The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
Published Weekly by ttie
University of North Caro
lina for the University Ex
tension Division.
DECEMBER 17, 1924
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XI, NO. 7
Boardi S. 0. Braoson. S. H. Hobbs, Jr.. L R WHmd, B. W. Snlarht, D. D. Carroll, J, B. Bullitt, H. W. Odam
BiiMted aasecond-clasainattor NoTombor 14. 1914, atthoPoatofflcoat Chapol Hill. N. C., ondor the act of Aa^uat 24. 1912
STATE COLLEGE PROPERTIES
The table which appears elsewhere
shows how the states of the Union
rank in the value of state-supported
university and college properties, on a
per inhabitant basis. The accompany
ing column shows the total value of all
college-grade state-supported ‘college
properties in each state for the year
1923. For North^ Carolina the statis
tics relate to the University, the State
College of Agriculture and Engineer
ing, and the North Carolina •College for
Women, and for other states to similar
Institutions of college grade.
The West Leads
Nevada, with state-supported col
lege properties valued at $11.68 per
inhabitant, continues to rank first in
the United States in this respect. The
states which have a clear lead in state-
supported college properties are found
mainly in the central west and far west.
Of the twenty-three states that rank
ahead of North Carolina, one is in the
South, three are in the North East and
nineteen are in the central and far
West.
The states which rank below North
Carolina fall almost exclusively into
two classes: northern states with scores
of excellent privately-supported col
leges and universities, and southern
states which rank low not only in state-
supported colleges, but low also in
privately-supported institutions of col
lege grade. '
For instance, Pennsylvania, which
ranks last in state-supported college
properties, and Massachusetts. New
Jersey, New York, Maryland, Connect
icut, Rhode Island, Ohio, Illinois, etc.,
all of which rank below North Carolina
in state-supported college properties,
rank far ahead of her in total college
facilities, for it is in these states that
a large number of the leading privately-
supported colleges and universities of
the country are located. Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Columbia, University of
Pennsylvania, Chicago, Brown, and lit
erally scores of other large colleges in
the North, receive no state support.
Several of these privately endowed
and supported colleges individually re
present an investment greater than that
of the combined college properties of
North Carolina, state and church. The
states which have such privately en
dowed and supported colleges are ex
tremely fortunate. States with such
institutions rank low in state-supported
college properties, but they rank high
in total college facilities.
In the South and West college cul
ture is mainly state-supported. Where
in all the South is there to be found a
privately supported college that begins
to compare with a number of such col
leges in the North? One or two are
found in the West, but state-support
is the rule there. Which means that the
western states, which lead in state-sup-
ported colleges, have fairly adequate
college facilities, while the southern
states, which rank low in state-support
ed colleges, and equally as low in
church and privately-supported college;
make a very poor showing in total col
lege facilities in comparison with the
other states of the Union.
North Carolina
The increase in the value of our
state-supported college properties has
been very rapid during the last few
years. At the present time only South
Carolina in the South ranks ahead of
North Carolina in this respect. Dur-
- ing the year 1922 we passed Mississippi
which formerly ranked ahead of us.
South Carolina, which ranked thir
teenth in 1922, ranked eighteenth in
1923.
The value of our state college prop
erties increased a little more than two
million dollars from 1922 to 1923, but
our rank among the states remained the
same—twenty-fourth, which means
that, although we spent more liberally
on new buildings than ever before, in our
history, many other states were doing
the same thing. We must not assume, as
some-have, that North Carolina is the
only state that is engaged in a building
program. She is not. For instance,
North Dakota, which ranked sixteenth
in state college properties in 1922, ranked
ninth in 1923. Montana, which ranked
twenty-first in 1922, ranked fourth
in 1923. New Mexico, which ranked
thirty-third in 1922, ranked twentieth
in 1923, having passed ahead of North
Carolina while we were supplanting
Mississippi, And so on for other states.
North Carolina is building, it is true,
but so are a great many other states in
the Union, and our rank of twenty-
fourth in the per inhabitant value of
state-supported college properties will
not be materially increased, if in
creased at ail, at our present rate of
expenditure.
Getting Under Way
As a matter of fact North Carolina
is just getting to the point where she
can with some degree of comfort care
for her college students. When the
building program began in 1921 our col
leges, state and private, were in a
miserable situation. Classrooms were
overcrowded, student beds were stacked
three deep in the dormitories, and
hundreds of high-school graduates
were unable to find a college that could
take them. Practically all that has
been spent during the last few years
has been necessary to make up for
generations >of neglect. For a brief
' story of how the state had neglected
her colleges up to 1921 see News, Let-
Vol. X, ‘No. 46. For instance, the
buildings erected by the state at the
University during the 124 years pre
ceding 1917 were erected at a total
cost to the state of only $286,000, or
less than what one building now being
erected will cost! The recent expendi
tures have not put North Carolina
where she can point with pride to her
colleges. They have gone largely to
take care of past neglect, to remodel
old plants and to erect some new build
ings which were urgently needed. Col
leges in North Carolina, state and pri
vate, are still crowded, tho not congest
ed as in 1921. To let up, even for a
short time, would place us where we
were four years ago.
jNorth Carolina is building up £
splendid elementary school system.
Oiir yearly rate of increase in high
school graduates is probably not equaled
by any other state. To care for the
increasing thousands who will be grad
uating from our rapidly developing
high-school system will require a per
manent college expansion program of
no small dimensions. Such a program
must take into consideration the ab
sence of great privately endowed col
leges and universities, such as are to be
found in practically all the northern
states. We now rank 24tb in state-sup
ported college properties, but we rank
far from 24^ in total college facil
ities, for at least one-half of the
states that rank below North Carolina
in the accompanying table rank above
her, many of them far above, in all col
lege facilities, state and private.
One Cent a Month
The value of all state-supported col
lege properties in North Carolina aver
ages $3.68 per inhabitant. This does
not mean that the state has invested
that much, for fewer than half of the
buildings now standing at the University
have been built by the state. But as
suming that the state has invested $3.-
68 per inhabitantlin her state colleges
(which is far from true), the carrying
charge at five percent is ' less than 19
cents per year for each inhabitant in
tho atate, or a cent and a half per
mo^th. As a matter of fact the cost
of carrying the part of the present state
debt which represents an investment
in state-supported colleges'is less than
one cent per inhabitant per month. The
state-supported college properties of
North Carolina are too ,meager to lay
much of a burden on theEtaxpayers.
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
There are all sorts of publicity-
good, bad, free, and costly. Some
states secure their publicity by pay
ing for it. Other states get very
harmful publicity free, whether
they want it or not. Virginia has
gotten rather nation-wide publicity
of a very damaging sort in recent
years through bad roads. But
North Carolina gets lots of good
publicity and gets it free. Maga
zines of national reputation have
found out something about what
has been happening in recent years
in North Carolina and have been
telling their readers about it. The
World-News has quoted time and
again from such articles. The lat
est article on North Carolina to se
cure nation-wide circulation is by
French Strother, entitled “North
Carolina’s Dreams Come True,”
and is published in the November
World’s Work. It is an article
which every Virginian ought to
read. It shows what vision can
bring to a state. The answer to
North Carolina’s forward march is
“Roads and Schools.”
The road program in Nor'th Caro
lina is but a part of the huge plan
for pushing the state forward. The
plan has worked. North Carolina
is one of the most prosperous states
in the Union, as a result of the vi
sion of her leaders. When this news
paper or any other Virginia newspa
per points to North Carolina’s prog
ress, some critic cries out: “Why
don’t you move to North Carolina?”
But that dosen’t meet the issue.
Virginia has refused to assume
leadership in the South in schools
and roads. But it is not too late to
follow an excellent example. North
Carolina’s leadership is well worth
following. The sooner we Virgin
ians wake up and realize it, the bet
ter off we shall be.—Roanoke World-
News.
TWO IMPORTANT BOOKS
Farm Life Abroad, by Professor E.
C. Branson, and Roads to Social Peace,
by Professor E. A. Ross of the De
partment of Sociology of the Universi
ty of Wisconsin, are the titles of two
books of great significance for North
Carolina which have just been issued by
The University of North Carolina Press
at Chapel Hill.
Farm Life Abroad
Farm Life Abroad, by Professor
Branson, is a book of 303 pages which
sells for $2.00, in which are collected,
in book form, the thirty-six letters
which Professor Branson wrote during
his year abroad concerning the country-
end of things in Germany, Denmark,
aiid France—not the great cities and
industrial areas', but the (1) farm peo
ple, farm homes and villages, farm sys
tems and farm practices; (2) the coun
try communities, institutions, and agen
cies; and (3) the standard of living in
the rural regions of these three coun
tries.
Professor Branson’s aim in making
these studies, which have appeared in
letter form in this and other North
Carolina papers, was to reach the
readers, thinkers, and leaders of Amer
ica and to center their attention upon
the things noted in Europe which have
proven essential to the development of
a satisfying farm civilization.
The book, which delightfully portrays
aspects of European civilization that
tourists usually neglect, is for general
readers, libraries, teachers of rural so
ciology and political science, ministers
interested in country life, and for stu
dents of cooperative enterprises and
the problems of commonwealth concern.
Roads to Social Peace
The object of Professor Ross in this
volume is to promote social peace.
“The most cynical militarists,” he de
clares, “agree that antagonistic social
groups within the nation must never be
allowed to go to breaking heads.” Ac
cordingly, Professor Ross analyzes the
situations which at present are disturb
ing the social peace of the nation, and
suggests ways by which it may be safe
guarded and made permanently se
cure.
Written with the delightful directness
characteristic of all of Professor Ross’s
books, the volume possesses peculiar in
terest and timeliness incident to the
passage of drastic immigration legisla
tion, the resentment of large groups
against the existing order as evidenced
by the setting up of new political par
ties and the growth of legislative blocs,
the heightened controversy between
Fundamentalists and Modernists, and
the bitter conflict waged over the Ku
Klux Klan.
The book is written in five main di
visions with an Introduction and Con-
conclusion, the major topics being: I.
The Avoidance of Sectionalishi; II. The
Quenching of Sectarian Strife; III. The
Promotion of Peace Among Nationali
ties; IV, The Mitigation of Class Strug
gle; V. The Allaying of Town-Country
Conflict. It is sold at $1.60 post paid.
Other Boohs
Other books published by the Press
during the year, which have been wide
ly commended, are as follows and are
on sale at book stores or may be ordered
direct from the University:
Robert E. Lee: An Interpretation, By
Woodrow Wilson, $1.00; Religious Cer
titude in an Age of Science, By C. A,
Dinsmore, $1.60; Law and Morals, By
Roscoe Pound, $1.60; Scientific Study
of Human Society, By F. H. Giddings,
$2.00.—L. R. Wilson.
munity credit needs, will eventually
solve this problem. Until the farmers
realize that they must organize along
financial and other business lines,
they are not going to throw off the
shackles of an outworn system of cred
its which is undermining their profits
and assets year by year.—Market
News.
TRUE COOPERATION
No cooperative association is what
it should be if the local and county
units are simply regarded as organiza
tions to which information is to be
passed down from above. On the con
trary, the management at the top of
the organization must get its strength
and sustenance from the intelligence
and affection of the membership in the
local and county organizations. The
great working, aspiring membership
of a cooperative association constitute
the real vine, and the directors and
officials and management are the
branches. Unless the organization at
the top has the same vital and direct
connection with the membership that
the branches have with the vine, they
cannot survive. “The branch cannot
bear fruit of itself except it abide in
the vine.”—Progressive Farmer.
SAVING LIVES
In 1913 a total of 4,800 deaths from
tuberculosis occurred in North (jarolina.
If the same death rate had prevailed
in 1923 as in 1913 a total of 5,529 deaths
would have occurred in 1923, but actual
ly there were in 1923 only 2,345 deaths
from this dreaded disease according to
the Health Bulletin. There has been a
steady decrease in the number of
deaths from tuberculosis during the
last eleven years; fewer deaths each
year, notwithstanding the fact that
the state has rapidly increased in popu
lation. Applying the 1913 rate to each
year a total of .56,799 deaths would
have occurred during the pleven-year
period. The actual deaths totaled 36,-
302. Thus 20,497 lives have been saved
largely because of the splendid work
that has deen done by the state and
county health departments, aided by
other agencies. Saving enough lives
during a decade to populate a county
is immensely worth while.
COOPERATIVE CREDITS
At a recent meeting of “Bankers and
Educators” belli in the office of Dr. B.
W. Kilgore at State College, the fol
lowing resolution was adopted: “En
courage bank credit as a substitute for
other forms of credit.”
Up to the present time the banks
have not been able to take care of the
farmers’ production credits. In a “farm
credit survey” made in North Carolina
in 1923 by the U. S. Department of
Agriculture in cJbperation with the
State Department, it was discovered
that the farmers of North Carolina are
annually using a production credit of
$240,000,000 of which $120,000,000 is
merchant credit and $120,000,000 cash
credit. Less than one-sixth of the
cash credit was obtained from banks.
The average interest charged for short
term advances from banks was 6.3 per
cent as compared with 26.6 percent for
merchant credit: but one hears numer
ous stories of high interestrates charged
the farmers even by the banks. So far
the banks have apparently not been able
to take care of the production credits
of our farmers and thus relieve a situa
tion which grows more serious each
year. The credit union, or cooperative
bank, by encouraging the farmers to
save, to get together in neighborhood
groups for the discussion of mutual
problems, to assemble their own re
sources, however small, to meet com-
—y—-
STATE-SUPPORTED COLLEGE PROPERTIES
Value Per Inhabitant in 1923
Based (1) on Statistics of State Universities and State Colleges, Bulletin No.
26, 1924, of the Federal Education Bureau, and (2) on the census estimate of
population in 1923.
The figures for each state cover (1) the total value of Btate University and
State College plants, buildings, grounds, farms, libraries, scientific apparatus,
machinery, and furniture,^or the year 1923, (2) divided by the population so
as to put the states on a comparable basis.
In North Carolina the figures refer to the State College for Women,
State College of Agriculture and Engineering, and the State University; and
in other states to similar institutions of liberal learning and techincal training
of college grade.
The total value of such state-supported college properties in North Carolina
in 1923 was $9,902,067, a per-inhabitant value of $3.68. Our rank is twenty-
fourth in the United States. In the South only South Carolina ranks ahead of
North Carolina, while Virginia, Mississippi, and Florida follow close behind.
' S. H. Hobbs, Jr.
Department of Rural Social-Economics, University of North Carolina
TOO MANY ABSENCES
Of each one hundred children in this
State who entered school, 71 upon an
average attended daily. In Dare, 90
percent of the enrolled children went
to school daily. The lowest average
attendance is recorded in Scotland
County, where but 60 percent of the
enrolled attended daily.
Seventy-three counties had less than
76 percent of the enrolled children at
tending; the elementary so^ls daily,
and this notwithstanding the legal re
quirement that all children between
the ages of 7 and I4 years attend school.
It is a patent fact that poor atten
dance makes for high per capita coats.
—State School Facts.
Rank States
Total Value
Value Perinhab.
Rank States
Total Value
Value Perinhab.
1
Nevada
$ 892,281
$11.68
26
Virginia $
8,053,623
$3.36
2
Wyoming
1,839,330
8.68
26
Mississippi....
5,797,292
3.24
3
Delaware
1,846,850
8.20
27
Florida
3,224,000
3.08
4
Montana
4,395,929
7.32
28
Texas
12,394,892
2.51
6
Oregon
6,638,391
6.86
29
Oklahoma
4,769,514
2.20
6
Minnesota
15,972,692
6.40
30.
Ohio
12,114,742
1.98
7
Colorado
5,974,002
6.18
31
Indiana
6,631,248
1.87
8
Vermont
2,129,200
6.06
32
Missouri
6,024,764
1.76
9
North Dakota....
4,016,088
6.98
33
Illinois
11,619,366
1.70
10
Utah.:
2,712,174
6.61
34
Rhode Island..
1,039,618
1.66
11
Iowa
13,327,928
5.40
36
Georgia
4,891,078
1.63
12
New Hampshire
2,381,290
6.32
36
Connecticut
2,289,896
1.55
13
Washington....
7,626,188
6.21
37
Maryland
2,213,807
1.47
14
Nebraska
6,894,064
6.17
38
Maine
1,126,013
1.45
15
Michigan.
20,369,380
6.12
39
Alabama
3,432,087
1.41
16
Arizona
1,909,926
6.01
40
Tennessee ....
3; 363,389
1.40
17
California
18,434,138
4.86
41
New York....
12,837,303
1.18
18
South Carolina..
8,404,486
4.82
42
West Virginia
1,617,460
.97
19
Wisconsin
12,188,316
4.45
43
Louisiana
1,642,664
.88
20
New Mexico....
1,669,771
4.20
44
Kentucky
2,088,960
.86
21
Idaho
1,962,944
4.17
45
Massachusetts
3,028,367
.76
22
Kansas
7,339,648
4.08
46
New Jersey...,
2,283,433
.68
23
South Dakota....
2,441,800
3.73
47
Arkansas
1,038,611
.67
24
North Carolina....
9,902,057
3.68
1
48
Pennsylvania..
3,472,421
,38