The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
I receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
NOVEMBER 13,1918
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. V, NO. 1
Editorial Board i E. C. Branson, J. G. deB. Hamilton, L. R. Wilson, B. H. Thornton, G. M. MoKie.
Entered as second-class matter November 14,1914, at the iPostofflce at Chapel Hill, N# C., under the act of August, 24,1913.
$100,000,000 FOR SCHOOLS
Senator Hoke Smith of Georgia, chair
man of the Senate Committee on Educa
tion, has come to conclude that (1) ele
mentary education, (2) native and foreign
born illiteracy, (3) instruction in citizen
ship and loyalty, (4) healtli education,
including recreation, medical and dental
examination of school children, trained
sclmoi nurses, .school clinics and instruc
tion of tlie people in the principles of san
itation and liealth, and (5) the prepara
tion of teachers, particularly for our ru
ral schools, are all great national prob
lems;'that they cannot any longer be
left to the chance willingness or unwill
ingness of taxpayers in local communi
ties and states, but must be attacked on
a grand national scale and supported in
part at least out of the great national
treasury.
And he is everlastingly right about it.
The selective draft has been an eye-
opener to this nation.
Think of it! More than a fourth of our
two and a quarter million men of the first
draft, young men in the prime of early
manhood, from 20 to 30, were found up
on examination to be physically unfit to
eerve tjjeir country; the ratios of unfit
ness ranging from 14 percent in South
Dakota, a rural state, to 46 percent im
Connecticut and Pennsylvania, two in
dustrial states. The ratio was nearly 30
percent in North Carolina.
And a disgracefully large amount of this
national unfitness was found to be due to
ylereal disease, the ratios of infection
i !3ging from 14 percent in a middle wes
tern state to 77 percent in a middle Atlan-
tif ; state.
Think .A it! Three-fourths of our 20
milHon scJ:.,\ chillren sulTering from
physics.! vi V hi^J“9—heart- and-iuiig-dis.
easts, disorders 'nearing and visiDti,
rmdnutrilion, diseased adenoids and to.n-
sils, flat-feet, weak spines; imperfect
teeth and the like, most of which are pre
ventable and curable ailments, says Dr.
Frederick Peterson a New York alienist
of note. I
Think of it! Nearly two-'chirda of the
native white adult illiterates of the United
States are massed in •; > South, while 94
percent of our white ^ I of all ages
live in our conn' > y j’lgious. We found
324 raw recruits •• >,0 a single Soutnem
state at Camp HaiKock the other day,
and nearly a full fourth or 24 percent of
then: were sheer-illiterates w’hile another
fou.'th V, sre near-illiterates! The shame
ot if. was unspeakable.
I'ruly the selective draft has brought
«j face to face with conditions that
threaten this nation with degeneracy,
physical and moral; and it must bring us
to our senses quickly, if America is to be
the hope of the world in the new order of
thidgs.
What the Millions are for
Fifty millions are to go toward improv
ing public schools below college grade.
The states that put up dollar for dollar
will reap the benefits of the fund. And
no state with less than a six months
school term can share tliese 50 millions—
a detail worth noting just now in North
Carolina.
Twenty millions will go for health edu
cation.
Fifteen millions will go for better teach
er training, with the country schools es
pecially; in view.
The balance or fifteen millions will be
devoted to a fierce assault upon illiteracy,
native and foreign born.
The main purpose of the entire fund is
to breed intelligent, devoted citizenship
in these United States. Without that,
the new democracy in this and every oth-
«r land will face the menaces of Bolshiv-
ism, quite as Lord Northclifie foresees!
A New Cabinet Officer
Under the new law, we shall have a
Secretary of Education in the President’s
Cabinet, and the scattered educational
efforts of Washington will be organized
and massed under a single directorship.
At present twenty-seven different fed
eral departments, bureaus, and offices are
charged with the educational end of our
national life. As a result we have endless
duplication and unbelievable waste. It
is wqme than chaotic, it is idiotic.
Our Federal Commissioner of Educa
tion is running a national side-show at
present, competing with twenty-six other
educational side-shows in Washington
City. Making your way through the ed
ucational enterprises of our national cap
ital is like moving through the midway
attractions of the Chicago exposition.
Hereafter—if Senator Smith’s bill pass
es—the Department of Education headed
by a cabinet officer will be the whole
show, and education in these United
States will at last have risen to the dignity
of agriculture, labor, commerce, and war.
If our readers are interested in this bill,
they will do well to tell their congress
man so at once. It is Senate bill No. 4987.
No more important measure has been be
fore congress for a half century—not even
excepting our war legislation these last
eighteen months. It is fundamental to a
rational re-adjustment of our national
life w'hen the war is over.
We may say in conclusion that this
Federal fund will be applied by the va
rious state authorities, just as the land
grant funds, the farm extension and voca
tional education funds are now applied.
If any man can see in this proposition
any sinister purpose to Prussianize edu
cation in America, then he has an eye
like a Philadelphia lawyer, who is said to
be able to see straight through a brick.
THE TEACHERS’ TASK
There never was a period in our his
tory when teachers had a greater op
portunity or a heavier responsibility.
The nation is awakening as never
before to the possibilities of education
and to the necessity of combating ig
norance in all its forms—physical,
mental, and moral. The war is burn
ing into all the value of knowledge
and ordered discipline, of devotion to
a great danger and a common cause.
But there is the danger that in the
reaction consequent upon peace and
in the turmoil of material reconstruc
tion the spiritual truths enforced by
the -war may be forgotten or obscured.
It will rest largely upon the teach
ers to secure that these truths become
part of the inheritance of the coming
generation and that the full influence
of education may be directed to the
training of men and women imbued
by lasting ideals of public service and
self-sacrificing citizenship.—Hon. A.
L. Fisher, President of the English
Board of Education.
WILL THE GERMANS REVOLT
President AYilson’s diplomacy has been
based on a steadfast belief that the Ger
man government is one thing and the
German people another, and that the peo
ple of the twmnty odd German states can
and w-ill repudiate their autocratic over-
lords and establish responsible govern
ments of their own.
Will the Germans revolt?
Mr. Wilson thinks they will—that th«
flr«^ that blazed in the soul of Carl
Sc’, li-z and his co-patriots in 1848 can be
til., d into flame in Germany today. He
hai ’!oi-on laughed to scorn by scores of
higlihrows who affect to know that the
Oerman people are incurably craven and
servile after fifty years of rigid discipline
in a military civilization.
And Dr. Davis thinks they will. As
everybody knows. Dr. Davis, an Ohio
doctor long resident in Berlin, was the
Kaiser’s dentist for many years. His let
ters to the American people, in the syn
dicated press, have been extremely inter
esting because they are reliable accounts
of the German people at close range.
He has clear convictions on this ques
tion of critical importance. It is critical
because if the German national mind is
fatally one with that of the German High
Command, then this war can and will go
on for many more years.
The German armies are not destroyed.
They are still fighting far beyond their
own borders, in enemy territory.
But if the Hun, like the Prodigal Son,
can come to himself any time soon, then
this dreadful war can be quickly ended—
not otherwise.
If the German soul'is salted with dem
ocratic grit and grace, then civilization
can be Saved in Europe, and saved at an
early date. Otherwise the war will go
on, and we shall witness the passing of
Europe into the dust heaps of history.
his war lords to dominate the world?
What will they do when they realize
that the success of the U-boat campiagn
has been woefully exaggerated right
from the start?
What will they do when they realize
that America came into this war out of
the purest motives that ever inspired a
nation?
What will they do when they learn that
America’s power, growing every day, will
eventually be great enough, in combina
tion with the Allies, to smash the German
Empire?
What will happen when the German
people realize that they have been the
pitiful victims of the insatiable thirst of
thei Kaiser and his supporters for world
power, and that the sacrifices they have 1
been compelled to make must inevitably
prove futile?
AVhat will they do when they begin to
understand that four-fifths of the world
is arrayed against Germany, not to destroy
the German people, but to emancipate
them?
When they learn the truth, I fully be
lieve they will turn upon the leaders who
have so wickedly and so consistently
deceived them.
I will not venture a guess as to when
that will be, but I feel sure that it will
certainly come about. Fortified by a large
portion of the army, the German people
will at least turn on their rulers and
destroy the throne and the whole Hohen-
zollern regime.
There may be two big revolutions. The
civilians, consisting of womto, old men
and youths and others who have not been
called into the army, may rise up, but
their efforts will lie in vain. The defeat
of such an uprising, however, may bfe the
signal for a greater one in which a portion
of the army itself will take part, and then
a civil war will result which will have
no counterpart in the world’s history.
States attorney for the northern district
of Georgia, who has sent the following
letter to W. 0. Wardlaw, chairman of
the district Liberty Loan committee;
“Referring to several cases which have
been brought to my attention in which
persons who are amply able to subscribe
to bonds refuse to do so, yoiKpe advised
that the mere failure to take bohds, how
ever unpatriotic it may be, is not, in it
self and when disconnected with other
matters, an indictable offense.
“At the same time, experience has
shown that people of this character can
very frequently be indicted for other of
fenses. Th^ man who has not sufficient
patriotism to aid his country in this man
ner, will generally be found to have made
expressions which tend to favor the cause
of a government with which we are at
war, or indicate opposition to the cause
of our government therein.
“Matters of this sort are indictable,
and the penalty may extend to imprison
ment for thirty years and a fine of many
thousands of dollars.
“I suggest, therefore, that you cause
the past record and conduct and utter
ances of the people of this class to be
carefully investigated and reviewed in the
communities where they respectively live,
with a view of ascertaining whether they
are not indictable under the espionage or
sedition acts.
“In all such cases, the names and facts
should be reported to the United States
attorney in the district where such ob
jectionable people live.
“Juries are not only willing but anx
ious to convict in all such cases.’’
Heaven be praised for
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT
A few persons in every community, not
many but just a few—
Are well able to buy liberty bonds and
war stamps, but so far have turned a deaf
ear to the call of their country and
the cause of humanity.
Or have bought a small bond or two
when they could have bought a dozen or
more of large denominations—have invest
ed dimes instead of dollars, to get their
names in the printed list of patriots.
Or have given not a penny or only a
pin’s fee to the Red Cross, the Red Trian
gle, or any other war benvolence.
Or have opened their purses wide for
interest bearing bonds and shut them tight
against outright gifts to the welfare min
istry of the AVar AYork Council,
Or have been cold and unresponsive, or
unfeeling and even insulting to the devot
ed war-workers soliciting subscriptions.
There have been a few such persons eve
rywhere—not folks, mind you, but persons!
Some of them are wheezing, grasping,
hardened old sinners, without hope in
this world or any other.
Some are quite unconscious hypocrites
who grunt unctuously in the amen corner
of our meeting houses ;who cry Lord, Lord,
but have no cups of cold water and no bow
els of campassion for the sick and wound
ed, dead and dying in this war-strideen
world; whose piety shines and stinks like
a rotten mackerel in the moonlight.
Some of tliem—the Raleigh papers say—
are on the payrolls of the State, and
THE OPINION OF DR. DAVIS
The weak point in the foundation upon
which the German Empire rests today,
says Dr. Davis, lies, in my opinion, in
the fact that the loyalty of the peopl^ has
been retained by deception and misrep
resentation. Ever since the war started the
government has been feeding lies to the
people, and the people have accepted them
at their face value. AVhat\ will happen
J^hen the Germans realize that their own
government has wickedly deceived them?
AVith the soldiers returning from the
front on furlough and the propaganda of
the Allies slowly but surely beginning to
circulate among the people the con
cealing of the truth from the German
people becomes increasingly difficult. Al
ready the people are becoming restless.
Is it impossible that they are about to
wake up ?
What will the people do when it begins
to dawn upon them that the w'ar was
started, not by the European powers to
strangle Germany, but by the Kaiser and
MORE SLACKER BANKS
Fifteen Tarheel banks sold no liberty
bonds of the third issue—not seventeen
as we reported in a recent issue of the
University News Letter. Tlie Farmers
Bank and Trust Co. at Lattimore and at
Caroleen are branches of tlie Farmers
Bank and Trust Co. at Forest City, as it
appears, and together they 'sold their
quota of $50,600 twice over and more—
$110,400 all told. No slacker banks
these!
But 19 Tarheel banks sold no liberty
bonds of the fourth issue. At least they
are so reported in the official letter of
Joseph G. Brown, chairman of the state
committee, under date of October 22.
We presume their names will be given
to the public in the next liberty bond re
port of the Federal Reserve Ba,nk at
Richmond and we shall take a wicked
pleasure in passing them on to the read
ers of the University News Letter.
others look forward to a place in Pers^on’s
Blue Book.
They are few.
that!
But they are/conspicuous—as conspic
uous as Gain and Judas, Benedict Arnold
and Bolo Pasha.
Their names are not in the papers, but
they are on everybody’s tongue.
And they are making history—recorded
history.
The central authorities are calling for
their names.
And tlieir names are being sent to the
Federal Bureaus.
AVhat they want witli these slacker
lists, few people know and nobody .cares
—unless It be the secret service agents
and the income tax officers.
AA’'hich reminds us that a half dozen
national bank Charters have already been
cancelled because their directors were
found in the slacker lists. And applica
tions for new national bank charters have
recently been denied for the same reason.
And so on and on, later—in various
other chapters yet to be written.
These cold-blooded, tight-fisted persons
in every community are juggling with
conscience and self-respect. Uusually
they claim to be patriotic—each in his
own way, after his own manner of think
ing.
Forgetting that the deadliest of all lies
is the lie that a man tells to himself to
silence his own soul—the ‘lie Jthat stick-
eth in a man,’’in Bacon’s thought-pro
voking phrase.
At best they are lukewarmjpatriots.
And lukewarm patriots are asjnauseous
to a community as thejlukewarm church
at Laodicea was to the angel in Revela
tion.
“I know thy works, that thoq art
neither hot nor cold,’’ said he. “I would
thou wert cold or hot.
“So then because thou artRlukewarm,
and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee
out of my mouth.’’
An expression of ineffable scorn and
measureless contempt. Nothing else equals
It in the whole realm of literature, sacred
or profane!
Still Another Chance
The fourth liberty bond issue is now a
closed chapter—closed in North'Carolina
by 118,000 patriotic purchasers.
But there must be another bond issue.
And the voice of the AVar AVork Coun
cil is already heard in the land, soliciting
gifts to the Red Cross, the Army Y, and
other moving, melting causes.
And the twenty Orphan Homes in
North Carolina plead for a day’s wage
from every man on Turkey Day as a
thanksgiving to the God of the fatherless.
There will be a way of escape for our
lukewarm fellow citizens—one way or an
other, if they are choice in their chari
ties.
But they’ll have to start down the pike
far ahead of 80 million red-hot patriots
and lovers of their kind in this land and
country, if they nose into the home
stretch with any sort of credit to them
selves.
AA'e shall see 1
The eyes of their neighbors are wide
open. ^
While the lamp holds out to burn, the
vilest sinner may return.
BOND SLACKERS IN COURT
While the mere refusal to invest in
Liberty Bonds is not an indictable of
fense, such a refusal from a man able to
buy bonds is likely to have behind it some
offense which does come within the fed
eral laws. Such is the belief of the United
Selah!
By Way of Contrast
The Negroes buy and give—in some
comimuiities, a few of them subscribe
more than scores of tlieir white neigh
bors.
The lepers cable their warofl'ering from
Molokai.
The Philippinos buy war securities ev
ery time they are offered.
The German prisoners at Gamp Ogle
thorpe petition to buy the liberty bond of
America.
The boys in the war camp colleges buy
liberty bonds—$20,000 worth at Wake
Forest, and 28,000 worth at the Univefr
sity the other day.
Our soldiers at the front and in the
cantonments buy bonds—more than a
million dollars worth of one issue at
Camp Greene.
Our soldiers boys lay their lives and
their pay envelopes side by side on the al
tar.
But—
The little band of bomb-proof slackers
in every ^community—they buy nothing,
they give nothing, they surrender noth
ing in the name of liberty and humanity,
neither treasure nor time nor effort—
nothing or disgraceful near to nothing.
IMPORTANT BULLETINS
Three important bulletins for readers,
thinkers and leaders have just been given
to the public.
1. An Outline Study of AVar Facts.—
I. C. Griffin. An Extension Leaflet of
the University of North Carolina, No. 19
of the War Information Series.
2. An Outline Course of Instuction on
the AVar.—Coulomb, Gerson, and McKin
ley. Teachers Leaflet No. 4, of the Federal
Bureau of Education.
3. Historical and Economic Back
ground of the War. A Syllabus of the War
Issues Course for the First Quarter at the
University. An Extension^ Leaflet of
the University of North Carolina,' No.
20 of the War Information Series.
SAVING FUEL
A flreless cooker is well-nigh magical in
its power to conserve fuel, money, labor,
and time. The housewife can buy one
ready-made on the market or make one
according to the directions of Farmers’
Bulletin 771, “Home-made Fireless Cook
ers and Their Uses,’’ which she can ob
tain free by writing' to the Editor-in-
Chief, Division of Publications, Depart
ment of Agriculture, Washington, D, C«