THE TEACHER 
by John E. Talmadge

I cannot think or speak sadly of Francis Simkins, even at his memorial
services. Whatever I say of him is bound to relate to his witty
speech, his entertaining ideas, his complete indifference to
conventions and physical comforts. For instance, I could hardly
discuss his blunt, honest criticism, from which I profited over the
years, without recalling the first manuscript I sent him. He returned
it rather heavily annotated with this inclusive advice: "I think you
had better go back and take freshman composition again." At that time
I was teaching--or imagined I was teaching--a course in advanced
writing.

I am afraid I have little first-hand information with which to judge
his teaching. We were on the same faculty for only one year, the year
I met him, and we taught in different fields. But from reading his
books, hearing him talk outside class and, above all, from knowing
him, I hope I can make an estimation not too wide of the mark. At
least I can be sure of one thing: his teaching methods are not found
in textbooks of the school of education.

I am confident that his lectures were spontaneous and
unaffected. Francis had an abiding distaste for pedantry. He never
dropped carelessly the names of books and authors that professors are
supposed to know, and he loved to proclaim, especially to people he
wanted to bait, that he never read anything but "old newspapers." 
Evidently he found a surprising amount of information in them. He
assured me he knew nothing of modern fiction, yet he was able to
explain in detail how Dreiser's American Tragedy completely demolished
the Horatio Alger legend. His students must have recognized that he
made no effort to impress them with his learning. Students are hard to
teach but they are strangely sensitive to pretentiousness.

If Francis formulated any theories on teaching, he never revealed them
to me. But he certainly understood that you can't teach any subject
unless you can catch the students' attention.

He once said that he had the reputation for being "easy", but that he
was also considered "interesting". If he was lenient in grading, it
was because he was wise enough to know you can make scholars of few
students. I am sure he was interesting.

He could hardly have failed to make history come alive for his
classes. He knew his subject for all his disavowal of wide reading,
and he possessed the narrative talent and easy colloquial style to
lodge this knowledge in his students' minds. Once I asked him why he
did not make greater use of his lively, racy speech in his
writings. All I accomplished was to hear a warm denunciation of
professors who tried to popularize their academic subjects.

In his books, and I have no doubt in his lectures, he presented
history not as a compilation of economic treatises and population
figures, but as the story of man, his thoughts and actions. I can
believe he made good use of those anecdotes which brought light and
color to his writings. There was the one he loved to tell me because I
was a Presbyterian. Shortly after the Civil War, Northern and Southern
Presbyterians met to discuss re-unification. As Francis told it, the
Northern delegates returned home and sadly reported that the Reverend
Robert L. Dabney, a member of Stonewall Jackson's staff and one of
Francis' heroes, took the olive branch they held out and soundly
thrashed their coat-tails. There were other illustrations the students
would have appreciated. In showing how the South shaped innovations to
its peculiar way of living, Francis pointed out that Southern football
spectators enhanced their enjoying of the sport by consuming "gallons
of ice cream, Coca-Cola and corn liquor." The boys and girls in front
of him had witnessed such indulgences.

His students were kept awake not only by his apt allusions, but also
by his dramatic delivery. One back in Emory days described for me how
Francis used to stride up and down the platform, often with a pajama
leg peeping out of one trouser cuff, driving home his arguments in
that staccato voice which kept pace with his flow of ideas. Another
told me that Francis got so excited about what he was saying you found
yourself believing it must be important.

But while Francis was entertaining his students he was instructing
them at the same time. His wit had content and purpose. I feel
sometimes that it was never fully appreciated. Francis' wit had no
relationship to the risque, slapstick humor too current today. Nor did
he use it as a colleague of those who carefully hoard popular jokes
and insert them in the margin of their lecture notes. Francis
understood that one of the most effective devices to illuminate a
subject is to point out some humorous aspect inherent in it-- and he
was quick to detect human absurdities and inconsistencies, even on the
highest level. In deflating Thomas Jeffer- son's pose of simplicity,
he pointed out that Mr. Jefferson "was not too simple to live in a
Roman mansion instead of a log cabin and to drink madeira instead of
cider." Sometimes this talent tempted Francis beyond exactitude, as
when he claimed that no Southerner, however depraved, wanted to be
buried with anything less than a church funeral. Even if the students
detected these extravagant statements they would have held their
teacher more human for enjoying them. It was the way they talked out
of class.

I would suggest that what gave form and substance to Francis' teaching
was his unshaken faith in two institutions, which he always held to be
interdependent: agrarianism and Christianity. By this, however, I am
far from implying that in his classrooms he became a propagandist for
what he be- lieved. He respected truth too highly to present only one
side of an issue, and his sense of humor made it impossible for him to
proselyte. In defending his faith he would always stop short of that
point where discussion becomes controversy, usually by injecting some
humorous comment. A kinsman of his tells me that Francis was able to
sponsor the Farmville private school without losing the affection of a
colleague who staunchly opposed the experiment.

Francis' creed gave consistency and clarity to his interpretations of
history. In his nationally-accepted History of the South he maintains
throughout a Southern viewpoint. He refused to be awed by the
legendary idols of the North. In considering President Lincoln's
effort to relieve Fort Sumter he sees it as strangely like Bismarck's
alteration of the Ems' telegram which started the Franca-Prussian War.

A professor who lectures from an unshaken faith, without pressing that
faith upon his students, is likely to be respected above colleagues
obviously inspired by changing textbooks and popular notions.

Francis' enjoyment of teaching was not lost upon his students, as I
have pointed out, and nothing can so dampen a lecture as a speaker who
is as anxious for the hour to end as are the most indifferent members
of his audience. He enjoyed teaching in these times when so many in
our profession look upon it as time lost from that research which will
bring them promotion and pay. His significant and considerable writing
was largely done at Longwood College in Farmville, Virginia, where, I
believe, he always carried a full teaching load. Once he transferred
to a larger institution where research time and material were made
more available for him, but he had been there only a short time when
he wrote me that he would return to Farmville sooner or later. He
loved Farmville, as he loved Edgefield, because it also provided an
atmosphere where his thoughts and beliefs seemed at home. His
reputation as a teacher brought him lectureships at Princeton, the
University of Texas and the University of Massachusetts, but he always
came back happily to the small college in the Virginia Valley.

No professor can be certain of the imprint he has made upon his
students-can, in fact, rarely be certain that he has made an
imprint. But I have reason for believing Francis is remembered and
respected by many of his. When his book The Everlasting South came
out, I sent a copy to one of his students, now a prosperous New Yorker
most unlikely to hold with his old professor's ideas. I said as much
in a letter accompanying the book. Back came the answer: "I agree far
more with Dr. Simkins than you seem to think." Surely there are others
who would say even more.

The last time I saw Francis was in Columbia during Christmas of
1964. His illness was apparent in his walk, but not in his
conversation. He wanted to know what was happening in Georgia
politics, and I told him I was afraid our governor was talking one way
in Atlanta and another in Washington. Francis observed that if
Mrs. Rebecca Felt.on, the terror of an earlier generation of Georgia
politicians, was alive, she would "scare the pants off that young
fellow." Shortly after I learned of Francis' death, I found some
comfort in the news that he had just accepted an invitation to lecture
in Canada during the coming year. I took this to mean his mind and
courage had remained strong 'til the end.