No other phase of Southern life is more hopeful and more encouraging than the educational revival. True, judged by the standards of the richer States, the terms of the rural schools are short and the pay of the teachers is small; but both are being increased, and no schools are exercising more wholesome influence. The high schools are neither so numerous nor so well equipped as in some other States, but nowhere else is such evident progress being made. There are no universities in the South which count their income in millions, but the number of institutions adequately equipped to do efficient work is already large and increasing. The spirit of faculty and students is admirable, and the contact of the institutions and the people of the Southern States is increasingly close and full of promise. CHAPTER IX. The South of Today The South of the present is a changing South with its face toward the future rather than the past. Nevertheless the dead hand is felt by all the people a part of the time, and some of the people are never free from its paralyzing touch. Old prejudices, the remembrance of past grievances, and antipathies long cherished now and then assert themselves in the most unexpected fashion. The Southerner, no matter how much he may pride himself upon being liberal and broad, is likely to make certain reservations and limitations in his attitude. There are some questions upon which he is not open to argument, certain subjects which he cannot discuss freely and dispassionately. Some Southerners have so many of these reservations that conversation with them is difficult unless one instinctively understands their psychology and is willing to avoid certain subjects. The past has made so powerful an impression upon them that it has affected their whole attitude of mind. Time, travel, association, engrossing work, and economic prosperity have weakened many of these prejudices and antipathies, however, and the Southerner is becoming free. There are individuals who will always be bound by the past; there are some men, and more women, who are yet "unreconstructed"; there are neighborhoods and villages where men and women yet live in the past and absolutely refuse to attempt to adjust themselves cheerfully to changed and changing conditions. This is not true of the Southern people as a whole. In fact there is danger that the younger generation will think too little of the past. Much of the Old South is worthy of preservation, and it is never safe for a country or a section to break too abruptly with its older life.