A Rhetorical Biography of Walter Hines Page with Reference to His Ceremonial Speaking on Southern Education, 1891-1913
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1977 A Rhetorical Biography of Walter Hines Page With Reference to His Ceremonial Speaking on Southern Education, 1891-1913. Keith Howard Griffin Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Griffin, Keitho H ward, "A Rhetorical Biography of Walter Hines Page With Reference to His Ceremonial Speaking on Southern Education, 1891-1913." (1977). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3112. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3112 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 77-28,677 uRIFFIN, Keith Howard, 1949- A RHETORICAL BIOGRAPHY OF WALTER HINES PAGE WITH REFERENCE TO HIS CEREMONIAL SPEAKING ON SOUTHERN EDUCATION, 1891-1913. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1977 Speech Xerox University M icrofilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 4sio6 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A RHETORICAL BIOGRAPHY OF WALTER HINES PAGE WITH REFERENCE TO HIS CEREMONIAL SPEAKING ON SOUTHERN EDUCATION, 1891-1913 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech by Keith Howard G riffin M .A ., Wake F o re s t U n iv e r s ity , 1974 A ugust, 1977 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank the following people for their contribution to the development of this study: Dr. Waldo W. Braden, scholar and friend, for his unwavering confidence and enthusiasm in guiding the project . Dr. Darwin Shrell, Dr. Harold Mixon, Dr. B ill Harbin, and Dr. Donald Ragsdale for their assistance in assembling the manuscript . the staff of the Houghton Library of Harvard University for their help when the w riter was in Cambridge to examine the Page manuscript collection . Dr. John Milton Cooper, Jr. of the University of Wisconsin for furnishing a copy of his unpublished biographical study of Page . Mrs. Golda Walker and Paula Henderson for their work in typing and proof-reading the manuscript . and Mr. and Mrs. G. Howard G riffin. 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... ü C h ap ter I . INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1 I I . THE SPEAKER: WALTER HINES PA G E......................................................... 12 I I I . PAGE AND THE NEW S O U T H ..............................................................................30 IV. THE CAMPAIGN IN NORTH CAROLINA..........................................................61 V. SOUTHERN EDUCATION SPOKESMAN.............................................................143 V I. BUILDING UP COUNTRY L I F E .......................................................................208 V II. CONCLUSION . ................................................................................................ 249 BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................................255 VITA ..................................................................................................................................................266 111 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT This dissertation examines eleven ceremonial speeches delivered by Walter Hines Page on Southern education between 1891 and 1913. Attention is directed toward a consideration of his strategy in employ ing various forms of support to amplify his message and to heighten the effect of his speeches. Analysis reveals that through his rhetoric Page made a significant contribution to the public education movement in North Carolina and across the South. At the close of the nineteenth century, universal education was an unacceptable concept to most Southerners who accepted the notion that schools existed to serve the wealthy and well-born. In advocating public education. Page espoused a philosophy opposed to the attitudes of class and privilege characteristic of the Old South. Refusing either to accommodate to or to exploit the myths of the Old South and the Lost Cause, Page pursued what may be called a rhetoric of aspira tion, because he developed themes embodying optimism, promise and assurance. Examination of his speeches as a rhetoric of aspiration reveals that the North Carolinian followed four strategies to promote public education. First, Page used a strategy of avoidance or in his words "pass over" not to attack the powerful myths of the Old South and the Lost Cause. Refraining from any discussion of the myths, he did not risk the possibility of alienating public opinion. Second, Page lauded the contributions of those Southerners who took leading roles in founding the nation. Appealing to patriotism and iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the right to equal educational and economic opportunities, he identified the democratic myth with the traditional South. Third, the expatriate-orator turned to the agrarian myth to commend r u r a l l i f e as th e r o o t o f A m erican c h a r a c te r , id e a ls and values. He contended that ultimately the nation's greatness was based on the maintenance and growth of the agrarian South. Finally, Page utilized the myth of the New South to promise prosperity as the reward for a society committed to "the right training of its people." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In 1919 Ellwood Cubberley rated Walter Hines Pagel "one of the ten or fifteen most influential men who provided leadership to America for the first two decades of the present century."2 His observation was based upon the Southerner's career as ambassador to Great Britain, as a journalist and publisher and for his philanthropic service. Inter ested in any liberal effort to aid the South, Page "was a pioneer in popularizing the new science of agriculture; he heralded the emancipa tion of a vast region from the hookworm; most of all he blazed the way for the educational and industrial redemption of the South."3 Ipage was born August 15, 1855 in Wake County, North Carolina. He attended Trinity College, now Duke University, Randolph-Macon College, and won one of the first fellowships offered at Johns Hopkins University. He was married to W illia Alice Wilson in 1880. The young couple moved to Missouri where he served for two years as editor of the St. Joseph Gazette. Following a brief tour of the South as a corres pondent for newspapers in Chicago, New York and Boston, he returned to North Carolina and purchased the Raleigh State Chronicle. Unable to make the paper a financial success, he sold his interests and traveled north to pursue his career. He served on the staff of the New York Evening Post, 1883-88, as manager and later editor of the Forum, 1887-95, and as editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1896-00, the first Southerner to hold that post. The North Carolinian left the Monthly to create a publishing house in partnership with Frank Doubleday. Soon after its formation. Doubleday, Page & Company launched World's Work, a magazine which Page edited from 1900 to 1913. In 1913 Woodrow Wilson appointed him ambassador to Great Britain. Page served in this post until ill-health forced him to resign in 1918. He died December 21, 1918 in Aberdeen, North Carolina. ^Ellwood Cubberley, Public Education in the Uni ted States: A Study and Interpretation of American Education History (Boston: Houghton M ifflin Company, 1919), p. 670. ^"New York and the World * s Work," Page Manuscript Collection, Harvard University. Subsequent references to material from this Collection shall be acknowledged Page MSS. Reproduced with permission of the copyrightowner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 As a journalist and an orator. Page promoted the crusade for education in the southern states. Referring to his addresses on behalf of this cause, Edwin Mims, formerly chairman of the Department of English at Vanderbilt Unitersity, suggested that "a more limited study in a more limited field might better set forth the spirit of the man and suggest many ideas and plans that were characteristic of his mind and heart. Statement of the Problem Entitled "A Rhetorical Biography of Walter Hines Page with Reference to his Ceremonial Speaking on Southern Education, 1891-1913," this dissertation examines all aspects of the speaker's Liic and career which influenced his role as a spokesman in the campaign for education in the South at the turn of the century. His addresses provide the opportunity to study