The news in this publi
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.
MA.Y 31, 1922
CHANEL giTT., N. G.
VOL. Vm, NO. 28
Editorial Board i E. C. Branson, 8. H. Hobts, Jr., L. B. .Wilson, E. W. linight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. BulUtt. H. W. Odum. Entered as second-class matter November 14,191 J, at the Postoffioe at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of August 24, 1918.
STATE-AID TO FARMERS
'tf North Carolina ever decides to lend
state-aid to the 100 ]:housand families
who live in other people’s houses in her
towns and cities, and to the 117 thou
sand farmers who cultivate other peo
ple’s land, it behooves her statesmen to
know the practical business details of
such an enterprise. If this policy is
ever begun in North Carolina it must
be firmly based on business solvency en
gineered by well-trained business men.
It ought not to be a charity—it is not
a charity in any state of the nation or
in any country of the world; but it can
be a dividend-producing business that
turns money into the state treasury
while establishing worthy wage-earners
and farmers in homes of their own.
‘ The proof of the practicability of
state-aid to aspiring town and country
tenants will be found in Denmark, New
Zealand, Australia, Ireland, England,
Scotland, and Canada, where the ex-,
periment has been tried out during the
last forty years; in four states of the
Union—California, Oklahoma, North Da
kota, and South Dakota, where direct
state-treasury loans are being made for
the purchase and equipment of farms
and country homes; and in eight states
more—Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indi
ana, Maine, Missouri, Montana, and
Oregon, where treasury funds are being
invested in farm mortgages.
It is easy to fail, it is hard to succeed.
The story of how success wAs won in
Victoria and New South Wales, Aus
tralia, and in Canada was told to the
North Carolina Club at the University
the other night by Mr. W. E. White of
Cleveland county, and Miss Alma 0.
Cato of Gaston county. The story of
California’s success will be told by Mr.
J. A. Dickey of Alamance county on
June 5.
State-Aid in Australia
Since 1909, said Mr. White, Australia
has been settling farmers and farm
laborers on farms and in homes of their
own, on long- term loans at low rates
of interest. Small annual re-payments
carry the interest and cancel the debt
in thirty-odd years. Meantime these
re-payments are less than the rent
would have been. The plan in Austra
lia allows farmers of approved charac
ter to buy land with what in North
Carolina goes for rent alone. The land
that is sold by the state is crown land
or land that the state buys at prices
reckoned at twenty times the net an
nual rent income, and it buys the land
not with the taxpayers’ money, but
with money borrowed by the state at
low rates of interest. The annual pay
ments of the farmers carry the interest
on the bonds, pay the administrative
expense, create a sinking fund, retire
the bonds at maturity, and turn a small
profit into the state treasury. There
have been no losses to the state during
these twelve years.
No money is loaned to farmers to buy
land wherever they please, and to set
tle on separate, individual holdings. In
stead, the money is loaned to farmers
to settle in colony groups. It is the
plan later followed so successfully jn
California, and by Mr. Hugh McRae pn
his farm colonies in the Lower Cape
Fear country.
Mr. White gave details of the Roches
ter settlement in Victoria, where the
state prepared the land, cut it into
farms, built the farm-houses, bought
the livestock, established and operated
warehouses, butter factories, canning
and drying plants, and conducted the
cooperative marketing operations, all
under a colony superintentent who aids
the farmers on the one hand and repre
sents the business interests of the state
on the other.
It was a fascinating story he gave the
Club, but the chief value of it lay in
the business details of the venture. It
is the end of the problem that wise
legislators will be thinking most about
when North Carolina makes up its mind
that home and farm ownership is the
only safe basis for commonwealth de
velopment.
State-Aid in Canada
Canada has settled 48,000 returned
soldiers in homes of their own during
the last four years, and they are now
cultivating five million acres of land,
which is more than half the entire culti
vated acreage of North Carolina.
In Canada, said Miss Cato, the vet-,
erans of the World War have their'
minds fixed on homes and farms; in the i
United States their attention is fixed on :
cash bonuses.
Eighteen states have Soldier Settle
ment Acts on their statute books, North
Carolina among the number; but out-:
side California and Oregon they seem i
to have amounted to nothing. i
Unlike the colony plan of Australia!
and California, the Canada plan is based j
on liberty to settle wherever the borrow- |
ers please. Canada deliberately waVed
aside the demonstrated successes of the
farm-group plan of other countries.
And the states of the Union are follow
ing Canada’s policy—or all but Cali
fornia. This go-it-alone, and go-as-you-
please plan may succeed, but it is most
likely to fail disastrously in the long run,
said Miss Cato.
The papers of Mr. White and Miss
Cato will be given in full in the nej^t
Club Year-Book on Home* and Farm
Ownership. It will be ready for inter
ested students in the early fall of this
year.
LEADS THE NATION
That North Carolina, of all the agri
cultural and livestock states, stands at I
the top of the list in its ability to meet |
obligations, and in the promptness with
which it does this is shown by some
facts concerning the situation through
out these states as shown in statistics
having to do with the War Finance Cor
poration. North Carolina has the dis
tinction of having made the repayment
of the largest sum of advances made
by the War Finance Corporation
to the various states. With over
$8,000,000 having been advanced
to the banks of North Carolina for
loans for agricultural purposes, these
loans have been repaid in such amounts
that there has been returned to the
* War Finance Corporation above $1,500,-
000.
Here is an evidence that conditions in
North Carolina are better financially
than in the other states to which ad«
vances have been made.
The information of this gratifying
state of affairs was obtained today
from Angus W. McLean, of Lumber-
ton, Director of the War Finance Cor
poration, whose term of office as a
member of the board expires next week,
having been made a member of the
board on May 17, 1918, by the . appoint
ment of President Wilson. Mr. McLean
says that he is gratified by the fine
showing made by North Carolina and
that while depression exists, it is more
largely confined to the eastern section
of the State, and to the cotton growing
section, but that despite this depression
conditions in North Carolina are com
paratively better than in the other
states.—News and Observer.
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION
University extension work is reach
ing new levels of achievement in North
Carolina. The late president of the
University of North Carolina, Edward
Kidder Graham, interpreted University
extension to mean “the radiating pow
er of a new passion, carrying in natural
circulation the unified culture of the
race to all parts of the body politic. ’ ’
Under the impetus of this interpre
tation, the University has, in the past
decade; developed bureaus and services
which now offer to the people 'of the
State correspondence and class instruc
tion; lectures, popular and technical;
short courses and institutes; public dis
cussions; guidance in community drama
and community music; commercial and
industrial relations service; municipal
and county information; economic and
social surveys; community development
studies and programs; high school de
bating and athletic leaderships; design
and improvement of school grounds;
educational information and assistance,
tests, measurements and advice in gen
eral administrative problems. Chester
D. Snell is the director of the extension
service; Professor H. W. Odum is chief
of the bureau of municipal and county
information; Professor J. P. Steiner is
chief of the bureau of community de
velopment; and Professor E. C. Bran
son heads the work in economic and
social surveys.-The Survey, New York.
Released week beginning May 29
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
Community Drama
The importance of recreation in
the community can hardly be over
emphasized. It is a vital social need
in the lives of the people. The play
impulse is an expression of the crea
tive instinct and should be highly
cherished.
Community Drama is designed to
give expression to the whole people.
It is a play-form uniting all the folk,
not simply those of a single village,
town, or city, but the people of the
entire countryside.
It has sound educational values.
It points the way with new vision
toward the making of a better com
munity in which to live. It becomes
a living pageant of the tradition and
the present-day life of the people.
The achievement of North Caro
lina suggests a vital contribution to
be made in the expression of our
national life—in a new drama of the
people.
The success of the tercentenary
drama, Raleigh, The Shepherd of
the Ocean, produced at Raleigh,
North Carolina, in 1920, of a Pageant
of the Lower Cape Fear, written and
produced in collaboration by citi
zens of Wilmington, and of the na
tive folk-plays of'The Carolina Play-
makers, has demonstrated beyond
the question of a doubt that North
Carolina affords a rich background
for dramatic expression—richer per
haps than that of any other single
section of the country.
The Mayor of Wilmington, Mr.
James H. Cowan, speaks eldquently
of the achievement of that city. He
says: “The Pageant will live forever
in the memory of Wilmington. I con
sider it the biggest thing the city
has ever done in tb6 way of getting
the community stirred with brother
ly feeling and understanding. Peo
ple now not only know their city bet
ter but they know each other bet
ter, and the latter is the really big
thing after all. It was remarkable
how the spirit and the gldry of it
grew from day to day.”—Frederick
.H. Koch, University of North Caro
lina.
MAKING A CITY GREAT
Discontinue your public improve
ments and close your schools for two
years and see what will happen. Grass
will grow on your streets. If you want
to increase your national prosperity, if
you want to increase your local pros
perity, make your educational facilities
better and your government so efficient
that a lawless man cannot live in your
community. Then you will attract to
your city the best type of citizen, the
kind that will boost your city and back
every project it undertakes.
It is not the natural wealth of a state
or section, nor its sunshine nor its soil
that makes it great; it is the character of
its people and their ideals. It is not what
they have done as much as what they
want to do. I do not want to see Augusta
larger unless it is better. I do not want
to see South Carolina or any other state
grow in wealth unless it grows in vir
tue. I do not want to see America
grow stronger unless it becomes more
righteous. You cannot violate a law
of nature and be successful. Make
your city government good, make it
efficient, and your city will grow.-
Governor Cooper of S. C., address be
fore the Board of Commerce^ Augusta,
Ga.
guished gatherings in the past few
years through the generosity of the
owner of Pinehurst, but we extend to
the bankers a peculiar welcome. Within
the lifetime of this generation this
whole section, of acres of peach trees
now laden with the premise of an a-
bundant yield, was a primeval forest.
Within a period dating back 25 years
the agriculture of Moore county was nil.
Lessr than 20 years ago the banking cap
ital was negligible and 10 years ago the
total deposits of the Moore county banks
did not reach the sum of $260,000.
Today the resources of the banks of
Moore possibly exceed by the same a-
mount $6,000,000. This has come about
not so much through the initiative of
those of us who were natives as of those
who came here and helped us to develop
it.
I am going to confide to you the se
cret which lies under this prosperity.
We learned some 25 years ago in this
particular section of North Carolina
that “damn yankees” was notone word
and we have with open arms welcomed
them into this community. We have
become tolerant enough even to allow
our brethren from the north, particular
ly if they would spend several thousand
dollars on a peach orchard or a few mil
lions developing a tourist resort, to vote
the Republican ticket without censure.
We are holding out both hands to the
stranger who comes within our gates.
No one can charge us of being slow in
taking in any one who comes.—Greens
boro News.
DR. KNIGHT’S NEW BOOK
Public Education in the South is the
title of a recent volume by Edgar W.
Knight, professor of education in
the University of North Carolina,
dealing with the development of public
education in the eleven southern states
which formed the -Confederacy. The
book is published by Ginn and Company,
New York and Boston, and constitutes
the first attempt to give in a single
volume a general survey of the growth
of public educational organization and
practice in those states.
The book is the outgrowth of Dr.
Knight’s long study of public education
al conditions in the South. It traces
the development of the democratic
principles of education in the southern
states, from colonial times to the pres
ent, and undertakes to explain their ap
parently slow application and to point
out from the past certain valuable les
sons for the present. Present-day ed
ucational problems are set forth in the
light of their historical development.
• The author also had in mind, in the
preparation of the volume, the need for
making accessible materials on the ed
ucational history of the South. The
book is a study and description of actual
educational progress tather than a dis
cussion of educational theories. It is
intended as a ^ext for ifse in reading
circle work for teachers, in schools of
education, normal schools, and other
teacher training agencies.
The book was prepared primarily for
the purpose of assisting teachers, edu
cational administrators, and the public
generally to a more intelligent under
standing of the present educational sit
uation in the southern states.
According to the author’s preface
another volume now in preparation will
contain valuable documentary and
source materials illustrating the devel
opment of the democratic ideal of edu
cation in the South and supplementing
the present volume.
The book contains 500 pages and is
mechanically very attractive. At the
beginning of each chapter there is an
outline and at the end of each chapter
a complete bibliographical note. Each
chapter also contains questions for dis
cussion and further study. The book is
completely indexed.
Dr. Knight dedicates his volume -as
follows: To the memory of Edward
Kidder Graham, gentleman, scholar,
friend; inspiring teacher of youth, bril
liant leader of men, exponent and in
terpreter of the South’s best traditions.
—The Tar Heel.
COUNTY TAX RATES AND POLLS
In North Carolina in 1921
Based on (1) the corrected figures furnished by State Tax Commissioner
Watts, March 22, 1922; referring (2) to the rate per $100 of listed property for
general purposes and necessary expense in a county as a whole, and (3) not to
special taxes voted for schools, roads, and other purposes by districts, town
ships, and other subdivisions of the county.
Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina
DOWN IN THE SANDHILLS
In the Sandhills, said Robert N.
Page to the State Bankers at Pinehurst
the other day, we have cultivated a re
ceptive attitude. Much of the progress
we now enjoy is attributable to this. We
have entertained a great many distin-
Rank County
Tax rate
Poll
Rank County
Tax rate
Poll
1
Caswell
. $1.61
$2.00
51
Catawba
... $ .85
$2.45
'2
Clay
1.60
2.22
51
Bertie
85
2.00
3
Madison
i.5i
2.00
51
Brunswick ....
85
2.00
4
Halifax
1.35
2.00
51
Cabarrus
86
2.00
5
Wilkes
1.31
3.66
51
Jackson
85
2.00
5
Alexander
1.31
2.00
51
Randolph
85
2.00
7
Pamlico
1.25
3.95
57
Buncombe
84
2.00
7
Avery
1.25
2.00
58
Martin
83.50
2.00
9
Henderson ......
1.21
2.00
59
Cherokee
83
2.30
10"
New Hanover...
1.20
2.00
60
Johnston
... . 82
2.46
10
Lincoln
1.20
2.00
60
Mitchell
82
2.00
12
Tyrrell
1.15
2.12
62
Stokes
81
2.00
13
Chatham
1.12
3.32
63
Dare
80
2.94
14
Perquimans -...
1.10
2.75
63
Durham
80
2.00
14
Jones
1.10
2.68
63
Columbus
80
2.00
14
Surry
1.10
2.50
63
Onslow
80
2.00
14
Davidson
1.10
2.00
67
Cumberland ...
79
2.00
18
Northampton ...
1.08
3.20
68
Bladen
78
2.39
18
Washington
1.08
2.87
68
Hoke
78
2.00
18
Granville
1.08
2.00
70
Graham
77
2.31
21
Union
1.04
3.07
70
McDowell
77
2.00
22
Stanly...
1.03
2.00
70
Lee
77
2.00
23
Greene
1.02
3.06
73
Hyde
76
2.01
24
Transylvania...
1.01
2.00
73
Rowan
76
2.00
24
Camden
1.01
2.00
73
Rutherford ....
76
2.00
26
Watauga
1.00
2.77
76
Haywood
75
2.00
26
Yancey
1.00
2.00
76
Pitt
75
2.00
26
Alamance
1.00
2.00
76
Swain
75
2.00
26
Beaufort
1.00
2.00
79
Mecklenburg ..
72
2.00
26
Yadkin
1.00
2.00
80
Polk
70.25
2.00
31
Pasquotank ......
98
2.94
81
Anson
70
2.00
32
Rockingham ....
97
2.00
81
Harnett
70
2.00
33
Wilson
96
2.00
81
Macon
70
2.00
33
Carteret
96
1.75
81
Robeson
70
2.00
35
Hertford
95
2.75
85
Lenoir
69
2.00
35
Franklin
06
2.00
85
Richmond
69
1.95
35
Wayne
95
1.75
87
Moore
67
2.00
38
Vance ;...
93.76
2.00
88
Duplin
65
2.00
39
Caldwell
93
2.00
89
Gates
64
2.00
40
Craven
92
2.82
90
Edgecombe ....
62
2.06
40
Ashe
92
2.00
90
Warren
62
2.00
40
Pender
92
2.00
90
Wake
62
2.00
40
Nash
92
2.00
93
Chowan
60
2.00
44
Sampson ;.
90
2.70
93
Currituck
60
2.00
44
Montgomery....
90
loo
93
Iredell
60
1.80
44
Orange
90
2.00
96
Cleveland
58
1.74
44
Person
90
2.00
97
Guilford
57
2.00
44
Burke
90
2.00
98
Forsyth
50
2.00
44
Davie
90
2.00
99
Scotland
48
1.41
50
Gaston
89
2.00
100
Alleghany
41
2.00