The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina Press for the Univer
sity Extension Division.
SEPTEMBER 12,1923
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. IX, NO. 43
Bditorlal E jardi E. C. Brari30*i. S. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson, B. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Ballitt, H. W. Odum.
Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill. N. C., under the act of August 24, 1911
X-A LAND OF FOREST LOVERS
A few Sundays ago I wandered about
Constance in the early light hunting
for the house in which John Huss lived
when he was arrested for jheresy, the
monastery in which he was confined,
and the monument of rude stones that
mark the place where he was burned
with Jerome at the stake many years
before Luther shook the Catholic
church to its- foundations. Ten minutes
later I stood on the spot in- the cathe
dral where Huss stood to receive his
death sentence. And as I stood I found
myself watching the people of this his
toric little city gathering for the six
o’clock morning service. They came
and went in hundreds, a steady stream
of lovers, boys and girls, stalwart men
and family groups—all kneeling for a
few minutes of prayer, and well-nigh
all of them with hiking kits strapped to
their backs.
Holiday PicKnicRers
The scene was thought-provoking,
and I stood for an hour watching these
people swarm into the minster and
then out again for their customary
Sunday on the lake, in the woods
around the steamboat landings, and on
the trails to the mountain heights. It
was a misty morning under a lowering
sky, but every holiday is a picnic day
in Germany, regardless of times and
seasons. They go picnicking in all
weathers, they go on the earliest morn
ing boats, and they stay till darkness
drives them home again. From my seat
in the stadt garden on the water front,
I watched the crowds come in on the
last steamers of the day, and they were
still coming when I retreated to my bed
10 o’clock. They looked bedraggled
- and footsore—these lovers of trees and
trails—but relief and satisfaction were
written on every face. It was a multi
tude made up of grandsires and grand
mothers with heavy luncheon baskets
swinging between the couples, of fam
ilies with heavier baskets tooled along
by hand in the comical little wagons of
the continent, of bright-faced boys and
girls happy to be out of the shops and
factories for a day in the woods, of ro
bust young men with bicycles and mo
tor cycles loaded with camping outfits
for new adventures in the more distant
reaches of the mountains. Apparently
nobody was too old, frail or infirm for
an outing in the woods. I counted a
score or more of crippled and deformed
people on crutches or in rolling chairs,
and on their faces, too, was the same
look of eager expectancy.
For ten weeks I have looked upon
spectacles of this sort all over South
Germany, in Protestant Wurtemberg
and in Catholic Baden alike. These
forest-loving people crowd the Sunday
trains and trams. All Germany is on
the move on Sundays and holidays, and
no wonder, for on their work-tickets
they can travel a hundred miles for a
cent on Week days and for almost.’as
little on Sundays. These crowds are
moving out of the farm villages, the
large cities and the factory centers,
into the freedom of the forests for a
day out under the open skies—not into
the cities but out of the cities into the
woods. All day long on every Sunday,
rain or shine, they trudge up the hill
past my perch at Engelberg, and on
into the state forest above and beyond
the castle. They come afoot, they come
pushing their bicycles and motor cycles
up the steep mountain road for a spin
along the level ridge highways of this
region, they come every fashion except
in carriages and wagons, for Sunday is
a day of rest for the beasts of^ burden
in Germany. And they rarelyjever
come in motor cars, for the plain peo
ple of the continent own no cars.
Countryward Drift
The Sunday crowds I see are the Ger
man masses and they are forest lovers
all. Caesar’s legions found them living
in forests, in tribal and family groups,
protected by surrounding open spaces
or marches agaihst surprise attacks by
an enemy. So they were living when
Tacitus wrote his Germania, and so
they are living today. To be sure, the
trees have disappeared for the most
part in the farm villages, because every
inch of space is needed for fruits and
vines, vegetables and flowers. And the
marches have widened into cleared ir
regular farm areas around each village
—some 150,000 square miles in all. But
100,000 square miles of Germany are still
in woods and forests, and the hearts of
these people still dwell in the] cool
depths of shady places. I do not won
der at it, for whether forests be pri
vately or publicly owned'they are tend
ed as carefully as the fields of the
farmers are, which is saying almost the
last word about forest culture.
City parks, private estates, and the
royal gardens of old make every city'
beautiful. Near at hand everywhere
are the open forests, with marked trails,
pathways and roads, rustic bridges and
pavilions, and always an accessible
resting place where food and drinks are
served. And so trains and trams move
the town and city crowds out into the
open on every holiday. I see this every
where I turn.
A Soul Tonic
These people are the greatest walkers
I know. I have seen more hiking kits
and picnic parties in Germany these
last ten weeks than I ever saw before in
all my life. No matter how long a Ger
man may have lived in a city, the one
particular joy of bis life is a day in the
woods. The other Sunday the doctor
was called to castle Engelberg. He
came in about tea time, looking chipper
as a brig, as Captain Cuttle used to
say. He had walked all the way from
Esslingen, sixteen miles distant—a four-
hour tramp—wanted the exercise, and
a look at the crops, fruit orchards and
forests along the road—for his soul’s
sake, he said. I wondered if 1 would
ever chance upon anything like this
anywhere in America outside of Cali
fornia.
This nearness to the soil, this love of
the woods and life iri the open is signifi
cant. It has made and kept the Ger
mans physically wholesome, and in the
last analysis it is sheer vitality that
wins. Rome had more culture than
central Europe in the last days of the
Caesars, but Rome went down at last
before the virility and vitality of the
uncouth hordes that swarmed out of
the Teuton forests.
The Goose Man
And yet these are the people Max
Nordau charged with degeneracy
twenty-five years ago. And degener
acy is the point of Jacob Wassermann’s
new story. The Goose Man—a title
suggested by the famous fountain
figure in the central market square of
Nuremberg. It is a story that cannot
be read without a bottle of smelling
salts near at hand. It is literally sod
den with the social diseases of an over
ripe civilization—hyperthyroidism, ero
ticism, hysteria, brutal disregard of
the conventional standards and ele
mentary decencies of behavior. And
so on and on ad nauseam.
The book is a brilliant piece of literary
craftsmanship. But does it tell the
essential truth about Nuremberg and
Augsburg, the two cities in which the
scenes aTe laid? And has Nordau told
the essential truth about the German
people as a whole? If so, Germany is
doomed. And if Germany falls into
decadence and death, history will re
peat itself once more, for Europe will
again pass into another long period of
twilight, midnight, and at last day
break in some far distant century,
quite regardless of wars and rumors of
war.
Is This a True Picture?
These charges of degeneracy brought
by a German and an Austro-German
against Germany may or may not be
true of her big-city civilizations. I do
not know and I cannot say much in
any assured sort about the great Ger- ^
man cities. I know more about the home
owning farmers and factory workers in
the country villages. The simple truth
is, I have little more interest in great
cities than Rousseau had. They are in
evitable and indispensable in these
modern times, but they bore me and I
keep out of them as much as possible,
perhaps because I am an incurable
countryman by nature. But lately I
PROGRESS PAYS
Progress is not only a good thing
of itself but it pays, and North
Carolina is on the witness stand to
so testify before all the world.
The state as a political entity start
ed progress with education in the
days when Charles B. Aycock, a man
no less than Governor, drove us to
the course of better schoolhouses,
better schools, better care for the
afflicted. We went a bit slowly, and
perhaps grumblingly,but we followed
where this compelling man led.
And we liked the results and rose
in our own estimation as we noted
the improvement which had come,
and so when Locke Craig, who had
stood by the side of Aycock, urged
a road-building program, we heeded
him and so liked the result that we
went so deeply into our pockets to
make roads that we feared we had
gone too far. But we were pleased
with the roads.
So pleased were we that when the
third of those who had well served
the state in time of trial came to
the governorship and boldly urged
us to forget that we had spent any
thing and spend vastly more for
roads and schools and public institu
tions, we shut our eyes and took a
chance on Cameron Morrison and did
as he suggested. And we have more
roads and better roads and more
roads a-building, and high-grade
schoolhouses and a bigger and better
University.
And so we find other states look
ing at North Carolina and modeling
after its program and coming here
to live. They are not merely seek
ing the material improvements new
ly created but that invisible atmos
phere of uplift and progress which
permeates the state and likewise its
people as individuals. Progress has
paid us—and is paying us more
daily.
Yet, strange to say, there are some
who suggest that progress should
stop. You have built roads and
schoolhouses and contracted for
others, such as the Fairview consol
idated school, say they, so what
more is there to do ? Quit. They do
not realize that progress is a living
and continuing thing, but the people
do. They want progress and want
it while they are living; they want
its benefits now. “Pay the consta
ble,’’ they say to Governor Morrison,
“and step on the gas.’’ They want
the Pages and the Jim Stikeleathers
to build more roads and more Fair-
views to build more high schools.
They are saying “Let’s go.’’—Ashe
ville Citizen.
spent a week in Munich and Augsburg
with Wassermann’s story in mind every
minute of the time. It was a week of
just such scenes of magnificence and
misery as can be found side by side in
the swollen cities of every land. But
I cannot bring myself to believe that
the German masses as a whole are de-
’generate, for they live, let me say once
more, not in the great cities but in the
country villages, and they are not
only country dwellers but forest lovers
all.
A Good Racial Trait
The German seems never to lose his
racial love of the forests and the open air.
For instance, on a late Sunday after
noon in mid-April I ran across two
of Raleigh’s citizens just emerging
from the woods with their wives and
children, evidently from an all-day pic
nic. They were Germans, and in their
hands were the early spring flowers
and the inevitable luncheon basket, for
the Germans as certainly love to eat as
they love to walk. I thought at once
I of the Germans in California, as we
saw them in 1921, on a a holiday trip
from San Diego to Los Angeles in a
motor car. All along the 126 miles the
California Germans were camped with
their families in the edge of the woods
and on the bathing beaches. I doubt
if there be one of the many Germans
in California who could be kept mewed
up in a house on a holiday by a regi
mental guard with drawn daggers.
Civilization’s Salvation
jjfcThe cities may fester and rot in
every land under the conditions of mod
ern life, but a nation is safe if only its
country regions be sound—that is to
say, if there be any country civilization
left. Which does not seem likely in
another generation or two in North
Carolina and other industrial states,
unless the cityward drift can be checked
and livable community life developed
for country-minded people whose na
ture turns them toward the country—
people, say, who have the taste of
sweet-gum buds in their souls. _ There
are many such people but year by year
it is less and less possible for them to
live out in the conntry regions of Ameri
ca.
My conclusion is that 'these German
forest lovers are sound to the core in
body and brain, wind and limb, that they
are normal and wholesome thru and thru,
that they are the least alcoholized
people I know, not even excepting the
Turks whose religion is supposed to
banish intoxicating liquors, that they
have what the plant and animal
breeders call projective, persistent
stamina as a race, and that if Europe
falls into ruin as the Japanese believe
it is now doing, then it is Germany
that will be the first country to rise
out of the ruins in rehabilitated power.
It might be Russia, if only Russia
were not stricken by vodka and dead
ly economic doctrines.—E. C. Branson,
Munich, June 19, 1923.
ASSEMBLING RECORDS
The University Library is interested
in completing back files of North Caro
lina periodicals, documents, reports,
proceedings of societies, etc., for the
North Carolina Collection. Some of
the religious publications to be complet
ed are listed below. The Librarian
will be glad to hear of available issues
of these publications.
Religious Publications
Baptist State Convention Minutes:
1835, 1838, 1840-44, 1848, 1860, 1862-63,
1856, 1857, 1859, 1861-66, 1869-72, 1874,
1877, 1879, 1881-82, 1884, 1887-89, 1893-
94, 1897, 1899, 1901.
Brushy Mountain Baptist Associa
tion: 1884, 1907-1912, 1914-date.
Biblical Recorder.
Carolina Churchman.
■ Central Baptist Association: 1892,
1893.
Christian Church, N. C. Conference
Minutes.
Christian Church Year-Book.
Christian Sun.
Church Intelligencer, v. 6 and v.7.
Concord Presbytery Minutes.
Diocese of East Carolina Journal:
1911-date.
Fayetteville Presbytery Minutes.
Friends, Minutes of Yearly Meeting:
Issues before 1887.
Gospel Messenger.
Green River Baptist Association:
Minutes for 1883, 1886-87, 1894-96, 1899-
1903, 1906-date.'
Kehukee Primitive Baptist Associa
tion Minutes.
Liberty Baptist Association: Any
issues before 1878.
Lutheran Synod Minutes.
Methodist Episcopal Church—Blue
Ridge Atlantic Conference: Any issues
before 1916.
Methodist Episcopal Church Histori
cal Papers: Any issues except 1897
and 1901.
Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
Journa'l of N. C. Conference: Any
issues before 1872, and issue for 1899.
Mission Herald.
N. C. Baptist Almanac: Any issues
since 1897.
N. C. Christian Advocate: Any
volumes.
Orange Presbytery Minutes: 1832,
1838-1863, 1866, 1860, 1862-1881, 1886,
1887, 1889, 1891, 1892, 1896, 1908.
Presbyterian Standard: Any volumes.
Southern Methodist Pulpit.
Synod of N. C. Minutes: 1846, 1848,
1863-66, 1874, 1876, 1908, 1914, 1916,
1916.
Truth.
Virginia and North Carolina Preach
er.
Wachovia Moravian.
Western N. C. Baptist Convention.
Wilmington Presbytery.
Zion’s Landmark.
CREDIT UNIONS
^iss Hattie Berry, in her efforts] to
organize the farmers into credit unions,
will get much comfort from Professor
Branson’s Sunday article. The Gerr
man farmers, Dr. Branson finds, have
found these unions very helpful. Credit
is the first condition of farm prosperity,
the German farmers say.
It is easy to abuse credit facilities.
But argue as much as we will for
going on a cash basis (or shall we say in
order to be in style “accrual basis’’?)
it is well known that large numbers of
tenant farmers are going on credit,
have been going on credit, and will
continue going on credit. .
It would be well if it were possible
for these tenants to get on a cash
basis and all of them who can do so
should by all means. But if they must
continue to buy on credit let them take
the credit that is the cheapest.
And credit union credit is about a dozen
times cheaper than the average farm
er is getting now. Under the credit
union plan the borrower pays six or
seven percent. Clarence Poe has cal
culated that some tenants buying sup
plies and fertilizers on time pay as
high as seventy percent. Quite a dif
ference, if the farmer must borrow, in
favor of credit union borrowing.
It takes thickly settled communities
to make credit unions function to the
best advantage, but North Carolina
has the highest birth rate in the nation
and its many advantages are attracting
peo))le from other states and countries.
Besides, flivvers are cheap and they
annihilate distance.
It seems strange that Germany, now
in worse shape perhaps than any
other country, has any institution that
can be copied by this country with
profit. But Professor Branson says farm
life in Germany will be the nucleus
around which Germany’s civilization
will be rebuilt and cheap credit facili
ties are one of the foundations of Ger
man rural life.—News and Observer.
WINNING THE FIGHT
It is interesting to note how the fight
against typhoid has been consistently a
winning one during the past nine years.
The following table showing the total
number of deaths from this disease
year by year, tells a wonderful story :
Year No. deaths Death rate
1914 839 36.8
1916 744 31.3
1916 700 29.1
1917 726 30.2
1918 649 22.2
1919 427 17.0
1920 329 12.8
1921 307 11.7
1922 298 10.9
Last year, for the first time, the
number of deaths from this cause fell
under 300. During the last two years
the State Board of Health has records
of more than 260,000 people in the State
vaccinated against the disease. This
has been one of the great factors in the
great reduction in deaths.
The summer months constitute the
typhoid season. Every year, with the
warmth of May, the reports of cases
of thyphoid begin to increase, rising
with the thermometer. The peak is
reached in August. There is then a
steady decline until the winter months
show practically no cases and no deaths.
It is significant that the death rate reach
es its highest point in the year at the
height of the fly season.
Despite all precautions, typhoid will
continue to some extent. Some people
will always be dirty and careless.
Others from ignorance will fail to pro
tect themselves and their neighbors.
Intelligent people will make sure of a
safe water supply, of careful handling
of milk and other food, and of sanitary
disposal of all human excreta. They will
screen their home against flies and des
troy the breeding places of these convey
ers of disease. Asa further protection
they will be vaccinated against typhoid
as a safeguard from their careless
or ignorant neighbors.—N. C. Health
Bulletin.