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.
OCTOBER 17, 1928
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROUNA PRESS
VOL. XIV, No. 47
"Kdilorial Board, E. C. Branaon. S. H. Hobba. Jr., P. W. Wager, L. R. Wilaon. E. W. Knight. D. D.
Carrol!, H. W. Odum.
Entered aa aocond-claia matter November 14. 1914. at the Peatoffice at Chanel Hill, N. C,. nnder the act of Angnot 24, 1911,
PUBLIC SCHOOL COSTS COMPARED
SCHOOL COSTS COMPARED
School costs represent one of the
biggest items of public expenditure in
this and every other state. Because
school taxes bulk so large in the total
tax bill there has developed an under
current of resentment against public
school administration. Without stop
ping to analyze public school expendi
ture, taxpayers often make charges
of waste and extravagance which are
without foundation. Undoubtedly there
is some inefficiency, some extrava
gance, and occasionally some misap
propriation of funds, but no more of
this sort of thing than in other depart
ments of government. In fact, there
is probably no group of public servants
that take their duties more seriously,
or work harder to improve themselves,
than the public school teachers and
administrators.
School taxes are high because it is
an expensive proposition to give every
child eight, or ten, or twelve years of
education. The burden is heavy on
some because there are so many large
families that pay little or no school
tax. North Carolina is a state of large
families, a large percent of the heads
of which pay little or no taxes of any
sort. The maintenance of two separate
school systems is an additional burden
on the Southern states.
How North Carolina Ranks
If we compare school costs in North
Carolina with those in other states,
however, we find that they are not
excessive. In fact, when compared on
a per pupil basis we find them much
lower than in a majority of the states.
Elsewhere in this issue is a table show
ing the annual cost of public education
(current expense only) per pupil
enrolled, and the daily cost per pupil at
tending school. It will be noticed that
the range in annual' cost per pupil
enrolled is from $116.97 in Nevada to
$20.38 in Mississippi. In North Caro
lina the figure is $32.10. The average
for the United States is $64.69, or
double the cost in North Carolina., If
capital outlays, that is outlays for
sites and buildings, are included North
Carolina ranks fortieth instead of
thirty-ninth. Apparently other states
are keeping pace with our own in
school building construction.
Since the length of term varies in
the several states, a more accurate
-basis of comparison is the daily cost
^er pupil attending public schools. In
the accompanying table only current
expense is figured. Even when ranked
on this basis North Carolina’s position
remains thirty-ninth with a daily ex
penditure of thirty cents per pupil at
tending school. Nevada leads with an
expenditure of seventy-nine cents per
pupil per day and Georgia and Missis
sippi rank lowest, each with an expendi
ture of twenty cents. The average for
the United States is forty-eight cents.
If capital outlays are included the range
is from ninety-seven cents in California
to twenty-two cents in Mississippi, and
North Carolina’s expenditure is forty
cents per pupil. Our rank remains the
same.
We must conclude from these figures
that school costs in the South, includ
ing North Carolina, are low when com
pared with the other states. The
explanation must lie in shorter school
terms, lower salaries, larger classes,
smaller fuel bills, less transportation
expense because of relative density of
school population, and perhaps less com
plete equipment. Our school taxes may
be burdensome because of less taxable
wealth and income, but school costs
per pupil are not excessive. The cost of
education has increased a great deal in
North Carolina during the last few
years, but it is still low compared with
the cost in other states. If we were
spending just twice as much on educa
tion as we are now spending, the cost
per child enrolled would be equal to the
present average of all the states.
NEED FOR COOPERATION
The importance of closer coopera
tion of the practising physician with
the public school problem is the sub
ject of an interesting article by Dr.
C. C. Hudson in the September issue
of the Health Bulletin. Dr. Hudson
gives some interesting data on the
extent of various diseases and defects
among school children, and the number
of school children examined and treated
last year by officers of the State Board
of Health, including cooperating county
health officers. The conclusions drawn
by Dr. Hudson are as follows:
1. Only a small part of the 818,000
school children in North Carolina are
given an annual examination by physi
cians.
2. There are probably 360,000 or
400,000 diseased conditions existing in
this large group which should be found
and corrected if our school population
is to grow up healthy.
3. The examination of school chil
dren is distinctly a work for the physi
cians if anything like all defects are to
be found.
4. As most of the work of correct
ing the diseased conditions found
among school children will come back
to the practicing physician, he should
take a more a^ive interest in finding
these conditions, and to this end he
should,
(a) Assist in every way possible the
local Congress of Parents and Teachers
to examine all children entering school
for the first year.
(b) He should co-operate with his
brother physician to secure an annual
examination of all school children in
his neighborhood.
(c) He should give sympathetic as
sistance to the nurses and teachers in
securing corrections of diseased condi
tions.
(d) He should give practical instruc
tion in hygiene to gatherings of boys
and girls, parentsor teachers, whenever
this is possible.
(e) He should be very careful when
examining a patient brought him by a
parent who is very anxious to have him
give a different opinion from one which
has been given by another examiner.
Our dental friends are going far
toward giving our children healthy
teeth. I have never heard a practic
ing dentist criticise a school dentist.
They know that if the children
are taught proper care of their
mouths, when those same children are
older and continue to have decayed
teeth and diseased conditions which
need dental care, having been properly
trained, they will know where to get
the service.
If we physicians hope to eliminate
quackery, to teach the public what
constitutes good medicine, and, above
all. to make our people strong and
healthy, we must lose no opportunity
to reach the boys and girls of our
public schools and so train them that
they will always have that faith in us
as physicians which has always made
the practice of medicine a glorious
profession.
We need all the assistance which the
teacher can give to the work and she
should be rt quired to take a course of
training which will, at least, partially
fit her for this important work.
THE SOCIAL WORKER
The first essential of social work is
healthy-mindedness. If social work is
to be more than an adventure in the
amiable futility of unintelligent good
will, it must both be born of healthy-
mindedness and give birth to healthy-
mindedness.
Sick-mindedness gives us romantic
social work that is marked more by its
tears of sympathy than by its technique
of service.
Healthy-mindedness gives us realistic
social work that operates in the brac
ing air of facts.
I suggest one test of healthy-minded-
ness in the social worker.
The healthy-minded social worker
will go on the assumption that in a
wholly healthy-minded civilization there
would be no- social workers because
there would be no need of social work.
The goal of the healthy-minded social
worker will be to work himself out of
job.
The healthy-minded social worker
will recognize the danger as well as
the desirability of professionalizing
social work.
We are, I admit, caught in the horns
of a dilemma here. Social work needs
all the expertness it can command,
and yet the very efficiency of elaborate
permanent social agencies of certain
sorts niay become an alibi for slack
EIGHT-MONTHS SCHOOL
Governor McLean, in an article in
the October issue of The North
Carolina Teacher entitled A Six-
Million Equalization Fund, says that
the constructive work of the Educa
tional Commission has paved the
way for the uniform eight-months
school term, “which is just around
the corner.” Quoting him, he says,
“I hope and believe that the corner
may be turned and the longer term
made an accomplished fact by the
next General Assembly. It should
not be done unless provision is made
at the same time to distribute the
financial burden fairly and equita
bly, in all the counties of the state,
by increasing the equalizing fund
to such an amount as will accom
plish this result.
“State Superintendent Allen has
estimated that an equalization fund
of six million dollars for the first
year of the next biennium and six
and one-half millions for the second
year, used for the support of the
eight-months term, in the same way
that the present equalizing fund is
used for the support of the six-
months term, would be sufficient to
distribute the financial burden of an
eight-months term fairly and equi
tably in all the counties of the
state.”
ness of social conscience and shoddi
ness of social policy on the part of
families, schools, industries and govern
ments.
The healthy-minded social worker
will, therefore, resist the psychology
of permanence in his work, bending all
the energies of his expertness to
hastening on the day when he can
dismantle his office and disband his
organization.
This is asking a good deal of ordinary
human nature, I know, but healthy-
minded social work calls for more than
ordinary human nature. It calls for an
exceptional spirit of self-sacrifice that
will not permit a man to keep his or
ganization for the prevention of cruelty
to animals, let us say, going after
automobiles have taken the place of
horses and dogs and cats have gone
out of style in his town.
Healthy-minded social workers create
organization because there is work to
be done, but they never look around
for work to do in order to keep or
ganization going.
The healthy-minded social worker
constantly reminds the nation that his
very existence is an indictment of the
normal processes of the social order.
The greatest day in the life of a
social agency is not when it adds a new
activity, but when it is able to dis
continue an old activity because the
social order has caught up with its
ideals.—Glenn Frank, in The Asheville
Citizen.
TAX-SUPPORTED LIBRARIES
The September issue of the North
Carolina Library Bulletin contains
several tables which reveal the upward
trend in library service in the state.
The following is a partial review of
the statistics as reported by the Bul
letin.
Of the tax-supported libraries report
ing Charlotte reports the largest cir
culation, 411,646 books loaned during
the year, a gain of 60 percent over the
previous year. High Point with a
book collection of 4,407 volumes shows
the highest percent of volumes circu
lated; each book in the collection was
loaned 12.9 times. Evidently all the
books work all the time in High Point!
This library is not quite two years
old.
Black Mountain and Weldon whose
libraries are supported by a special tax
levy are the only libraries in the state
which attain the $1.00 per capita ex
penditure, the standard set by the
American Library Association as the
minimum amount upon which a library
can be expected to do anything like
adequate library service. The average
expenditure for the state is twenty-
three cents per capita.
A comparative statement for the tax-
supported libraries for the years 1926-
27 and 1927-28 is interesting,
1926-27 1927-28
No. of libraries 27... 30
No. of volumes 240,621... 278,260
Circulation 1,536,632.,.1,968,979
County appropria
tions $23,470... $24,768
Total income $177,672... $179,671
Amount spent for
books $46,366... $43,609
Population served... '700,877... 769,380
Per capita expendi
ture $.26... $.23
Since North Carolina is primarily an
agricultural state the county as the
library unit is the most logical. With
the county as the unit one collection
and one staff can serve all the people
living in the cdunty at no more cost
than several libraries maintained at
public expense in several places of the
county. The county library serves the
people through branches, stations, de
posits in schools, and book trucks. Four
teen counties in the state through their
Boards of County Commissioners have
have provided this service in varying
degrees for their citizens. Davidson
county is the most recent county to
adopt the county unit. Following are
these counties with their respective
appropriations. Durham and Guilford
maintain motor book trucks for this
service. Davidson will also have a
truck, the gift of C. F. Finch of
Thomasville.
Buncombe $2,476
Burke 900
Chowan 100
Davidson 5,000
Durham 6,417
Forsyth 1,000
Guilford 4,091
Mecklenburg 4,800
New Hanover 600
Rowan 600
Stanly 1,200
Vance 1,000
Wake 2,760
.Warren 600
While these appropriations show an
interest in library service they are
pitifully small in nearly every case and
very meagre service can be given for
so little money.
HISTORIC SHRINES
The Warren County Record reports
the organization of a county historical
society to stimulate interest in local
history. Not only has Warren county
contributed its full quota of distin
guished personages and been the scene
of several events of historical signifi
cance, but there are within its bor
ders no less than three graves that
ought to be dedicated and preserved as
historic shrines. Nathaniel Macon of
Revolutionary fame was a citizen of
Warren county and is buried there.
What is reported to be the grave of
Governor Turner is located within the
county. A 'third grave that deserves
to be preserved and venerated is that
of the little daugher of General
Robert E, Lee, who died and was
buried in Warren county during the
dark days of the Civil War.
Every county has such spots as these
which ought to be marked, beautified,
and preserved as historic shrines. To
visit such places prompts one to refresh
himself in historical knowledge. It
makes history more vivid and the
teaching of it more dramatic. It helps
to inspire young people with an ap
preciation of the past and what they
owe to those who have lived and
labored before them. Not only do
these retreats have historic value but
they offer people in these crowded,
hurried times a place where they may
go and think. Such hallowed spots
provoke reverie, meditation, worship.
They lift us for a moment to higher
planes of thought. In these days-when
all of us are racing madly up and down
the earth, often with no particular
destination in mind, it would be well
if we could occasionally direct our
selves to one of these serene and lovely
spots and breathe deeply of its pure
and hallowed atmosphere. On Sunday
afternoons let parents turn their cars
off the traveled roads, follow a shady
lane to some such shrine, and there
relate to their children the stories of
our honored dead.
Each county ought to have an his
torical association to discover and pre
serve old records, to locate and mark
obscure graves, to record and dramatize
local history, and, in a word, to awaken
in the minds of youth a fuller knowl
edge and a richer appreciation of our
own eventful past.
PERSON BREAKS RECORD
County commissioners in session to
day reported a record-breaking tax col
lection for the year 1927. When the
books were turned over to Sheriff
N. V. Brooks there was exactly $183,-
503 listed for collection. Sheriff Brooks
turned in his report, which showed that
he had fallen short $200 of collecting
the whole amount.
Chairman A. C. Gentry stated today
that as far as he knew the record
above breaks all previous tax collec
tions for the county of Person. Further
that it could be extended to comparison
with other counties and also top the
records.
With the commissioners now in ses
sion they are busying themselves about
making out the new tax books which
will be turned over to the sheriff with
in a few days.—News and Observer.
THE COST OF PUBLIC EDUCATION, 1925-26
Current Cost Per Pupil, by States
In the following table, based on State School Facts, Vol. IV, No. 24. the
states are ranked according to the daily current cost of public education per
pupil attending school for the year 1926-26. The parallel column gives the
total annual current expenditures per pupil enrolled. Capital outlays and debt
service expenditures are not included.
It cost 79 cents daily per pupil attending school to run public schools in
Nevada and 20 cents per pupil in Mississippi. The daily cost in North Carolina
was 30 cents per pupil in attendance and our rank was 39th. The average coat
for all the states was 48 cents.
In total annual cost per pupil enrolled North Carolina also ranked 39th, the
amount being $32.10, or slightly less than one-half the average for all the
states which was $64.69.
Department of Rural Social-Economics, University of North Carolina
Annual
Daily
Annual
Daily
cost
cost
cost
cost
per
per
per
per
Rank State
pupil
pupil
Rank State
pupil
pupil
attend-
attend-
attend-
attend-
ing
ing
ing
ing
1
Nevada
$116.97....
...$ .79
26
Nebraska
$ 72.67....
...t .48
2
Wyoming
..106.46....
74
26
Delaware
.. 72.73
47
3
Arizona
.. 87.99....
70
27
Wisconsin
.. 71.47
46
4
California
94.27
68
28
Vermont
.. 66.34
46
6
Colorado
.. 89.69
66
29
Rhode Island ..
.. 68.06
... .43
6
Iowa
.. 91.68
... .66
30
Utah
.. 69.74
... .42
5
Montana
.. 94.94
... .66
31
Florida
.. 46.61. ...
... .41
8
New Jersey ...
.. 96.06
.. .64
31
New Mexico...
.. 66.82
41
9
New York
.. 97.97
... .61
31
Oklahoma
.. 42.01
... .41
10
Michigan
... 87.88
... .68
34
Missouri
. 66.27
... .40
10
South Dakota
.. 82.07
... .68
36
Maine
. 61.34
... .39
12
Ohio
.. 82.34
... .66'
36
Maryland
.. 69.18
... .39
12
Washington ...
.. 79.19
... .66
36
Texas
. 44.79
... .39
14
Idaho
.. 71.19
... .64
38
Louisiana
. 39.36
... .36
14
Minnesota
.. 77.28
... .64
39
North Carolina .
.32.10
... .30
14
New Hampshire 82.09
... .64
40
Virginia
. 31.97
... .26
14
North Dakota .
. 76.18
... .64
41
Kentucky
. 27.18
... .26
14
Oregon
.. 81.27
... .64
41
South Carolina.
. 26.08
... .26
19
Connecticut....
, 77.98
... .62
41
Tennessee
. 26.69
... .26
19
Illinois
.. 79.91
... .62
44
Alabama
. 22.66
.. .23
19
Massachusetts.
. 81.23
... .62
45
Arkansas
. 21.20
... .21
22
Indiana
. 79.94
... .60
45
West Virginia .
. 27.22 ....
... .21
22
Kansas
. 72.91
... .60
47
Georgia
. 22.07
.. .20
24
Pennsylvania...
„ 74.39
... .49
47
Mississippi
. 20.38
.. .20