The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
receipt
the university of north CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
JULY 30,1919
CHAPEL HHX, N. C.
VOL. V, NO. 36
EdUorial Board t B, 0. Branson, J. G, doB. Hamilton, L. B. Wilson, D. D. Carroll, G, M. McKie.
Entered as second-class matter November 14,1914, at the Postoflloe at Chapel Hill, N, C., under the aot of August 24,1912,
PUBLIC SCHOOL FORUMS
The American Federation of Labor at
iits Atlantic City meeting expressed its
sentiment on the school question, and
among other things recommends a public
iorum at each schoolhouse where com
munity and general affairs may be dis-
-cussed. This proposition is worth more
than it might seem at first thought. In
the early days of the country, especially
in the North, the township meeting was
a familiar factor of community life. The
people turned out to gatherings at which
community affairs were discussed and
political and other matters considered.
North Carolina does not have enough
community discussion. A public forum in
every schoolhouse, or a debating club if
you would call it that, or a township
meeting, or by any other name, would he
invaluable. We do not as a people talk
over public affairs with one another
enough. We growl at what is done, and
complain of our neighbors who may not
favor the plans we favor, but we do not
investigate the plans of the others, and
find out what it is about those plans that
our neighbors see to like.
Each community is a complex mixture
of society, with many differing ideas.
■Some of the ideas are good, and some are
indifferent, and some are worthless. But
An idea that is impractical in the mind
of one man can sometimes be taken by
another and some little additions made
that will make it valuable. A useless
idea sometimes will suggest something
else that is useful. A bunch of men
gathered together discussing anything can
bring out of it possibilities that one or
two men alone do not think of.
The Federation proposition of a forum
at the schoolhouse is a means of develop
ing neighborhood spirit among the peo
ple, and of making a community a real
community instead of a scattered neigh
borhood of people w ho have no ideas and
aims in common and therefore very little
team work.
Y-Thet«-are always topics for a commun
ity forum to discuss. The roads, the
churches, the blockade still, crops and
market methods, thrift societies, credit
unions, and a hundred other subjects
that would suggest themselves would af
ford the community forum an abundance
of fruitful discussion.
Such community forums would be a
decided help to every township and vil
lage. Debating exercises are not valuable
merely to schools. Real life has more
problems that need discussion than the
class room has. Every school district in
the state could find a profit in taking up
this suggestion of the Federation of Labor
and staying with it indefinitely.—News
and Observer.
A HOME-LAND LIBERIA
We have in North Carolina at least
three Liberiaa that call for help quite as
appealingly as the Liberia across the seas
in far away Africa.
Our attention has recently been called
i:to one of these benighted areas by an in
quiry from Mr. I. C. Wright of Wilming
ton. In hunting down the information
he wanted, we ran across some astound-
.ing facts.
For instance. The negroes in seven
' Counties of the Lower Cape Fear Bruns-
vwidk, Columbus, Duplin, New Hanover,
Onslow, Pender, and Sampson—number
59 thousand in round numbers. They
are a little more than one-third the total
population of this area. The negroes of
iresponsible ages, ten years old and over,
are 43 thousand, and 33 thousand or 78
percent of these are not on the rolls of
.any colored church of any sort whatso-
ever. |
Which is to say, seven of every nine
inegroes of responsible ages are ■ members
■of no church. It is hard to see how the
negro churches of any area could have
less influence and exist at all, even in
Liberia.
Arranged in the order of negro non
church membership, these counties are
as follows:
Percent
Duplin
Sampson
Columbus
Pender 8'^
Onslow , 83
New Hanover 76
Brunswick 73
African Liberia itself can show no
figures worse than these. The negroes of
our Cape Fear Liberia are sitting in dark
ness and in the shadow of death.
A Home Mission Area
They need more and better negro
churches. They need intelligent, conse
crated leadership. They need what most
of us need—a different type and kind of
religion.
They need better schools, better teach
ers, and a better sort of education. The
sheer illiteracy of the negroes in this area
ranges from 28 percent in New Hanover
to 36 percent in Brunswick. They are
almost entirely country negroes and they
need vocational education in farm details.
They need to be lifted into intelligence,
law and order, industry and thrift, home
and farm ownership, and decent, re
sponsible citizenship.
We wonder how greatly concerned the
negro leaders of this area—in Wilming
ton, say—can become in this nearby
home mission problem.
And the fine spirited whites of the
Lower Cape Fear, are they filled with
heaviness because of the sickness of their
Brothers in Black—to use a figure of
Saint Paul’s and a phrase of Bishop
Haygood’s?
The Kingdom ideal of the Master is.
The union of all who love in the service
of all who need.
It is a vital ideal, but we have not yet
gone our full length in realizing it any
where in Christendom these two thousand
years.
A MONUMENT OF LOVE
After being surfeited with accounts of
man’s inhumanity to children in the four
years of barbarous war in Europe and
Asia Minor, what a noble and welcome
contrast is this story coming out of North
Carolina of the trustees of the university
of that State legally adopting and pro
viding for the care and education of the
little son of the deceased president of that
institution.
Little “Sonny” Graham, the beautiful,
smiling faced child of eight years, was
left alone in the world, except for some
distant relatives. Two years ago his
mother died, and a few weeks ago his
father. Dr. Edward Kidder Graham, the
distinguished head of the North Carolina
university, passed away. But the child
who had been a favorite among the stu
dents and faculty in Chapel Hill is not
to be lost from the university, for the
big-hearted trustees have taken action
which makes the little fellow legally the
child of the university.
No more noble and tender tribute could
be paid to the memory of the late presi
dent of the university, who had served
his State with distinction, than in mak
ing provision for his little orphan son,
and the dead educator could have wished
for no greater reward. No monument
could have been so expressive of their
love, and no other form of memorial
could have so revealed the splendid im
pulses of the trustees and the people of
North Carolina.
This act will touch the hearts of fathers
and mothers and others who love chil
dren throughout the nation, and as with
the faithful woman who broke the box of
alabaster upon the Master’s head, it shall
be told of them as long as the gospel of
love shall be preached.—Houston Post.
NOBLE USE OF WEALTH
Half a million dollars in gifts from her
wealthy people is what Winston-Salem
faced at the last meeting of its Board of
Aldermen. P. H. Hanes, Mrs. R. J.
Reynolds and the J. W. . Hanes estate
gave varying sums, the total making the
amount stated, for school, park and com
munity expenditures. About eighty acres
of land, some buildings to be erected,
and some other features are included in
the transactions, and the proposition of
Winston-Salem is to build and equip one
of the best vocational high schools in the
State. An educator in Winston-Salem
says that this will put the town in third
place among the towns of the nation in
THE DAY OF SALVATION
Viscount James Bryce
If we do not try to make an end
of war, war will make end of us. In
every free country the best minds now
address themselves to the means of
deterring aggressive Governments from
wai^ and enthroning Public Right as
the supreme Power in international
affairs. With good will, with an un
selfish devotion to the highest and
most permanent interest of humanity,
nothing is impossible. If we let slip
this opportunity for the provision of
machinery by which the risk of future
wars may be averted or reduced, an
other such opportunity may never
present itself.
If things are not made better after
this war the prospect will be darker
than ever. Darker because the con
dition of the world will have grown so
much that tlie recurrence of like
calamities will have been recognized
as a thing to be expected and the
causes of those calamities as beyond
all human cure. Rather, let us strive
that all the suffering this war has
brought, and all the sacrifices of heroic
lives it has witnessed, shall not have
been in vain.—Essays and Addresses
in Wartime.
its educational and recreational advan
tages through bequests of this type.
Winston-Salem is a thrifty place, but
one of its best features is that its people
are so much concerned in community
welfare that from three different sources
comes at one time such a large offering
from private hands for the development
of the educational and recreational fea
tures of the city.
A thing of this kind never stops where
it is started. The beneficiary of the gifts
will now set a new pace in providing for
the children. Winston-Salem will have
some schools that will be models. Her
children will have advantages that other
places will begin to observe. Then the
other places will commence to imitate,
and presently' this stimulus will have
awakened the whole of the state.
The donors have done a work that is
greater than they suspected when they
laid their plans, and the state as well as
the city is under obligation to them.
—News and Observer.
THE TEACHERS’ UNION
Like it or not, approve of it or not,
fear it or not, the Federated Teach
ers’ Union has come. For many years
public school teachers have patiently sat
and listened to the kindly condescending
graduation day orator who has indulged
in fulsome praise of the teacher and the
teaching profession. The teachers have
borne with this oratorical froth in the
hope that the sympathy, the recognition
of teacher worth thus publicly acknowl
edged would project itself in the tangible
form of at least a living wage. Vain
hope! The orator fouqd no time or he
had no inclination to interest himself in
better living conditions for the teacher
whose sacrifices and devotion he had so
keenly felt as he came before the “large
and intelligent audience.”
So A^ain
Likwise the teachers have for many
years attended institutes and summer
schools as wen as invested in Reading
Circle books at the behest, nay, at the
command of State Departments of Edu
cation. All this they have done at a cost
and sacrifice which, many times, seemed
almost prohibitive. They have hoped
year after year that by so doing the
stipend they received as a salary might
be large enough to pay their board, buy
their clothes and leave them enough to
lay sometliing away to pay their funeral
expenses. Their hopes have never been
realized, their bank accounts have per
sistently refused to show a balance on the
right side of the account and in despair
and sorrow they have had to turn else
where for a living.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 178
SALUTE THE FLAG
Perhaps it is superfluous to call at
tention to the fact that hundreds of thou
sands of school children all over the
country daily repeat the pledge of al
legiance to the flag while standing at
salute.
We have visited many schools in this
state during the past six years and have
yet to see the children salute the flag or
repeat the oath of allegiance. It is only
natural to infer that the custom is at
least not common in this state.
We Suggest
Would it not be well if we all adopt
the national custom that the children of
our state may not be peculiar? We love
the flag and we cherish it as much and
as well as other citizens. We are as ready
to defend it as any other people. Let us
teach our children the form as well as the
spirit of allegiance.
The Form
With the Stars and Stripes properly
suspended in the front of the room the
pupils all rise, the teacher leading, and
face the flag. The right hand, palm
down is brought to the forehead in salute
while all repeat:
I pledge allegiance to my flag and
to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation, indiHsible, with liberty
and justice for all.
The hand is then brought sharply down
to to the side and the pupils are seated.
Try it in your school.
And A^ain
The grocer who supplies their eatables,
the merchant from whom they buy their
clothes, the barber who cuts their hair,
the postman who delivers their mail, the
farmer who sells them their corn meal,
the plumber who thaws out the water
pipes, all are able to live well, to take ex
tended and extensive vacations, to buy
new automobiles, invest in real estate, to
build over their houses or tear down and
build greater. The teacher alone must
sit calmly back and take what a chari
tably minded public sees fit to give.
Calmly? Yes, even cheerfully and grate
fully for the teacher is only a teacher, a
public servant, and no one expects a
public servant—except a politician—to
make money much less to save any.
Therefore
But the worm has turned. The teach
ers are organizing, they are forming a
Union and allying themselves with the
American Federation of Labor. There
is no use to cry out, “Stop”! It cannot
be stopped! Already reports say, sixty-
seven local Unions of .Teachers have been
organized and many more are on the
road to organization. Will the teachers
strike? Nobody can say but it is probable
that they will unless their demands for a
decent hving are met. If they do, chaos
will reign next September in the schools.
No twenty-five percent or thirty per
cent increases in salary will prevent
them. It is not an increase they wiU de
mand but a decent living and a saving
wage. A ten percent raise in income
with the Cost of firing jumping 100 per
cent does not meet the situation. Either
the laborer is worthy of his hire or he is
not worth hiring. The Federation of
Teachers has come. How will it react?
Can a public servant go on a strike?
How long can the politician stand out
against it? Is there danger in it? Is it
a good for the teaching profession?
These are interesting questions and
furnish wise and serious reflection to a
thinking being.—L. A. Williams.
THE TEACHING OF THRIFT
The National Government has three
definite aims in insisting on the teaching
of thrift.
1. To give the child a broad under
standing of the specific facts and under
lying principles of thrift.
2. To train the child in the habits of
conservation and the wise use of all his
resources.
3. To create through the schools a
public sentiment in favor of thrift and
economy and through this public senti
ment to cultivate the national habit of
thrift.
A letter sent out by Dr. E. 0. Brooks,
State Supt. to Directors of all Summer
Schools says: “The subject of thrift should
find a permanent place in the schools,
and the children should be taught not
only to save but to economize, and the
summer schools and institutes this year
should give specific instruction to the
teachers in how to make these lessons
effective. The National Government is
publishing bulletins on How to Teach
Thrift. After you have observed these
prepared lessons it is suggested that you
urge the teachers to prepare lessons based
on their community life which deal
with the practices of thrift. ”
All of the State Summer Schools are
giving courses in thrift and with wise ad
ministration they should contribute in a
large way towards making the future
men and women of America a perma
nently thrifty people.—Miss Mary G.
Shotwell.
SCHOOL LESSONS IN THRIFT
In the campaign of thrift education for
1919 the Government is stressing the
society idea. When the people of any
community are banded together in a war-
savings society their morale is strength
ened. They make better citizens of the
community and therefore strengthen
business and civic conditions.
The Government is asking that a War
Savings Society be organized in every
schoolroom. When ten or more children
sign a pledge saying they will save some
thing each week and invest it in thrift
and war savings stamps, cards for mem
bership are furnished by the War Loan
Organization, Richmond.
After the members sign cards, a presi
dent and a secretary are elected and the
name of the society is selected. A franked
card is then furnished for the report of
this organization. As soon as this infor
mation is received in Richmond, a certifi
cate of Affiliation is sent to the secretary
which shows that the society has been
recognized by the Government in its
efforts to practise thrift.
Monthly meetings are to be held by
each society. Programs for these meet
ings are furnished by the Government.
The teachers of North Carolina have a
wonderful opportunity to train children
in habits of conservation and the wise
use of all resources by teaching them real
habits of thrift.—Miss M. G. Shotwell.
TEACHERS AND TEXTBOOKS
The weakness of American schools,
especially rural schools, lies largely in the
fact that we have never put into practice
the idea of permanency in the teaching
profession.
Teaching is still a stepping-stone to
something else, a stop-gap in fife, an
episode. Therefore it is seldom well done.
Therefore it is not, especially in the
country, a vocation which holds men.
But this is a changed world; and our
schools will be better in future or worse,
as this or that community chooses. See
what a member of a schoolbook publish
ing firm says:
We are not in the slightest doubt as to
what kind of textbooks we want for the
near future. We want the most element
ary treatises that can be written. We
want ABC books. Books that presup
pose a minimum of intelligence on the
part of the teachers. Books that will
teach themselves. In short fool-proof
books. And we want this kind of text
book because we realize that with present
prices and present salaries we are going
to have to deal with just that type of
teacher for the next ten or fifteen years.
The farmers of the United States have
the fate of their own schools largely in
their own hands. If they allow their
schools to deteriorate they will have sold
their own souls—and not only theirs but
their children’s—for immunity from
school tax.
We should get rid of the notion that a
teacher may be a cheap man or a cheap
boy or girl. Bid up the teachers’ salaries.
Make teaching worth while. It is un
thinkable that the great body of Ameri
can people should long tolerate anything
less than worth-while textbooks in the
hands of absolutely worth-while teach
ers.—The Country Gentleman.