The news in this publi-
j cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for its University Ex
tension Division.
FEBRUARY 22, 1922
CHAPEL Hn.T., N. C.
VOL. VIII, NO. 14
Editorial Board » E. 0. Bransoii, 8. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson, E. W. KniRhl;, D. D. Carroll,'J. B. Bullitt, H. W. Odum. Entered as second-class matter November 14,1014, at the Postofftce at Ohapel Hill, N, C., under the act of Attgust 24,1918.
THE GRAHAM MEMORIAL
University trustees have decided to
begin work at once on the Graham Me
morial, which is to be a building dedi
cated to the memory of the late presi
dent of the University and to the ser
vice of the citizens of the campus at
Chapel Hill.
It is probable that not sufficient money
is in hand to carry the work through to
completion, but that matters little. The
money will be forthcoming and the trus
tees may go ahead confidently. Hardly
a subscriber of the entire number who
have underwritten or paid into the hands
of the treasurer any part of the memo
rial fund but stands ready to double his
subscription. The only reason that hun
dreds did not contribute more is that
they wanted to share, with others this
tribute to the spirit of a man who spent
himself so freely in the service of his
state.
No drive will be needed, gentlemep
of the board of trustees, if you find that
the money and the building will not come
out even. If more is required to put
’ into brick and mortar something of their
love for him and pride in the spiritual
impetus which he gave the oldest of the
state’s educational institutions, let those
who have contributed know and they’ll
be glad to give again. j
For no man who came under the in
fluence of Ed Graham, his gentle toler
ance, broad sympathy, and understand
ing helpfulness, fails to realize his debt
and to realize, also, that the memorial
building, to be used by the students of
the University for developmentof friend
ly gregarianism, is in character, a thing
that can seldom be said of memorials.—
Raleigh Times.
NEEDS IT BADLY
Governor Morrison’s ambition to over
haul the system of county government
in North Carolina is one of the most im
portant developments in the policy of a
Governor who, from his first day in of
fice, has expressed concern for the res
toration of life in local units of govern
ment. Government is largely a matter
of business, and yet State Auditor Dur
ham testifies that few counties know
their financial condition. Many cannot
state the amount of their bonded in
debtedness, who holds the bonds, when
they are due, when the interest is to be
paid and where the sinking fund is, for
some portions of bonded indebtedness.
Auditor Durham admits that there are
some business enterprises conducted as
public business is, but he comments
that “their names are carved deep in
the records of bankruptcy and some of
their officers and directors are doing
time. ’’
Governor Morrison has started out to
end not dishonesty but inefficiency; the
wrong-doing of county officials is negli
gible In this problem. A beginning has
been made through the statutes which
require proper reports of county affairs
to the State Auditor and adequate sys
tems of accounting where the latter
have not yet been adopted. Today county
commissioners are responsible for the
handling of funds aggregating the sums
once expended by state governments.
Not only system but officials of business
ability and training are absolutely es
sential for the proper administration of
county affairs. Governor Morrison’s
commission, to be appointed for a thor
ough survey of county government, will
have opportunity to do a great service
for the state.—Asheville Citizen.
A UNIVERSITY HOTEL
The announcement that there is to be
erected a large and modern hotel at
Chapel Hill will be received with inter
est and pleasure by thousands of people
not only in North Carolina but through
out the nation. It has long been realized
that one of the serious handicaps of the
university town has been the lack of
accommodations for the hundreds of
visitors who annually make pilgrimages
to the state university. Hundreds avoid
going there because of the lack of fa
cilities for entertainment. Alumni pass
ing through this section of the state
would visit there oftener if they had
some place to sljay. But with a modern
hotel, the university will become a Mec
ca for many old Carolina men who would
not otherwise risk a visit to their alma
mater. It will also afford a place for
banquets and meetings of committees,
classes, and organizations more or less
related to the work of the university.
The hotel will be another thing which,
we believe, directly can be credited to
the activity of the Durham chapter of
the University Alunfni association. At
the last annual meeting of the local
chapter, steps were taken to provide
for a hotel at the university^town. The
alumni had had the matter,|^up'before,
and had been busy creating [sentiment
for it. At the last meeting, if we re
member rightly, the matter came up
again and it was decided that something
should be done.
John Sprunt Hill’s Gift
It was entirely fitting, therefore,
that a Durham man, an alumnus of the
university, should come forward with a
gift of land and money amounting to
approximately $40,000 for a hotel. We
doubt if there is any one man in the
state who in the same length of time
has done more for the university than
John Sprunt Hill. He sees things that
are needed at the university, and when
he sees them he goes about getting
them, and he usually finds a way or
makes one to get them. He realized i
the need for a hotel at Chapel Kill, and i
not only realized it, but was willing to
put in forty thousand dollars to bring it
to pass.
As we had occasion to remark some
months ago, we believe that the Dur
ham alumni association was more re
sponsible for the appropriation than any
other group of men. The local alumni
at .their meeting more than a year ago
discussed ways and means of getting
more money for the university. Plans
were formulated and the Durham chap
ter got behind them as a unit. The re
sult was the securing of practically the
entire program as prepared here.
If every other chapter of university
alumni were as active as Durham, the
great things that could be made possible
for accomplishment by the institution
would be almost unbelievable at this
time. The university has nowhere more
loyal and active alumni than right here
in Durham. —Durham Herald.
ASE YOU A FAILURE?
If you want to know whether you are
destined to be a success or a failure in
life, you can easily find out. The test
is simple and it is infallible. Are you
able to save money? If not, drop out.
You will lose. You may think not, but
you will lose, as sure as you live. The
seed of success is not in you.—James J.
Hill.
OUR CONTEMPORARY SCORES
Knowing North Carolina (not Seeing
North Carolina, at once the pleasant di
version of Major Bruce Craven and the
delight of his readers in the Greensboro
Daily News) has been the principal ob
jective of the University - News Letter
since its founding back in 1914. In sea
son and out, it has minutely studied the
varied phases of North Carolina life,
and through its five weekly columns has
given, in exceedingly readable, thought-
provoking form, the results of the stud
ies of the department of 'Rural Social
Economics.
Now, after seven years, it takes on
new group of co-workers. At its
meeting last summer, the North Caro
lina Press Association formally resolved
to promote this particular thing, en
abling North Carolinians to Know their
Home State, and The News Letter be
comes the medium through which the
association’s program will be carried
out. The articles now appearing in the
News Letter are being copied and com
mented upon by the press as a whole.
We have frequently had occasion to
felicitate our campus contemporary on
the fine purposes to which it lends it
self. In this instance we make one of
our most profouni bows.—.‘Uumni Re
view.
CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE
The chamber of commerce today in
the American small town and in the
American city is the leading exponent
of altruism in the community. It is not
(Released for week beginning Febru
ary 20.)
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
Club Women and their WorK
Mrs. W. T. Best
Organized twenty years ago the
North Carolina Federation of Wo
men’s Clubs has now a membership
of over 10,000’women. Its object is
to bring women’s clubs and other or
ganizations of women- throughout
North Carolina into relations of mu
tual helpfulness and cooperation,
only clubs pursuing some line of ele
vating effort being eligible. “A body
of organized women in every com
munity who can be depended on to
promote whatever leads toward the
betterment of life’’, may be termed
the slogan of the Federation. Mrs.
Sidney P. Cooper of^ Henderson is
now president.
The moat constructive piece of
work ever undertaken by the Feder
ation was the establishment in 1909
of educ«*^ion fund, known as the
Sallic SouthJl Cottfcii Loan Fund,
for the purpose of helping^fine and
worthy young women secure an edu
cation. Tliii-Ly-five women have bor-
troTTi this fund which is now
approximately $5,000. The money
repaid is loaned to new applicants.
The two scholarships given yearly
to the Social Welfare School at the
State University and the mainte
nance of a bed at the State Tuber
culosis Sanitorium as a memorial to
the late Mrs. L. B. McBrayer are
other forms of service the Federa
tion is rendering the state.
With superlative faith in the ef
forts of North Carolina to redeem
her wayward and delinquent girls
and women through the establish
ment of a state institution at Samar-
cand, the federated clubs—the first
organized group to take any steps
toward the establishment of such an
institution—have undertaken to fur
nish the living rooms in the five new
cottages recently erected, the fur
nishing of each room to cost about
$300.
In order to stimulate the women
to do original work along musical
and literary lines the Federation of
fers annually the Duncan cup for the
best musical composition; the Se-
park Poetry cup for the best poem;
and the Joseph Pearson Caldwell Cup
for the best prose work.
The work of the Federation is car
ried on through its ten departments
—civics, education, music, home eco
nomics, art, conservation, health, li
brary extension, literature, social
service, while special committees are
appointed to work toward improved
legislation, and to arouse interest in
social and industrial conditions,
Americanization, thrift, schools in
citizenship, etc. The beautification
of the state’s highways has been a
feature of the civic improvement
work of the clubs during the current
year, many of the clubs having un
dertaken to plant long stretches of
road with avenues of trees.
The federated duds of North Ca
rolina are dedicated to some form of
community service and it is to that
end that they labor.
It is a shorter step from the city to
the state, from the state to the nation,
and from the nation to humanity than
the tremendous jump which a man must
take to consider his city before his own
interest. And the town chamber of com
merce is giving the first lesson in prac
tical Christianity to million's of savages
in America. It is not a full baptism,
but it helps.
A man, no matter how greedy and
saint-eyed he may be, cannot work a
year upon any moderately important
committee of his town’s chamber of
commerce without being a better fath
er, a better husband, a better citizen,
a better brother.
The Rotarians
After this apprenticeship he falls an
easy victim to the Rotarians, or the
Lions, or the Kiwanis club. These groups
interest men in a somewhat broader
fellowship than the one which the cham
ber of commerce promotes. They are
interested in the neighboring under-dog;
in man as a suffering or as an inspiring
creature. The Rotarians typify the
others. He who serves best, thrives
most, they declare. They are interested
in friendship, in boys, in jollying up the
country people around the towns, in
the poor and needy one that clusters all
about, in parks and playgrounds, and
they nationalize a number of highly al
truistic activities.
Men in these gay groups of rough
necked low-browed Samaritans are
making the Jericho road a fairly safe and
decently comfortable highway wherever
they roll their chariots along. And they
interlock with the chamber of com
merce. It is bad form for a Rotarian
or for a member of any of these soci
eties not to be a member of the cham
ber of commerce. Thus a stream of
rather intelligent altruism keeps flow
ing into the chamber of commerce.—
William Allen White.
THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Never was the opportunity and need
for the scholarly and dispassionate study
of the great problems of life more ur
gent. If the universities do not supply
the men trained to deal with them, these
issues must become the playthings of
amateurs and charlatans. Two genera
tions ago the tension in the intellectual
world of America was perhaps greatest
in the field of theology. Then came
the period of Darwin and the tension
was transferred to the field of biology
and natural science, but still with theo
logical implications.
Today undoubtedly the tension is
greatest in the field of economics, of
political and social theory—what we
sometimes call the .social sciences.
Many good citizens are disturbed, some
what needlessly I suspect, by the al
leged radical character of our collegiate
instruction in these fields and by the
supposed spread of radical heresies
among our students. Whatever may
be the facts in this particular issue,
certain it is that we need in all these
matters the most painstaking and
thoughtful examination of .social prob
lems, by men of wide experience, thor
ough training and utter impartiality,
in order that we may know the truth
and act accordingly.—President James
R. Angell, of Yale University.
OUTDOOR SCHOOLING
Every child should have mudpies,
grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles,
frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild
strawberries, acorns, chestnuts; trees
to climb, brooks to wade in; water-lil
ies, wood-chucks, bats, bees, butter
flies, various animals to pet, hay-fields,
pine cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes,
huckleberries, and hornets; and any
child who has been deprived of these
has been deprived of the best part of
his education.—Luther Burbank.
ILLITERATE WHITE MALES IN N. C.
Twenty-one Years Old and Over
Based on advance sheets of the U. S. Census for 1920. The average of
state illiteracy among male whites of voting age in North Carolina in 1920 was
10.95 percent. All told, the male white adult illiterates number 46,744. Nearly
one of every nine adult white males in the state cannot read or write. The table
for illiterate adult white females will appear in a subsequent issue.
Pitiful increases in Washington, Pasquotank, Dare, Cabarrus, Perquiman®,
McDowell, Gaston, Haywood, Caswell, Onslow, Swain, and Graham counties.
S. H. Hobbs, Jr., Rural Social Science Department,
University of North Carolina.
chamber of commerce fosters; it is Hig-
ginsville first. But it is for Hi
ville all the time.
further than his home, his business,
rooting for his community.
Rank County
Pet.
Pet.
Rank County
Pet.
1920
1910
1920
1910
1
New Hanover...
.... 1.7
3.0
51
Pasquotank
11.2
7.5
2
Mecklenburg ...
.... 4.3
4.4
52
Dare
11.7
6.8
3
Hoke .
.... 5.4
—
53
Franklin
.... 11.8
13.8
4
Guilford
.... 6.5
9.6
54
Currituck
.... 11.9
10.8
5
Craven
.... 6.3
8.8
54
Robeson
11.9
14.3
6
Pender
.... 6.4
9.8
56
Lenoir
.... 12.0
15.7
i ®
Rowan
.... 6.4
8.0
56
Rutherford
.....12.0
16.1
8
Buncombe
.... 6.6
10.1
58
Alexander
12.2
17.6
9
Moore
.... 6.7
10.7
68
Stanly.
.... 12.2
17.3
10
Brunswick
.... 6.8
15.4
60
Camden
.... 12.8
18.0
’ll
Chowan
.... 7.3
14.9
61
Jones
.... 12.4
15.8
'll
Pamlico
.... 7.3
12.5
62
Cabarrus
.... 12.5
12.0
13
Cumberland
.... 7.7
12.6
63
Perquimans
.... 12.7
9.3
!i3
Forsyth
.... 7.7
12.0
64
Gates
12.8
13.3
13
Lee
.... 7.7
11.7
64
Nash
12.8
17.2
|16
Alamance
.... 8.1
10.6
66
Johnston
12.9
17.6
il6
Durham
.... 8.1
9.7
66
McDowell
12.9
12.1
! 16
Beaufort
.... 8.1
13.5
66
Sampson
12.9
17.5
|l9
Warren
.... 8.2
12.1
69
Ashe
13.1
17.6
jl9
Washington
.... 8.2
6.2
70
Rockingham....
....13.2
14.4
21
Halifax
.... 8.3
10.3
71
Clay
...13.3
18.1
22
Alleghany
.... 8.5
11.2
72
Scotland
13.4
17.9
22
Bertie
.... 8.6
10.1
73
Person
....13.7
17.6
22
Harnett
... 8.6
14.6
73
Polk
....13.7
16.0
25
Vance
.... 8.6
9.0
75
Cleveland
25
Wayne
.... 8.6
12.6
76
Montgomery ...
....13.9
16.9
27
Richmond
.... 8.7
9.6
77
Columbus
14.1
20.1
28
Hyde
.... 8.8 1
12.1
78
Hertford .......
....14.2
16.0
- 28
Iredell
.... 8.8
9.1
79
Gaston
... 14.5
14.0
30
Bladen
.... 9.0 ,
14.1
80
Yadkin
... 14.6
19.6
30
Catawba
.... 9.0 [
12.6
81
Haywood
... 14.7
13.7
32
Orange
^82
Madison
14.9
21.7
33
Northampton ....
83
Watauga
... 15.0
16.1
34
Davidson
.... 9.6
15.2
84
Wilson
....16.3
16.3
34
Henderson
.... 9.6
11.1
85
Duplin
....16.6
18.0
36
Chatham
.... 9.7
13.7
86
Caswell
... 16.8
16.3
36
Wake
.... 9.7
11.5
87
Avery
15.9
38
Tyrrell
....9.8
17.0
87
Onslow
...15.9
15.7
39
Carteret
....10.2
15.6
89
Caldwell
16.1
18.8
39
Edgecombe
...,10.2
13.7
90
Mitchell
....16.6
24.1
41
Macon
....10.3
16.4
91
Davie
....16.7
19.2
41
Pitt
...10.3
15.3
92
Jackson
....17.3
17.5
43
Randolph
... 10.4
12.9
93
Burke
....17.4
18.2
44
Martin
....10.6
16.9
94
Greene
....17.7
18.9
44
Transylvania ...
....10.6
12.1
95
Swain .. .-j
....18.3
18.0
46
Anson
... .*10.7
11.0
96
Surry
....18.7
23.2
46
Cherokee
....10.7
21.9
97
Graham
19.1
9.1
48
Granville
,...11.0
14.2
98
Yancey
....20.0
21.7
48
Union
....11.0
13.0
99
Stokes
...20.6
26.9
50
Lincoln
....11.1
14.3
100
Wilkes
...,20.8
22.7
Avery and Hoke formed since 1910.