North Carolina Newspapers

The aews 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 Elxtension. OCTOBER 15, 1919 CHAPEL HILL, N. C. VOL. V, NO. 47 Cdlforial Board i B, C. Branson, L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. Entered as second-class matter November 14,1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N« G., under the act of August 24,1912. COUNTRY HOME COMFORTS Orange township, in Blackhawk county ■ Iowa, has risen into nation-wide fame. And no wonder. Look at the comforts, -conveniences, and luxuries in the 142 homes of this country township. Run your eye down the record, and see if your .cwn country neighborhood can match it. 142 farm homes in the township. . 142 witli newspapers and magazines. 1125 witli libraries—average volumes in owners homes 106, in tenant homes 95. 132 with telephones. 80 with piano^. 79 with automobiles. .76 with vacciW carpet sweepers. '.76 with gas or oil stoves. ’72 with furnace heat. ■68 with power washers. ^63 with gas or electric lights. 57 with running water piped in. 55 witli refrigerators. 47 with bath rooms. 45 with open-air sleeping porclies. :36 with gas or electric irons. 34 w'ith indoor toilets. Tiiese figures appear in a bulletin just issued by tlie Iowa Agricultural College at Ames. A great record, topping anything the towns can show anywhere. Here are labor saving devices, comforts, •conveniences, and luxuries in country homes in lavigh abundance. Well equipped country homes, attract ive, efficient, satisfying, and wholesome— country homes functioning on the high est possible levels—are a foundational ne cessity in America and in every other land and country. Such homes solve a fulk score of the difficult problems tliat •confront this nation in tlie days at hand and ahead. If there is any more impor- •tant matter for State Reconstruction Com missions to consider, we fail to think of it just now. Carolina Can Have Them There are a great many country com- ■munities in North Carolina that might easily rank with this Iowa township in home conveniences, comforts, and luxur ies—a dozen or so in Catawba county ■ alone, where a recent investigation shows that every other country home has an automobile. We are buying motor cars at the rate ■^■of 20,000 a year in North Carolina, or some fifty a day including Sundays. If noai-o.ur farmers set to work to equip tiieir country liomes at this rate, we shall have a brand new civilization on a high er level in a single generation. And why net, pray? Running water can bo piped into coun- -try kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms by gravity fiow wherever sucli a thing is possible, or lifted by a ram, for less mon ey than a set of motor car tires will cost, ■at the present prices. . Or if the farmer wants electric lights and power as well as water for his home and barn, a small nearby water power can be developed, and it can be operated ■with less attention 4han his automobile demands and at less expense for a year than the cost of gas and oil in a single , week of joy riding. Or a gas engine plant can be installed Tor water, lights, and power at the cost of a Ford machine, or some such figure. Along with the water supply |n country homes comes the necessity for telephones in larger number, domestic sewage dis posal systems, and greater attention to sanitation and health in our country regions. - The time lias come when country homes and farms must be equipped with labor -'saving devices and conveniences of every • sort. Decreasing farm labor demands it and the rising standards of living compel it. Else we nvf^ expect to see in the ■South the deserted faim regions and the country life decay of the North and East. Eountry homes must be efficient, satisfy- ■ing and wliolesome, or the cityward drift ■of country populations will soon rise into .liiyli tide in the South. It is mainly a question for our farm •wives. Tliey can now have what they .really want in North Carolina. The 250 imiltions we have laid away in war sedur- ^ ities and bank account savings the last two years is convincing proof of it. The salvation of the country civilization of the :South lie^ with the farm wife—in her eye to see what her children need and in her firm resolve to have for them what her ftiome demands. Ready to Help The law of 1917 authorizdd the State Higliway Commission to give the country people of tlie state expert advice in de veloping small nearby water powers for community and domestic uses, for water supply and sewage disposal systems, and light and power in homes and barns. The bill also covers country telephone systems. Upon request an expert will be sent to advise any farm community in these fun damental concerns of country home com forts and conveniences. The University has placed its faculties and facilities at the service of the State Highway Commission to carry out the purposes of this act. To this end a new division of the University Extension Bu reau has been formed under the name of Country Home Comforts and Convenien ces. It consists of tlie departments of Rural Social Science, Electricity, Hy draulics and Sanitary Engineering. Letters calling for assistance can be ad dressed to Hon. Frank Page, Chairman State Highway Commission, Raleigh, N. C., or Dr. L. R. Wilson, Director Univer sity Extension Bureau, Chapel Hill, N. Carolina. A NEW EXTENSION LEAFLET Sanitation in the South, by Thorndike Saville, associate professor of hydraulics and sanitary engineering in the Univer sity of North Carolina, is the title of a new Leaflet, vol. 11 No. 9, just given to the public by th e Extension Bureau of the University. It gives special attention to the country problems of sanitation and health, and carries a page devoted to selected bulletins on rural water supply, domestic sewage disposal systems, country home conven iences and com forts. Professor Saville is a Harvard man and has recently had valuable field experience in sanitary engineering in the army. He is this year offering in the Univer sity of North^arolina four courses in public health and sanitary engineering, as follows: (1) communicable diseases, causes and control, (2) sanitary science, origin and development, (3) flood con trol, drainage reclamation, and malaria control, and (4) water supply and purifi cation, garbage and refuse disposal, sew erage and sewage disposal. So far as we know these are the first full courses in these subjects offered to southern students this side of Jolm Hopkins and IJarvard. Professor Saville is aln important mem- i)er of the nevv division of the T'niversity Extension Bureau— “Country Home Comforts and Conveniences”. He freely offers himself to the people of the state. Farmers interested in better health con ditions in their homes and communities can secure his services without charge by applying to Hon. Frank Page, Chairman State Highway CoorHyssion, Raleigh, N. C., or Dr. L. R. Wilson, director Univer sity Extension Bureau, Chapel Hill, N. C. A SOCIAL SCIENCE SCHOOL Tlie last issue of the University Nt-vvs Letter says tliat wliat is lacking atiheUni-' versity is*;, great school of social science. Beyond a doubt that is a fact. In a way the university is growing into a great so cial science school, yet it Is merely grow ing that way, apparently without that definite plan in view that would create a distinct scliool there with the idea of in struction in social science in mind. Chapel Hill occupies a unique position with relation to the people it serves. It is doubtful if any other university is as closely in touch with all the people in their home and social life, and it is every day bringing out the themes that a course in social science would undoubtedly pre sent. The state studies, and county stud ies, the Carolina club studies, and what can be called the state research work, constitute a comprehensive social science line of work. But it is not recognized and made a special feature, as it deserves to-be. Because the university is broadening into a more general acquaintance wilhthe state and the people, it is finding a gr-.nv- ing patronage, and what is better, it i.s doing a more saturating work. The seuu ment that finds an outlet iu the News Let ter is exerting an influence in North Car olina that is one of the best educational forces in the state. Many a man and woman who have never seen Chapel HiU have been awakened to an interest in inquiry and research and led to think SCHOOL AND FARM It ought to dawn on some of us fair ly soon that better education is not simply a matter of finer buildings and \ apparatus, more pay, more taxes, more organization. Tliese things are all helpful, but there must be some ac tive spring of life in the child to flow out through the growth channels which schooling can set. The teaclier builds on the solid foundation of new resources, better equipped homes, bigger cattle, more skillfully attended fields, more pro ductive crops. To popularize gardens, to devise better ways of storing, mov ing, and selling food, to multiply pub lic markets, to clear the entire path from the farm to the family sppper ta ble—all such improvements help,, di rectly and mightily, to make a more ef fective education possible. In this time of change we must take account of realities and make sure of our foundations. The foundation of the good school is the good farm.— Collier’s Magazine. and feel a concern in affairs of the day from the utterances that have gone out from the University through the News I.fitter and through other instruments that carry a similar message from the in stitution. Chapel Hillf would know what to do with a great school of social science, and North Carolina as a state would profit by the establishment there of such a depart ment. The^miversity can serve by carry ing that idea to its conclusion. — News and Observer. NEW COLUMBIA COURSE The new course in Contemporary Civi lization is getting under way in Columbia College. This course, like the psycholog ical tests, is a direct result of the war. Tlie aim of the course, it was said yester day, is to inform the student of the more outstanding and influential factors of his physical and social environment. The chief features of the intellectual, econo mic, and political life of today are treated and considered in their dependence on the difference from the past. The great events of the last century in the history of the countries now more closely linked in international relations are reviewed, and the insistent problems, internal and international, which they are now facing, arc given detailed consideration. By thus giving the student, early in his college course, objective material on which to base his own judgments, it is thought he will be aided in an intelligent participation in the civilization of his own, day.—New York Times. WITNESS CHAPEL HILL One would need the perspective of 25 years to discuss intelligently even the pri mary results of the conference of the state and ^unty council on the Univer sity campus at Chapel Hill. It is pre eminently a work of semination, the labor of seed-time, the harvest of which will not come to its full fruitage for a gen eration at the earliest; and from which North Carolina may reasonably hope to profit indefinitely. But it is well that the state should give heed at least to what they are trying to do at Chapel Hill, impossible though it be to forecast any measure of their suc cess. It is well that the state should stop to consider this meeting for its own good, as much as for the good of the work. Already too many turbulent forces are loose, too many factors of destruction are working at the foundations of our social and political system, for the minds of men to remain tranquil unless they are occupied somewhat with the other half of the story, the inconspicuous, non-spectac ular half, which tells of the things that will really endure. Not all the world is seeking revolution. The forces of eyolu- t’on, conscious evolution, are rather si lently, but none the less powerfully, at work, too. AVitness Chapel Hill. Remoulding the State Down there county commissioners and county welfare authorities are gathered, taking council together for the upbuilding of the state. They have sprung no bol- shevist ideas. They do not expect to I make North Carolina over in a day, or a year, by arraying class against class; they do not expect to jjiake it over at all ex cept by the slow processes of time. Yet they do expect to remould it nearer to the heart’s desire by altering line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, not by first shattering it to bits. Tlie state and county council is pro ceeding upon the assumption that most men and women are fundamentally de cent, and desire to do the decent thing, whether their social station be high or low, whether they march in the ranks of capital or of labor, whether their worldly wealth be great or non-existent. It is rather an old-fashioned doctrine, and distinctly out of favor with those of our leaders who have fallen under the influ ence of the Russian school, but it has the merit of having worked in the past. Take the addresses that the body heard T*uesday. The governor urged the hypo thesis that if all men are called upon to tell the truth, most of them will tell the truth, even about taxation. The secreta ry of the state board of health proclaimed the belief of the people that ‘ ‘you cannot pass the buck to God” in matters of pub lic health, and their demand that the state Iielp to guard them in that matter. Dr. Brooks spoke on the assumption that the average citizen is perfectly will ing to do justice to tlie public school teacher, white or black, if he is shown in what justice consists. .ludge Feidelson praised our juvenile cour^t law as the best ever enacted. Liberty Under Law All the items on this program, take note, are dealings with the future. The state council is acting on the assumption that North Carolina is going to be in bus iness for a long time to come, and that North Carolinians, despite strikes and lockouts, riots and bolsheviks, are still in terested in fundamental things—in hon esty and justice in government, iii inlclli- gent combat against the ills the flesh is heir to, in restraint of vicious tendencies and in the development of every possibility for good in the state’s children. Its meet ing at this juncture is a salutary and com forting reminder that, behind the spec tacular lunatic fringe, the great body of our people remains just what it has been all the time —a reasonbly disciplined body, advancing slowly, but advancing, and with a firm, unshaken faith in the righteousness of liberty under law.— Greensboro News. than a dozen of these organizations have been formed in that State. Each council is designed to serve as a focal center for all activities affecting rural life and in terests in its county. These organiza tions are being fostered by the Depart ment of Agriculture in cooperation with the college of agriculture of the Univer sity of Tennessee, and other state agen cies. The council iu Blount county has al ready held a successful get-together pic nic, while cattle sales, cooperative buying, and the promotion of community better ment are other projects with which vari ous councils are concerning themselves. It is anticipated that within the next year the movement will have spread to more than 30 counties. A state federa tion of these bodies is also a possibility. The plan of organization of the coun cils is simple. No one draws a salary, the county agricltuural agent acting in an advisory capacity for the unit. The membership fees are usually used to rent headquarters, which serves as a meeting place for farmers when they come to town.—Federal Agricultural Department News Service. CHURCH STATESMANSHIP Trinity Methodist Church, of Urbana, Illinois, is establishing a School of Reli gion on a site adjoining the church and just across the street from the campus of the University of Illinois. The plank is to cost somewhere between six hundred thousand and a million dollars and will be called the Wesley Foundation. Its purpose is to train preachers whose secular studies will be pursued in the nearby University halls; but what is just as important it will give religious instruc tion to University students wlio care to elect it. The University is discussing credits toward graduation for the ethical and religious studies of AVesley Founda tion, and also it has under consideration the adjusting and learranging of its secu lar courses to meet the demands of AVes- ley Foundation theologs. And why not? The plan looks like a stroke of genius. Among the six thousand students of the State University there are probably more Alethodist boys and girls than in all five of the Alethodist Colleges of Illinois combined, a condition that exists in 30 odd states of the union. But in Illinois, the Methodist church is looking after the children of its own bosom in the State University, some 2,500 or more; and they are doing it in big statesmanship-like ways. AVe have no doubt the University au thorities will be happy to effect similar working arrangements with every other denomination in Illinois. Says dean Davenport, of the University Agricultural College, in The Country Gentlemen of September 6: “The Churches have long subscribed liberally for foreign missionary work, but they are beginning to see that the most fertile of all missionary fields is the campUs of.a great University which draws its students from the ends of the earth.” THE WHITE HAT FAIR Nearly a thousand people attended Perquimans County’s first community fair at White Hat, near Hertford, last •week. The exhibit was highly credita ble and the occasion will doubtless prove to be a great educational stimulus to a fine people ip a fine community. Perqui mans is now planning for four community fairs in 1920.—E. AV. K. MORE FEDERAL FUNDS Of the $3,051,919 granted by the fede ral government for the fiscal year 1919- 1920 for agricultural, trade, home eco nomics and industrial subjects, and teacher-training work under the vocation, al education law, the Southern States have been allotted $691,576. The allot- rpent made to North Carolina is $67,452, The' flr^f~qfttarterly payments for the fis cal year were made October first.—E. W. K. MORE WHOLE-TIME NURSES Whole-time nurses for Davidson and Forsyth counties now bring the list of county women superintendents up to seven. These counties are Cumberland, David son, Edgecombe, Forsyth, Lenoir, Northampton, AVilson, -and Pitt is to be the eighth sooji. These nurses work under the direction of the county health superintendents and make special effort to attend women in pre-natal or post-natal cases. In Davidson Miss Catharine Campbelt is whole-time nurse and in Forsyth Mi.s.s Tula Aloose. They worfc*also under the dire.nioii ot the state board of healcli which has found the whole-time health officer and the whole-time nurse a v,mn- derful opportunity for public service.— Greensboro Daily News. COUNTY FARM COUNCILS The movement to organize the farmers of Tennessee for mutual benefit and bet ter agriculture has been given special im petus in recent months by the creation of County Councils of Agriculture. More A BAD STATE OF AFFAIRS Not long since The Southerner published some very ugly statements iu regard tn the people of Edgecombe county, one feature of which we wish to call atten tion to—that is the tenant system which is so generally in vogue here. It was a great surprise to us to learn that according to these statistics more tlian half the white farmers of Edge combe are tenants. This is an unfortu nate condition of affairs, and is a seribus bar to progress. There are too many large farms in the hands of a few owners. In the AVest Uie average farmer is sat isfied to own IW acres of land on which he makes a better living than the aver age Southern farmer makes on 300 acres. With a greater division of farm lands in this county into smaller estates, . the prosperity of the farmers generally would be tenfold greater than under the present tenant system. There would bo better and more inten sive cultivation with far greater yields of all farm products. The curse of Ireland is the ownership of land by a few individuals, and it is the curse of any country that practices it. With the present high prices for farm products, tenant farmers ought to strive to save in order that they, too, may own. land. In this connection, the familiar lines from Goldsmith are eminently appropri ate: III fares the laud, to hastening ills a prey. Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them as a breath hath made. But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride. Wnen once destroyed, can never be supplied. Is the tenant system to curse and ruia our nation as it has Ireland and othe^ nations?—The Southerner, Tarboro, I