "The Skald in Valhalla." This also was sent to the Post and was immediately published. We preserved as a deep secret from our comrades that Ibsen wrote poems."

After a while others were attracted to the bright, witty young man, and the back room in the apothecary's shop soon became a favorite meeting place, to which new comrades were constantly introduced. There was always fun with Ibsen in the centre, bubbling over as was his humor, not unmixed with sarcasm, and in spite of trying conditions in good spirits. There was no indication that anything troubled him. He possessed to a remarkable degree the elasticity of youth.'

After telling of an elaborate practical joke played by Ibsen upon a foolish member of this informal club, Herr Due gives the following description of Ibsen as a host. "In addition to such nonsense there was occasionally a card party at Ibsen's to which the more intimate ones were invited. We drank punch from ointment jars, which, in the event of unexpected visitors, were emptied and thrust into our pockets. When midnight approached, some of us might suggest that Ibsen needed rest, as we knew that he used a portion of the night for his studies. But he always reassured us by saying that there was still plenty of time for both study and sleep. Perhaps Ibsen had these meetings in mind when he wrote some years later to Georg Brandes of 'the costly luxury of friends.' Ibsen's capacity for work and his physical endurance were phenomenal. With the exception of a few hours he worked all day and all night. The greater part of the daytime was devoted to the duties of the shop, as his employer was delicate and had many other interests. In addition to preparing for his examinations, Ibsen spent much time in writing and painting. And yet I never heard him complain of