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.
JUNE 17, 1925
CHAPEL HILL, N C. •
THE UNIVERSITY OP NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XI, NO. 31
KRIIocIbI ItoBril, E. C. Branaon, S. H. Hobbs. Jr.. L. R. Wilson. E. W. Knight. D. D. Carroll. J. B. Bullitt, 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. 1912
COLLEGE LIBRARIES IN U. S.
The table which appears elsewhere
shows the rank of the states in the
number of inhabitants per volume in
all college libraries.
The term college libraries includes li
braries in universities, colleges, and pro
fessional schools—state, denomination
al, and other. The statistics upon
which the table is based are taken from
the World Almanac for 1926 and cov
er the college year ending in 1922.
The table tells its own story. Rela
tive to population, Connecticut leads
the nation in the number of volumes
per inhabitant in college libraries. She
is the only state in the Union in which
there are more volumes in college li“
braries than there are inhabitants in the
state. Yale University library,
which there are over a million volumes,
largely accounts for this fact. Fol
lowing Connecticut come Massachu
setts and other New England states
Among the states Oklahoma ranks last
with one volume for every 19.07 inhabi
tants, and North Carolina occupies the
thirty-seventh position with 8.39 'in
habitants for each volume.
New England Leads
In glancing over the table one no
tices a few interesting revelations.
Among the first eight states that have,
in ratio to total population, the most
volumes in college libraries, are found
the New England states. The twelve
states that have fewest volumes rela
tive to population are all Southern.
Minnesota outdistances any other Mid
dle Western state, ranking ^ eight
places ahead of Illinois, her nearest
competitor. Virginia surpasses her
neighboring Southern states, having, in
respect to .population, more than twice
as many volumes as the South as a
whole.
Although the library of the Univer
sity of North Carolina exceeds that of
the University of Virginia in the num
ber of volumes, yet the state of Vir
ginia, relative to ber population, has
almost twice as many volumes in col
lege libraries as the state of North
Carolina. But notwithstanding this
fact North Carolina, in comparison
with the other Southern states, ranks
much higher in number of volumes
in college libraries than she does in
number of volumes in public libraries.
In the latter particular she ranks last
of all the states. (See last week's
News Letter.)
a profit of $42,699,718! Later its traf
fic began to decrease, which was at
tributed to its being too small and too
poorly equipped. Accordingly, the
state in 1903 set about enlarging it,
and the result is the present great
Barge Canal, which cost $166,000,000.
Some shippers have been quick to real
ize the advantages of this mighty
waterway. The Standard Oil Com
pany, for example, beginning with tug-
towed barges, then built self-propelled
vessels which became larger and
larger at every experiment. Their la
test model is a tanker 260 feet in
length, 40 feet in the beam and 14 feet
in depth of hold. It carries 705,000
gallons of oil and has propelling en
gines of 700 horsepower. The com
pany finds the canal so economical
that practically the entire distribution of
Standard Oil products for the state of
New York is now carried oq by water.
There are at least two other com
panies owning ships which pass through
the Hudson, the canal and the Great
Lakes, carrying freight all the way
between New York City, Buffalo,
Cleveland, Detroit and Duluth. It has
been proved that immense quantities
of goods can be handled simultaneously
and speedily, and often carried through
the canal in quicker time than by the
railroad. And yet so neglectful has
the public been that the canal is used
to not more than a tenth of its capaci
ty, and there are not lacking citizens
who advocate its abandonment. The
imagination is led captive still by the
lure of speed.
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT
Local self-government is the
great political university where the
average person is trained for the
civic obligations which all sooner or
later must assume if we are to con
tinue a republic. Initiative, a sense
of responsibility, political character,
a feeling that he is a part of the
government, and patriotism are all
born of that daily contact with gov
ernment which local self-govern
ment alone can furnish. Here and
here alone in this atmosphere men
and women grow to the full Stature
of citizenship. You cannot have a
great Federal Union without great
commonwealths upon which that
union may rest. You cannot have
great commonwealths without
strong, self-reliant, capable men
and women. You cannot have strong,
self-reliant, capable men and
women, men and women equal to
the arduous duties of citizenship
without that touch with public af
fairs, that sense of obligation, that
pride in government which springs
almost wholly from the activities of
the citizen in local and state affairs.
— Senator Borah, in World’s Work.
ing his own economic and moral inde
pendence by his own industry and his
own self-mastery, tends to throw him
self on some vague influence which be
denominates soaiety and to hold that in
some way responsible for the sufficiency
of his support and the morality of his
action. The local political units like-
ercises, Arlington National Cemetery,
should make an especial appeal to
North Carolinians. The main prob
lems of government are problems of
local government, county government
in particular. There is no headship to
county government. It is irresponsi-
sible, and too often it is inefficient and
ineffective. The bonded debt of our
counties, the enormous cost of local
government, antiquated methods of i ^ states, the states look
account keeping with consequeivt! to the Nation, and nations are begin-
waste of public revenues, unrebuked ning to look to some vague organiza-
lawlessness, and so on and on, all make tion, some nebulous concourse of hu-
the President’s recent message im- manity, to pay their bills and tell them
mensely significant in North Carolina, what to do. This is not local self-
The homicide rate in North Carolina government. It is not JAmerican. It
is appalling. Few states make a poor- is not the method which Cfhas made
er showing than North Carolina. For this country what it is. We can not
the facts about convictions for homicide the western standard of
see the recent report of the State’s civilization on that theory. ^If it is
Attorney-General. j supported at all, it will have’to besup-
Moonshining, or illicit manufacture i the principle of individual
of whiskey, is one of North Carolina’s '■®®P®^sit>ility. If that principle be
/
Geographic Areas
Concerning the number of volumes in
college libraries in the different geo
graphical groups of the country, two
things are noticeable: first, the wide
variation between the number of vol
umes per inhabitant in the New Eng
land states and the Southern states,
the former having more than eight
times as many as the latter; and
second,the fact that the Middle Atlan
tic, the Middle Western, and the Moun
tain states vary only slightly in this
respect.
The following table shows the num-^
ber of inhabitants per volume in all
college libraries by main geographic
divisions.
Divisions Volumes
New England 6,267,100
Far West 1,923,120
Middle Atlantic.... 7,642,402
Middle West 9,709,354
Mountain 862,201
Southern 3,476,424
Doubtless it can be said that
lege library is used mostly
Inhabs.
per Vol.
1.18
2.86
3.18
3.19
3.86
9.78
a col-
by the
students attending the college, and, as
this attendance is to a certain ex
tent inter-state, the books in the col
lege libraries of a state do not neces
sarily belong to the state. But never
theless ihe state that has large collec
tions of books in college libraries has,
to a greater degree, the potential
power to attract scholars, develop lead
ership, invite research, and give broad
opportunities to its people.—O. Stone.
Water Carriage Cheap
Water transportation has always
been and still is cheaper, than any
other method of carriage. Europe, al
ways forced by necessity to economize,
gives her heavy merchandise a little
more time for its passage and sends it
by water. Although disorganized by
the war, her transportation tools are
still highly efficient and the cheapest
in the world. Belgium, with an area
less than that of Massachusetts and
Connecticut, has more than 1,200 miles
of active waterways. At the present
moment preparations are being made
to deepen a canal between the Rhine
and the Danube—built forty years ago
—so that vessels of at least 1,500 tons
will have a new 2,000-mile water-way
clear across Europe, from Rotterdam
on the Atlantic to the Black Sea. So
conservative a nation as England be
lieves so strongly in this canal that
her shipowners are preparing to oper
ate vessels on it.
With the recklessness engendered by
our wealth, we would rather pay higher
freight charges and move the goods
faster. We would rather wait until
the last minute and then send merchan
dise by what we believe to be the
swiftest carrier; it tickles our craving
for speed and our belief in our own
superior efficiency. Perhaps not until
our land shall have become much more
densely populated than now, our nat
ural resources much more attenuated
and our wealth begins to flow toward
newer Midases, shall we think of econ
omy in such little matters as transpor
tation.
America, says Seymour Dunbar in
his History of Travel, has not devel
oped beyond the era of canals, but is
on the contrary apparently still to enter
upon it. —Saturday Evening Post.
These policies must come out of a sin
cere sustained collaboration between
the president, the members of the
board of regents, the members of the
faculty, the students, and in a very
real sense the whole people of the
state.
A really great State university must
both express and serve the deepest'
needs of the last man and woman and
child in the state. Such universities
come out of a vast cooperative enter
prise in which the whole state shares.
—News and Observer.
THE ERIE CANAL
From its inception until tolls were
abolished in 1882, the Grand Canal,
as the Erie Canal was called, showed
THE REAL UNIVERSITY
The statement of Glenn Frank of the
reasons that impelled him to accept the
presidency of the University of Wis
consin recalls the illuminating concep'
tion of what a University should be
uttered by Dr. Alderman when he was
president of our university. Here
Glenn Frank’s idea of the atmosphere
that should exist im a University.
I have accepted this appointment be^
cause the University of Wisconsin
represents a great tradition of.^sound
scholarship and inspired teachmg, of
productive research and practical ser
vice, of freedom to investigate and
courage to follow the truth wherever
it may lead. ' The day has gone by
when the policies of a free university
should be determined by the secret
processes of the mind of the president.
HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
From North Carolina forests there
are being sawn abobt a billion board
feet of lumber per year. The state
has an estimated 20 million acres of
land capable of growing timber, over
and above the acreage that is tilled, or
tillable. Those who know about such
things estimate that the average of
these acres, whether now supporting
forest growth or not, is capable of
growing 300 board feet of lumber per
year, with a by-product of firewood-
all the growth can nevef be utilized as
lumber and there must be a discount
of actual annual wood production. Six
percent interest on an investment in
land worth $26 dollars an acre would
probably be taken care of by the by
product, not utilizable as building lum
ber. Rough lumber is worth about
$20 per thousand board feet, and will
be worth a lot more a few years hence.
But to consider the proposition in
the large, the 20 million acres of for
est land—actual and potential—in the
state would produce a growth of 12
billion board feet per year, or twelve
times the present addition to the
wealth of the state annually taken
from the soil in this form.
major industries. In stills destroyed
annually North Carolina usually ranks
right at or near the top. The reader
of daily newspapers is impressed with
the vast number of stills destroyed.
For facts concerning moonshining, and
North Carolina's rank in stills de
stroyed, see any annual report of the
Federal Commissioner of Internal Rev
enue. • Fourteen percent of all illicit
distilleries seized by Federal officers in
1923 were seized in North Carolina,
and only Tennessee ranked ahead of us.
The responsibility for these conditions
is local. The remedy lies ki better lo
cal government.
As President Coolidge says: “What
we need is not more Federal govern
ment, but better local government ....
When the local government unit evades
its responsibility in one direction, it is
started in the vicious way of disregard
of law and laxity of living.,.. The
failure of local government has a de
moralizing effect in every direciion.
Hold Own Course
“What America needs is to hold to
its ancient and well-charted course.
“Our country .was conceived in the
theory of local self-government. It
has been dedicated by long practice to
that wise and beneficent policy. It is
tbe foundation principle of''our system
ofliberty. It makes the largest'promise
to the freedom and development of the
individual. Its^preservation is worth
all the effort and all the sacrifice that
it may cost.
“It cannot be denied that the present
tendency is'not in harmony with this
spirit. The individual, instead of
maintained, the result which I believe
America wishes to see produced in
evitably will follow.
“There is no other foundation on
which freedom has ever found a per
manent abiding place. We shall have
to make i-ur decision whether we wish
to maintain our present institutions,
or whether we wish to exchange them
for something else. If’we permit some
ond to come to support us, we can
not prevent some one coming to govern
us. If we are too weak to take charge
of our own morality, we shall not be
strong enough to take charge of our
own liberty. If we cannot govern
ourselves, if we can not observe the
law, nothing remains but to have some
one else govern us, and to step down
from the honorable abiding place of
freedom to the ignominious abode of
servitude.
Two Conclusions
“The individual’^and |theSloca!, state
and national political units ought to be
permitted to assume theirfown responsi
bilities. Any other course in the end
will be subversive both of^character and
liberty. Butit'^is equally clear that
they in their turn must meet their obli
gations. If there is to be a continua
tion of individual and local self-govern
ment and of State sovereignty, the
individual and locality*-must .govern
themselves and the Stategmust assert
its sovereignty. Otherwise these rights
and privileges will be confiscated un
der the all-compelling pressure of pub
lic necessity for a better maintenance
of order and morality. The whole
world has reached a stage in which, if
we do not set ourselves right, we may
be perfectly sure that an authority will
unvarying. It requires no tillage and is
not destroyed by excessive cold or ex
cessive heat, excessive drought or exces
sive rain. Some forest growths are sub
ject to blight; but, in general, a tret
once started and protected from firt
may be expected to keep right or
growing to maturity. Yet as the Uni
versity News Letter article quoted
yesterday points out, the^state contin
ues to expend a meager pittance on
pretense of development and conser
vation of forest resources, whereas
millions annually, if spent wisely,
would yield certain profits.
“Human intelligence” is a term
that is used to denote a high degree
of intelligence. But that is because
humans employ the term, exclusively,
so far as we know.—Geensboro Daily
News.
working out his ownjsalvation and se- be asserted by others for the purpose
curing his own freedom by establish-; of setting us right,”
COLLEGE LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES
Total Volumes and Inhabitants per Volume 1922
The following table, basecl on the World Almanac for 1926 showing books in
college libraries by states for 1922, and the 1920 census of population, ranks the
states according to inhabitants per volume in all college libraries—state-sup-
ported, denominational, and other. The accompanying column shows the num
ber of volumes in all college libraries in each state.
Connecticut, with Yale University, ranks first with .78 inhabitant per vol
ume in college libraries. Oklahoma comes last with 19.07 inhabitants per vol
ume. North Carolina ranks 37th with 8.39 inhabitants per volume and only
Virginia and Tennessee in the South rank ahead of her.
The United States has a total of 29,870,601 volumes, or an average of 3.54 in
habitants per volume, in all college libraries.
Orlando Stone, Research Assistant
Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina
BETTER LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The speech recently delivered by
President Coolidge at the Memorial ex-
Rank States
Volumes
Inhabs.
per
Volume
Rank States
Volumes
Inhabs.
per
Volume
1
Connecticut
1,766,000
.78
26
Pennsylvania ..
. 2,069,225
4.21
2
Massachusetts...
3,416,316
1.12
26
Michigan
. 814,192
4.50
8
Rhode Island....
332,100
1.81
27
Nebraska
. 266,163
4.87
4
Vermont
193,409
1.82
27
Virginia.
.. 473,968
4.87
5
New Hampshire.
224,587
1.97
29
North Dakota...
. 129,700
4,98
6
Minnesota
1,182,834
2.01
30
South Dakota..
. 124,683
6.10
7
Nevada
37,126
2.08
31
Montana
94,696
5.80
8
Maine
325,688
2.36
32
Idaho
68,744
6.28
9
Colorado
367,200
2.66
33
New Mexico....
60,562
7.12
10
Oregon
286,328
2.73
34
Tennessee
. 318,465
7.34
11
California
1,236,606
2.77
35
Arizona
43,870
7.61
12
New York
3,696,625
2.88
36
Delaware
27,700
8.06
13
Utah
147,135
3.05
37
North Carolina...
. 304,748
8.39
14
Illinois
2,118,899
3.06
38
Kentucky
. 276,349
8.77
15
Maryland
449,923
3.22
39
Louisiana
. 204,29s
8.80
16
Wisconsin
812,138
3.24
40
Texas
. 619,566
8.97
17
New Jersey
963,129
3.31
41
Alabama
. 247,200
9.49
18
Iowa
711,869
3.37
42
Georgia
. 297,120
9.74
19
Washington
401,186
3.38
43
Florida
96.100
10.07*
20
Kansas
489,816
3.61
44
South Carolina..
. 303,121
13.61
21
Wyoming
62,969
3.67
45
Mississippi
. 129,648
13.82
22
Ohio ^
1,484,939
3.87
46
West Virginia...
. 103.534
14.13
23
Indiana
736,667
3.98
47
Arkansas
97,0^7 18.04
24
Missouri
838,554
4.06
48
Oklahoma
106,330 19.07