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 for the University Ex
tension Division.
JANUARY 23,1924
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. X, NO. 10
Bdltoriml Board! E. ,G. Branson, S. a. Hobba. Jr., L. R. Wilson. B. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll. J. B.BalUtt. H. W. Odum.
, Entered aa aecond-clasa matter November 14. 1914. at the Poatoffico at Chapel Hill. N. C.. under the act of August 24. 19U
LOCAL SCHOOL-TAX DISTRICTS
XXVI-THEO DANISH FARM-LIFE SCHOOL
Denmark has every kind of school
and school system that any other coun
try has, but the Folk High School
the school that is uppermost in the
minds of the people who visit Denmark
to study her institutions. Other Danish
schools are more or less commonplace,
but the Polk High School is unique.
Her public elementary schools are .not
better than ours in America. The same
observation may fairly be made of her
schools of technical agriculture and
teacher training. As for her public
high schools, they are not so many nor
so good as the public high schools of
North Carolina. But they are effective
and their effectiveness lies in the use
the Danes make of them. The Danes
believe in education and they use their
schools to the limit, their schools of
every grade and type—the farm popu
lation in particular. *
Available Scholarships
The folk high school is a farm-life
school so original in conception, so
unique in character, and so significant
in the part it plays in Danish country
life that most people in other countries
know very little about any other kind
of Danish education. It is so effective
in creating and sustaining a satisfying
country civilization that I have been
moved to send, an earnest letter to a
gifted young teacher in North Carolina
urging him to apply at once for one of
the thousand dollar scholarships award
ed annually by the Seandinavian-Amer-
ican Foundation, and to spend next
year studying the folk high schools of
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Fin
land—not the schools alone but also the
social-economic conditions out of which
they sprang, the part they have played
in Denmark, and the part tlfat effect
ive farm-life schools might play in
North Carolina and other American
states.
A thousand dollars isn’t much in any
of these prosperous countries of north
ern Europe, but it goes a long way be^
cause the state authorities in Scahdi-
navia conspire to reduce to a minimum
the expenses of student travel and re
search. Some of these countries ar
range free transportation for scholar
ship students on the state railways. Or
so it was in Finland for Mrs. John C.
Campbell and her party. Also in S’we
den, as I remember it.
Why We Need Them
I have made this suggestion to my
richly endowed young friend because
fit schools are a fundamental country-
life defense, because country civiliza
tion in America is suffering for lack of
such schools, and because the farm-life
school is still an unsolved problem
the Western World. Every state in the
Union has one or more sometimes
score or more schools called farm-life
schools. Every state has country-life
schools, county agricultural high
schools, district agricultural high
schools and the like. We even have
what are called Danish folk high schools
in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minne
sota, Iowa, Nebraska, and California.
The distinction of such schools in Amer
ica lies mainly in the names they bear,
and not as a rule in the particular ser
vice they render to farm civilization.
In almost every state there is a rural
school department in the University
schoql of education. The Education
Bureau in Washington has a rural
school section staffed with specialists.
All the states are collaborating with
the federal government and spending
millions of* copartnership money every
year upon vocational agriculture. Nev
ertheless the rural school is a mired
wheel in American education and voca
tional agriculture limps along lamely
in our country regions. Our farm-life
schools are a diplomatic gesture more
or less meaningless. In some states
the agricultural high school is a foot
ball for the politicians, and in no state
is the country school the soul of coun
try life as the folk high school has been
the soul of country life inJDenmark. In
almost every other country of the
world, education fit for farm people has
been a failure. A ’ member^ of Presi
dent Wilson’s cabinet pronounced the
country schools of the United States to
be a nation-wide’failure and a national
disgrace. And nobody challenged the
verdict. Nearly everybody is sure of
it, many people are anxious about it
and struggling with it bravely. And
nowhere mote capably than in North
Carolina. No other state of the Union
has had such educational leaders in re
cent years as Joyner, Brooks, Allen,
Brown, Knight, and Newliold, and no
body knows better than they that the
country school is an unsolved fproblem
in North Carolina and the Nation.
Our Hard.Problem
There are many reasons for the sad
estate of rural education in America,
but among all the reasons the farmer
himself looms up as the largest. How
to reach and arouse the country'.people
about the fundamental things in coun
try civilization, and the essential things
in country education i,’for country-life is
the hard problem in North Carolina and
every other state and country in Amer
ica.
The Realization of a Dream
It was Bishop- Grundtvig’s problem
in Denmark in the dark days that fol
lowed Waterloo! He wb.sI fifty-three
years of age when he dreamed his
dream of the foIR high school—a folksy
school, of the folk, by the folk, for the
folk, their very own school in origin,
ownership, and support, and therefore
a vigorous instrument of country con
sciousness, country pride, and country
expression. He gave his dream to
Denmark in a brief pamphlet in 1836.
Eight years later the first folk high
school was established at Redding,
where the Schleswig Danes were strug
gling with the Germans for survival.
There were thirty-nine such schools in
existence when Grundtvig died in 1872,
and there are eighty-odd today.
Denmark is the lengthened shadow
of Grundtvig. He reached and stirred
the souls of the Danish peasants and
he did it with a country-school dream—
a vision so vivid and so vital that the
men to realize itjsprang up by scores,
men like Christian Flor, Ludvig Schroe-
der, Christian Kold, Ernst Trier, Jens
Norregaard, and Paul la Cour in the
earlier years, to be followed later by
Bredsdorff, Begtrup, Appel, Poulsen,
Hostrup, Lange and a host of other
kindred spirits, a rare group of "school
builders and commonwealth builders
who would be called great in any land
or country.
The Prophet of the North
It is a truly great man who can in
spire greatness in other men in any
thing like the way of Grundtvig. The
Danes call him The Prophet of the
North and pay honor to him in memo
rials from one end of Denmark to the
other. I find a bronze statue of him in
the court of the Marble Church facing
the square of royal residences in Copen
hagen. In the Studiestraede, the street
the great University fronts, I find the
Grundtvig House erected to his mem
ory and fitly devoted to what we call
Christian Association usesjin America.
Over the front door of the Fredericks-
borg Folk High School at Hillerod is a
bust of him chiseled in stone. In the
public buildings and private homes of
Denmark are numberless pictures of
him. No other man in the long history
of Scandinavia has ever beenjso hon
ored. All because or mainly,^because
he dreamed a dream of a country-life
school fit for country people.
A Story to Be Written
But I am far more interestedS in the
Tar Heel folk high school than I am in
the Danish folk high school. The one
is an old story, the other iSj’a story yet
to be written. And the genius who
writes it will have more monuments
erected to his memory in ^North Caro
lina than Grundtvig has in Denmark.
It cannot be a Danishafolk high school
but it must be identical withjit in one
essentia^ particular—it must spring di
rectly out of country consciousness and
satisfy the cravings of country youth
in North Carolina. It cannot-be a
Christmas-tree gift from the^capitol, it
Superior schools
When a community builds a con
solidated school house it not only
houses a larger and a better school,
but it sets up a community center
that can and will be made a center
for social, educational, benevolent
and religious activities. Amuse
ments can be staged there, the com
munity library housed there, lectures
enjoyed and the community brought
together in the most advantageous
manner for higher development in,
community life. The modern col
lege today is more than a school for
a few hundred boys or girls, housed
as students on its campus. It is an
educational center for the state, or
a large proportion of the state; so
with the large community school, it
is for the whole people and’ can be
made to pay for its cost by its serv
ice to the people above school age.
—Salisbury Evening Post.
Our own folk high schools may be
crude efforts in the beginning as Chris
tian Kold’s school was in Denmark, but
like the Danish folk high schools they
must give impetus to country commun
ity life and lead country communities
into cooperative enterprises that are
properly related to the commonwealth.
The genius who creates a school of this
type anywhere in North Carolina must
have “sunshine in his eye and a world
in his heart.” Lacking such leadership
and such schools our Community Co
operation law of 1917 is a dead letter.
A Task for Carolina
The folk high schools of Denmark
are worth studying. They would be
suggestive and stimulating to a Caro
lina school man of the creative type-
tonic and quickening to the last de
gree, in my opinion.
So far no other country of the world
has been able to transplant the folk
high school as it exists in Denmark,
not even Norway and Sweden her next-
door neighbors and racial kinsmen,
but these and a half-dozen other coun
tries have been inspired by them to
evolve folk high schools of their own.
And nowhere with perfect success or
not yet. Which means that no other
country has yet given birth to an origi
nal genius like Grundtvig* or an Old
Testament prophet like Christian Kold.
Men of this sort might be born of the
spirit of North Carolina. She has given
many men of rare talent to other
states, and it is time she were develop
ing a genius of her own to save her
country civilization. It is threatened
by extinction and who saves our coun
try life sa^es the commonwealth. The
agency of country salvation will be a
fit country-life school that develops the
spirit and the virtues of living and
working together for the common
good. The Danes call these Christian
ity and less than these is not Christian
ity no matter what notions of religion
prevail, say the Danes. The coopera
tive farm enterprises of Denmark have
grown out of the cooperative spirit
and the cooperative virtues. Danish
cooperation and Danish folk schools
are complementary aspects of one
and the same movement. Together
they produced the cooperative democra
cy of Denmark.
Who Will Lead?
The country civilization of America,
like the country civilization of Den
mark, must develop effective farm-life
schools. The call in every state is for
a great country-life leader inspired by
a distinct purpose that he is willing to
give his life to.. Who will answer the
call in North Carolina?—E. C. Branson,
Paris, Nhv. 20, 1923.
In the other 98 counties the length of
the school term, the quality of teachers,
the physical equipment, and so on, va
ries according to the local willingness
to supplement the county fund. In the
same county it is possible to find the
best and the poorest schools in the state.
The school districts which have voted
special taxes are to be congratulated
for their willingness to levy additional
taxes in order to have better schools.
It is the only choice in a county where
the rate is insufficient to provide decent
schools. It is the one best evidence of
local pride and interest in school mat
ters. But we have come to the point
in our educational development where
the small local tax districts and the
small school districts must be discarded
and a county-wide school system adopted
as has been provided for by law. Some
of the local tax districts are rich, hav
ing all the corporate wealth of the
county. Many of these are detached
from the county system. These have
excellent schools while adjoining dis
tricts struggle along with poor schools
because of meagre taxable wealth. Is
it fair for an imaginary line to deter
mine the types of schools two neigh
boring children shall attend?
The County-Unit Plan
I Ideally a state-wide school system
I should be adopted, but several factors
stand in the way of such a big step.’
The minimum essential under present
conditions is a county-wide school sys
tem in every county in the state. This
system is operating in two progressive
counties. New Hanover and Wilson, and
a large number of counties are arrang
ing to vote on the plan. Davidson has
just voted favotably. Under the coun
ty-unit plan every dollar of taxable
wealth goes to support every school in
the county, rich and poor, alike. The
offices of county and city superintend,
ents are combined into a county super
intendent with a professional assistant.
The county-unit plan means more uni
formly trained teachers, a | more uni
form curriculum, and more uniform
physical equipment. Dr. E. C. Brooks
says:
“The county unit of administration
has a distinct advantage over the dis
trict system. It makes it possible for
the county board of education to locate
buildings advantageously and economi
cally. High schools may be establish
ed according to the needslof'the whole
county, and the per capita cost of in
structing high school pupils may be ma
terially reduced by proper organization.
Large school units will bind small dis
tricts together and encourage coopera
tion, thereby breaking up the clannish
ness of the people that has had a ten
dency to perpetuate the tribal age.
Large community schools create a more
wholesome social life among the young
people and have a tendency to raise the
[ culture level of all the people. In these
! stronger schools vocational subjects
I may be introduced and the teachers of
[ these subjects may extend their in-
i struction to all the adults of the county.
! If the schools are rightly ‘located and
j organized, better instruction in health
j and hygiene may be carried to the
j people.”
These are the main^ advantages of
the county-unit plan. The local-district
school system has served its day. It
must be discarded in favor of the coun
ty-unit plan which is the minimum es
sential under present conditions. The
next step up is a state-wide system of
public education, with gthe county as
the local unit, and in which is preserved
a wise amount of local initiative.—
S. H. H., Jr.
must be created by the local country ! sible with the funds derived from the
communities under homebred leader
ship that they trust implicitly and sup
port without stint.
LOCAL TAX DISTRICTS
In this issue of the News Letter we
present a table showing the percent of
all school districts, white and negro, in
each county in which the people have
voted special taxes on themselves in
order that their particular district may
have a better school than would be pos-
flat county rate. Two counties have
done away with local districts and have
adopted the county-wide school system.
LOCAL TAX DISTRICTS
In North Carolina in 1922
Based on information from the office of the State Superintendent of Public
Instruction, showing the percent of all school districts, white and negro, in each
county which have local taxes.
Two counties, New Hanover and Wilson, have the county-unit school tax
system. This system should be adopted by every county in the state.
State average, 28 percent of all school districts have local taxes to supple
ment the county rate.
V F. 0. Yates, Union County
Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina
Rank County
Percent Local Tax
Rank
County
Percent Local Tax
Districts
Districts
1
New Hanover
County Unit
49
Richmond....
28
2
Wilson
62
Franklin
3
Dare
93
53
Stanly
26
4
Graham
74
63
Lincoln
26
5
Transylvania.
69
63
•Warren
25
6
Chowan
63
66
Iredell
24
7
Pamlico
59
66
Polk
24
8
Union
62
66
Wa^ne
24
9
Greene
50
69
Duplin
23
10
McDowell....
49
59
Gaston
23
11
Catawba
46'
69
Rockingham.
23
11
Johnston
46
62
Anson
22
11
Swain
46
62
Cleveland....
22
14
Granville
46
62
Halifax
»... 22
14
Jackson
46
65
Cherokee....
21
14
Nash
45
65
Jones
21
17
Columbus
43
66
Mitchell
21
17
Durham
43
68
Hertford....
20
17
Washington ..
43
69
Bladen
19
20
Currituck
42
69
Burke
19
20
Hyde
42
71
Randolph....
18
22
Haywood
41
72
Bertie
17
22
Mecklenburg.
41
72
Chatham
17
24
Buncombe....
40
72
Davidson....
17
24
Guilford
40
75
Beaufort.. .
16
26
Avery
37
75
Brunswick ..
16
26
Vance
37
75
Gates
16
28
Craven
36
76
Montgomery.
16
28
Edgecombe...
36
76
Scotland. -..
16
28
Henderson ...
76
Yancey
16
28
Macon
36
81
Cabarrus ..
16
28
Onslow
36
82
Yadkin
14
28
Robeson.. ....
36
83
Forsyth
13
34
Harnett
35
83
Martin
13
34
Rutherford...
36
85
Ashe
12
36
Camden
34
85
Stokes
12
36
Carteret
34
87
Davip
n
38
Pender
33
88
Caldwell
10
38
Sampson
33
88
Orange
10
40
Lenoir
32
88
Pasquotank .
10
40
Madison
32
91
Pprqniman.a
42
Clay
31
91
Rowan
, 9
42
Wake
31
91
Tyrrell
9
44
Hoke
30
91
Wilkes
9
44
Moore
30 .
95
Surry....!...
8
44
Northampton.
30
96
Caswell
7
47
Cumberland...
29
97
Person
6
47 ,
Pitt
29
98
Alexander...
6
49
Alamance....
;.... 28 199
Alleghany...
4
49
Lee
28 j 99
Watauga
4