$.y Sorrrn firrord
PubMahtd Evry Thursday By
Mcofa r nnnng UHnporty
P. 0 . Boa 70 Warrenlon. N. C. 27589
BIGNALL JONES, Editor
Member North Carolina Press Association
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Differences Will Be Forgotten
The trouble with elections in
small towns and counties is that
everyone knows everyone else,
but church, civic and fraternal
ties, keeps one from always
voting for the best candidate,
and in the process there are
many hurt feelings.
So the elections in the three
incorporated towns of Warren
County created ill feelings to a
degree, but in the friendly
atmosphere of these towns ill
feelings will not last, and
differences will soon be forgotten.
The results of the two state
bond issues and the Constitutional
Amendments will not suit
everyone. As these comments
are being written in late
afternoon of election day the
results are not known. So far as
the bond issues are concerned,
we will be hurt if they are not
passed, because we feel that the
state badly needs the funds the
issues would provide at this
time.
We strongly support the
passage of the Succession
Amendment, for reasons stated
before in this column. But if a
majority of voters fail to express
these views, we can console
ourselves in the knowledge that
such vote will only be a
postponment and not a defeat.
Basing our conclusions on
national trends which leave only
seven states where governors
can not succeed themselves it
will only be a few years until
North Carolina adopts Succession.
It is our hope and belief
that it will only be a matter of
time until an advancing state
will also give its governor the
veto power.
Win, lose or draw, we believe
that most of our citizens will be
glad that the election is over.
Mostly Personal
7 l . 1 . t , C I \ a %
Little Doubt Remains As To Governor's Resting Place
By BIGNALL JONES
There can be little doubt
that James Turner, first
governor of North Carolina
from Warren County, is
buried at his boyhood home
South of Fishing Creek in
the Creek community of
Warren County, as has long,
been maintained by residents
of that area.
Although several residents
of that section have
told of visiting Governor
Turner's grave and of the
brick vault which covered
his grave, historians have
refused to accept this
verdict, because the biography
of Governor and
Senator James Turner in
"Biological Sketches of the
American Congress" said
that he was buried at
Bloomsbury, his home in the
Ridgeway-Drewry section
of Warren County.
On the other hand, Alton
Pridgen told me that his
father, and grandfather had
told him that Governor
Turner was buried in the
Creek Community, that
there was considerable
delay in the body's arrival
from Bloomsbury, that he
had often visited the
gravesite in earlier years,
and that on one occasion he
had taken the late Lunsford
Long to the site. Over the
years, visitors to the grave
have removed the brick as
souvenirs, or because they
needed brick, and today
there is nothing but perewinkle
marking the site of
the cemetery.
A letter from Mrs. Emma
Duke Bouknight of Colum
bia, S. C., granddaughter of
! the late Mark Clan ton Duke,
who once owned the land
upon which the grave is
located, said that her father,
James Walter Duke of
Areola, told her as a .child
that Governor Turner was
buried on their old farm. He
said that the grave was near
the old Duke home and was
marked by a pile of brick
and stone.
The difficulty in accepting
this version lay, first in the
flflim that be was buried at
Bloomsbury, where he died
on Jan. 15,1824 and secondly
in finding any logical reason
for his burial in the Creek
community. The mystery
was cleared up during the
past week by a couple of
telephone conversations and
by searching the 1825
records of the Register of
Deeds.
One night last week
Janice Seaman (Mrs. P. G.
Seaman), who was reared in
the Axtelle Community,
telephoned to tell me of the
location of Camp Beauragard
at Ridgeway. She said
that it had been pointed out
to her as a child by her
uncle, the late Austin Allen;
she also said that her uncle
had told her that Governor
Turner's body, first buried
at Bloomsbury, had later
been moved to a site on
Fishing Creek.
The next day, for further
verification of Mr. Allen's
statement, I called Miss
Eula Allen, Janice's aunt.
She told me that not only
had Austin Allen told her
that Governor Turner s
body had been moved, but
that her father, Walter
Allen, who often hunted over
that section, had told her the
same thing. Miss Eula also
told me where the Turner
cemetery at Bloomsbury is
located. This I plan to visit
as soon as the ground dries.
Searching the county
records (or further light on
the subject, I found in Book
24 (1825) on page 189, the
following deed:
Turner Executors to Burwell
Davis - :
"One parcel of land,
situate, lying and being in
the said county of Warren on
Big Fishing Creek. . . .and
adjoining the lands of
Matthew Davis, the said
Burwell Davis and others,
and being on the south side
of Big Fishing Creek, owned
and possessed by the said
James Turner, and which
descended to him from his
father, and containing an
estimated 300 acres, more
or less, to have and to hold
the aforesaid premises with
the appurtenances thereon,
to the said Burwell Davis,
his heirs and assigns
forever; the same having
been sold at public auction
in pursuance of the powers
vested in the executors to
the last will and testament
of the said James Turner,
dec'd, after having been
advertised in the Warrenton
Reporter and at other public
places in the said County of
Warren, when the said
Burwell Davis did bid the
sum of four thousand and
five dollars and was the last
and highest bidder. ..."
The sale was dated the
20th day of December, 1825.
Executors signing the
Change In Public Attitude Is Needed To Improve Education
(Editor's Note: The following is a
portion of the address made by
Vermont C. Royster, Raleigh native
and former Editor of The Wall Street
Journal, to the Phi Beta Kappa
Association of Wake County.)
Forty years ago the country was in
the grip of the Great Depression, and
we ought to all be grateful that whatever
economic troubles we have now,
they are not such as in those days.
TTie mores and customs of Raleigh,
and of the whole South, have also
changed much in the years between.
The process of that change made for a
turbulent time. But we are all better off
for having put behind us the idea that
there were two classes of citizens,
white and black. We can see now that
the blacks were not only gainers of that
change, so are we all.
But there are other changes of which
I am not so certain. I am referring to
the changes in our educational system
or to changes in our attitude toward the
nature and purpose of education which
have come to be reflected in our
educational system.
On the simplest level we see this
change as expressed in the common
complaint that Johnny can't read. Or
do arithmetic. As a blanket indictment
that is exaggerated. As a professor at
the University in Chapel Hill, I can tell
you that we have many able and
well-educated young people in the
rising generation.
All the same, there is enough
substance in the indictment to make it
disturbing.
In 1963 the average score of all high
school graduates taking the College
Entrance Board verbal examinations
was 478 out of a possible 750. This year
the average verbal score on those same
tests was 429.
In 1963 the average score on the
College Entrance math tests was 502.
This year it was 470. This 14-year
decline did not come in one sudden drop
in one particular year. The scores have
progressed relentlessly downward.
There are still outstanding students
whose performance is excellent,
whether on the College Board exams or
in their records in college. What we are
talking about is not the exceptional
student but the average one, about the
decline in the general level of performance.
•
It's that decline in average *W1« that
raises some questions. What has
caused this steady decline? Does it
make any difference? If it is a proper
matter of concern, what can be done
about it?
To probe some of these questions
with regard to the College Entrance
exams, a special study group was set
up, headed by WiHard Wlrtz, chairman
of the National Manpower Institute and
former Secretary of Labor. It came to
some interesting conclusions.
It concluded, for example, that the
test score decline did not result from
any change in the tests or in the methods
of scoring them, a charge that has
sometimes been made. The Wirtz study
did find, as you might expect, that part
of the decline in average scores from
1963 to 1970 was due to a large increase
in the number of students taking the
tests. There were consequently more
test-takers who had comparatively
lower high school grades. In other
words, the average was lowered in
those years because the total was
diluted.
But since 1970 this has not been the
case. In the past seven years the
composition of the test-taking group
has changed hardly at all. Yet the
average scores have continued to
decline. So some other explanation
must be sought.
What of television, that familiar
villain? The study group noted that by
age 16 children have spent some 10,000
to 15,000 hours watching TV, more time
than they have spent in school. It
agreed that this detracts from homework,
competes with schooling generally
and has contributed to some of the
decline in the scores.
But the panel rejected that as the
chief villain. Television itself can be
educational, it noted. Where it hurts
education is in the abuse, not the use.
The main problem, said this group, is
that there has been (and I quote) "a
significant dispersal of learning activities
and emphasis in the school.
There is a clearly observable
evidence of diminished seriousness of
purpose and attention to mastery of
skills and knowledge - in the schools,
the home and the society generally."
The panel pointed its finger
specifically at automatic grade-tograde
promotions, grade inflation, the
lowering of the demand levels of textbooks
and the reduction in the requirements
of homework. In consequence
"There has been a marked diminution
in young people's learning motivation."
That is a diagnosis with which I will
not quarrel. But that still leaves us with
the question of why there has been a
dimunition in young people's learning
motivation, why the educational
system has succumbed to such things
as grade inflation, automatic promotions
and lowering levels of textbooks
and teaching materials.
Here we must beware of putting all
the blame on teachers, whether in
lower schools or colleges. The problem
goes much deeper than that.
Look for a moment at some of these
specific causes mentioned - automatic
promotions, the giving of inflated and
undeserved grades, making the
textbooks leas challenging. All of these
things reflect widespread conceptions
about the nature of democracy - or, to
my way of thinking, misconceptions
about democracy
Out of our well-intentioned and
rightful desire that a society such as
ours should offer, as much as is
humanly possible, equal opportunity to
all, we have come to think it means
equality of result for all. That is,
because a democracy _such as ours
requires that every young person have
the right to go to high school, he also
has a right to graduate from high
school -regardles of his capabilities or
his diligence.
In many colleges there has been a
war against any kind of grading. The
philosophy of this is that we ought not
to distinguish between excellence and
mediocrity, and especially not record
anyone's evidence of failure. Democracy
means everyone is equal, does it
not? Then how can we permit our
educational system to say that some
are not equal to others in their performance
in English or history or math?
This misconception pervades not
only our educational system but much
else in our society. We do not like to
admit that all persons are not born with
equal powers and faculties. If we do,
what then of that declaration of our
democracy that all men are created
both free and equal?
Part of the problem is that the whole
question of educational standards has
gotten tangled up in the civil rights
issue. The argument here is that it is
wrong to require the same standards in
educational performance of those who
are disadvantaged by their past
economic, social or racial background
as for others not so handicapped
, £a#w#tely, there are some faint -J
signs that this attitude toward education
is changing. Among blacks there
are voices being raised to say that their
own people are being cheated by
reducing educational standards to a
dead level of mediocrity.
Dr. Prezell Robinson, president of St.
Augustine's College in Raleigh, has
been in the forefront of those
proclaiming excellence as the only
right goal for black education.
There are only a few faint signs.
Whether they will mark the beginning
of a different public attitude toward
education, I do not know. I can only
hope.
For if we are to improve education, if
we are to have schools that teach
Johnny to read, if we are to halt this
decline in College Entrance Board
scores, if we are to raise the average
level of skills of college students, we
must first have a change in the public
attitude.
And changing that attitude is not just
something for the educators but for all
of us, especially those of you here
assembled.
As Others See It
Tobacco's Road Green With Envy
Greensboro Daily News
Put this in your pipe and smoke it:
North Carolina, the world's leading tobacco
producer, would experience economic
disaster if its tobacco farmers
and workers suddenly fell on hard
times. Yet that is precisely what might
happen if the anti-smoking lobby gets it
way.
Now don't get us wrong. We agree
that it's a little inconsistent, to say the
least, for government to conduct an
anti-smoking campaign with one hand
while providing federal price supports
for tobacco growers with the other. The
dangers of smoking to public health are
well-known, and they must be
recognized.
But that doesn't mean government
can or should attempt to stamp out
smoking altogether - a costly and
thoroughly unrealistic goal. Nor does it
entitle government to preside over the
severe dislocation of one of the South'!
most lucrative agricultural enterprises.
, North Carolina with its tobacco connection,
is fast becoming a kind of
domestic Israel: Embattled, isolated
and misunderstood. It cannot forever
count on the old tobacco sltisnce in
Congress to prevail. Compromise is the
only way out.
The Shelby Daily Star
Our friends in Lincoln and Gaston
counties will pardon us, we hope, if we
exhibit traces of being green with envy
over their recent industrial acquisitions.
Lincoln County has broken ground
for a new Timken Rollar Bearing plant.
Gaston County apparently has
landed a Freightliner Truck assembly
plant near Mount Holly, although the
firm hasn't yet said for sure that the
plant will go on that site.
Both Timken and Freightliner represent
the kind of diversification that
the entire state needs, but which we in
this area need even worse.
Down East, industrialization of almost
any kind is welcomed as a relief
from the pressure of a tobacco-oriented
economy.
In the Piedmont, there is a better mix
in the ecooomy, but we, too, are atil
overly dependent upon industries such
as textiles and furniture.
Large Families
I believe in large families. Every
woman should have at least four
Inlands Ton Zsa Gabor.
deed, registered by Burwell
Davis on the 8th day of
March, 1826, were Thomas
Turner, Daniel Turner,
Richard Bullo.k, Peter R.
Davis and Robert Park.
I hope to find written or
printed documentation of
the removal of Governor
Turner's body to Creek, in
the weeks or months ahead;
It will be greatly appreciated
if any readers with any
information as to the time of
burial at Creek and or any
other information about the.
subject will share it with
me.
dtlz&r* vtoui
Learning
From
Nature
by John W. Gardner
There is validity in the widespread apprehension
today. An era is ending. Known landmarks
are fading. We are leaving a familiar world
behind.
The instinct of us humans to stabilize our
environment—both outer and inafcr—inevitably
leads us to invest our institutions with a sense
of permanence, of sacredness, of unchallengeable
tightness. This human need for stability
leads over the years to an institutional rigidity
that is essentially anti-nature. Nature is tumultuous,
moving, changing, always in flux.
Things are being born, maturing, adapting,
competing, surviving, dying. One thing waxes,
another wanes. Things ebb and flow.
Humans create organizations and societies to
serve their shared purposes, and then gradually
rigidify those institutions as though in a vain
attempt to shut out the tumult of nature. But
nature wins. Eventually, in trying to shut out
the great ebb and flow of life, societies and
organizations smother themselves.
Almost no one is hostile, in principle, to the
idea of renewal. Why is it so difficult? Partly
because decay starts from within. When individuals
close their minds, stop learning,
become set in their ways, it is not—as a rule—
because anyone forced them to do so. They are
impelled by inner needs or failings. So it is with >
;wi ftattorrt.Nationsaren't pushed into senihty and ^ "
oblivion. They die of their inner rigidities. ■
In short, one must look for the villain within
—within oneself, within one's society. That's
no fun. That is why the critics who tell us what
our trouble is may be fiercely resented. As a
general thing, we do not know ourselves and
don't want to. It isn't that we can't find the
truth that will save us. We run from it. We cry
'' Where is the voice that will tell us the truth?''
and clamp our hands over our ears.
We shout "Show us the way!" and shut our
eyes apprehensively.
Those who understand what we must do in
order to stave off self-destruction are unwelcome
because they tell us to rearrange things
within ourselves or our society that we have no
intention of rearranging. There's nothing more
unwelcome than a savior when you're not ready
to be saved.
The status quo is a fabric not easily unraveled.
There are precedents, traditions,
customs, written codes and unwritten rules.
Some are still useful, and others are the petrified
remains of something that was once useful.
There are procedures, techniques, methods
and standards, some still sound, some long
outwom. There are arrangements that cannot
easily be changed because to change them
would alter the distribution of power or wealth.
There are institutions that cannot be overhauled
because their long existence has conferred
on them a certain sanctity.
Renewal involves both continuity and
change. The continuity of the generations and
of traditions makes possible change that
doesn't descend into chaos—or veer wildly in
directions no one had foreseen. Societies
change in ways that are closer to organic
growth than to mechanical restructuring.
A healthy society is one in which, at any
given time, some things are being born, some
things are flourishing in maturity and some
things are dying. At the time of World War I,
air and automobile travel were in their infancy,
railroads were in their prime, and the horsedrawn
buggy was headed for extinction.
Innovation, decay, renewal and death occur
in parallel—affecting different parts within the
system. So it is in the body of a living thing. At
any given moment, some cells are Hying, some
are coming into being. So it is with plants in a
garden. A vital society is one in which the
forces making for disintegration and death are
more than balanced by new life, growth and
health.
It is often true that the only way to conserve
is to innovate and change. And it is also true
that the only stable society is the society in
motion.
A former Secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare, John Gardner ia the Founding Chairman
of Common Cauee.