Newspapers / The University of North … / Oct. 22, 1919, edition 1 / Page 1
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Hie news m this publica* don is released lor the press on receipt THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA NEWS LETTER Published weekly by the University of North Carolina for its Bureau of Extension. OCTOBER 22, 1919 CHAPEL HHX, N. C. VOL, V, NO. 48 SdUorial Board i B. C. Branson, K. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D Carroll, ,1. B. Bullitt. Entered as second-olass matter Uoyember 14.1914, at the Postofflce at Chapel HtU, N. C.. under the act of August 34,1912. WHAT COUNTRY COUNTY LEADS? A COUNTRY HOME SURVEY Some time ago we gave an account of the conveniences and comforts found in the country homes of a Wisconsin county, by the school children under the direc- iJlaon of the county school superintendent . and his teachers (University News Letter, August 6, 1919). At that time we offered to furnish the 1 school officials of North Carolina with a ■ simple blank to be used in similar sur veys here in the home state. So many •requests have come to us from alert teach- ■ers and school officials that we are print ing this blank in full in this issue. A supply can be had from the local printers. Or orders can be sent to the University News I.etter, and they will be filled promptly at cost. One blank is necessary for each country home in the ■area surveyed—the school district or the entire county as the case may be. We have a notion that North Carolina stands well ahead of any other southern state in country home conveniences and comforts. But at present nobody knows the facts. No teacher or school superin tendent in North Carolina has tried to find out how well or ill equipped our country homes are. Or nobody has as yet reported upon the various attempts made to survey this particular aspect of our country civilization. Who will be the first to give the facts about country home comforts and con veniences in some distinct area of North Carolina? What country community or county leads? COUNTRY HOME SURVEY FORM Fill each space with proper answer: Yes (Y) or No (N), or otherwise as called for. County School District Race Teacher’s Name P. 0... Date country people in the south, bar none. They represent a really high level of country civilization, but it is a static civ ilization—not stagnant but static. Nevertheless, Old Orange is rich, as men count riches in North Carolina. She has around $400,000 laid away in bank account savings, or more than $25 per in habitant, counting men, women, and children of both races. Only 22 counties make a better showing. And as of old, she is patriotic. She has more than $900,000 invested in liberty bonds and war stamps, or some ^90 per inhabitant, and in this particular she stands ahead of 74 counties of the state. Poor in Public Schools Old Orange is rich in worldly goods, but she is poor in public schools; or so until lately when Chapel Hill set the pace for the county with a $50,000 public school building. Poor, as compared with the olden days when the Academy at Ce dar Grove, the Military Academy for boys and the Select School for girls at Hillsboro evidenced the interest of her people in education. How poor she is in elementary and high school facilities today is exposed to ourselves and to the world at large by A Study of the Public Schools of Orange County, North Caro lina, by Dr. L. A. Williams, University School of Education, in the University Extension Bulletin No. 32, June, 1919. It is impossible to believe that the peo ple of Orange can read this bulletin and, with all their wealth, remain satisfied with the educational deficiencies of the county. The bulletin can be had free of charge by applying to the University Extension Bureau at Chapel Hill, or to Supt. R. H. Claytor at Hillsboro. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? What have you done for the world today, ior all it has done for you— With its life and its chance and its toil and play. And its music and laughter and dew? What have you done for a world that sings. For a world that shines as you go; For a world that is master of mice and kings. That can make or can break with a blow? Why are you troubled and discontent In a world that has done so much To clothe you with grace of the gifts it has sent And the chance it has helped you to clutch? For this beautiful world is a place, in deed. That is doing things hour by hour That should help us to climb to a hap pier creed. As the blossom climbs into the flower? BREAKING THE RECORD Head of home, name Postoffice 1. Owner? or Tenant? 2. No. of years on this particular farm? 3. Water piped into the home? Into the barn? 4. Any bath room? Inside toilet? 5. Outside toilet or privy? One for each sex? Is it fly-proof and wa ter-tight? 6. Electric lights? Acetylene lights? 7. Open-air sleeping porch? Screened ? 8. Are the doors and windows o' •kitchen, dining room and bed rooms all screened? Which are not screened? Kitchen porch screened? 9. Sewage system for kitchen, bath room, and inside toilet waste? 10. Piano? Organ? Victro- la or the like? 11. Daily paper? Weekly paper? Farm paper? Church paper? Current magazine? 12. Sewing machine? ' 13. Power washing machine? 14. Automobile? 15. Gasoline tractor? 16. Incubator? 17. Milking machine? 18. Fruit spraying outfit? 19. Silo? 20. Gasoline engine? Form furnished by the Department of Rural Social Science, University of N. C. OLD ORANGE IS RICH Orange County, North Carolina, is 'typical mid-state county, a fair average Carolina county in intelligence, enter prise, and wealth. It ranks right around 50th among the one hundred counties of the state in more than 200 particulars of ■economic and social importance. It is distinctly a rural county, with fewer than five thousand of her 15,000 people living in three little country towns—Hillsboro, the county site town. Chapel Hill, the seat of the University, and Carrboro, an adjacent mill village and railway station of the State Universi ty. Ten thousand or two-thirds of her people live in individual farmsteads scat tered throughout 250,000 acres of terri tory. Nearly seven of every ten acres of this area lie fallow and idle, while her population has increased less than 300 in -30 years. It is a county of the very best Attendance figures at the University of North Carolina have passed all records. A total of 1286 students have registered during the first ten days of the 125th ses sion, of whom 425 are freshmen. Nota ble increases besides the freshmen are in the law school, in the pre-medical group, and in the new school of commerce, and a large number of men who were in the army and navy have returned to take up their interrupted work. In formally opening the University President Chase, just beginning his first year as president after ten years of ser vice in the faculty, called on the students to retain and develop a strong spiritual life in a State which he said was entering upon a period of rapid material growth. “'After you leave this place”, he said, ‘ ‘you will be called upon to live in a com monwealth which is now undergoing and in all human probability will continue to undergo for many years an enormous material growth and enrichment. You will do your part as a citizen of North Carolina only if you come to realize that along with material growth there must go spiritual growth, that man is more precious than the goods he creates, that a full and free and happy life for every individual must be the highest goal of a true democracy.” October 12, University day, the 126th an niversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the Old East building was celebrated this year in exercises at Chapel Hill and in a series of Alumni meetings in cities all over North Carolina. Efforts were made to have meetings in every county and by local alumni in Charlotte Greensboro, Wilmington, Raleigh, Dur ham, Tarboro, New Bern, Wadesboro, Mt. Airy, Lumberton, Lauringsburg, Statesville, Fayetteville, Salisbury, Mon roe, and Washington. At Chapel Hill the Hon. Francis D. Winston of Windsor, a member of the class of 1879, made the annual address in Memorial Hall. President Chase at tended meetings in Greensboro, Durham and Raleigh. Prof. E. C. Branson at tended the Wilmington meeting and Dr. Joseph Hyde Pratt was chosen to be at Charlotte. The center of interest at these alumni gatherings was the progress of the fund tor the Graham Memorial building, which the alumni have undertaken to raise in memory of the late Edward Kid der Graham. The sum of $150,000 is to be raised for a building which will be the center of all student activities and a gen eral social gathering place for all the uni versity. Other matters discussed by the alumni * were the compiling of a complete record What are you doing to help it along For the help it is giving right now To the children that list to its prayer and its song And are touched by a holier vow? What have you done for a world that can smile And help you to smile on your way. And a world that is lovelier, mile after mile. For the sake of its children each day? Bentztown Bard, Baltimore Sun THE MIGHTY TASK The mighty task to which the church is called, said Secretary of State Lansing in an address to the new era conference of the Presbyterian Church at Lake Geneva, Wis., is to bring men back to spiritual standards, to make C.hrist’s principles an impelling force in the reconstruction of society, and to teach men to think true and live true. Out of the ruins of the old world order shattered by the war there must be erect ed a new structure based upon sounder principles. New ideas and new concep tions of society’s obligations to the individ ual have been released, and there is man ifested a radicalism in their advocacy which threatens the disruption of the pres ent social order. The peril lies in the exaltation of physi cal might, the false doctrine of the right to do because of the power to do, and as sumption of selfish desire as to the ulti mate motive,of human action. The world can meet this grave situation only by re newing and strengthening its spiritual life and turning away from materialism and implanting in men’s souls those great fun damental principles which Christ taught. —Secretary Robert Lansing. milk, purer butter; in short, the influ ence of the nurse has helped to stimulate every enterprise in the country except one. Our undertaker has so little busi ness that he actually quit his job and has gone out on the road to sell cream separators. Before we had a county nurse the doc tor was hardly ever consulted by a con sumptive until he or she was in the sec ond stage. Now they come in the begin- ing of all kinds of cough, throat, and lung troubles, and the doctor can do some thing for them. Great things can be realized by contin uing the work. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure—and sure ly the visiting nurse brings the preven tion. Dr. O. K. Winburg, director State Public Health Association, in the Minne sota Public Health Association Journal. of the University men who were in ser vice in the war and the organization of local university welfare committees.—Le noir Chambers. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR During the session of the doctors in Gastonia the other day, the statement was made that in Mecklenburg, a great agricultural and rural county, there were but two doctors under the age of sixty- five years, practicing outside the corpor ate limits of Charlotte. This is a statement that should chal lenge the thought and attention of the rural public. What are the country people going to do for doctors? It is an evident fact that the country doctor, a noble and heroic type, is fast passing out. He is moving to the city where he does not have to endure the nerve-wrecking, grueling grind of country practice with its long cold drives in snow and rain and sleet at any hour of the day or night at the call of distress. There is no more heroic figure in American life today than the old country doctor who has literally worn himself out ministering to the weak and poor and humble of the countryside year in and year out at the paltry price of one dollar per. In Gaston county, which is thickly set tled with industrial communities, to the best of our knowledge, we do not know of a single physician whose practice is al together among the rural population. A.nd, as was so ■ forcibly brought out last evening, the problem of country people, eight and ten miles from a doctor, is get ting to be a serious one.—Gastonia Ga zette. HOME STUDY COURSES There must be scores of young men and women in North Carolina who do not have as much training in certain school subjects of study as they desire or need. Office employees, clerks in stores, employ ees in factories and in mills, doubtless have need and desire for more knowledge of arithmetic, the writing of business let ters, writing and speaking of clear, force ful English, retail salesmanship, and the like. '' With this idea in mind the Bureau of Extension has entirely reorganized its plan of Home Study through correspond ence and now offers many courses deal ing with business procedure, elementary school subjects, applied mathematics, etc. Persons interested in taking such courses themselves or in having some of their em ployees take such courses will do well to write to the HOME STUDY DIVISION, Bureau of Extension, and ask about thii work. THE COUNTY-PAID NURSE The county-paid nurse in the country districts of Minnesota is the result of a movement that originated with the 16,000 plain people of one of the farming count ies. The county nurse is not regarded as a charity nurse at all. She is a county official like the county superintendent of schools or the county health officer. An account of the work of one of these nurses gives an idea of the immense amount of good that can be accomplished. The nurse visited every family where death by consumption had occurred dur ing the last six years, and also their near relatives and anyone else reported to be ailing with tuberculosis. She gave advice, instructed them how to live properly, distributed literature in the various lan guages, and completed a thorough canvas of the whole county. The following is from her report: Since a nurse’s work is disease prevent ion and health promotion and only inci dentally care of the sick, I have been un able to make such a full report as a phy sician could make. My work has been to give advice, to instruct, to distribute literature, to gather statistics, all of which I have endeavored to do to the best of my ability. In no way have I interfered with the physicians. When I say a case is pos itive I mean that a physician has at some time been consulted by the patient; the the remaining cases must be classed as suspicious, no matter how sure I feel in my own mind that the patient has tuber culosis. The following are the figures as found: Population of county, 18,840 (1910 cen sus). Tuberculosis deaths in 1911 25 Pulmonary tuberculosis 76 Tuberculosis spine 3 Tuberculosis hip 3 Tuberculosis glands 5 Tuberculosis bone 2 Tuberculosis kidneys 2 Total positive tuberculosis 91 Suspicious cases of tuberculosis 247 Patients wishing to go to a sanitorium or hospital if near home 17 Families visited 219 A great many children are suffering from defective breathing and weak eyes, from infected tonsils, improper feeding, the lack of fresh air and sunshine. I have found babies from four to fourteen months of age that have seldom if ever been outside the door. Their parents are afraid that sunlight and outdoor air will injure them. The County Hospital This is only one of the excellent reports of the nurse’s work. Our tuberculosis death rate is decreasing. The people have been aroused upon the subject of preventable diseases—tuberculosis in par ticular. Furthermore the county com missioners have decided to build a sani torium to cost about ^35,000 for the ex clusive treatment of tuberculosis. The public drinking cup has been abol ished. The Story of Tuberculosis has been introduced as a text book in our schools. The work of the nurse is noticeable in many ways. The farmer builds more hygienic homes, with good drainage, plen ty of ventilation, and furnace heat. This means more demand for masons, carpen ters, lumber, paints, painters, plumbing materials, plumbers; it means progress at full speed. We want fresh eggs, clean CAROLINA PLAYMAKERS In the September number of The American Review of Reviews there ap pears a two-page editorial review, with illustrations, of the work of The Carolina Playmakers. This article which we are quoting in part shows keen insight into the significance of the movement in orig inal folk play making here in North Car olina as it applies to our national life. It should be a source of no little pride to *e University and to our State to be hus recognized as a creative center in the naking of a new American mind and a aew American literature. “Another State has begun to create communal drama. Under the able direc tion of Frederick H. Koch, Professor of Dramatic Literature in the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, the na tive sons and daughters of the Old North State have begun to mold their rich stores of legend and folklore into plays. Professor Koch’s achievments in the field of community drama, which were productive of the writing and staging of plays and pageants at the beautiful Bank- side Theater of the University of North Dakota, were embodied in an article on Communal Playmaking, published in the Review of Reviews, September 1916. From this initial impulse. Rural Commun ity Drama, under the leadership of girls graduated from the State University, has given North Dakota a realization of true dramatic art and a new folk-conscious ness. “The North Carolina Playmakers of Chapel Hill aim to translate the life of their state into plays that spring from the life of the people, from the folk of North Carolina. They have built a Play- House, as a home for their folk-drama in the hope that it will finally become an institution of the cooperative folk-arts. Like Stuart Walker’s Portmanteau .Thea ter, it is adjustable and portable and can be readily adapted to town halls and school auditoriums. All its scenery, lightings, settings, and costumes are home-made, designed and executed by the student playmakers of the University. “Out of the number of unusual and in teresting plays written in Professor Koch’s Course in Dramatic Composition, three were chosen for presentation at the Play- House last March. When Witches Ride, by Elizabeth A. Lay, is a drama of Caro lina folk-superstition. The action takes place in a back county of North Carolina on the Roanoke River at a time when the people of Northampton County still be lieved in witches. The second play. The Return of Buck Gavin, by Thomas Wolfe, is a tragedy of the mountain people with the scene laid in the Carolina mountains. What Will Barbara Say?, the third play, by Minnie S. Sparrow, is a romance of Chapel Hill at Commencement time. Other plays produced more recently are: The Fighting Corporal, a comedy of negro life by Louisa Reid, and Peggy, a tragedy of the tenant farmer, by Harold Williamson. The Playmakers are organized as a society of amateurs, or amatores, in the original sense of the word, amo, I love. They believe that the spirit of communal plays cannot be captured by the commer cialized stage, but that this spirit must come spontaneously from the heart of man, from memory, from joy in labor, and an instinctive yearning toward beauty and poetry. Their efforts, and also those of all folk players deserve commendation from ev6ry man and woman who has our country’s welfare at heart. ‘ ‘When every community has its Play- House and its own native group of plays and producers, we shall have a national American Theater that will give a richly ■varied authentic expression of American life. We shall be aware—which we only dimly are at present—of the actual pulse of the people by the expression in folk plays of their coordinated minds. It is this common vision, this collective striv ing that determines nationalism and re mains throughout the ages, the one and only touchstone of the future.”
The University of North Carolina News Letter (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Oct. 22, 1919, edition 1
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