The news id this publica-
* tioQjs released for the pres* on
the date indicated beiow.
the university of north CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
(or its Bureau o( Extension.
JULY 12, 1916
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. n, NO. 33
B. C. Branson, J. 9. deR, Hamilton, L. 8. Wilson, L. A WUlla R R tk ~ ^
' ma, K- H. Thornton, O. n. MoKie. Entered as second-class matter November U, 1914, at the^ooatofflce at Chapel Hill, N.C., nnder the act of August 24,19ia
editorial Boardi
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
A SIGNIFICANT EVENT
'J'he Country-Life [nstitute at the Uni
versity, July 5-9, is coming into session
just as tfiis issue of the University News
Letter goes to press.
It is significant (1) because it is the
first Country-Jife Conference under min
isterial leadership, (2) because it is a
•sympathetic federation of the various
countrj-lite forces and agencies in North
Carolina, and (3) because it indicates
what any community in the stat« can do,
■wherever there is alert leadersiiip and
Christian fellowship.
The Bulletin on Country-Life lustitutes,
issued by the University Extension Bu-
ireau, is full of details and directions for
the holding of such Institutes all over
North Carolina. Watauga county has
already applied for 30 copies. This Bul
letin will be freely sent to the communi
ties that are interested.
Letters of inqury and application have
already come from fifty-three counties
and five states. The press of the state
iias given generous space both to the
.Country-Life Institute and the Country-
Life Institute Bulletin; and this is partic-
cularly true of the country weeklies.
SWAIN COUNTY: ECONOMIC
AND SOCIAL
?50 runs the title of the 120 page manu
script prepared by Prof. Harry F. Lat-
shaw, principal of the high school at Al
mond. This important worlf was done
by the author in the workshop of The
North Carolina Club at the University,
wnder the stimulus of the Know-Your-
Home-County ideal of the Club.
The chapter devoted to the Historical
Background takes an inspiring backward
look at Swain Day-Before Yesterday.
The other chapters take a competent
Eound-About and Forward look attiwain
To-daj' and To-morrow—at the Swain
That is and Is to be.
These chapters consider (J) Kesources—
Mineral, Timber, and Water-Power, (2)
Industries and Opportunities, (3) Facts
About the Folks, (4) About W'ealth and
Taxation, (5) Farm Conditions and Farm
Practices, (6) Food and Feed Production
and the IxK'al Market Problem, and (7)
Where Swain Leads, Where Sfie Lags,
;and The Way Out.
He compares Swain in 121 important
particulars with every other county in
the state, and these comparisons are high-
Ij instructive and stimulating.
A Home-County Text*BooK
The County Board ol Education can
'well afford to put tnis work into bulletin
form and place it witliout charge in every
home in the county. The teachers and
high school pupils, the ministers, farmers,
«nd bankers and other business people
ought to study it as a little Home-County
■textbook. It would cost perhaps $150;
ibut ten pages of advertising by the mer-
'Cliants would cover this expense.
Fifty-two counties of North (;arolina
Slave now been explored in this way by
devoted students at tlie University; but
Mr. Latshaw’s work sets a high water
mark for all future ell'orcs of this sort.
We congialulate Mr. Latshaw and
.Swam county.
and Louisburg College.
Baptism of Virginia Dare, by St.
Mary’s School and Salem Academy and
College.
Durant s Land Purchase from Kiico-
kaueti, by Wake Forest College.
The Plantation Grentlemen at Home,
by the University of North Carolina and
the State Normal and Industrial College.
Marriage of Hugh Waddell and Mary
Haynes, by Greensboro ('ollege for
Women and Littleton College.
Battle of Moore’s ('reek, by Flora
McDonald College.
A Brave Carolinian and a Generous
Britisher, or an episode in the life of
Cornwallis, by Davidson^ College and
Peace Institute.
An Old Quarrel with Virginia, byElon
and Oxford.
North Carolina’s Adopted Daughter,
by Lenoir College.
A Brave Rebel, by Chowau, Catawba,
and Elizabeth colleges.
The bewitching grace of Miss Curtis
Henderson, the httle daughter of Dr.
Archibalil Henderson, is one of the
charming memories of the Pageants.
In the evening la Vega’s comedy of El
ludiano was given in the open air before
the old Law Building. '
Tlie Fourth at the University Summer
School is always instructive, inspiring,
and charming. It is a large chapter in
real culture.
MARK TWAIN’S LOYALTY
My kind of loyalty is loyalty to one’s
country, not to its institutions or its
office holders.
The country is the real thing, the
substantial thing, the eternal thing;
j it is the thing to watch over, and care
for, and be loyal to. Institutions are
extraneous; they are mere clothing,
and clothing can wear out, become
ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease
to protect the body from winter,
disease, and death.
To be loyal to rags, to shout for
rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—
that is a loyalty of unreason; it is
pure animal; it belongs to monarchy;
let monarchy keep it.
The citizen who thinks he sees that
tlie commowealth’s political clothes
are worn out and yet holds his peace
and does not agitate for a new suit, is
disloyal. He is a traitor.—King Ar
thur’s Court.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 81
WHERE WEALTH HAS
WINGS
The wealth-creating power of Mississip
pi is enormous; but her wealth-retaining
power is feeble.
For instance in the census year tlie
farms of the state produced crops and
animal products wortii |173,000,0tK).
Which is to say, every tw'o years and a
half the farmers of Mississippi create as
great wealth as they have been able to
accumulate and retain in farm properties
in a hundred years. Every two years
the crop wealth produced in Jeflerson
Davis county exceeds the total farm
wealth of the county. And this is nearly
true of Lincoln and Panola.
In a single year the farms of the state
produce wealth amounting to more than
twice the capital invested in all manufac
turing enterprises, and nearly twice as
great as the total bank resources of the
state. And mind you, the farms do this
in a single year!
Tiie production of crop values per aver
age acre in 1909 was *22,59. Mississippi
stood ahead of 40 states ol the Union iu
tills particular, and she outranked every
one of the rich prairie states of the Mid
dle West. Nevertheless, the per capita
country wealth in farm properties iu this
region ranges from ijiljlSS in Indiana to
$3,386 in Iowa, against $300 in Missis
sippi
Hunting down the causes for the feeble
wealth-retaining power of Mississippi
challenges the patriotic concern of bank
ers and traders, teachers ami preachers.
Her meagre w'ealth cripples, hinders, and
retards everytfiing, every business, and
everybody in the state.
Life has to do with material things as
well as culture and wisdom, as Edgar Lee
Masters reminds us.
tem. And it is a spendthrift system.
Enormous farm wealth can be created
under this system, but only a pin’s fee
can be retained. Nobody can hold down
any reasonable share of the farm wealth
created in this way. The merchants and
bankers skim the cream of it to some lit
tle extent; but small landlords and ten
ants are usually helpless. The farmers
o£ Mississippi are not. thriftless and im
provident beyond most people; the farm
system itself is at fault.
PREPAREDNESS
There seems to be a general interest
this summer among teachers, principals,
and superintendents in our schools. The
causes seem to be the necessity for our
schools to have the most efficient service
possible, and the desire of the school
men and w'omen to advance in the pro
fession.
It has come about that school officers
are demanding more and more the ser
vices of experts in school work. Teachers
are coming to realize this fact and as
never before are taking extra work
through correspondence and through
summer sessions, and are preparing them
selves as experts.
How It Works
As a result they are ilemanding larger
dividends on their investment; i*. e. they
are demanding larger salaries and posi
tions more appropriate to their qualifica
tions. The communities able and will
ing to pay for expert services «nd first
class teaching are getting what lhay call
for and those communities that are still
thinking of the education of their chil
dren in terms of dollars and cents are
having to take what is left.
You cannot measure the value of ex
pert and trained services by a monetary
standard. If you demand good teaching
you must pay more than if you are con
tent with ordinary teaching, but at that
you never pay the complete worth of ex
pert teaching.
For value received poor and ordinary
teaching is costly at any price. Expert
teaching is always worth more than it
costs. You may pay the bill of a good
teacher but you cjn never pay what you
owe a good teacher.
Communities must begin now and plan
whether they need and desire just and
only someone to hear classes, r>r whether
they need and desire someone who will
leal their boys and girls out into a fuller,
richer, happier, nobler life and service.
Is your community “paying 135 a
month”, oris it “desiring teachers of
w'orth and willirg to pay for them?”
THE FOURTH ON THE HILL^
-More than a thousand teachers took j
part in celebrating the Fourth at tl»
-University, under the direction of Prof. '
*A. Vermont of Smithlield. j
The forenoon was devoted to jiati'iotic
■exercises; an impressive procession, a
flag raising, national songs, and an atl-
■drees by Dean M. C. S. Noble. The ban-
iUers flying in, the march were carried by
teachers representing Salem Academy and
Ciollege, established 1772, the University
of North Carolina 1789, Louisburg 1802,
'Guilford 1837, Greensboro College for
Women 1848, Chowau 1848, Littleton ‘
1849, Oxford 1850, Lenoir 1890, State
Normal and Industrial College 1891, Flora
McDonald 1H91, Meredith College 1899, '
and by smaller groups representing a
host of other colleges in this and other
atates. i
The afternoon exercises consisted of
the Pageants under the Davie Poplar,
^hese w^ere given iu costumes as follows:
Boyhood of Sir W'alter Raleigh, by
•Meredith College representatives.
■Raleigh’s First Expedition, by Trinity
A SPENDTHRIFT SYSTEM
The food and feed needed by man and
beast in Mississippi in the census year
was around $196,000,000. This total is
figured upon the 1910 census reports and
the per capita annual averages of food
consumed, as announced by the Federal
Agricultural Department trom lime to
time.
But the food and teed crops produced
in Mississippi amounted to only $67,000,-
000. Which is to say, $129,000,000 went
out of the State iu ready cash in 1910 to
pay for bread and meat, grain, hay and
forage. The cotton crop failed to pay
the bill for imported food and forage by
$25,000,000.
When a king’s rausom of this sort slips
through the fingers of Mississippi from
year to year, the accumulation of wealth
is bound to be slow and the totals saved
will be small. How could it be other-
the main, the farm system of Mis
sissippi is a one-crop, farm-tenancy, crop-
lieu, supply-merchant, time-credit sys-
ANEW ERA
Under boll weevil conditions and the
war time price of cotton, the farmers of
^ Mississippi entered upon a new era in
j 1915; or let us hope so.
Between 1909 and 1915 the cotton crop
' fell from twelve hundred thousand to
' nine hundred and fifty-four thousand
' bales; a decrease of 23 per cent. But set
^ against a decrease of 15 million dollars in
* cotton production during this period is a
* gain in corn, oats, wheat, hay and forage
! amounting to $38,000,000. Moreover, the
six-year increase in livestock was more
Uhan $8,000,000, as follows: 325,000
‘ swine, 63,000 horses and mules, 18,000
dairy cows’ and 13,000 sheep,
j All told the farmers of Mississippi were
forty-five million dollars better of}' in
food and forage crops, work-stock and^
meat animals. A marvelous record!
These wonderful increases show what
Mississippi can do under the pinch of
hard necessity. The six-year increase in
the corn crop w'as 42,000,000 bushels, a
gain of 148 per cent. Her hay and for
age crop rose from 279, DOO- to 400,000
tons. She multiplied her oats crop two
and a third times over, and her wheat
crop twenty told. There is still too little
oats, wheat and hay; but Mississippi can
easily produce a sufficiency of all these
crops if economic conditions permit or
economic pressure compels her to do so.
In 1915, her bill for imported bread
and meat, hay and forage, was $45,000,-
000 less than in the census year, but it
was still some $80,000,000 too large.
The richest farm state in the South is
Mississippi, by long odds; that is to say,
the richest in agricultural resources, op
portunities, and possibilities, but not the
richest in accumulated wealth. There is
agricultural profusion but not agricultural
prosperity iu Mississippi.
ENJOYING POOR HEALTH
Until very recently nobody knew any
thing of definite sort about the conditions
of health and disease in the country
regions. The disclosures of the last two
years are disquieting or ought to be to the
couutry people.
The State Health Board has just finish
ed a health survey of five country town
ships and two villages of the same in
Albany county. New York.
The results are astounding. The in
vestigators found that one person in
every nine reached by the investigation
was sick or had been sick during the
year.
It was also found that 79 per cent or
nearly four-fifths of this illness could
have been prevented by intelligence and
care, or that it could have been cured by
prompt treatment.
Sixty-eight per cent of all the ca.ses
■ were persons who had li«^en ill for years
' with preventable or curable illness. The
' money spent for drugs and doctors’ fees
' is half a dozen times the salary of an ef-
' fective county health officer. Tlie safest
1 thing is to pay a doctor to keep you well
* as the Chiuese do.
Slaughtering the Innocents
An examination of the school children
in a rural district of New York State also
showed that 61,5 per cent of the children
were suffering from adenoids or diseased
tonsils; 51,3 per cent had defective teeth;
30 per cent enlarged glands; 18.6 per cent
defective vision; i 0 per cent were anemic;
7.2 per c nt were tubercular; 6 per cent
prc-tubercular; 5 per cent sufiered from
skin diseases; 3,2 per cent from spinal di
seases; 2 per cent from defective hearing;
2 per cent were mentally defective; and
1 per cent had hernia.
The normal children were only 2.55
per cent of the total examined.
The grown-ups do not challenge sym
pathy quite as the children do. It is not
conceivable tliat fathers and mothers
anywhere are unconcerned about the wel
fare of their children. They are simply
ignorant of their children’s ailments.
But will they Ije content to remain so in
Orange or any other county in this or any
other state?
Does such a state of affairs exist in the
country regions of North (krolina? It is
well worth investigation.
King Ignorance slaughters uiore babes
in ev’ery county of the State than ever
King Herod did in Bethlehem.
mkke proper health conditions for his
family, and to insure spiritual nourish
ment according to his own taste.
Self Help the Best Help
A dollar spent in helping him work out
his own plans—his own ideals which will
expand and enlarge as he works at the
job—counts. But he wants to feel that
he is doing the thing himself. Our
mountains will be developed iu propor
tion as the responsibility for development
of this Land of Promise is placed on their
shoulders. Growth tliat is not nuishroom
is rarely rapid.
They plead to be encouraged by money,
by sympathy, by suggestions and a help
ing hand from their better favored
kindred, to work out their own salvation.
They are our brethren, a little behind the
procession perhaps, but they are begin
ning to look over the mountain tops, and
at the same time, unlike the ‘ ‘fool w’hose
eyes are in the ends of the earth”, to see
the possibihties of their valleys.
OUR HIGHLAND KINSPEOPLE
DR. R. L. MOORE, Mars Hill College
The mountain people of the story books
are rare. The mountaineers are after all
just folks—common, plain everyday
folks—good and bad as you and I. Iso
lated? In sections. Ignorant? No, but
his illiteracy prevents cooperation and
blocks progress all too often. Poor?
Yes, andiyet two of the richest counties
in North Carolina, in per capita w'ealth
of rural population are on this side of the
Blue Ridge, and not a foot of railroad in
either county. Good blood? Yes, as
good aa Anglo-Saxon blood is the world
over—no better—unmixed and preserved,
thank God, for such a time aa this. In
dependent? Yes, but easily led by one
from his own ranks who has a vision—a
program. Numerous and prolific? In
spite of bad cooking, insanitary surround
ings, and murderous proclivities I Sus
picious? He fears the Greeks even when
they bear gifts. Ambitious? You will
find him in the ends of the earth. And
the average mountain boy wants to do as
much work in a four month’s school as his
city cousin does iu ten, and pretty nearly
does it! Proud? Yes, but rarely vain.
Genuine? He hates hypocrisy or veneer,
and sometimes takes the polish of society
for veneer, and revolts. Better than
other folks? Not a bit. Worse than
other folks? I trow not. He appreciates
not the tears shed over him or fiis land.
Undemonstrative, and a little self-center
ed, he will be helped only by those who
can show him how to plow his field and
sow his seed so as to reap better harvests,
to improve his cattle, to secure the kind
of school be wants for his children, to
WIDE-AWAKE
The Derby Memorial School in Rich
mond County is Aide awake to the possi
bilities of the public school iu a country
community.
The pupils are getting out a school
paper known as the Drowning Creek
Current. It is a lively and interesting
sheet. The articles show the variety of
interests presented to the children and
demonstrate admirably how the view
point and horizon of the country child
may be broadened.
Weaving
As Mr. Derby says, It illustrates how
well the school has woven itself into the
life of the community and how the chil
dren are thinking about community
matters.
The children in the school are taught
the by-laws and theory' of the Credit
Union and can write intelligently alx>ut
farm finance.
Debates
The debates afe on such questions aa
cooperative enterprises in the United
States, relative value of beef cattle and
dairy cattle, decrease in cotton produc
tion, school bonds, military training in
schools. Every one straight to a point
right at hand, every one a real question
growing out of needs at hand. We like
the idea and commend it for adaptation.
COMMUNITY CENTER SONGS
We have long been searching for songs
to sing at community meetings, which
would sound the note of cooperation.
We have found them!
The U. S. Bureau of Education at
Washington, D. C., will send you copies
of five community center songs, free
of charge, if you will write and ask for
them.
The Titles
These songs have been written especial
ly for community meetings. They are:-
It’s A Short Way to the Schoolhouae,
(sung to the tune of Tipperary), Neigh
borhood (sung to the tune of Die Wacht
am Rhein), The Fellowship of Folks
(sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne),
Heart and Hand, and This Good Com
mon Ground. Write and get them!