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.
JULY 7, 1926
CHAPEL HILL, N C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XII, NO. 34
Editorial Boardr E. C. Branson, 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, 1918
NORTH CAROLINA HOSPITALS
THE BARE FACTS
North Carolina in 1926 had 163 hospi
tals in 69 counties, with 11,997 beds for
2,812,000people. The count covers hos
pitals public, private, semi-public, and
institutional—88 general hospitals, 11
hervous and mental hospitals, 25 tuber
culosis hospitals, and 29 others.
Included in this count are 9 negro
hospitals with 353 beds for a populatidn
of 763,400 negroes. These negro hos
pitals are located in Asheville, Durham,
Gastonia, Charlotte, Wilmington, Hen
derson, Monroe, and Raleigh (2).
The counties having no hospitals for
either race are 41, as follows: Alex
ander, Alleghany, Bertie, Bladen,
Brunswick, Camden, Caswell, Chatham,
Clay, Columbus, Currituck, Dare, Davie,
Duplin, Franklin, Gates, Graham, Hay
wood, Hertford, Hoke, Hyde, Jackson,
Jones, Mitchell, Montgomery, North
hampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender,
Perquimans, Person, Sampson, Scot
land, Stokes, Swain, Tyrrell, Warren,
Washington, Watauga, ^adkin, and
Yancey.
The law allows county-group hospi
tals wherever two or more counties
can agree on co-partnership terms. So
far there is no county-group hospital in
North Carolina.
LooKing BacRward
' The first public hospital in North
Carolina was founded as a gracious
Charity—the Rex Hospital in Raleigh
in 1839. Thirty years ago a far sighted
North Carolinian, George W. Watts,
gave a hospital to his county and then
spent four more years wondering if
people were going to use it. He had
reason to wonder for during the first
nine months only sixty-eight patients
came to this hospital. It could have
served twice as many more. This
county was not ungrateful; its attitude
was that of the general public which
thought of hospitals at that time simply
as places where people went to die.
Since that time public opinion has
changed to such an extent that North
Carolina now provides one hospital bed
to every 496 inhabitants, a decided im
provement over the ratio of 1920 which
was one bed to every 761 inhabitants.
Despite the progress, North Carolina
ranks thirty-ninth among the forty
eight states, and fourth among the
Southern states in number of inhabi
tants per hospital bed. The first twenty'
four states in the Union range from
154 to 297 inhabitants per hospital bed.
Thus half the states provide two hos
pital beds where North Carolina pro
vides only one.
Urban Location
The need of hospital facilities is
brought even closer home when we
realize that North Carolina ranks
inhabitants where at least five are
needed?
With the number of country doctors
decreasing the health needs of the rural
sections are pressing. It is true that
the state has made laws which facili
tate the construction of' hospitals by
counties, but only the most advanced
counties are willing or able to finance
these institutions. The extreme east
ern and western counties do not fall in
this group, and many of them have
great need for hospital facilities.
The Duke Endowment
It seems then as though help must
come from other sources. Within the
last year a new source has been found,
the Duke Foundation. This foundation
offers one dollar per day for every bed
occupied by a charity patient in hos
pitals which are not run solely for
private gain. The real value of ttiis
gift is apparent, when we realize that
two-thirds of the patients in this state
fall in the charity group, a proportion
slightly higher than that of the whole
country.
The Duke Foundation proposes to
help the state still more by arousing
community interest in these problems,
by studying hospital needs thoroughly
and by helping to establish a system of
rural and regional hospitals centering
around a large hospital and medical
school. Thus another North Carolinian
has looked ahead offering rural North
Carolina a gift of untold proportions.
Shall we accept this gift in the spirit
of the giver, or shall we fall back on
the hospital facilities provided by the
taxpayers and private institutions? —
Margaret Bridgers.
TEACHERS PLEASE NOTE
You are the most important peo
ple in the whole civilized universe.
The schoolmaster’s place is not only
important, but supremely important.
That is my thesis. I want to
put it with boldness, shameless
ness, arrogance, and aggression. 1
want to suggest that they should
up and take hold of the world. I
shall tell you nothing new if I betray
a consciousness that arrogance in
taking hold of the world is not a
cliaracteristic of all schoolmasters.
It is extraordinary what a lot of
schoolmasters seem to be uncon
scious not of the importance but of
the range of their functions.— H. G.
Wells, in the Manchester (England)
Guardian Weekly.
rare, almost unheard of, as compared
with the value of the work they do.
Possibly in this may be found one of the
reasons why in so many colleges there
is a trend to socialistic teachings, be
cause the professors are able lo see
from the financial standpoint so little of
the other side of life. Like ministers
of the Gospel, educators are underpaid.
—Manufacturers Record.
beauty and the art of the ages are sub
jects for scoffing. But the scorn is
but a protective covering. It is as
sumed for defensive purposes. It is a
confession of envy and of deep regret.
Success in life is relative. It is not
money and it is not power. It is in what
man makes of himself as he sees him
self as no one else can. Education y?ill
clarify that view.-Courier-Journal ’
WHAT A COLLEGE SHOULD BE
Hamilton Holt, recently elected presi
dent of Rollins College, Winter Park,
Fla., in an address before the Alumni
Association, outlined some of the things
which he hopes to see Rollins College do.
A few striking sentences, well worthy
of consideration by the educational
interests of this country, were as fol
lows:
“If I should be asked to name the
chief fault of the American ^college to
day, I would unhesitatingly say that it
is the insatiable impulse to expand
materially. Expansion may be not with
out justification as a means to some end,
but as the end itself it is, I believe, a
delusion. The passion for expansion,
we must admit, is an American failing
not confined solely to our educational
institutions.
‘ ‘But it seems to be more reprehensible
in the case of a college or university,
because they ought to know better.
As a result, we see presidents of colleges
and universities making unedifying
SCHOOLS AND A NEW RACE
“A new race will be developed in this
part of the United States. It will be a
nearly one hundred percent pure Amer
ican race, whatever that means,unless
there should be an influx of new blood
from other regions. And it will be the
most intelligent race America has ever
known.” William Shaeffer, aConnecti-
cut .manufacturer, passed through this
town last night in a big touring car and
said North Carolina interested him only
vaguely but its people and its schools
interested him tremendously.
“Every crossroad I come to, I pass a | was from
Boston-style school stuck at the fork of j 038,000 tons,
SOUTHERN RISORGIMENTO
The Italians have a word, risorgi-
mento, which means the revitalization
or re-invigoration of a race. There is
nothing in the English language equak
ly colorful to express what is now
taking place in the South. Renais
sance is a pale substitute, which carries
artistic and literary implications, and
fails to convey the surging, vital quality
of such a national springtime A. F.
Pollard said, in 1921: “It is useless
simply to know things as they are; we
want to know what they will be; and
we have no means of guessing what
their future will be unless we know
what they were, whence they came, how
they travelled and why they moved. ’ ’
Walter S. Case,’in a recent conversa
tion, said: “We should judge the South
notsolely by its past, but by the direction
in which it seems to be moving. Thus,
the most significant fact to be noted is
not the enormous growth of the South
during the past two decades, but the
rate of its growth as compared with
the rest of the country. It is this that
indicates more clearly than anything
else its prospects for the future. A
few figures taken at random will serve
to bring out my point.
“Between 1900 and 1926 southern pro
duction of coal increased from 42,607,-
000 tons to 216,628,000 tons, a gain of
408 percent; for the entire United
States, the increase during this period
269,684,000 tons to 685,-
gain of only 117 percent.
the roads, with a lot of independent-look
ing characters swaggering around it —
chaps who look at me without any reason
whatever in a ‘so'syour old man’ man
ner. These grim-looking people are
not sour by nature; speak to one and he
smiles all over his mug.” said Shaeffer.
‘T never intended to come to North
Carolina to live. I have no interests
here. They tell me the state was
backward in the past. A people who
put monumental schools by the side
of every cow path will achieve miracles
in the future. The roads are §ood.
Other states have good roads. The
schools here are amazing.”—Greens
boro Daily News.
I spectacles of themselves as beggars in
twenty-eighth according to | lobbies of legislative halls and the
. J. ♦- KnorMl-Qlc ' . *ti*
secretarial anterooms of millionaires.
centage of counties without hospitals.
In this respect North Carolina with 41
counties without hospitals stands first
among the Southern statgs. Georgia
ranks forty-eighth with 68.3 percent of
the counties without hospitals. Three
states, Connecticut, Main'e, and New
Hampshire, have hospitals in every
county.
The tendency toward concentration in
urban areas is revealed by the fact
that nearly three-fourths of North Car
olina hospitals are located in sixty-five
towns, of which thirty-one have less
than 2,600 inhabitants. More than half
the hospitals are located in towns of
6,000 or more inhabitants. All the
nine negro hospitals in the state are
located in towns of 9,000 or more in
habitants. These hospitals provide one
bed for every 2,163 negroes in North
Carolina. This rather startling ratio is
decreased by the free beds available to
negroes in general hospitals, but the
reduction is not large according to the
latest report. •
The Present Situation
North Carolinians are quite proud of
what the state has done in public health
work, but they do not seem to realize
that our‘hospital facilities bear directly
upon public health. Do they reaize
that forty-one counties have no hos
pitals, that only thirty-six have county
health departments and that half the
doctors are located in towns of 2,600 or
more inhabitants? Do they realize that
two-thirds of the rural counties have
only one hospital bed per thousand
‘Instead of students seeking the col
lege for its reputation in this or that
subject, the colleges employ super
salesmen to drum up students. While no
effort is spared to increase the student
roster or to pile up brick and mortar,
little or nothing is done to raise the
quality of those who teach or those who
are taught. Nearly every institution
pays its professors salaries that could
be discharged without difficulty in post
age stamps. Nearly every institution
permits a ten-dollar boy to attempt to
get a thousand-doilar education.”
In further discussion of the subject
President Holt took the ground that he
would not be permanently connected
with any institution of learning that
underpaid its professors or president.
We hope Mr. Holt will be able to carry
that out as to Rollins College, but if he
does that institution will stand unique
among the colleges of the country.
Speaking further on this subject, he
said:
“And when I say we expect to raise
salaries, I mean not merely that the
salaries shall be good, but also that
they shall eventually be better salaries
than are likely to be obtained else
where. If we adopt this policy, we
shall be able to get nine professors out
pf every ten we seek.”
These are words of wisdom which
should sink deep into the hearts of the
trustees of every educational institution
in America. Good salaries for pro
fessors in colleges and universities are
EDUCATION THAT HELPS
The campaign to persuade boys and
girls to continue in school would not be
necessary if it were not for the mis
taken impression so many persons have
that education is not essential in the
commercial field. Men who have made
money and have achieved leadership
without having much schooling are
pointed out in support of the idea that
the ‘practical mind’ does not need, and
is actually handicapped by, book-learn
ing.
But education is obviously useful and
practical. Some of the branches of
higher education supply the means of
bettering the most ‘practical’ conditions
under which men and women and child
ren live.
Education has purified the milk sup
ply through the work of Pasteur.
Education through the researches of
Lister and his following have made
possible the wonderful work of the
surgical room. The same line of thought
carries the mind through the school
room to the laboratory and the experi
ment station. Education enriches the
farmers’ land and reaches down into
the mine to make safer the life of the
of the delver.
The ‘practical mind’ sees nothing in
the study of astronomy. But it was an
educated mind that went to the rim of
of the sun and at the tips of flames
80,000 miles high discovered helium
and gave that discovery to the practi
cal heroes who go aloft in the great
dirigibles. The gift is practical in that
with helium to support it the huge ships
of the air will never horrify the world
by bursting into flame and dropping
like molten plummets.
The uneducated man goes through
existence scorning the things that are
denied him through his blindness. To
him the wisdom, the philosophy, the
During this same twenty-five years the
value of imports through the leading
southern ports showed an increase of
1,053 percent, while the gain for the
entire United States was 398 percent;
southern exports gained 274 percent
against 252 percent for the United
States as a whole. The value of agri
cultural products in the ten southern
states east of the Mississippi, including
all crops and livestock products, in
creased 270 percent from 1900 to 1926,
while the gain for the whole country
was 267 percent. Mineral production
in these same southern states showed a
gain of 689 percent agaijist a 380 per
cent gain for the United States as a
whole.
“The comparison is even more strik
ing if we examine the growth of rail
road traffic. According to the reports of
the Interstate Commerce Commission,
the ton miles of revenue freight carried
by the railroads of the Southern dis
trict showed an increase of 57.3 percent
for the year 1926 as compared with the
year ended June 30, 1916. This com
pares with an increase of 27 percent
for the Western district, only 6.2 per
cent for tlie Eastern district and a 
total of 21.8 percent for all the Class I
roads. The growth of traffic in the
South, therefore, has been more than
twice as rapid as the growth in the
Western district and over nine times as
rapid as in the Eastern district. The
Southern Railway in particular has
shown a large expansion in traffic. Its
revenue ton miles show an increase of
63.7 percent in the period from 1916 to
1926, which is a larger relative increase
than sho^n by the roads of the South
ern district as a whole.
“Another comparison of great interest
is to be seen in the textile industry.
Since 1922 there has been a net increase
of 1,786,996 spindles in the South as
against a net decrease of 847,061 in all
other parts of the country.
“When I am confronted by facts such
as these I can have no doubt as to
the future prosperity of the South. It
convinces me that money now invested
in the South will yield greater returns
in the future than that invested in any
other part of the country. I became
interested in the South and the South
ern Railway because I thought I could
foresee the direction in which they were
moving and the speed with which they
were getting there. At present I am
convinced that this direction and this
speed are still the same. That is why
1 am betting on the South.”
The three great fundamentals of
prosperity, it has been said, are popu
lation, raw materials, and satisfactory
means of transportation. The South has
the population, it has the raw materials,
and such men as Walter Case are helping
to give it the finest transportation sys
tem the world has ever seen. And,
above all, it has an irresistible spirit of
enthusiasm that cannot be denied. As
one southern speaker told us: “If you
like what you see in the South, come in
and share in our prosperity. If you
don’t, stay out. But don’t think that
your coming in or staying out will make
any difference to our future prosperity.
We will be glad to have your assistance,
but we can succeed without it. The
South does not come to you as a mendi
cant begging alms. It stands on its
own feet and offers you opportunities
that cannot be equalled anywhere else
on the face of the globe.”—John F.
Fennelly in Cotnmerce and Finance.
EDUCATION
A highly enlightened public policy
must be adopted if the cause of educa
tion is not to break down. It is perfectly
clear that the public schools must have
the most liberal support, both moral
and financial. Particularly must the
people exalt the profession of the
teacher. That profession must not
be abandoned or be permitted to be
come a trade for those little fitted for
it. It must remain the noblest profes
sion. There are no pains too great, no
cost too high, to prevent or diminish
the duty of the people to maintain a
vigorous program of popular education.
—Calvin Coolidge.
HOSPITALS IN THE UNITED STATES
In the table below the states are ranked according to the number of in
habitants per hospital bed in 1926. The table is based on the report of the
Council in Medical Educatidn of the American Medical Association as given in
the Journal of the American Medical Association, April 3, 1926.
North Carolina’s standing has been raised from that given in the Journal as
a result of the hospital survey of the Duke Foundation in the fall of 1925.
Nevada with one hospital bed for every 64 inhabitants ranks highest and
South Carolina with 797 foots the column of persons per hospital bed.
North Carolina stands 39th with 496 inhabitants per hospital bed. The ratio
in 1920 was 761 to each hospital bed the United States over.
Margaret Bridgers, Tarboro., N.C., Department Rural Social-Economics
Rank State Inhabitants per
hospital bed
1 Nevada 54
2 California 174
3 New York 200
4 New Jersey 207
6 Colorado 209
6 Pennsylvania 214
7 Wisconsin 224
7 Vermont 224
9 Connecticut 226
10 Minnesota 228
11 Maryland 235
12 Oregon 246
13 Rhode Island 260
13 Massachusetts 260
16 Arizona 261
16 Washington 263
17 New Mexico 269
18 New Hampshire.. -268
19 Missouri ' 269
20 Montana 274
21 Illinois.yx- 276
22 Wyoming 289
23 Michigan 297
24 Nebraska ....s 3^7
Rank State Inhabitants per
hospital bed
25 Iowa 332
26 Maine 362
27 Indiana 366
28 Ohio 373
29 Louisiana 378
30 Utah 396
31 Kansas 410
32 North Dakota 419
33 South Dakota *"420
34 Idaho 432
36 Tennessee 440
36 Delaware 444
37 West Virginia 447
38 Texas 494
39 North Carolina 496
40 Florida 611
'41 Kentucky 648
42 Alabama 646
43 Virginia 651
44 Georgia 696
46 Arkansas 696
46 Oklahoma 736
47 Mississippi 778
48 South Carolina 797