The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTEE
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina Press for the Univer
sity Extension Division.
DECEMBER 12,1923
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. X, NO. 6
Bi>ards E. C. Braasoa. S. H. Hobbs. Jr., L. R. Wilsoo, E. W. KalgTht. D, D. Carrol), J. B, Bullitt, H. W. Odum.
Entered as second-class matter November 14,1914, at thePostofBceat Chapel Hill, N. C.. under the actef Augrust 24, 1911
COST OF EDUCATION IN CAROLINA
XXII-CULTURE AND AGRICULTURE IN DENMARK
On my way to the Askov Folk High
School in south Jutland I stopped over
night in Vijen, the nearest railway sta-
^on. It is a little town about the size
of Carrboro, but as usual in Denmark
it is a country market town kept alive
by a cooperative farm enterprise, a
creamery in this particular instance.
There are other small industries but
they are not conspicuous or important.
The population is composed of farmers
whose active daily business is farming,
and of small shop keepers whose trade
is farm trade largely related to collect
ing the farmers' eggs for the coopera
tive egg-export societies. Its main
street and almost its only street is a
straggling country road to the depot
and station.
An Art Atmosphere’s Results
On my way out of town next morn
ing, I happened to glance down a side
street and io, a great fountain playing
twelve streams of water day and night
in a tiny park set with shrubs and flow
ers! It was more surprising and, its
history considered, far more wonderful
than the great Munich fountain through
which half a river runs, or the great
fountain at Versailles which the state
can afford to display in action only once
a month.
I got the story while waiting for my
train. It is the design in stone and
iron of a young artist born and reared
in Vijen, a town lad whose art instincts
have had little more to feed on than
the drawing lessons in the town school,
the art prints and bric-a-brac in the
shop windows, the Danish art maga
zines, art stores and art schools, the
open-air statuary, the Glyptotek and
the Thorwaldsen Museum in Copen
hagen. His first masterpiece was
founded and erected at the expense of
his native town with an appropriation
by the town council supplemented by
small amounts contributed by almost
everybody in Vijen.
And this thing ha*ppens in a country
town of 1 600 inhabitants, in a little
state about the size of Tidewater Caro
lina! It happens in Denmark because
a youngster with a bent for art is
steeped from his earliest years in a
stimulating art atmosphere—in his own
home, in the homes of bis playmates,
in his school surroundings and activi
ties, in the bookshop windows of Kis
native town, in the postcard racks
everywhere, in the art galleries, art
exhibitions, art journals, and art-filled
public squares, parks and gardens of
the Danish capital.
Denmark does not lead the world in
any field of fine arts. Aside from Thor
waldsen in sculpture, Saxo in chronicle
literature, Hans Christian Andersen in
fairy tales, Bishop Grundtvig in folk
lore and folkschool philosophy, Hol-
berg and Oelenschlager in playwriting,
Nexo in novel writing and George
Brandes in literary criticism, the out
side world knows little of Danish art
and literature. It is a brief list, but
what a great list it is for a state with
only three and a third million inhabi
tants. Denmark has never given birth
to a musical composer of the first rank,
or an instrumentalist, a singer, a
painter, or an architect of world-wide
reputation; but ^he is ready to do it at
any moment, for the Danes are born
into a world of quickening art sugges
tions. This peasant democracy is not
a Bozart wilderness, to borrow an epi
thet of Mencken’s. On the contrary
Danish life is deeply rooted in a soil
rich in art suggestions, traditions, a-
chievements, interests, and impulses.
Distinctive Danish Music
Denmark is not distinguished in
music creation, but music apprecia
tion by the masses, which is something
far more important, she is quite the
equal of any country I know. The voice
I hear from time to time in the court
yard of the Helmerhus Pensionat is the
voice of a wandering minstrel. He is
not a Caruso, but he has a rich mellow
baritone hofce that renders Danish music
so enjoyable that I must lay aside my
work, hang out the window, and empty
my pockets of snjall change. Nearly
always he gives us a ballad or two of
Jeppe Aakoer’s set to music by some
native composer. Aakoer, by the way.
is Denmark’s Bobbie Burns. The so»gs
in the court below sound a new quality
of musical beauty—somethimg as dis
tinctly Danish as the songs of Scotland
are distinctly Scottish.
The ballad music of Denmark fills
four thick volumes, as I discovered in
the home of a young farmer near Kal-
unborg. He and his wife gave me an
unforgettable evening with their music
from these volumes. There is music
everywhere in Denmark—in the homes,
in the village chorus clubs and orches
tras, in the ten or more orchestras and
the -great concert hall of the Tivoli
gardens, and in the Sunday afternoon
parades of the boy bands of Copenhag
en. Twice I have had to stop outside
in passing private homes to listen to
the rare music within, once in the rain
in the humble r(uarters of Fredericks-
havn and again in Amagerbro. And
it is always good music I hear, never
jazz music or never but once, and never
the jingles of the Sunday schools at
home. • I was in doubt about the church
music of Denmark until I heard it sung
.by a full choir at an ordination service
in King Knud’s cathedral in Odense.
The point I make is that Danish music
is Danish, distinctly so—not great per
haps but Danish, as racial in its char
acteristics as Russian music is.
These people never developed the
value of Scandinavian architecture.
The primitive forms are impressive
but crude as I see them preserved in
the ancient castles and country church
es, and the modern buildings in the
cities are commonplace adaptations.
But they have developed a distinctive
national music and a popular love of
the best music of.all the races. Music
lovers over here tell me that America’s
sole contribution to music is the tone
quality and the movement of our negro
songs, and they set no great value on
either, i cannot argue the matter. I
am a Philistine in the world of music.
Like General Gordon I know only two
tunes, one is' Dixie and the other
isn't.
A Mine of Folh Lore
But what a time Koch and his play-
makers would have in a country like
Denmark with its Valdemar rune
stones, its myths and sagas, its ancient
burial mounds, its racial life running
back to the period of Homer’s Iliad,
its fantastic twilight history, its grue
some stories of early feudal times, its
warrior bishop Absalon who rivals
Wolsey and Richelieu in literary sug
gestiveness, the crude Christianity of
earlier days, the robust rise of peasants
into a new type of democracy—all per
fectly preserved from the stone.age
till now in the Danish National Mu
seum, the great castles and cathedrals,
the chronicles of Saxo Grammaticus,
the saga translations of Bishop Grundt-
v.ig, and the pages of Pontoppidan,
Martin Nexo, and rlarald Faber.
As it is, Koch and his group of folk
play writers at the University of North
Carolina must search with diligence
for the scant remains of ballads
brought from other lands in the long-
ago days and treasured by our contem
porary ancestors in the North Carolina
Highlands, or they must hunt for such
playmaking materials as lie in the
Nag’s Hea(4 wreckers, Blackbeard,
Flora MacDonald, the Lowrie Gang,
the moonshiners, the plantation life of
earlier days, the heroism of Tar Heel
Confederates, the unconsidered lot of
the farmer croppers at the present
time. And so on and on. The sources
of suggestion for native folk playmak
ing are abundant in North Carolina—
the cropper homes in particular. Peg
gy was a clever play but it did not be
gin to sound the deeps of comedy and
tragedy in such homes.
Folk Museums a N. C. Need
What Dr. Koch and his playmakers
are doing for North Carolina is price
less, in my opinion, but his materials
must come out of a civilization that
locally spans less than two and a half
centuries. It takes time to develop a
collective personality and endless toil
to photograph the mass mind of a de
veloping people. And herein lies the
value of our State Historical Commis
sion and State Historical Museum, of
TEN YEARS OF GROWTH
The progress that North Carolina
has made in ten years in public ed
ucation is shown in part by the fol
lowing statistics. In 1911-12 the
total scheoi fund amounted to $4,-
488,752, while in 1921-22 it amounted
to $30,709,630. Total school expend
itures, including borrowed money
repaid, increased from $4,078,120 to
$27,110,040. The amount spent on
teaching and supervision increased
from $2,527,616 to $13,767,400, while
the average annual salary paid white
teachers increased from $219.45 to
$720.78. In 1911-12 the state spent
on new buildings and supplies
$916,263 as against a total of $6,-
’"ll8,887in 1921-22. In 1912 the total
value of all public school property
in the state was only $7,380,616,
while ten years later it amounted to
$36,268,970.
The growth of North Carolina in
the field of public education is even
more marvelous than her phenome
nal rise as an agricultural and in
dustrial state. Imperfect as our
schools are they are incomparably
better than a decade or two ago.
civilization in history. Why not?
Some good day North Carolina will
have her rich patrons of art and litera
ture—men of a sort with Maecenas, the
Fuggers in Augsburg, and the Jacob
sens in Copenhagen, men who love lit
erature and the fine arts as Sprunt and
Hill and Ricks love history. Then we
shall have a great art school, a fgreat
music school, and a great university
press at Chapel Hill. We are rich in
many things but we are poor in the
fine arts. Life is bare and hard and
uninspiring for too many people in
North Carolina. It ought to be diifer-
cnt and it will be different when the
wealth of our rich men and women is
lavished upon native cultural art as the
wealth of the Jacobsens was in Den
mark. Their Glyptotek alone—and it
is only one of their many gifts to the
state that made them rich—gives them
immortality for a few million kroner.
Their names will last as long as the art
it treasures, just as Maecenas lives on
and on with Horace. Most men when
they die are dead, fatally dead, dead
' as a door nail, as Dickens said Mr Mar-
ley was. Bqt not so the- Jacobsens in
Copenhagen, and it will not be so in
North Carolina, some good day.
A Satisfying Way of Life
[ All of which, Ifear, may seem leagues
away from rural social-economics.
[ Nevertheless it is rural social-econom
ics, the very cream of it indeed. If
culture is not or cannot be causally or
consequently related to agriculture in
North Carolina, then the state has no
' need for a rural economist at the state
college or the state university. Cul-
? ture and agriculture are one in Den-
' mark, because farming in this demo
cratic commonwealth is a satisfying way
of life as well as a profitable form of
business. If it cannot be so in North
Carolina and the nation, then the years
ahead are full of menace.—E. C. Bran
son, Strassburg, Sept. 18, 1923.
THE UNIVERSITY HONORED
The University of North Carolina has
been signally honored in being elected
vice president of the Association ef
American universities.
The election was at a business meet
ing of the association just held at the
University of Virginia in Charlottes
ville, the officers being institutional.
Harvard university was chosen presi
dent and the University of Michigan
secretary for five years.
Dr. Edwin Greenlaw, dean of the
graduate school, represented the uni-
I versity at the meeting. More than fifty
presidents and deans of leading univer
sities were present. The university
was elected to membership in the asso
ciation last year.
Dr. Greenlaw, who has returned with
the news of the election, said today
that he heard many commendatory
things said about the University of
North Carolina at the meeting. The
delegates consider its growth phenome
nal, he said.
Among the delegates present were
Presidents Campbell of the University
of California; Lowell, of Harvard; Jes
sup, of Iowa; Goodnow, of Johns Hop
kins; Scott, of Northwestern; Wilbur
of Stanford; and Alderman, of Vir
ginia.—Charlotte Observer.
Caroliniana in the State University Li
brary, of the Sprunt Memorial volumes !
and their editors, of the labors of Boyd |
and Brown at Trinity, of Hill in Ral- ■
eigh, Sondley at Asheville, and other
like-minded lovers of their home state. ^
Already we have ceased to be pitifully ;
dependent on the University of Wis
consin in.writing North' Carolina his-.
tory and biography. And some day we :
shall not have to go to Albany, New ,
York, to study the interiors of our co- j
lonial homes—some day when we de-1
cide to establish such museums as the ,
Danish Folk Museum in Copenhagen,
and such open-air museums as I find at
Lingby and Store Maggleby on Ama-
ger island.
Literature and Learning
The Danes have a literature of their
own because they have a background
of racial integrity as old as the glacial
pebbles and cobble stones they pave
their streets with, because their his
tory is rich with inexhaustible treasures
of suggestion, because the revival of
learning stirred Denmark as early as
it stirred England and produced a Ved-
el at Ribe in the time- of the Caxtons
in London, because it created a popu
lar love of learning far beyond any
thing England has ever achieved, be
cause the Danes broke away from med
ieval education years ahead of any
other country in Europe, because they
have fondly treasured the memorials of
their history and translated their sig
nificance into songs, stories and stage
plays that are Danish to the core, and
finally because book shops, art shops,
and sheet music shops are everywhere.
There are no more of these in Germany
than I find in Denmark, in the country
towns as well as in Copenhagen. Think
of eight book shops in a little Danish
town of seven thousand people. Or of
eleven such shops on the four sides of
a single .square in Copenhagen. As
for public libraries,- they are without
number. A Danish town of any size
without a library is almost unthinkable.
And there are more volumes in the
Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen
than we have in the public and institu
tional libraries of North Carolina, all
put together.
A Good Time Coming
I comfort myself by saying that it'
takes time to build a civilization and to
create native fine arts and a native lit
erature-thousands of yegrs, not just a
few hundred. Give North Carolina
time and with the urge she now feels—
an urge that no man can ever destroy,
in my opinion—she will be just as great
in her place on the planet as any other
SCHOOL EXPENDITURES PER INHABITANT
In North Carolina for the School Year 1921-22
Based on the 1920 Census of population and the biennial report of the state
Superintendent of Public Intsruction for the year 1921-22, showing the total ex
penditures per inhabitant for all purposes in each county.
Durham county led with a total school expenditure of $24.18 per inhabitant,
while Watauga was last with only $3.70. State average $10.69 per inhabitant.
The student of state affairs is left to make his own comparisons and draw his
own conclusions.
State total school expenditures $27,110,040.
J. H. Zollicoffer, Vance County
Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina.
Rank
County
Total Expend-
Rank
County
Total Expend-
itures per
itures per
Inhabitant
Inhabitant
1
Durham
$24.18
51
Moore
9.02
2
Gaston!
23.84
62
Anson
8.93
3
Wilson
.. 22.18
63
Davidson
8.89
4
Washington ....
16.18
54
Cumberland ....
8.86
6
Buncombe
16.47
66
Stanly
8.68
6
Wayne
16.69
56
Graham
8.20
7
Iredell
16.37
67
Lee
8.14
8
Transylvania...
16.24
58
Burke
8.07
9
Lincoln
14.78
69
Pender
7.98
10
Orange
14.36
60
Bladen
7.83
11
Pamlico
13.83
61
Edgecombe
7.81
12
Avery
13.33
62
Lenoir
7.78
13
Halifax
13.04
63
Swain
7.76
13
Mecklenburg...
13.04
64
Randolph
7.60
16
Guilford
12.94
66
Gates
7.48
16 .
Pasquotank
12.89
66
Jones
7.24
17
Forsyth
12.86
67
Alexander
7.21
18
Polk
12.84
68
Perquimans....
7.18
19
Granville
12.77
69
Caldwell
7.17
20
Craven
12.76
70
Dare
7.09
21
Johnston
12.72
70
Franklin
7.09
22
Wake
12.64
72
Cherokee
7.02
23
Alamance
12.44
73
Harnett
6.96
24
Rutherford
11.99
74
Wilkes
6.91
24
Warren
11.99
76
Sampson
6.83
26
Currituck
11.86
76
Northampton..
6.69
27
^ash
11.81
77
Greene
6.68
28
Richmond
11.67
78
Duplin
6.62
29
Vance
11.63
79
Surry
6.69
30
Chowan
11.66
80
Madison
6.67
31
Tyrrell, j
11.41
81
Cabarrus
6.42
32
Carteret
11.30
82
Robeson
6.41
33
Pitt
11.20
83
Macon
6,32
34
Scotland .......
11.13
84
Davie
6.28
35
Henderson
11.00
86
Cleveland
6.07
36
Onslow
10.79
86
Chatham
6.03
37
Beaufort
10.76
87
Alleghany
6.78
38
Union
10.49
88
Caswell
6.77
39
New Hanover .
10.27
89
Haywood
6.76
'40
Camden
10.11
90
Clay
5.75
41
Hyde
10.08
91
Hertford
6.56
42
Rowan
10.03
92
Mitchell
6.64
43
Columbus
9.94
93
Hoke
5.36
44
Jackson
9.87
94
Yadkin
6.24
46
McDowell
9.69
96
Person
5.18
46
Bertie
9.44
96
Stokes
6.09
47
Rockingham...
9.27
97
Yancey
48
Montgomery ..
9,24
98
Ashe
4.32
49
Catawba
9.12
99
Brunswick
3.98
60 ■
Martin
9.06
100
Watauga.
- 3.70