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.
OCTOBER 25, 1922
CHAPEL HHX, N. C.
VOL. Vni, NO 49
Kdliorl.l Bo«rd . E. 0. Branson, B. H. Hobhs, Jr., L,. R. Wilson, B. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bnllitt, H. W. Odum. Bntored as Booond-olaas matter
Norember 14,1914, at the Postoffioe at Chapel HIU, N. 0., under the act ot August 24, 1911.
GIVETHEM THE BEST
We must make the common schools
for the training and education of our
children as good as any in the world.
We ought to glory in the difficulties
overcome and progress made in this
sacred and patriotic work of the last
twenty years; but we want to go on,
and ever on, until the precious boys and
girls of our state have an equal chance
with any in the wide world for a mod
ern and up-to-date education.—Govern
or Cameron Morrison.
STATE POLICY COMMENDED
North Carolina has given a striking
example of what is probably the clear
est, simplest, and wisest policy of ap
plying state funds to public education.
This is a remarkable performance,
and the principles should be precisely
the same in meeting the requirements
of the more highly developed situations
in New York, Illinois, and California. —
Carnegie Foundation for the Advance
ment of Learning, Report of 1922.
A BENEVOLENT OCTOPUS
The University of North Carolina is
—save the mark!—an octopus. There
is no better definition which will sug
gest the completeness with which this
institution is assuming charge of the
intellectual thought and purpose of this
state.
For its tentacles are stretched out
over North Carolina, touching the life
in every hamlet, village and city. It
is drawing to itself the best that this
state has to offer in the way of schol
arly ambitions of its aspiring youth.
But it is a benevolent octopus. What
it takes, it returns manyfold. It touches
communities not to blight but to bless.
Its ambition is to liberate rather than
enslave the minds of men. The power
which it seeks is the power to serve the
state.
No institution in North Carolina de
serves so well of the people. No insti
tution possesses such infinite possibili
ties for enriching the life of the state
and for keeping the feet of our citizens
forever planted in the paths of prog
ress.—Asheville'Times.
MILLIONS WE SQUANDER
The following budget furnished -by a
college president gives us something to
think about. We squander every year
in the United States:
For tobacco—cigarettes, cigars, snuff,
chewing $2,100,000,000
For movies 1,000,000,000
For candy 2,230,000,000
For cosmetics, per
fumes, scented toilet soap,
face powder, etc 1,950,000,000
For jewelry 600,000,000
For furs 350,000,000
For soft drinks 300,000,000
For chewing gum .. . 50,000,000
For races, joyrides, and
pleasure resorts 3,000,000,000
For luxuries of all kinds, we spend
yearly $22,700,000,000
$ Against this we spend yearly:
For all education $1,000,000,000
For grade schools .. . 650,000,000
For colleges and profes
sional schools 150,000,000
For public high schools 100,000,000
For normal schools.... 20,600,000
For all church schools
and colleges 25,000,000
— Current Opinion
BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN
What twenty-five books would you
choose first for a one-room country
school? To help answer this question
and to stimulate interest in school li
braries a voting contest was held by
the American Library Association at
its convention in Detroit, June 26—July
1. and by the National Education Asso
ciation at its conference in Boston,
July 3—8. The one hundred titles print
ed below, from which the twenty-five
were chosen, were taken from the
Graded List of Books for Children com
piled by the N. E. A. and published by
the A. L. A.
1 Aanrud. Lisbeth Longfrock.
2 Aesop’s Fables.
8 Adams. Harper’s indoor book for
boys.
4 Alcott. Little women.
6 Allen. New Europe.
6 Altsheler. Young trailers.
7 Baldwin. Fifty famous stories.
8 Andersen. Fairy tales.
9 Arabian nights.
10 Bancroft. Games for the play
ground, etc.
11 Bennett. Barnaby Lee.
12 Bennett. Master Skylark.
13 Blackmore. Lorna Doone.
14 Borup. Tenderfoot with Peary.
16 Bulfinch. Age of fable.
16 Bullen. Cruise of the Cachalot.
17 Caldecott. Panjandrum book.
18 Carpenter. Foods and their uses.
19 Carroll. Alice in Wonderland and
through the looking glass.
20 Chamberlain. North America.
21 Colum. Adventures of Odysseus.
22 Colum. Children of Odin.
23 Comstock. Insect life.
24 Cooper. Last of the Mohicans.
26 Cox. The Brownies: their book.
26 Defoe. Robinson Crusoe.
27 Dickens. Christmas Carol.
28 Dickens. David Copperfield.
29 Dodge. Hans Brinker.
30 DuChaillu. Land of the long
night.
31 Eggleston. Stories of great
Americans.
32 Ewing. Jackanapes.
33 Fiske. History of the United
States.
84 Franklin. Autobiography.
35 Gilbert. More than conquerors.
36 Grimm. Household stories.
37 Hagedorn. Boys’ life of Theodore
Roosevelt.
38 Hale. Peterkin papers.
39 Hall. Boy craftsman.
40 Harris. Uncle Remus—his songs
and his sayings.
41 Haskell. Katrinka.
42 Haskin. American government.
43 Hawthorne. Tanglewood tales.
44 Hawthorne. Wonderbook for boys
and girls.
45 Hornaday. American natural his
tory.
46 Hughes. Tom Brown’s school
days.
47 Irving. Rip Van Winkle.
48 Jacobs. English fairy tales. '
49 Jewett. Good health.
60 Keeler. Our native trees and how
to identify them.
61 Keller. Story of my life.
52 Kingsley. The heroes.
53 Kipling. Captains courageous.
64 Kipling. Jungle book.
56 Kipling. Just so stories.
66 Lagerlof. Wonderful adventures
of Nils.
67 Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare.
68 Lang. Blue fairy book.
69 Lodge and Roosevelt. Hero tales
from American history.
60 Lofting. Dr. Dolittle.
61 London. Call of the Wild.
62 Lorenzini. Pinocchio.
63 MacDonald. The princess and the
goblin.
64 Malory. Boys’ King Arthur.
65 Masefield. Jim Davis.
66 Mathews. Book of birds for young
people.
67 Meadowcraft. Boys’ life of Edi
son.
68 Mitton. Childrens’ book of stars.
69 Morgan. Boys’ home book of sci
ence and construction.
70 Mother Goose.
71 Muir. Story of ray boyhood and
youth.
72 Nicolay. Boys’ life of Abraham
Lincoln.
73 Paine. Boys’ life of Mark Twain.
74 Parkman. Oregon trail.
76 Plutarch. Boys’ and girls’ Plu
tarch.
76 Price. Land we live in.
77 Pyle. Men and iron.
78 Pyle. Merry adventures of Robin
Hood.
79 Riis. The making of an Ameri
can.
80 Scott. Ivanhoe.
81 Scudder. George Washington.
82 Seton. Wild animals I have
known.
83 Shaw. Story of a pioneer.
84 Slosson. Creative chemistry.
86 Smith. Farm book.
86 Spyri. Heidi.
87 Stevenson, B. E. Days and deeds,
2 v.
88 Stevenson, B. E. Home books of
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
A South Carolina Verdict
North Carolina stands first in per
acre crop values and?South Carolina
is close behind.
Only Massachusetts is ahead of
North Carolina in textile manufac
turing, and again SouthJCarolina is
near at hand. Taken together thb
Carolinas, one people, with their cot
ton produced and manufactured,
surpass in value the textile wealth
of the Bay state. We do big things
in all lines.
North Carolina is possessed by a
mighty spirit, a progressive, a pa
triotic and a sacred spirit. I don’t
know who put it there, but it is
there in the hearts of the people. Its
origin offers a great study. It grips
us and we are moved by it to do
those things that ought to be done.
Let us go on unafraid, educating
the children, taking better care of
God’s broken and defective, and
moving foward in material progress.
If there is any truth, if there is any
religion, unless we do care adequate
ly for the unfortunate beings in our
state, we will surely rot and decay
and go down to destructiqn.
Let us better organize our agri
cultural life, increase, tremendously
increase our sea food resources, and
in every line make the wealth we
need to apply to the needs of the
church and of a glorious democracy.
Your state is moving towards the
discharge of its duties as a common
wealth, moving with a majesty that
excites the admiration of the whole
United States. A great New York
financier told me that North Carolina
was the Ohio of the South and could
get all the money she wanted to use
for all the great purposes of com
monwealth building.—Governor Har
vey.
verse for young folks.
89 Stevenson. Child’s garden of
verses.
90 Stevenson. Treasure Island.
91 Tappan. American hero stories.
92 Twain. Tom Sawyer.
93 Van Loon. Story of mankind.'
94 Verne. 20,000 leagues under the
sea.
96. Verrill. Pets for pleasure and
profit.
96 Wallace. Lure of the Labrador
wild.
97 Wiggin and Smith. Golden num
bers.
98 Wiggin and Smith. Posy ring.
99 Wiggin. Rebecca of Sunnybrook
farm.
100 Wyss. Swiss family Robinson.
CAROLINA NEWSPAPERS
There are 276 newspapers and period
ical publications in North Carolina. Of
these, 239 are published at least as of
ten as once a week—37 daily, 2 tri
weekly, 26 semi-weekly, and 174 weekly
—and therefore may be considered
newspapers, as distinguished from trade
journals and other publications with
particularist interests.
Of the 239 newspapers, in the strict
er sense, possibly 86 or 90 are worth
reading. The others consist of legal
notices, patent medicine advertising,
occasional straggling display advertise
ments of local merchants, with a thin
dilution of local news of the most tri
fling and inconsequential nature. They
are usually published 'as mere append
ages to a job-printing business, and are
not taken seriously by anybody, least
of all by the publisher. They may be
dismissed from any serious considera
tion of the North Carolina press.
The Country Weehly
Ayers’ Directory notes 160 different
places of publication in the state, of
which 80 are county seats. It follows
that 20 counties in the state are with
out any newspaper whatever issuing
from the county seat. This, however,
is of small importance, as in a number
of counties the most important town is
not the county seat. What is more
serious is the fact that several counties
possess more than one good newspaper;
which means that others are without
any. The increasing efficiency of the
state news service of the big dailies has
in some measure removed the need of a
county newspaper; but it has notentire-
ly removed it, and never will. The
field is too immense ever to be covered
by the dailies, and a first-rate county
newspaper is still essential to the devel
opment of a first-rate county.
A total of 86 or 90 real newspapers
balanced against 160 compilations of
junk may at first sight seem a small
proportion of efficiency. But it is not.
On the contrary, it is rather high, as a
careful examination of the press of any
of our neighbor states will show. The
newspaper standard of North Carolina
is exceptionally high. The papers that
make any pretense of efficiency usually
are efficient. Their news columns are
not only clean, but usually accurate and
uncolored. Their editorial pages, as a
rule, are fair, sensible and honest; and
even the exceptions to this rule rarely
drop into billingsgate.
Our Daily Press
The absence of any large city in the
state has prevented the'development of
any one great, overshadowing news
paper or group of newspapers. Raleigh,
Charlotte, and Greensboro, owing to
exceptionally good train service, have
developed the three largest dailies; but
none of them has any great circulation,
and all of them combined circulate
fewer copies than papers in such cities
as Memphis, Atlanta, and New Oreleans.
Nevertheless, despite the heavy finan
cial handicap of small circulation, any
one of them will bear comparison with
the best that the larger southern cities
can produce.
The North Carolina press is as strong
as any in the South, and stronger than
most. Nevertheless, it indubitably
does have a tendency towards parochi
alism and a too limited range of inter
est. Not a newspaper in the state
maintains a music, literary, or dramat
ic critic whose opinions command res
pect; and while it is worthy of praise
for its sanity and honesty, nobody
would ever accuse the North Carolina
press of brilliance. It views the fine
arts with something akin to suspicion,
and the battle of ideas with indiffer
ence. It is truly representative of its
state—it has most of the solid virtues,
but precious few graces.—Gerald W.
Johnson.
FOOD AND FEED SUPPLIES IN 1920
The Percents of Needed Supplies Produced at Home
Based (1) on the|1920 census of quantities and values of bread and meat
produced on the farms of each county, reckoned on farm values, not retail
prices, (2) on standard, staple farm, orchard, and garden products—not extras
dainties, and luxuries of diet, (3) on the consuming population of folks and
farm animals, and (4) on the per capita consumption averages used in the Uni
versity News Letter Vol. VIII, No. 20.
State bill for imported food and feed supplies in 1920, $237,000,000. The
state proddeed a little overlhalf what was needed for man and beast. Thirty-
four states made a better showing.
The self-feeding counties of the state were three—Currituck, Alleghany,
land Camden. Northampton is practically so; the rest were all deficit counties
in 1920.
This table is a revision and re-arrangement of the table in Vol. VIII
No. 31.
Miss Henrietta R. Smedes
Department Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina
Rank Surplus
Extent
Surplus or
Rank Deficit
Extent
Counties
Self-
Deficit.
Counties
Self.
Feeding.
Feeding.
Percent
Surplus
Percent
1
Currituck....
. 119
$ 297,000
46
Montgomery....
54
$1,264,000
2
Alleghany....
, 106
101,-000
46
Cleveland
54
3,036,000
3
Camden
. 102
30,000
52
Moore
53
1,866,000
Deficit
53
Caldwell
62
1,884,000
Counties
Deficit ! 53
Wayne
52
3,953^000
4
Northampton.
. 100
5,000
63
Robeson ....
62
4,858,000
5
Hertford ....
. 98
82,000
53
Harnett
52
2,537,000
6
Alexander ...
. 97
68,000
57
Scotland
50
1,426,000
7
Pamlico
. 92
339,000
67
Columbus
60
2,873,000
8
Bertie
. 89
518,000
59
Edgecombe....
49
3,671,000
9
Chowan
. 88
239,000
69
Transylvania...
49
899,000
10
Tyrrell
. 85
160,000
59
Pitt
49
4,449,000
11
Hyde
. 79
383,000
62
Union
48
3,713,000
12
Gates........
. 78
472,000
62
Avery
48
995,000
13
Clay
. 77
237,000
62
Surry..
48
3,110,000
14
Martin
. 75
1,016,000
62
Rutherford ....
48
3,061,000
14
Washington..
. 75
528,000
62
Person...'
48
1,928,000
16
Ashe
, 74
3,144,000
62
Bladen
48
1,946,000
17
Duplin
.. 72
1,678,000
68
Burke
47
2,228,000
17
Perquimans..
. 72
640,000
68
Jones
47
1,072,000
19
Sampson ....
. 71
2,073,000
70
Wilson
46
3,688,000
19
Macon
. 71
748,000
71
Alamance
46
3,374,000
21
Watauga ....
. 70
818,000
71
Halifax
45
4,390,000
22
Pender
. 69
890,000
73
Onslow.
44
1,623,000
23
Randolph ...
67
2,024,000
73
Anson
44
3,021,000
24
Yadkin
. 66
1,106,000
73
Lee
44
1,875,000
24
Madison
. 66
1,351,000
78
Lenoir
44
3,077,000
26
Davie
. 65
936,000
73
Warren
44
2,306,000
27
Chatham ....
. 64
1,744,000
78
Cabarrus
43
3,524,000
28
Pasquotank...
. 62
1,311,000
78
Granville
43
2,921,000
28
Orange
. 62
1,294.000
78
Stanly
43
2,896,000
28
Iredell
. 62
2,738,000
78
Swain
43
1,398,000
28
Greene
. 62
1,247,000
82
Nash
41
4,446,000
32
Yancey
. 61
1,166,000
82
Franklin
41
3,014,000
33
Johnston
. 60
3,856,000
84
Brunswick... .
40
1,668,000
34
Beaufort ....
. 59
2,357,000
84
Buncombe
40
6,891,000
35
Lincoln
. 68
1,427,000
84
Cumberland
40
3,802,000
36
Jackson
. 68
1,125,000
87
McDowell
38
1,881,000
35
Wilkes
. 68
2,676,000
88
Rockingham....
36
5,117,000
35
Mitchell
. 68
964,000
89
Richmond
34
2,990,000
39
Davidson ....
. 67
2,830,000
89
Wake
34
8,868,000
40
Hoke
. 66
964,000
91
Craven
33
3,462,000
40
Graham
. 56
446,000
92
Guilford ,
32
9,468,000
40
Henderson...
. 66
1,629.000
93
Mecklenburg...
29
9,967,000
40
Haywood ....
66
1,998,000
94
Carteret
28
1,896,000
44
Caswell
. 66
1,389,000
94
Forsyth
28
9,294,000
44
Catawba
. 66
2,836,000
96
Gaston
27
6,633,000
46
Stokes
. 64
1,841,000
96
Vance
27
2,991,000
46
Rowan
. 64
3,773,000
98
Durham
18
6,798,000
46
Polk
. 64
778,000
99
New Hanover..
9
5,862,000
46
Cherokee....
. 64
1,367,000
100 Dare
7
791,000