j
Li'brar v"
Cha.pel Hill
The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Ejctension.
FEBRUARY 6, 1918
CHAPEL HHX, N. C.
VOL. IV, NO. 11
Editorial Hoard i E. G. Bran.son, J. G. deli. Hamilton, L, li. Wilson, R. H. Thornton, G. M. McKie.
Entered as second-ola.s.s matter Hovember 14, 1914, .it the Postofflce at Chapel Hill, N, C., nnder the act of August 34, 1912.
SAVE THE COMMON-SCHOOLS
A SERIOUS SITUATION
Tlie re-sigmition of teacliers, lioth men
and women, is opideinic the whole coun
try over. Here ami there the whole
corjM resiems, the schools close in the
middle of the year, and the children are
turned adrift—usually in the country
rejrioiis. A third or a half of the corps
reaiaiiis and the school limps along on
one foot. Stories of thi.s .sort are com
mon in North Carolina, and in every
other state of tlie (fnion.
The eKplanation is simple; the teach
ers cannot live on their salaries and tliey
dee for tlieir lives into other callings
that pay better. It is Hobson's choice.
It’s Take it off or knock it off, as the child
ren say in mumble-the-peg. The teach
ers are taking it off.
I'h'ery calling pays better in these days
of war demands for workers. And the
teacfiers are fleeing because of bread and
butter necessity—in this and every otiier
state.
The situation is serious, and so our
-State Department of Public Instruction
is co-operating with the various educa
tional bodies in a campaign for better
salaries and better living conditions for
cHir common-school teachers.
average. Saving the schools is therefore
a matter of local interest and pride, ami
of local willingness to bear school tax
burdens,—new huniens or heavier bur-
den.s for the sake of the children.
If Alleghany, the richest county in
per capita farm wealth in North Caro-
: liua, has poorer schools than Dare, our
poorest county in such properties, then
: it is because of local unwillingness to bear
i tax burdens for school purposes. These
I two counties, by way of illustration. The
j same thing is, of course, true of other
Bad Enough Before
The money rewards of teachers in
Nortli Carolina when the war began are
exiiibited in the following table of
average annual salaries constructed from
tigwhs given by Dr. Y. I. Masters in his
recent hook The Country Church in the
South; by M. L. Shipman in the 1915
Report of the State I,abor Commissioner;
and by Dr. J. Y. .Joyner in the 191.3-14
Rei»ort of the State Superintendent of
Public Instruction.
The -average annual salaries are for
whhe preachers in the South outside of
cite.having 25,000 inhabitants in 1906;
for white common-school teachers in
North Carolina, in 1913-14, and for wage
eaniera of botli races in the State in
1915, sui)posiag that they were steadily
at work throughout the year.
P((hlic .school teachers, white, rural $235
Public school teachers, white, city 454
Da.ptiat preachers, white, - - 473
Methodist preachers, white - 681
Pa*sbyterian preachers, white - 858
Auhtmobile mechanics - - 469
W ood-workers - - - - 479
Blacksmiths - - . - 588
Cahmet makers ... - 601
Carpimters ----- 675
I'.dgineers - - - - - 789
Painters 829
Moulders ----- 861
lilectriciaas 939
Machinists ----- 951
Boiler makers - - - - 1074
Stone cutters - - - - io95
- Ptanferers ----- 1293
l’>rfcli masons - - - - 1317
Contractors - - - - 1330
PluintiorH 1408
Worse Now
.■y
During the first two years of the war,
the average annual pay of our white
■teaeherfi in the country was increased less
th.an 5 i»er cent, and that of white city
teachers le.ss than 3 per cent. These piti-
ftu’ increases average $10.35 for tlie
yi' tr in the first'instance and $12.70 in
•tl:)e flceond.
Uii the other hand tlie cost of living
4ia‘t more than doubled,—in many item.s
of fond, fuel and clothing, it has more
•flcM ti-eWed. Which is to say, the
■teacher's dollar now buys from a third to
a, tiaiC as much as it would buy in 1914.
■ft i.i exactiy like cutting down the teach-
'or’o salary a half or two-thirds. Pur-
lehaHing power considered, the average
salary of our white public school teach-
ecs is not $296 a year but $148 or less.
'('bey canuot stand it ami keep soul
.-ao.d lindy together. Something must lie
doaa aud guickiy done or our schools
will he dismantled in another six
rnsuths. 1 love to teach, said one of
them the other day, but I can’t teach
vdie.t continually bully-ragged by debts
aril bill-collectors. I’ve got to do some
thin,;; olfKi iii order to live. And she did.
Blic.’s only one of many thousands in
thin and every other state.
St’s a Local Problem
In North Carolina the counties and
cotmuunities put down $9 for every $1
that cornea out of the State treasury for
corjtni jn-school education; or so on an
counties.
Our point is, that it is not a problem
of state administration but of local tax
levies, or mainly so. Wherefore the
wisdom of Superintendent Joyner’s letter
to the public about ways and means of
meeting this war-time emergency iiij our
schools.
It’s Go On or Go Under
What Lloyd George has just said to
England, wg urge upon the school com
munities of North Carolina. It’s Go on
or go under.
Barring certain counties—a score or
so, some of them the'richest in tlie state
—North Carolina has done well in voting
money for school support. Dare in par
ticular: every acliool district in Nhat
connty now levies [extra taxes for school
support.
We have done well but we must do
better for our children’s sake. We must
indeed Go on or go under.
How to Do It
Dr. J. Y. Joyner our State Superinten
dent of Public Instruction tells us how to
do it as follows:
1. By voting special coiinty-wide taxes
for schools under Cliapter 71 of the Pub
lic Laws of 1911 and by voting special
township taxes for maintenance of town
ship high schools under section 4113 of
tlie public school law.
2. By increasing the miniber of spec
ial tax school districts and voting therein
special taxes for the maintenance of the
district schools nnder section 4115 of the
public school law, and by increasing the
special tax for schools in special tax dis
tricts heretefore established under said
section, to a maximum of 50c on the
$100, and $1.50 on the poll, and by
raising the rates in special chartered city
and town schools, toa maximum of $1.00
on the $100, as provided by the General
Assembly of 1917.
3. By increasing the district funds by
private subscription, public entertain
ments, providing wood free, etc.
4. By increasing the budget for sal
aries of teachers, etc., submitted by the
county board of education for necessary
expenses for a four months school for the
year 1918, under Chapter 33 of the Pub
lic Laws of 1913, as subsequently amend
ed by the General Assembly, and by in
creasing the sjiecial county levy by the
county commissioners required thereun
der for the necessary expenses of the four
months term.
5. By the adoption at the November
election of 1918 of the constitutional
amendment making it mandatory' upon
the county commissioners to levy a
special tax to supplement the regular
connty and state tax for schools suflicient
to provide a minimum school term of
six months instead of four months, in
each county.
Whatever happens, whatever it may
cost in money and sacrifice, says he, our
schools must be maintained at full effi
ciency for the preparation of the present
generation to fill the gaps made by the
red hand of war in the ranks of our
young men, for service at tlie front if
the war continues, and for efficient ser
vice at home in civic and industrial life
when such service will be needed worse
than ever before.
A TEST OF STATESMAN.
SHIP
Edward K. Graham
Doubling School Support
Kducatioually the decade that fol
lows war will be. 1 l-ielieve. the rich
est and most fruitful in the Nation’s
history. Here in the South, and in
North Carolina especially, we need to
keep heroically foremost in our public
policy the determination not to slack
en, but rather to quicken our eiiuca-
tional activities during the war. Eng
land and France under war burdens
imcomparably greater than ours have
doubled their educational budgets. It
is clearly the inevitable policy of wis
dom.
Our handling of our educational af
fairs in the next few years will furnish
once more a test of our statesmanship
and give once more a clear revelation
of what relative place we give educa
tion in the things worth while in com
monwealth building. The necessity of
war economies will show what we value
in terms of what we nourish and of
what we sacrifice. If schools are the
first public-service institutions closed
for lack of fuel; if their terms are
shortened as first steps in economy;
if we cease bui'ding them and yet
build other things; if they cannot
compete with business for the ser
vices of the few giod men and women
they need—we shall know in concrete
term.s that in time of storm we feel
that they are still the first to he cast
overboard, and not, as we have
claimed to believe, the basis of the de
mocracy for whicii we are figliting.
No Sacrifice Too Great
No sacrifice is too great to make for
the schools, and no patriotism is more
genuinely productive than the pa
triotism who.se faith in tlie schools is
so deeply rooted that no public dis
traction or disaster is permitted to
blight them as the Sv.»iirce of all of our
reconstructive power.
My great confidence in the future
of the University is based on the ex
traordinary need for its present and
future service, and on the spirit of in
telligent sympathy and cooperation
that have been shown by the people
in the State at large and by the fac
ulty, alumni, and students. The days
ahead of us grow out of the days that
are gone; but in every phase of hu
man activity that a University touch
es they are new days with a new and
broader horizon. They will test the
cajiacity of the University for leader
ship, not only in terms of energy', ef
ficiency, learning, and scholarship,
but in terms of reneweii vision, sym
pathy, and high devotion.
Out of this new opportunity to serve
in a great and difficult way, and aid
ed, as it wonderfully has been, by the
understanding of the State, whose
highest aspiration it seeks to express,
I believe that this institution will come
into a new and especial greatness.—
Report to the Trustees, Jan. 22, 1918.
The first thing and biggest thing we are
going to say in lliLs issue of The Progres
sive Farmer is this—that our folks in
North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia,
and Georgia ought absolutely to double
their school taxes during the coming year.
It may be jiopuiar to say tliis, or it may
be unpopular. All we know is that it is
the truth, and that the man who doesn’t
agree with tliis statement will agree with
it before, a dozen years pass.
It is no use to ,say we can’t afl'ord it.
With cotton around 30 cents a pound and
tobacco and peanuts selling at corres
ponding figures, it is folly to say that we
can’t do more for our schools than we did
when cotton was 6 to 10 cents a pound
and other crop-prices in keeping with
these. And we ought to be ashamed of
ourselves if we don’t do more. The time
has come when any man ought to be
ashamed when he leaves home if he can’t
say he lives in a local tax school district
—and one in w'hich the tax is adequate.
Too many districts are levying tliree mills
when they ought to levy nine.
It’s Dollars for Life
To pay a school tax is to swap dollars
for life, and God shrivels the soul and
blights the future of any community
where the people think more of saving a
little money than they do of providing
life and life more abundantly for the men
and women of tomorrow. AVe of the
South have always accused our Northern
friends of loving money, but we have got
to face the fact that when it comes to
■ choosing between saving money and buy-
: ing knowledge for his children the
I Yankee everlastingly puts us to shame.
LooK at the Facts
I I.ook at the facts. The North Atlantic
I States si)end $50.55 per year on schools
j per child; the South Atlantic States
j $18.91—not 40 per cent as much. The
' North Central states spend $44.15 per
child; the South Central States $19.01—
not half as much. North Dakota, a rural
State, is spending $64 a year per child;
wild Idaho $55, and even Mormon Utah
$52, while Virginia spends $19, North
Carolina only $12, South Carolina only
$11, and Georgia $13. Nor can we say
we are doing as well in proportion to
wealth, for while North Dakota spends
on schools 44 cents a year for each $100
of her wealth, Idaho 49, and Utah 51,
Virginia and North Carolina spend only
28 cents a year per $100 of wealth, South
Carolina 27 cents, and Georgia 29.
The Carolinas, Virginia and dJeorgia
therefore might double the amount they
are spending for schools and even then
not spend as much as some other States
are spending.
Let us now highly resolve that we will
sanctify the greater prosperity God has
given us by giving twice as much from it
for unfolding the powers of the children
He has given us and for furthering the
eternal purpose of Him who said: “I am
come that ye might have life and life more
abundantly.”—Clarence Foe.
was made on the recommendation of the
faculty, endorsed by the'president. The
minimum salary is $3,500 a year.
Dr. F. P. Venable, Kenan Professor of
Chemistry, is widely known throughout
the country as an investigator, author
and teacher. He has been President of
the American Chemical Society and is
now a member of the board of six chem
ists cliosen by Secretary Lane to investi
gate chemical problems connected with
the war. He is the author of numerous
books, was for fourteen years president
of the University, and has been for over
twenty years a successful lecturer and
teacher.
OUR KENAN PROFESSORS
The first important step in the use of
the recent beiiuest by M rs. Robert W.
Bingham (Mary Lily Kenan) to the Uni
versity of North Carolina, was taken at
the annual mid-winter meeting of the
Board of Trustees yesterday by the ap
pointment to Kenan Professorships of
five members of the present faculty. j
The men so honored are Dr. F. P. |
Venable, Dr. II. \'. Wilson, Maj. Wil-1
liam Cain, Dr. Edwin Greenlaw, and
Dr. Will. deB. MacNider. The choice
Dr. H. V. Wilson (Zoology) has been
for many years an acknowledged leader
in the University faculty, a stimulating
teacher, devoted to scientific scholarship
ill all its relatjons, an untiring and pro
ductive investigator, highly honored by
his fellow scholars in the nation.
Maj. William Cain (Mathematics) for
twenty-eight years Professor of Mathe
matics and head of the department, dur
ing which time he has, as a teacher, in
vestigator, and author won wide recog
nition in the general field of mathemat-
ics, and in his special field where his
work is uniquely authoritative.
Dr. Edwin Greenlaw (English Litera
ture.) Dr. Greenlaw has been a member
of tlie faculty for only four years, but du
ring this comparatively brief time he has
made notable contributions to the devel
opment of the University through a vig
orous, scholarly and continuing interest
in every side of its life: as administrative
head of the English department, as edi
tor of vtudies in Philology, and an in
terested and an inspiring teacher, as a
sympathetic interpreter of the Univer.sity
spirit in contemporary affairs.
Dr. AVm. deB. AlacNider (Pharmacol
ogy ) is a representative of the younger
faculty group recognized by his colleagues
for his completely devoted and inspiring
service to his profession. As an original
and unremitting investigator he has
achieved distinguished recognition in the
country at large as one of the most pro
ductive men in his field.
SCHOOL SUPERVISION PAYS
Mr. L. C. Brogden, State Supervisor of
Elementary Schools, spoke to the North
Carolina Club last night on County
School Supervisors. Mr. Brogden thor
oughly convinced the Club that the fun
damental need of common-school educa-
cation in North Carolina is more inten
sive supervision by competent supervi
sors, especially in the country districts.
At present a county school superinten
dent in this state has the task of super
vising, on an average, 120 teachers in 78
schools widely scattered over 487 square
miles, and only 117 days in which to
make his round of visits. He visits each
school once a year on an average, and the
length of his visit averages two hours 1
All of whicli means that country school
supervision is clearly inadequate. And
because this is so tlie country child gets a
minimum advantage out of even the small
amount of money that is now being ex
pended for his education. The rural
school population is four-fifths of our to
tal school population which makes ade
quate school supervision a state-wide and
not a local concern merely.
City and Country
A survey of 7 typical counties in 1916
showed that the city schools in those
counties were far more adequately super
vised than the rural schools. The seven
county superintendents had on the aver
age 15 times as many schools and twice
as many teachers scattered over an area
80 times as large as the city superinten
dents in those counties. The cities em
ployed 19 supervisors while the counties
had none, and the country teachers, not
being so well trained, needed supervision
far more than the city teachers. The
cities were spending for supervision 14
cents out of each dollar of school fund
while the counties were spending only
2 1-2 cents for the same purpose. Mani
festly the country teacher and the coun
try child are neglected. The rural teacher
who teaches seven grades needs the aid of
a supervisor far more than the city
teacher with one grade.
Rural supervision in North Carolina
was begun in 1911 and today 13 counties
employ supervisors. These supervisors
are devoting their entire time to increas
ing the efficiency of the teachers; making
rural sciiools minister more directly to the
every-day needs of country children;
making the schools meet more adequate
ly the cultural and recreational needs and
interests of the children; and making
country schools effective community cen
ters.
Where We Stand
Forty states of the Union employ assist
ant county superintendents, the number
varying from one in one or more states to
500 district supervisors in Ohio. In these
40 states, 18 out of each 100 counties have
assistant superintendents or supervisors,
while North Carolina has only 13—or 5
fewer per 100 counties.
There is an imperative need for at least
one rural supervisor in each county and
most counties could well afford several,
i Wake has two. The property we possess
j is sufficiently adequate to raise the fund.s
' necessary to employ them. The benefits
; are sure, for the worth of supervisors has
; been proved wherever they have been
employed.
WILSON DOES IT
“Coon’s way” is one of the popular
characterizations of that picturesque in
surgent, Professor Charles L. Coon, who
presides over the whole AVilson county
and city schools and runs them in Coon’s
Way.
! The votary of the Wilson school cham
pion will say “it’s Coon’s way” when
; Professor Coon doesn’t please her and
, Coon’s way will be pleaded in bar of
I anger when the Wilson man says things
: that others dare not say. Coon’s way has
i become a proverb and Wilson has been
segregated into a district which is now
knqwu as Coondom.
It isn’t half a bad place in which to
live. AVithin a few days Coon’s way[has
become a winning way. January 18 tlie
county voted a local tax of thirty cents,
making all of the 48 school districts local
tax instead of 18. This will give AVilson
a uniform term of seven months and to
those who teach the schools fairly good
salaries.
That is county AVilson. Town Wilson
seeing old rus distend herself voted $150,-
000 in bonds for schools. This is the
latest from Coondom. It is Coon’s way
with substance.
The story is passed along and presented
in lieu of weekly comment on the school
teacher pauper. If every county in North
Carolina will do something like it, the
burden of writing into fundamental law’
the six months’ school will be lessened
and North Carolina individual will be one
month ahead of North Carolina cori>o-
rate. Of all Coon’s ways, this is preemi
nently the most winning, and that’s not
discounting any of the many.—State
Journal.
in
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