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THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
. 'i-
h'.v
MARCH 13, 1918
CHAPEL HILL, N. C. VOL.
IV, NO. 16
Editorial Board i E. C. Branson, J. G. deR. Hamilton, L. R. Wilson, R. H. Thornton, G. M. McKie.
Entered as second-class matter November 14,1914, at the Postofflee at Ohapel Hill, N, G., under the act
of August 24, 1912.
ENGLAND’S WAY
That nation which, after tlie war, em
ploys the i)e8t teachers, with the highest
pay aa a part of the best scliool system
will be the best governed and therefore
the greatest nation. Of that lam abso
lutely certain. No people which does
not respect education will demand and
support good government, and if there is
not a vital impulse running through its
education the people of no nation can be
expected to respect it.
What Poor Schools Mean
1 believe, and an increasing number of
other people are beginning to believe,
that education lies at the root of happi
ness for every peopie. Worthy educa!-
tion is impossible where inferior teaching
forces are employed. Where teaching is
interior good government cannot be ex
pected .
Obviously the first requirement of a
better England must be better education,
and, especially more education for the
children of the people. The impulse
thrills the Empire. Recently a meeting
representing 100,000 workers met in
South W'ales to pass resolutions demand
ing free secondary and university educa
tion for everyone who by scholastic ef
forts shall show real desire for it. Nearly
all the trade unions in England have
passed resolutions of the sort.
Better Paid Teachers
The cardinal reform which the bill pro
vides is the increase of teachers’ salaries.
To one who knows the schools as they
have been, it is apparent that instructors
for them must be recruited from a class
mentally and psychologically better than
that which has been drawn from in the
past, and that teaching must be made a
liberal profession rather than low grade
labor. With this thought in mind, we
have secured of‘new money’ for annual
expenditure £3,200,000 (about $16,000,
000) for higher salaries and pensions for
the teachers in elementary schools,- and
£433,000 for teachers in secondary
schools.—Mr. Fisher, head of the Eng-
lisl) Elucational System.
AFTER THE WAR-WHAT7
Our schools after the war—what? Will
ttiey sufter fhe worst possible conse
quences of present war conditions, or
will they reap the largfest possible advan
tages?
The first result will undoubedly follow
for any school—elementary, secondary,
college, or University, church or state—
that fails to link up with the life that
now is, and that misses any chance to
serve the nearby community, the country
a.t-lnrge and humanity in general in this
hour of extreme peril to the race.
The second result will certainly follow
for sohoohs of every' grade^and rank tin t
' cau move up out of the low level of life
less notions, customs and practices into
tlie higher region of direct service to the
community, the state, and the nation.
The change is from training individuals
to gat the most out of life for private
•ends to training communities to make
-the most of themselves for the common
good; from egoistic or self-sulticient to
.^dtruistic or patriotic purposes.
It is a change long dreamed of, much
talked about, always needed and rarely
attempted heretofore; but under the
pretisiice of war necessities, it is a change
tlrat is so rapidly taking place in a thous
and communities that our school author
ities aifd the people at large ought to
know the story in full detail.
jf (Jie head of your school is a dead
head—not a caput but a caput mortuum,
if your school committeemen have bats
and cobwebs in their belfries, then the
eooudr you find it out the better.
Your school will move up into being
an active ertective agency of community
uplift as a result of this war; or it will be
carted out to the dump pile.
Which Way Headed?
Wliicli way is your school headed—up
into direct service to the community, or
down and out?
AViiat can it do and how? AVhat are
otlier schools doing? AVhat sensibly
ought to l)e attempted and wliy? How
can your .school hook-up with present
war-time necessities and reap an abiding
advantage on higher levels when this
war is over?
This whole field of inquiry is covered
by an illuminating, inspiring volume
that has just come to our desk, and
against which we cherish a grudge be
cause it has kept us awake a whole night
through in fascinated interest. It is
Dean’s Our Schools in War Time and
After (Ginn & Co., Boston).
Alert minded teachers, competent
school authorities and intelligent citizens
ought to have it without a moment’s de
lay, because the emergency is critical and
the school or the community that sleeps
for a day, in these stirring times, might
just as well settle down to sleep for the
next thousand years.
A SENSIBLE CITIZEN
Said a Sensible Citizen to a Chronic
Growler about taxes the other day;
I don’t agree with you, I don’t think
our city taxes are high considering the
advantages they give us. My own town
taxes are $30 this year, but wliat my lit
tle girl is getting out of our high school
would cost me more than that in any
private school—ten times more if I had
to send her away to a boarding school.
But, said the C. G., I haven’t any
children to send to the public schools
they are worth nothing to me; they only
make me pay more taxes; I’m just being
robbed, that’s all!
In reply the S. C. said—and said very
gently, it seemed to us: AA'ell then, you
can have the satisfaction of knowing
that your school taxes help to provide
school advantages for your poorer neigh
bors, whose children can not go off to
high schools and colleges. Maybe it’s
not robbery, but an investment in pub
lic welfare; so don’t put a bad taste in
men’s mouths by calling it either rob
bery or charity.’ You and your folks
made all your money right here in this
town; you are inaking money now, and
you’ll make much more if this town gets
to be a better place to live in day by day.
If your'soul is all the time getting and
none of the time giving, it will be as
stagnant as the Dead Sea after awhile for
all the religion you profess.
Just here the bell rang and we got off.
Dodo Religion
And, by the way, we learned later that
he is not only a chronic growler about
taxes, but a chronic church attendant,
and an unctuous grunter in the amen
corner. Doubtless he gumshoes out of
the sanctuary when the preacher preach
es from the text. Bear ye one another’s
burdens, and grunts 'loudest when the
preacher preaches from the text. Let
every man bear his own burden.
His religion is like Ephraim’s cake—
it’s a cake unturned, and sadly scorched
on one side; or like Touchstone’s ill-
roasted egg.
But on the whole, it is comforting to
reflect that C. G’s sort are getting fewer
and fewer every day. It’s been ten long
years since we heard a conversation like
that; and we used to hear it every day.
.The outrage of being taxed to educate
other people’s children is a disappearing
doctrine in advancing democracies every
where. It is dodo religion as well as do
do democracy, and soon it will be as
much a democratic myth as the dodo is
a geologic bird.
COUNTY CARE OF CHILDREN
Dr. Hastings II. Hart, Director of the
Department of Child Helping, Russell
Sage Foundation, New York City, ad
dressed the North Carolina Club at its
last regular fortnightly meeting.
Taking as his subject “County Care of
Children’’ Dr. Hart pointed out that
States and Counties now care for many
dependent, neglected, delinquent, and
defective chiidren that were formerly
dared for by private asylums and socie
ties. Some believe, says he, that the,
state and counties ought to care for all,
but it'is a good thing for private agencies
to do this work as far as possible, and
they should not be discouraged in it.
States and counties however should
maintain a guardianship over such chil
dren in order to ensure proper care,
training, education and opportunity.
As a rule states and counties are be-
A WORKING CREED
1 believe
In my country and her destiny.
Ill the great dream of her founders.
In her place among the nations.
In her ideals;
1 believe
That her democracy must be protected.
Her privileges cherished.
Her freedom defended.
I believe
That humbly before the Ahnighty,
But proudly before all mankind,
AVe must safeguard her standards.
The vision of her AVashington,
The martyrdom of her Lincoln,
AVith the patriotic ardor
Of the minute men
And the soldier hoys
Of her glorious past.
I believe
in loyalty to my country.
Utter, irrevocable, inviolate.
Thou in whose sight
A thousand years are but as yesterday
And as a watch in the night.
Help me
In my frailty
To make real
AVhat I believe.
—The New Y'ork Times.
coming, responsible for the care and the
training of delinquent chiidren, includ
ing the deaf, blind, feeble-minded, epi
leptic, and crippled. The division of
labor between state and county is not
yet adjusted. In some states the state
assumes the greater responsibility, in
others the counti'vs assume the greater
burden.
The counties are undertaking “case
work.’’ That is to say, they are study
ing the conditions and the needs of the
children, establishing medical and psy
chological clinics, hospitals and dispens
aries and organizing health work and
other preventive agencies.
In our social work we have been
plunging ahead without careful inquiry,
he states. There must be careful diag
nosis to find out whether the child is
normal or subnormal and if subnormal
in what way. This work of diagnosis
falls upon the county, and must be in
the hands of skillful people.
Many counties maintain juvenile
courts, detention homes for children
awaiting trial, probation officers, and in
a number of states like New York, In
diana and Alinnesota are establishing
county boards of child welfare. Alany
counties now employ competent trained
workers at good salaries for this service.
—Myron Green, Secretary N. C. Club.
COUNTIES TOO BIG
Speaking of the feeble sense of citizen
ship in county affairs, one of our thought
ful readers, an alert citizen of a small
town in North Carolina, hits the nail ex
actly on the head. Said he—
The unconcern and indifference of the
people is a thing that reduces me to de
spair in county government. If that
could be cured, county affairs could be a
credit and not a common reproach.
The lack of interested, active citizen
ship in county government is due mainly
to the lack of information about county
matters.’ This lack of information is due
to the long distances that lie between the
people of a county and the county-seat.
The long distances are due to the size of
our counties and the widely scattered
homes of the people. Our counties as a
rule are too big to give the people a
chance to know promptly what is going
on at the center of things.
AVhen anything goes wrong in this little
burg, said he, the first time the. mayor
and the aldermen stick their noses out of
doors, they run against somebody that
knows about it and is raising canc about
it all over the baliwick.
That is as it should be, said he, but it
is just exactly as it cannot be in county
affairs, because, the people are sparsely
settled over a wide area. Long before a
mistake of administration becomes com
mon current news, the thing is dead and
buried beyond resurrection.
Milhing the Treasury
For instance, I notice that the commis
sioners paid a citizen of your county $50
the other day for rocks taken from his
field by the road force. In my county, it
would have been just the other way
around—he would have had to pay the
commissioners $50 for doing him a kind
ness of this kind.
There you are. That pretty well illus
trates what 1 mean when I say that our
counties are too big for alert citizenship.
By the time the people of your county
find out about that $50 rock transaction
and begin to make proper inquiries about
it, another administration will be in
charge.
I believe, said he, in small counties,
good roads, country telephones, good
country newspapers and a chance for
democratic communities to know prompt
ly what is going on in the county, and to
develop stout citizenship on the basis of
quick acquaintance with county affairs.
Smaller counties would increase the
burden of expense to be sure, but after all
we’d get better results by keeping up bet
ter with the expenditures of county
money. I'm a full day’s journey away
from our court house and back, and I
don’t begin to know what’s happening at
the county seat from time to time.
Township Organization
The question of big counties and small
counties is worth thinking over. It’s
either smaller counties, or township or
ganization as in New England in my
opinion, he said in conclusion.
Ten of our counties are nearly as large
as the whole state of Rhode Island. Un
fortunately, four of them are sparsely pop
ulated, otherwise they might consider tlie
Home-Rule plan of county government in
California. But six are big enough and
have population enough to the square
mile to make it well worth while to in
vestigate the California plan. Named in
order these counties are AVake, Cumber
land, Randolph, AA’ilkes, Sampson, and
Columhus.
people of India, called famine,’’ says
Ixird Rhondda.
The simple truth i.s that America must
now feed the world. AVe must feed our
selves, we must feed our own soldiers and
sailors, and we must feed the armies and
the people of the countries allied with us
in this final fight for freedom on earth.
Are We Worth Fighting For?
Those of us that stay at home must
make and save in order to serve those that
fight for us abroad; we must do it with
intelligence and grim determination in
this year of destiny; and everybody must
do it!
If we cannot or will not make and save
to the utmost for those that fight our
fight in distant lands, then we are not
worth fighting for.
GROW IT OR GO WITHOUT IT
It is plainer than a pikestaff that the
average family will this year either grow
the food it consumes or go without food—
and this, mind you, in these United
States.
This is particularly true of the wage
earners and salaried people in our town
centers and mill villages. Largely or
mainly the food of their families must
come this year from the garden patch, the
little flock of poultry, and the pig that
consumes such kitchen waste as is un
avoidable.
Heretofore gardehing in America has
been a sentimental proposition; now it is
a practical necessity. Gardening as a
trifling side issue reduces the grocery bill
a fourth, as the Gaston county survey
showed in 1913. Gardening with a set
purpose can cut the grocery bill down a
full half or two-thirds.
Home-raised vegetables, poultry, eggs,
and pork have come to be a pinching
necessity in every state of the Union; be
cause a dollar will today buy less than
half as much food as it would three years
ago, and grocery bills even now spell
bankruptcy in the homes of wage earners
and salaried people. And the situation
will be worse as the year goes on. Fed
eral authority has already forbidden the
sale or purchase of hens and pullets.
Other restrictions will follow.
The Main Reason
There is another reason. The food stocks
of the world are now lower than ever be
fore in a hundred years. The grim spec
ter of famine is stalking throughout the
earth, says The Literary Digest. A dan
gerous famine is creeping across Europe,
says AV. C. Anderson, a member of the
British Parliament.
Mr. Hoover and Mr. Page have warned
us. The International Institute of Agri
culture in Rome has warned us. Lord
Rhondda the British Food Controller has
warned us. IMr. Eagan our ambassador
to Denmark has warned us. Surely we
are not too stupid to heed the warnings
of the people that best know,
‘ ‘The food wanted by mankind does not
exist. The word shortage is not strong
enough for the situation. To put the
matter bluntly, the whole world is up
against a nasty thing, familiar to the
GOOD ROADS INSTITUTE
The fifth Road Institute was held here
February 19-22, 1918, under the auspices
of the University of North Carolina, the
State Highway Commission, andtheState
Geologic and Economic Survey. It was
highly successful both from the standpoint
of large attendance andinterest manifested
in fhe meetings. Never before have those
attending the Institute entered into the
discussions so freely and gained so much
information of real benefit in better road
construction. There were registered at
the Institute 122 road officials and engi
neers from 49 counties of the state.
The program of lectures and demon
strations was planned by Mr. AV. S.
Fallis, State Highway Engineer and act
ing director of the Institute, Professor
T. F. Hickerson, of the civil engineering
department of the University, and Miss
H. M. Berry, secretary of the State Geo
logical and Economic Survey.
The following topics were given special
consideration at this session of the Insti
tute ; road administration and organiza
tion, road construction, road mainte
nance, military roads. The schedule of
lectures embraced the following: A Plan
for the Organization/of a County Road
Construction Force, by Mr. AV. S. FaUis;
An Accounting System for County Road
AVork, by Mr. C. R. Thomas of the State
A. and E. College; Ethics of Engineering,
by Pres. AV. C. Riddick of the State A,
and E. College; Road Legislation by the
Legislature of 1917, by Hon. Bennehan
Cameron; Problems of Administration
Boards, by Mr. Roy M. Brown of AVa-
tauga County; Geology in Relation to
Highway Engineering, by Professor Col
lier Cobb of the University; Lecture on
Road Building, illustrated with moving
pictures, by Mr. AV. S. Fallis; Highway
Location, Grades, and Alignment, by Mr.
A. D. AAfflliams, State Highway Engineer
of AA’est Virginia.
EXTENSION LECTURES
Members of the faculty of the Univer
sity offer through the Bureau of Exten
sion a total of 163 lectures.
These lectures fall in general under
three classes: (1) Lectures of popular
and general interest, (2) lectures of spe
cific hnd tecnical nature for study clubs,
institutes, and farmers’ meetings, and
(3) lectures or addresses for special meet
ings, such as commencement, patriotic
and dedicatory occasions. Memorial Day
exercises, and conventions.
In the total 163 lectures offered to the
people of the State there are included 38
lectures under the L^niversity’s special
program of Extension Service for a Time
of AA"ar.
If you wish to secure for your com
munity one or more lectures by members
of the faculty of the University, write to
the Bureau of Extension, University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The only
charge for a lecture is for the travelling
expenses of the speaker.
“GERMANY CAN DEFY GOD”
“Of what use is a debate on the exist
ence of the Deity? The invisible can as
sume no earthly obligation, can bear no
mortal burdens. One might as reasonably
say that the ether bore a message; that
there was divine ordination in the sough
ing of^the night-wind over the battlefields;
that God was a mere road to some desired
end; that peace could be found only in
the termination of the road.
“There is only one God—fear. There
18 another God annihilation. Expediency
is the intercessor and completes the Trin
ity.^
“All hope in invisible intercession must
be put away. Fear of the doom that awaits
them must be inspired in the breast of all
who oppose Germany. In that lies her
salvation. She must trust in no other.
The struggle for unity would be its own
compensation. AVhat that is accomplish
ed, Germany can dispense her favors and
can defydier enemies—and the invisible
God.’’—Schlunsen, in The Mongen-post.