Nashville Union And American

UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH.
Its Location, Objects and Prospects.

To the Editors of the Union and American:

The site of the University is on the plateau of the Cumberland mountain, in Franklin county Tenn., near where the counties of Marion, Grundy and Franklin corner, (being 2,000 feet above the level of the sea.) on the Sewanee railroad, seven miles from the tunnel, on the Chattanooga and Nashville railroad.

This altitude gives purity of air, and about the temperature of Louisville, Ky., being as far North as the students of the South should go.

It is called the "University of the South," because the States of Texas; Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee, are embraced in the charter, and it is controlled by Trustees from these ten States, being the cotton, sugar and rice States of the United States. These Trustees are appointed by the Episcopal Church of each State, the Bishops thereof being "ex-officio" Trustees.

The object is to make a University for these ten States, a union of the capital, talent and energy of the whole, instead of a division of funds and ten Universities, in low latitudes and malarious regions. The primary schools and colleges, in each State, will go on; but this conception of concentrating everything for a 'University' for the whole ten States, was comprehensive and philosophic, and its success will be a lasting monument on the mountain plain of Tennessee, to him who conceived it.

Another object is to bring together a corps of the most distinguished and learned professors in the world; thereby giving the rising generation of these ten States all the advantages of education which can be found anywhere. This may be done by union and concentration, but not by division. Suppose that each one of the ten States should endow a professorship in this common university, with a salary that would command any talent or attainments. Look at the result of this single act. It brings together on the mountain plain, in a delightful, salubrious climate, ten of the most learned teachers of the world, who would constitute an attraction unequaled on the American continent.

This would be a lighthouse on the mountain top, to which the youths to be educated would be delighted to go. Suppose there should be but fifty students from each of the States, this gives a patronage of five hundred students, and from tuition fees ten other professors could be maintained, thus making the corps of distinguished and learned men twenty in number.

PROSPECTS.

The "University," in its corporate name, is now the owner of ten thousand acres of land, in a body, at the site named above, acquired before the war, by purchase and donation. This was chiefly the work of Leonidas Polk, then Bishop of Louisiana. He was a gentleman and a Christian. When the war came, and the South was invaded, he put on the stars and bars, and like a true soldier, led her sons to battle. He was Lieut. General in the army commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, in his strategetic and masterly movement from Dalton to Atlanta, and fell at Kennesaw Mountain covered with honor and glory. The South will ever cherish his memory, and let his epitaph be written on the walls of the "University of the South."

This site of the "University," containing as it does 10,000 acres, with its springs, and beautiful mountain scenery, is not only large enough for the University, but for summer homes for the planters and others of the South.

I am authorized to say that the trustees have decided to appropriate a part of it to this purpose, and I will present the outline of the plan and terms.

A certain portion of the tract will be set apart, for the "University buildings, and all other buildings necessary for the accommodation of professors and students, with parks, promenades and drives to the mountain views.

This done, another portion will be leased at a nominal rent, for fifty years, to cotton, sugar and rice planters of all the ten States named, who cultivate the alluvial and other rich lands in the malarious districts, and merchants from the Southern cities—lots of two or three acres, upon condition that the lessee put a cottage thereon.

These cottages are intended to be used as "summer homes" for families who prefer that to a hotel. They may be furnished with a cheap style of cottage furniture, which may remain in the cottage during winter and spring.

Tennessee is a provision country and abundant supplies can be obtained at cheap rates.

The "springs" which are yet unnamed afford pure, cool free-stone water, for all in health; and the chalybeate springs, a tonic for those who may require it. But the invigorating, health-producing health-sustaining, agent, is the pure, light mountain air, which gives elasticity, action and grace to the body, and the rosy hue to the cheek.

This is a level plateau, on the summit of a mountain 2,000 feet high, but not a mountain to the eye. The winds are unobstructed by any higher peaks, and you know you are on a mountain, by looking down into the valleys, not by looking up.

It is essential to the growth of the planting community, that they go out of the malarious valleys in the summer months. Disease will degenerate the stock, and the South will lose rank in the councils of the nation, without a remedy for this evil It is offered in a "summer home' near the "University of the South."

Another object is to assemble here, in the summer months, the parents and patrons of the University. There will be no vacation in the summer, but in December and January.

These "summer homes," therefore, are a legitimate part of this scheme of education.

The drives to the mountain views may be fifteen or twenty miles, in circuit, on the finest roads that can be found anywhere.

Fifty planters from each of the ten States with cottages, make five hundred families, of a homogenous class, cultivators of the soil, who come together, with their wives and children and servants; with their carriages and buggies and horses, brought there by the railroads, to spend the summer. Hotels will be provided for the accommodation of all other visitors, by other lessees. They go back in the fall to send students to their united University, and thus become aids to the plan.

The mammoth commercial enterprise, railroads, has annihilated space in eight of these States, and will soon do so in Arkansas and Texas. Distance in time from all the great cities of the South—New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, Tallahassee, Memphis, Vicksburg, Raleigh and Nashville, and all intermediate towns—in from eight to thirty-eight hours. Little Rock and Austin will soon be embraced.

The vacuum in labor is to be filled by the Chinaman, upon contracts, and capital furnished in the Chinese Empire. Fill this vacuum, and the cotton mines will be worked, and the South will be herself again. That done, the University is a success.

What had been done before the war was destroyed. By the energy and talent of the present Bishop of Tennessee, who was also a Confederate soldier, much has been done to revive the scheme, which was prostrated, but not destroyed, by the war. They have erected temporary buildings, with a chapel for religious services, and have organized a school, and by way of experiment, have had a session of three months, with twenty-five students, from six of the Southern States. They have no hotel for strangers yet, but hope to have one by next summer, also ten or fifteen cottages.