/J
The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
the date indicated below.
the university of north CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
JULY 7, 1915
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. I, NO. 33
Editorial Bonrd: E. C. Branson, J. (j, deli. Hamilton, L. R, WilBoii, Z. V. Jadd, S R. Winters, L. A. WilUams. Sntered as second-class matter November 14, 1914, at the postofHce at Chapel
Hiil, N. C.| under the act of August 24, 1912.
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
'34
*
■S'
ITEM 3: THOMAS J. JARVIS
Like .Teffexson, .Tarvia Ix'lievecf pi'o-
'foumlly ill the education of the people, as
athe, bed-rock of safety in denioci'atic conv
inonwealtlis.
Said Seft'erson: Wlioever expects a
• people to he ignorant and free expects
■ivliat ue\er was and never will be.
' Said .farvis in Item 3 of his last will
and teatauient; “Tlie people of North
X'arolina have greatly koiiored me and I
-desire to leave on record this final declar
ation of iiiy everlasting gratitude to them,,
and to make this last plea for the educa-
•tion of their children.
“InttJligelice ' and virtue mark the
standing of any people in State or Na
tion, and 1 would therefore urge tiie peo
ple to press the education of their chil-
lren far beyond aujthing heretofore at-'
Xontpteci.”
TOO BAD
In 77 school distrifets of Wilkes county,
'52 per cent or more than half the farmers
bought corn last year or failed to raise
ample home supplies, .says Sivperintend-
ent C. (!. Wright in speaking of his re-
■ eent school surveys.
And t/)ur-flfths of these farmers are
. owners, not tenants.
■ In tlie census year, Wilkes consumed
.330,000 bushels of corn more than the
• county produced. Only 16 counties made
• a'better showing, but the bill for hn-
portc^l corn left the county sonje J300,-
■ 000 (Kjorer.
Iowa faruiers raise tlieir own supplies
and were wortli $3,386 apiece counting
.men, women, and children in 1910; in
AVilkes the per capita country wealth was
-only 1222.
Wilkes iliight grow rich by exporting
$1.370,’D0() ' v\orth of bread and meat;
i*wt not by importing it year by year.
^ OUGHT TO BE IN EVERY
HOME
Tlie school edition of The Progressive
i>Farmer, June 26, ought to be read
thorougiily and thoughtfully by every
■teacher, school official, and patron in
-this and other states.
It exhibits in an aduiirable way the
. range and variety of community interests
that need tojconceni the teacher who as
pire." to leadersliii) as well as teacher-
.ship.
\ Nortii Carolina needs competent le.ui-
■ ers as badly as she needs teachers. And
^ Jx’. is a poor teacher who^ is not also a
rtjommunity leader.
Nortli Carolina Education, The Pro-
; • greasive Farmer-, and Poe’s new volume
•on Organizatfon and Co-Operation auioiig
i'anners ought to be in every home in
.;the state.
Wlien our teachers are everywliere
■ -eager students of country life prolilems,
and our t'arinerj; are eager readers of edu
cational as well as ehurch papers, then
North Carolina will move into the first
rank in a hundred important particulars.
COSTLY CREDIT
8up[)ly-store credit in our cotton coun
ties in 1913 cost Sie cOttoii growers $5,-
553,000, says W'. K. Camp, Chief of the
Divisii.iu of Markets in our State Agricul
tural Department. -
If these* farmers had been self-feeding,
self-financing farmens they would liave
saved this va.st sum. If they had bor
rowed at the legal rate and paid casli for
supplies they would have saved 14,600,000.
Buying farm supplies witli cotton mon
ey on time-credit, supply-store account
leaves our cotton farmers about five mil
lion dollars poorer year by year.
THE BANKERS CAN DO IT
If Southern bankers and mercliants
would refuse to extend credit to farmers
pexcept on tlie basis of tlie farmer’s mak
ing himself as nearly as po.ssible self-sup
porting, says Mr. Bradford Knapp, chief
■of the federal Demonstration it
would be the greatest possible step toward
a fjermanent and prosperous agriculture
in the South.
If tlie banks would refuse credit to
merchants who do a time-credit liusiness
protected by crop liens on cotton and
itobacco acreages alone, 41 counties in
North Carolina would be’worth seveiityr
five million dollars mow in a single year.
A half dozen imjiortant men in the
banking business of the State can force a
greater diversification of crops in a single
season than our 63 farm demonstrators
c.ln effect in a whole life time.
And they can do it almost by lifting or
lowering their eyebrows!
UNBELIEVABLE WASTE
Itluis been estimated, by a commission
charged with investigating the matter
that we wasted in this coiintry last year
^ISS.OOC.OOO, in new roads badly built,
in good roads sadly neglected, and in
poor roads clumsily patched 1
It .seems hard for us to learn tliat the
systematic inspection . and proper main
tenance of good roads is j list as important
as the building of tTieiu. We spend
money lavishly on improved public high
ways and ttien allow them to go to waste
in a few years for lack of attention.
Mr. .1. Hampton Rich,' representing
the State Agricultural Department, will
tell thi: Uountr^Tivfe Conference at the
University^ily 5-10 about our new Boys’
Hoad Patrol law; which attacks the puz
zle of road maintenance, county by coun
ty, hooks up the schools with the prob
lem and trains the children in civic du
ties and responsibilities.
LIFE-LONG PROFITS
If we can make a whirjwinl campaign,
put North Carolina in the headlines all
over the ['nited States, and awaki^'ii our
own pet)ple to w hat we can do, says Bioii
II. Butler-in the Kaleigh News and t)l>-
server, the profits will come as long as we
live.
The Sandhills country is perhaps the
most widely known farming region iti'the
state. More jieople in the Nprth and
West ki^w of Tiloore county, North Car
olina, than of any other couiity in the
Soilth-east, this side of Florida.
Why? Those Tarheels believe in the
Sandhills. They believe in themselves,
and they have shouted their belief the
whole Country over.
John T. Patrick began it. The Tufts,
Henry Page, Bion II. Butler, The Pine-
hurst Outlook, the Southern 1‘ines Tour
ist, the Sandhill Farmers’ Association,
and the Sandhill Board of Trade have
ke]it up a fanfare ever since.
Such men, such beliefs, such newspaper
itL'iiis, such bunching of efforts, and such
a whirlwind campaign are what Butler,
Forester and I’arrisli have in mind for
the whole of North ('aroliiia.
WOMEN ORGANIZE AND PAVE
THE WAY IN ORANGE
“A\'hat I consider perhaps the greatest
forcc^ we have at work in Orange Coun-/
ty”, said Ih’. L. L. Lumsden of the U.
S. Public Health Service, the other day,
“is the Woman’s Sanitation League.”
This is an organization composed of the
women of the county whicji has for its
purpose the j^romotion and advancement
of all health measures in the comnuinity.
Said he, ‘''Women are the best adver
tisers in the world and what they have
done in Orange county in creating favor
able public sentiment for this health cam
paign is simply marvelously To show
you,” he ^ntinued, “that they are work
ing aliyng the right line and doing things
worth while. I 'vill tell you something of
how it is done.
“Every woman who becomes a mem
ber of the league pledges her efl’orts to
three things: First, that her own home
shall be provided, as far as she^ herself is
able to have it so, and that’s a long way,
you know, v.ith some safe and sanitary
method for the disposal of all human ex
crement. Second, that there shall bo an
unpolluted Mater supply for home and
famil}', and third, that her home shall lie
screened against fiies and mosquitoes.
“You see they are doing the real thing
and, furthermore, they propose to have
this fall a visiting nur.«or sanitary school
inspector for their public schools.
‘ ‘Then you have no trouble in getting
the co-operation of the,men?
“None whatever you see when We get
the wives interested, the husbands cOine
right along. Especially is this so in
health work.”
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
President E. K. Graham
The University recognizes no antag
onist but ignorance in this immortal
T)usiness of commonwealth service.
Ignorance it conceives as the unpar
donable sin of a democracy and on it
in e\'ery form it w ould wage relentless
warfare.
To this end it would unify and co
ordinate its whole sj'stem of public
e(hication in a spiritual union of ele
mentary schools and secondary
schools, of agricultural and mechan
ical and normal colleges, of private
and denominational schools anl col
leges—all as a. means to the end of
the great commonwealth for which
men have dreamed and ilied but
scarcely daretl to hope.
Fully conscious of the confusions of
prejudice and the blind unreason of
self-interest and greed, it is even
inort* conscious of the curativi' powers
of the democratic state and its indom-
itable.purpose to be wholly free.
So it wonld enlist all vocations and
all ]irofessions in a comprehensive,
statewide programme of achiex’ing as
a practicable reality Burke’s concept
ion of the state as “a partnership in
all science, a partnership in all art, a
partnership in every virtue an.I in all
perfection, and since such a partner
ship cannot be attained in one gener-
atioT[i, a partnership between all thf)se
who are dead, and those « ho are yet
unborn.’'
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 35
RURAL LIFE CONFERENCE,
UNIVERSITY OF N. C.
JULY 5-10
Tlie annual session of the Knral Lite
Conference will be held at the University
of North Carolina .fiily 5--10. The Con-
fen'iice hours will be'3;30-5 :30 p. m. for
each day of the week.
The Program
Monday. Houses and grounds for rural
schools. 1. Ivequirenients. of rural
school houses. 2. The beautifying
of rural school grounds.
Tuesday. CUub work for boys and girls.
Wednesday. I'mprovenient of rural
homes. 1. AVater supply. 2. Gar
den, fruits an I vegetables. 3. Home
dairy. 4. Type of home for country.
Thursday. Hural school improvement.
1. Work of school betterment asso
ciations. 2. Play and recreation
for rural schools..
Frilay. Kural sanitation. 1. Home
sanitation. 2. School sanitation.
Saturday. The work of the Kural Cliuroh
and Sunday .School.
Who Are Invited
All good citizens who are interested in
the improvement of country conditions
in North Carolina are cordiaUy invited to
this conference and urged to bring with
them some \ ital suggestion for the solu
tion of our big country problem.
Special Lecturers
Among those who will be present to di
rect the thought of the Conference will be
Dr. William A. McKeever of the Lfniver-
sity of Kansas; President E. K. Graham;
Commissioner \V. A. Graham; Dr. II. Q.
Alexander, President of Farmers’ Union;
j\Ir. T. E. Brown, Director of Boys’ Corn
Club; Miss Mary G. vShotwell; Miss Edna
lieinhart; Dr. W. S. Hankin, Secretary
of State Boaril of Health; Dr. F. E. Har
rington, U. S. Public Health Service; !Mr.
J. Ilami)ton .Rich, State Agricultural De
partment; Rev. B. R. Lacy; Rev. Charles
E. Maddry; Miss Edith Royster; Mr. J.
S. Moran, Washington, 1). cf; Mr. J. A.
Reed, State Experiment Station; Director
N. W. 'W'alker; Professor W. C. Coker;
Professor E. C. Branson; Professor Zeb
X. Judd; Professor T. F. Ilickerson; and
Jlr. Fred Yoder.
SPONGING OUT ILLITERACY
ftlr. John Paul Jones of Tarboro, the
state leader of the Junior Order of Amer
ican IMechanics, is leading his hosts
againsts iUiteracy in North Carolina with
the zeal of a crusader in the twiUght
times of modern history.
He is campaigning the Moonlight
School with a fervor that ought to stir
the patriotism of every worthy ‘soul in
North Carolina. Our cap goes off to
him and his Order.
THE ARMY OF THE UN
EMPLOYED
Last April and 51ay saw the end of an
other year’s work in all of the public and
private schools in North Carolina.
Fiilly ten thousand tei^chers and more
than four hundred thousand boys and
girls walked out from the schoolhouse.
Somebody locked tlie doOrs and sent the
keys to the chairman of the school com
mittee, and the long summer- vacation
began to drag along.
Ten Thousand Teachers
Just tliiiik of Tt! Ten thousand teach
ers out of a j«b for at least three months
ill the year! W'bat will tliey do for a
living during all that time? \\'ell, some
of them will go to a teachers institute or
to a summer school for a few w eeks at;
great expense for ill-paid teachers. Many
of those who do this will get a call to a
better paying place and their former pu
pils will lose their teachers who kmyv
their ways and disi)ositions and class-
standing better than any new teacher
possibly can; and—well Who is to
blame?
Four Hundred Thousand
Pupils
\Mien the pupils left school,-they ran
home, put away their books, and set
about finding a way to spend the monot
onous vacation time.
The town boy, may be,, got a job in
some store; his sister began to stay about
the house and help her mother in the
care of the home. The boys in tlie coun
try went to work in the fields While the
girls, like their town cousins, went to
heli)ing their mothers in the household
duties. All this is good, but in prac
tically every case, tliat ^vhi^^i had been
thought about and studied almut in the
schoolroom did not follow the pupils to
their homes and enter consciously into
the vacation work; and—well. Ought it
to be so?
Five Thousand Empty School-
houses
The schoolhoti.«e is there where it wa.s
when the teachers and the children and
the parents left it on the last day of
school and the key is still hanging on the
wall in the chairman’s home.
The weeds, may be, have Ix'gun to
grfnv in the walks and on the grounds
around thi^ building; the well is-^[W.ssibly
.settling down into just an unused hole in
the ground where typhoid germs will have
every chance to g(‘t ready to kill people
iiNthe fall, and things have a “put-out-
of-business” look all around the .school
pr('mi.«es; and—well, Should the.se things
b('?
\
Fifteen Thousand Committee-
\
men
Many of the inembers of\the school
conniiitteemen are thinking tkiat some
thing miust be done with the school .sys
tem to keep the great army of the public
schools from this annual “breaking up”,
and to annul this inaction and waste in
the suiimier time.
Here is an oi>portunity for a fine piece
of constructive work by somebody. . Ten
th»iisand teachers, four hundred thou
sand iHipils, and ten million dollars
worth of (‘(luipment idle, idle,_ idle for
three long summer months; and—well.
Why allow a ten-million/dollar inve.st-
ment to he idle?
A Better Use of Vacations
On the closing day of .school, the chil
dren ga\ e some sort of an entertainnieiit
that was a credit to them and to their
ti'aciibrs, and men and women who had
not met together as a connnunity for a
year possibly came together at the .school
house auil had a delightful time listening
to the children of the neighborhood en
tertain the .i>ublic with their songs and
s[)eeches and othei-exercises.
On every Sunday since that good com
mencement day the people have met iu
the difi'erent churches c>f the neighbor
hood, but they have not met (me time as
n conununity for pleasure, entertainment,
or general comnuinity uplift, and the
proof of it is that there stands the school
house, a common meeting jilace fi.)r all
the people—there it stands, shut up tight
and unused; and—well. Why?
Of course we must have vacations but
tlie thought occurs that we could diave a
better, a more profitable, a more educa
tive time in the vacation days thau we
are now having.
ROCKY MOUNT: ANOTHER
LIVE CENTER
In the census year, the food and feed
consumed by man and beast in Nash and
I’.dgecombe counties amountcd to $3,641,-
000 more than the farmers of these two
counties jirodnced. That is to say, every
five years as inucli wealth, in cold cash,
goes out of these two counties, as the
farmers have been able to accumulate in
some 175 years.
In other words, if this vast sum, or the
most of it, could be hehl down by a sys
tem of live-at-home farming, the farm
wealth of these two splendid counties
would be doubled in five years. The farm
ers, tlid 'merchants, and the liankers
would reap the benefits alike.
The business men, the farmdemonstra
tors, and the farmers are therefore mov
ing towaril a Twin County Board of
Trade.
They are exploring the foundations of
agricultiiie as a business in Nash and
lOdgecombe and the relations of Rocky
]Mount to permanent prosperity in the
surro'uiuling farm .regions. They are puz
zling out the local market problems that
concern home-raised grains, bay and
forage, pork and beef; and scattering iiir
formation among the farmers about bet
ter farming.
MORE FARM LIFE SCHOOLS
Gaston County has just established a
farm life school. The building and
twenty acres of grounj-have already been
provided.
Union and other counti-es are moving
toward farm life schools. Orange Coun
ty ought to be thinking about this thing
and planning for it earnestly.
Outside of Chapel Hill and Hillsboro,
there is not a high school in the dounty
for some 5,000 school children.
STAY-IN-SCHOOL WEEK
It is a sad fact that too many children
in our Southern schools, especially in ru
ral schools, never finish the work of the
elementary grades and still fewer ever go
on to high school. True, public high
schools have not been long in existence
here in the South, but in too nian.y places
the opportunity is not seized by any con
siderable portion of the boys and girls.
In New Orleans a Stay-iii-School Cam
paign has been organized to be conduct(>d
during a stated week in the school year.
Not only are the sehdols and school offi- ' ■
-cials called upon, but the press, civic as
sociations, board of trade, alumnae asso
ciations of the high schools, and all citi
zens are urgeil to participate actively in
stimulating an interest and desire on the
part of the boys and girls to stay in school.
\\’hether or not more children are kept
in school because of this cam))aigli it is /
certain that the citizens of New Orleans
know more about their schools and are
more vitally interested in them than evei-
before; \\ by not do something similar
in Nortli ,Carolina?
THE EMERSON STADIUM
Work has been started upon the hand
some new stadium given to the University
of North Carolina by Capt. Isaac Fj.
Emerson of Baltimore. It will be finish
ed in early September under the direct
ion of Mr. William Parker, another loyal
son of North Carolina.
The stadium will he built of reinforced
concrete. The seating capacity w ill be
2,500. Therewill becjuarters for the ’Var
sity and the visiting teams. The batlis^
will be finished in inarble and provided''^
with every modern appointment. The
grounds will be enclosed with wire fenc
ing set in concrete posts. The total cost
will be about Ji25,000.
If anybody is prouder of the new sta
dium than Capt. Emerson and Mr. Par
ker, it will be Professor M. C. S. Noble,
through whom the gift was announced
last year.