mam 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. AUGUST 27, 1919 CHAPEL HHX, N. C. VOL. V, NO. 40 Editorial Board » B, C. Branson, J. G, deB. Hamilton, L, R. Wilson, D. D Carroll, G. M. McKie. Entered as second-olass matter November 14,1914, nt the Postofflee at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of August 24,1912. WHOLESOME RECREATION While students of social conditions are theorizing about rural recreation, our country people themselves are here and there solving the problem in their own ■•way. As, for instance, in the Massey school neighborhood down in Johnston county. We give below an account of their recent fun making, which is a yearly 'event it seems. David lived long enough to be pro foundly thankful that God had ‘anointed him with the oil of gladness.’ It is a thought-provoking phrase. At once it brings to mind just a few people we’ve fallen in with along life’s higtiway; people who radiate life-giving hope, high -courage, and happiness; people who like David were anointed with the oil of glad ness. And they are all too few in this weary world. Tricksy fooleries, innocent, light heart ed, happy fun, shout and laughter, plays and games, jests and jokes are good med icine for body and soul. Ofttimes in •season they are better than pills and prayers. The Preacher knew that tliere is ‘a time to laugh as well as a time to weep, •a time to dance as well as a time to mourn—a time and a season to every purpose under the heaven.’ Our religion is a joyous religion. Ke- joice and be exceeding glad, said the Master. And we dare to say that Jesus was no killjoy at the wedding feast in Cana of Gallilee. But our religion as we live it looks very like ‘a monument sitting on patience, grieving at a smile’—to turn Rosalind’s phrase around. Somehow we have left the oil of glad ness out of cur religion, and it must be restored, or the Devil after his wont is dead-sure to capture and capitalize the fun-loving instincts of Christendom. In- -deed, he has nearly done this very thing already. Abundant wholesome recreation, town and country, is one of the big constructive jobs that the church must set its hand to with a will. Fortunately the play and song leaders of the army camps are send ing four million men back into the com munities of America trained for leader ship in social plays and games. They •ought to be enlisted by the church and Sunday school authorities of every neigh borhood in the promotion of wholesome merry-making. The evil things in dancing, dance-halls, music-halls, and moving picture shows must be remedied by substitution. The problem cannot be solved by mere nega tion, in our opinion. Tlie folks at Mas sey show us flow. OLD FOLKS DAY AT MASSEY’S On tlie 25th of July, the old folks held ftheir annual meeting at the Massey school iho'use down in Johnston county. It was : the day set apart by the old pupils of the , school to renew old acquaintances and have a good time acting and playing the games of 50 years ago. They met early in the morning with ■ old fashioned tin buckets or baskets filled 'with green peas, apple dumplings, kh-Hckleberry tarts, with an abundance of iried ham and corn bread, with here and there one of the best melons that a boy ever did eat, and with several other com mon but mighty good things. Now, remember^ said the invitation, that everybody goes to school that day and if he forgets his dinner he will take part in the games only as every family takes its lunch out around on logs and •under trees as they did fifty years ago. A.t ten o’clock sharp we play an old game known as round town, using a cotton ball made from an old worn-out sock with a -small piece of rubber in the center. The •bat will be made out of some old barrel •stave that once held the sap of the long leaf pine. After this game we will play bull pen, roly-hole, marbles, run foot races, jump jim crow and skip the rope. This rope will be furnished by John Wiggs. We will use our old-fashioned brier with the thorns removed. All old fiddlers (and young ones too) are especial ly requested to bring their fiddles to make music, as there will be an old-fash ioned Virginia reel conducted by Mrs. Lanes and others. Last year we left out a large part of the program as the boys were in the trenches; and we couldn’t make merry while they were in so much danger. Mr. Jasper Wiggs promised to speak last year but was in France. He landed in New York a few days ago and is expected to be Patty on the spot. He is an old Turling ton Graded School boy and one of the county’s best speakers.' We don’t know what his subject will be. We will have short talks by all the old teachers who taught at this place, but they will be limited to ten minutes. Some of these old teachers are 80 to 90 years old. Remember everybody is invited to come from all over the county and take part in the games, but nobody will win a prize, but those who are 45 or 50 years old. We give prices to the best fiddler, dancer, rope jumper, foot racer, jumper, jimcrow jumper, and the biggest fool. You see I have never won a prize and think I might come in on the last, said Mr. W. L- Creech who- issued the invita tion. Now watch out boys, I am limber ing up every day, and expect to have a good time with those girls dancing, jump ing, running and several other things. You see we leave ofl' the handle and call everybody by,the first name, Sal, Jack, Jim, Bill, Kate, Lucy, Van, and so on. Don’t forget the time, July 25.—Smith- field Herald. FINDING ITSELF The Mount Pleasant Community Club LAUGH A BIT The wisest men that er’r you ken Have never deemed it treason, To rest a bit—and jest a bit, And balance up their reason; To laugh a bit—-and chafi' a bit, And joke a bit in season. —Exchange. in Rutherford county is blazing a trail that we hope to see widened, straighten ed, and hardened into a highway to be trodden by countless Carolinians. This club is debating the here and now, instead of the there and then. It is taking present-day issues and thresh ing them out in lively discussion. It is studying serious questions of local con cern, looking at them from many points of view, weighing, measuring, testing, and planning, we imagine, to keep the useful and to reject the non-essential. Last week, as we read in the Rutlier- ford Sun of July 21st, the query was: Resolved, that there is more money in cotton farming than in diversified farm ing under present high prices. Both sides, says the Sun, were ably presented but the victory rested with the negative. These folks are probably finding that there are dozens of live topics that can be brouglit into clear focus through sin cere debate in community forums. When local communities begin to debate local prolfiems in earnest we shall have well informed local democracies. Local Debate Topics Roads and the neighborhood concern in them; school buildings; teachers’ salaries and the children’s future welfare; ‘ community iiealth and public nurses; patent medicines; the social ills of ex cessive tenancy farming; cooperative in surance of many sorts; cooperative tele phone service; parcel post marketing; thrift and cooperative credit unions; home conveniences and the health of the house mother; sheep raising and the dog law; sanitation and communicable diseases; reading for diversion and reading for in struction; the country church, its duty to the community and the community’s duty to it; the local newspaper, how it does and how it miglit serve its readers; community singing, games, plays, and pageants; country school courses, are they what the children really need, real ly like, and can really grow on; compul sory school attendance and length of the scliool term; the local Sunday school, does it attract and hold the the children; community buying and selling; the coun try church, is it growing in numbers, power and iufluence; community fairs and field days; concentrated fertilizers and manure conservation—the list of suitable topics is well-nigh inexhaustible. The Mount Pleasant Club had good music at its meeting. We hope it had singing and games too, before fights were out and good nights said till next time. If other community clubs in North Carolina are having such interesting and stimulating evenings, the University News Letter would like to know about them. They are signs of a new day in country Carolina.—E. N. EDWARD K. GRAHAM, JR. The University trustees in adopting “Sonny” Graham and in naming a com mittee to see that every need of the son of the late President Edward K. Graham is supplied until he attains his majority have done a fine thing. We are glad to learn that the act is not even unprece dented. And the trustees, if they come in con tact with the lad, may expect to be adopted by “Sonny,” whose brief career has been marked by the natural ease witli which he makes friends. Long since he adopted the University; and at two years of age he was walking up to the guests of his father and mother, looking them straight in the eye and expressing his pleasure at having them come to see him. At eight he is just a boy, unaffected— Ed Graham’s boy, with the compelling friendliness of his father. I He’d make out splendidly without the aid of the trustees, which isn’t at all necessary spiritually or materially; but' the finest things are usually unnecessary and the trustees could not make out any thing like so well without keeping in touch with young Edward K. Graham. It is gratifying, too, to note that the boy’s guardian is Prof. M. C. S. (Billy) Noble, whose knowledge of and whole some interest in boys is second to no body’s.—The Raleigh Times. school year, she stands 34th in average attendance. Because 73,000 children, for whom in struction provided by the state, were ab sent from school last year, the cost of teaching those who were present was in creased $12.00 per child. Maryland spends only 19 cents in each $100.00 of estimated wealth for public schools, when the average for the United States is 25.7 cents. Baltimore spends only $34.09 for each pupil in average attendance, when the average in cities of 100,000 inhabitants and over throughout the country is $51.28. The average salary of a country teacher is only $530.00, and that of a city teacher only $806.00. Diary land ranks 34th in average ex pense per capita of school population (5-18 years), expending only $14.64, as against an average elsewhere of $22.91. Baltimore teachers taught more chil dren last year than they did the year be fore, and for $30,000 less salary. Maryland has had a compulsory school attendance law only since 1916, and in both the subsequent special and regular sessions of the General Assembly de termined efforts were made to annul it. MARYLAND WOMEN’S WORK The club women of Maryland are study ing Maryland and throwing the weight of their immense influence into the job of helping their mother state to function on the highest possible level. And why not? A proper study for Maryland women is .Maryland. Modern Maryland in particular is quite as im portant for Maryland women as the modern drama in general. Although they are not yetexploring their home state after the fashion of the North Carolina Club at the University, never theless our club women are acutely aware that a proper study for North Carolina club women is North Carolina. They are moving into a great concert of effort in behalf of the Old North State. And the state needs tliem. For instance, thirty-five public welfare laws have gone on our statute books in the last two years; but they are not yet in efiective operation, nor are they likely to be for many years to come unless the mass mind in North Carolina gets busy in a hurry with these laws and their pur poses. The various state and county officials —something like 1,000 people—are meet ing, therefore, in a great Public Welfare Institute on tlie University Campus Sept. 15-20. The readers, thinkers and leaders among the women of North Carolina are cordial ly invited to meet with these public ser vants at that time and learn the details of welfare service in the home state. Culture for particular service is dis tinctly as valuable as the culture that re lates itself to what Carlyle scornfully called things-in-general. And when tlie particular service is the creation of a nobler home state, it is an ennobling cul ture for men and women alike. ShaKing up Maryland The State Federation of Club Women in Maryland has undertaken to placard the state with the po.ster that follows. It’s an eye-opener. Maryland ranks 32nd in illiteracy among all the states. A large proportion of our schools are a reproach to a self-respecting state. There is an appalling scarcity of train ed teachers. Maryland ranks 33rd among all the states in her number of high school stu dents. While she ranks 6th in the length of CAROLINA WELFARE WORK County boards of public welfare for every county, with paid superintendents in charge, constitute one of several im portant measures recently introduced in North Carolina as part of an elaborate program of social construction, health, and education covering the entire state. Other measures passed by the 1919, legislature provided for a juvenile court in every county; increased appropriations for tlie care and training of mental de fectives ; a compulsory school-attendance and child-labor law that requires all children between the ages of 8 and 14 to attend school for the full term and pre vents tlie working of children under 14 years of age in industrial establishments; a six-months school in every district of the state; increase in teachers’ salaries of about 50 percent; and a series of health measures providing for the elimination of some 80,000 insanitary privies at schools and elsewhere, dental treatment of 50,- 000 school children, increased appropria tion for county health work, and in struction in the hygiene of sex. County Public Welfare It is made the duty of the county boards of public welfare to unify, correlate, and develop all the local agencies and mobilize the whole community in the work of pro viding wholesome living, working, and recreational environments. According to the new act these boards will visit the public institutions of the coun ty and make suggestions as to their im provement and economical management. They will study all manner of public wel fare and social questions as they arise in the county, and not only advise with the county superintendent, but also with all the other officials. Not only will they be concerned with all these questions and problems, but they will suggest and help inaugurate various movements of a con structive nature tliat seem desirable from time to time. The Quarterly Bulletin of the State Board of Public Welfare suggests that there should be one woman on the board. The bulletin says: ‘ ‘The women are now leading in every thing in the nature of community prog ress, and not only should they be repre sented on the board, but should have a leading influence in all measures designed for tlie public welfare and improvement. Tlie members should not be selected on account of their church or political af filiations, but solely from a standpoint of usefulness and suitability. When thus selected they will be recognized leaders in community construction. With a suit able man for county superintendent and with a devoted county board of charities and public 'welfare, a county will be able to take care of its social problems, in a constructive and efficient way, relieve distress, alleviate poverty, care for neg lected children, and promote the general welfare in a way heretofore undreamed of in each county.” Welfare Superintendents “The county superintendent of public ^ welfare has the opportunity to be one of ^ the most useful officials in the county,” • says the State bulletin already referred to. “There are certain specific things that he must do everywhere. After these are done there are all manner of ways in which he may be useful to the commun ity, and his success and usefulness will depend upon his own skill, energy, initia tive, and capacity for leadersliip. Every community has its own peculiar problems, and with the advice of the county board of charities and public welfare, the coun ty superintendent must study ways and means of solving them. His duties are: ‘ ‘To act as probation officer to the county juvenile court, if there be but one court in the county, and if more, to be the chief probation officer. In this ca pacity he must be in touch with all the neglected, dependent, or delinquent chil dren, and under the direction of the court, investigate their surroundings and seek means of protecting them in their own homes or on probation, or of getting them into suitable homes or institutitions. Welfare Tasks ■‘He acts as chief school attendance officer of the county, and to him will be reported by the school officials all children in their respective districts who are not attending school as provided by law. In ah these relations he is the next friend of the child and must work always in his behalf. He must find out why parents are not sending their children to school and seek to remedy the cause. “As probation officer and as school at tendance officer looking out for neglected and truant children he will come in con tact with the homes of such children. Many of these homes, and no doubt most of them, are homes of poverty, neglect, or shiftlessness, and often objects of charity. He must know when charitable help is needed and when it should be withheld, and other means used. “He should know of the blind, the deaf, the crippled, and the sick children of the county, and see that proper care and attention are given to them, and if they are subjects for institutional care or training that they be sent to the proper places. “He will study the subject of recrea tion and amusement and seek to intro duce wliolesome agencies and to suppress bad ones and to keep out the vicious. He will encourage the establishment of play grounds and games and aid the officials in the enforcement of the laws against vice and bad conditions generally. Better Communities “He will cooperate with the clinches, the schools, and all other agencies and persons who are seeking to make a better and cleaner community. During the six months when the schools are in ojieration the enforcement of the attendance laws will consume much of his time, for this must be done with tact and discretion and with a view of Iielping parents to see the error of not doing their best to keep the children in school. The poor, the sick, the afflicted will always be with us, and it will be his duty to understand how far these causes go toward truancy at school, and to seek to remedy them.” —Federal School Life. WORTHLESS STOCKS England has excellent legislation to prevent the victimizing of unsophisticated people with worthless stocks. Under the Consolidated Companies Act of 1908, every corporation floated in that country must state, to quote a recent summary, ‘exactly what it is, what its real business is, what its assets are, what contracts have been made prior to its flotation, , and explicitly those responsible for its existence, who are held liable civilly and under severe criminal penalties for the truthfulness of the statements filed for public record and scrutiny at Somerset House in London. Furthermore, every corporation must make complete periodi cal reports, under oath.’ We have no such law anywhere in this country. Corporations must make an nual reports to the Secretary of State in the state where they are incorporated, but these reports give no idea whether their assets are good or bad, workable or unworkable. As our Constitution now stands, Con gress can pass a law controhing this mat ter through the Post Office Department or the Interstate Commerce Commission, or both. In any case, a new bureau would probably be required to attend to the examinations, &c. That would be, 1 suppose, under the Post Office Depart ment or the Bureau of Corporations. It could all be done simply enough.—N. Y. Times. 1^1