Book excerpt: "Dan Frost shows how, inspired by the idea of progress, these men set about transforming Southern higher education. Recognizing the north's superiority in industry and technology, they turned their own schools from a classical orientation to a new emphasis on science and engineering. These educators came to define the Southern idea of progress and passed it on to their students, thus helping to create and perpetuate an expectation for the arrival of the New South."--BOOK JACKET.