Halls of Honor: College Men in the Old South Paperback - 2011

From the rear cover

A powerful confluence of youthful energies and entrenched codes of honor enlivens Robert F. Pace's look at the world of male student college life in the antebellum South. Through extensive research into records, letters, and diaries of students and faculty from more than twenty institutions, Pace creates a vivid portrait of adolescent rebelliousness struggling with the ethic to cultivate a public face of industry, respect, and honesty.

The sons of southern gentry expanded the usual view of higher education as a bridge between childhood and adulthood, innovatively creating their own world of honor that prepared them for living in the larger southern society. By the end of the Civil War, however, the code of honor had waned, changing the culture of southern colleges and universities forever.

Halls of Honor represents a significant update of E. Merton Coulter's 1928 classic work, College Life in the Old South, which focused on the University of Georgia. Pace's lively study will widen the discussion of antebellum southern college life for decades to come.

Robert F. Pace is a professor of history at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas; the coauthor of Frontier Texas: History of a Borderland to 1880; and the coeditor of "Fear God and Walk Humbly": The Agricultural Journal of James Mallory, 1843--1877.