Failure in some writers to give the sources of information and of ideas, and to give credit or quote where these are already well expressed, has caused much confusion in the historical data of this State. This practice is fatal to any considerable literary reputation and an unwitting confession of incapacity.
The educational value of these sketches and speeches, and of such as may be published at a later period, is probably what will chiefly recommend this undertaking to the consideration of the public. A good course of home reading about worthy men close enough to the reader to stimulate his interest can hardly be overvalued, and it is the best substitute for the training of the schools as well as a powerful assistant in such training.
It will be remarked that some of the best sketches of our distinguished dead have been written to be spoken; but they are none the less effectual among North Carolinians, who have generally been hearers rather than readers: those, therefore, who have desired their attention have cultivated oratory. The style of the effective writer, however, is more condensed than that of the orator--freer from passion and local prejudice and fitter to paint for posterity pictures of the past.
To the ladies of the memorial associations of North Carolina, and to those who have generously responded to the honor of their calls, our people are indebted for the collection, in the form of addresses, and the consequent preservation of some valuable historical matter. This is especially true of the Ladies' Memorial Association of Raleigh, as the sketches of Grimes, Ramseur, Pender, and Hill, here published, will attest.
No less deserving are those who of their own accord, or at the request of others, have prepared sketches of such as have done deeds worthy of remembrance. Born of some patriotic North Carolina woman, a man will arise who will use the stubborn facts so preserved to bruise the serpent-head of false history.
It will not be understood, of course, that an attempt is made in this volume to publish the lives of all distinguished North Carolinians--there are others, perhaps, as worthy as any which here appear; and should this book be approved and sufficiently sustained by reading people, another volume may be added at some future time.