The aews in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
a I
Published Weeldy by tht
University of Nortli Caro
lina for the University Ex
tension Division.
MARCH 5.1924
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNITEESITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. X, NO. 16
BiitoriKl Boardi S. C. Br'jnaon, S. 3. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilaon, B. W. Kniifht, D. D. Cairoll, J. B. Bollitt, H. W. Odum.
Entored aa sfteond-elasa matter November 14, 1914, atthoPjStofHceatChapoUlH^ N. C.. under the act ef August ?.4. 1913
SCHOOL EXFENDITUIES !M U. S.
TSIUMPSANT DEMOCRACY
North Carolina, A Story of Trium
phant Democracy, is the title of an .ad
dress recently made in Atlanta by John
Sprunt Hill of Durham. It is by far
the best and most complete story yet
told of the rise of North Catoiina into
the position of leadership m tue South.
The address is now in print and per
haps you can secure a copy from Mr.
Hill. The address is both information
al and inspirational and it should be
read by every citizen of the state.
Mr. Hill treats in turn the develop
ment of public education, public health
work, industries, roads, agriculture,
and closes by paying tribute to the
great leaders who have labored for the
welfare of the state.
Good Roads
Speaking on the topic of roads^- Mr.
Hill says in part as follows:
The state road bill providing for the
construction and maintenance of a
State System of hard surface and oth
er dependable roads, connecting county
seata and other principal towns of
every county in the state, and provid
ing- for a bond issue for road construc
tion amounting to $50,000,000, quickly
became a law of the state, by the over
whelming majority of 101 to 9 in the
House and 39 to 10 in the Senate. A
few days before the passage of the
State Road Law a joint public session
of the Committee on Roads of the Sen
ate and House was held in Raleigh and
thousands of business men from all
parts of the state gathered there clam
oring to be heard in favor of the new
Road Bill. I shall never forget the
J wonderful outburst of feeling as repre
sentatives of one by one of the great
rich counties of the central part of the
state cheerfully walked up to the altar
of their country and freely laid on it
millions of dollars already expended in
hard surfacing their roads, and joined
hands with their poorer brethren in
the mountain sections of the West and
in the waterbound sections of the East,
and took their places in the line ‘ ‘all
for one and one for all,” every section
and every county to share on the same
basis in the allotment of funds under
the proposed bond issue for building
roads. The passage of the R6^ad Bill
was not only a great physical accom
plishment but it was a great spiritual
uplift that touched the minds and
hearts of the people of the whole state.
Until some of the rich cities to the
North of us and to the West of us em
ulate the self-sacrifice and the patriot
ism of the rich cities of North Caro
lina by rising to the occasion and giv
ing up some of their ancient rights and
and special taxing privileges, there is
not much chance of any road legisla
tion that will lift out of the mud their
hosts of poorer brethren in the coun
try districts.
How Financed
The bulk of the funds for construct
ing the System of State roads
comes from bond issues. Federal Aid
funds are allotted just as funds from
road bonds.. There is no advalorem
state tax in North Carolina levied for
roads or for any other purpose. The
miuntenance of these state roads, and
the payment of interest on all road
bonds, and the retirement of the serial
road bonds falling due each year is
guaranteed by funds received by the
state from license taxes on automo
biles and from a three-cents tax on
gasoline. On January 1st, 1924, there
were registered in North Carolina 230-
000 passenger automobiles and 23,000
trucks. The automobile license fees
and the three-cents gasoline tax
brought into the State Treasury ap
proximately $7,000,000 during the year
1923, an amount now amply sufficient
to maintain the State Highway System,
to pay interest on the bonded indebted
ness for highway construction, and to
retire all serial bonds in less than forty
years. In 1919 when the State High
way Commission was ^formed, there
were in the state 210 miles of improved
roads. At the end of 1923 the state
bad completed 1,933 additional miles of
I' • 'uiproved roads and had under con-
uclion 1,425 miles to be completed in
In the year 1923 it completed
1,044 miles of road at a cost of $21,-
840,000. Of this mileage, 544 miles
were of the paved type and 600 miles
were of the progressive types using
gravel, top soil or sand clay as tempo
rary surfacing material. Projects under
construction, but net completed in 1923,
consist of 1,022 luiks of road of which
761 miles are of hard f?urface pavement
and 861 miles are of progressive road
types. The contract prices on uncom
pleted roads amount to $28,918,000. It
is contemplated that during the year
1924 we will let additional contracts for
approximately 500 miles of pavement
and 800 miles of progressive road
types estimated-to cost around $18,
000,000.
Savings on gasoline alone will more
than pay the interest on money bor
rowed by North Carolina for building
roads. In 1920 there were consumed
in the state 73,997,832 gallons of gas
and there were 142,284 cars, or each
car burned 520 gallons of gasoline. In
1923 there were consumed in the state
103,123,000 gallons of gas by 247,300
cars, or each car consumed 446 gallons
of gas, hence, there was a saving in
1923 over 1920 of 74 gallons of gasoline
per car. This multiplied by 247,300
cars, and gasoline estimated’at 26c per
gallon, will make a yearly saving to
the people in North Carolina of $4,677,
000 in gasoline used.
MARKETING TOBACCO
More than a million pounds of tobac
co a day have poured into the co-opera
tive warehouses in Virginia and North
Carolina during the past week, bring
ing total deliveries of the organized
growers to well over 150,000,000 pounds
of tobacco from the 1923 crop to date,
according to today’s announcement
of the warehouse department of the to
bacco association.
Fully 75,000,00,0 pounds of the Old
Belt bright tobacco have now reached
the pool and 16,000,000 pounds of dark
fired and Virginia sun cured-tobacco
have been delivered. The Virginia co
ops are delivering 66 per cent of the
entire dark crop to association houses,
Members of the association at sev
eral points have recently reported
that the three payments made on their
1922 crop brought theirj average • to
over 40 cents a pound. Although such
cases are comparatively rare' for the
crop of 1922, thej increased cash ad
vances being paid by the association oa
the present crop have greatly strength
ened the faith of the Old Belt growers
in co-operative marketing.
One of the high advancesjjpaid for
deliveries last week was that received
by Eli Nelson of Walnut Cove, whose
load of 2,092 pounds of tobacco brought
him a first cash advance of $496.23. A-
mong the hundreds of new members
who have signed up with the associa
tion this month, W. R. Waggoner of
Walnut Cove has .becomeHone of the
staunchest co-ops, because for the four
grades of tobacco for^which he was of
fered on the auction ^market $12.75,
$12, $10, and $8, he received $16, $16,
$12, and $8, respectively, at the as
sociation receiving point, according to
the co-operative manager.—Greensboro
News.
BUNCOMBE COUNTY
Every citizen of Buncombe .county
is indebted to the Buncombe County
Club of the University of North Caro
lina for the laboratory study of this
county just off the press under the title
‘‘Buncombe County: Economic: and So
cial.” It is the work of five Buncombe
county students at the University—A.
M. Moser, F. J. Herron, P. S. Ran
dolph, J. C. Cheesborough, 1. E.
Monk; and in recognition of the value
of the studies presented and their bear
ing on the future development of the
county’s life in every direction, the
Central Bank and Trust Company has
generously borne the expense of publi
cation;
The subjects of the 12 articles in the
booklet are: A Brief History oflBun-
combe County, Natural Resources, In-
duUries of Buncombe County, Facts
About the Folks of Buncombe County,
Wealth and Taxation, Farm Conditions
and Practices in Buncombe County,
Rural Schools of Buncombe, Home-
EBUCATION ^ DEMOCRACY
The chief business of democracy
is education: the" chief business of
education is democracy. The school
is the training place for preserving
this. The only way our common
wealth can outlast the tests put to
it depends on the lives of the boys
and girls now in the hands of the
public school teachers. Youths with
a national bias rather than with a
bent for books, service rather than
scholarship, a great education of
purpose rather than a selfish ambi
tion merely to get ahe^ in the
world, are what the country has the
right to demand of its schools. Jef
ferson had in his drawer the consti
tution of many democracies that
had failed. Yet he had faith to try
a new one. His proposal for uni
versal education as a safeguard of
democracy was accompanied by a
statement of purpose partidUlarly
essential now: ‘‘to teach men what
is going on in the world and to lead
each to desire to make his part of it
go on right.’’ — Newton D. Baker.
Raised Food and the Local Market
Problem, Livestock and Fruits, Co-op
erative Marketing, Things to Be Proud
of in Buncombe, Buncombe’s^Problems
and Their Solution. Each study is
readable, stripped bare of ^excess ver
biage, packed full of facts and pervad
ed with enthusiasm and faith in the
future of a spiritually jjfiner and more
materially splendid Buncombe county.
No one can read this study of Bun
combe county, in its social2-’and eco
nomic aspects, without finding informa
tion needed by every one who desires
to be well informed and with(ut receiv
ing inspiration to take some part in the
building up here of a finer type of life
in all the ways by which men and wom
en rise from good standards to stand
ards higher.—Asheville Citizen, Feb.
il, i924.
Free copies of Buncombe County:
Economic and Social, can be secured
by applying to the Central Bank and
Trust Company, Asheville, N.'-C., or
to the Department of Rural Social
Economics, University of North Caro
lina, Chapel Hill.
SCHOOL EXPENDITURES
Elsewhere in this issue will be found
a table which shows the total school ex
penditures for all purposes in each
state for the school year 1921-22, per
inhabitant. The table is based on in
formation secured from the office of the
superintendents of public instruction of
the respective states. The table in
cludes the total amount spent for all
school purposes, operation, mainte
nance, and outlay payments for build
ing and the like. The study concerns
all schools under the supervision of the
state superintendents of public instruc
tion.
Wyoming rani^ first in* school ex
penditure per inhabitant in 1921-22.
Her total public school expenditures
averaged $30^96 for each inhabitant of
the state. The other far western states
follow in rapid succession. Of the
eighteen slates that rank highest in
school expenditures per inhabitant only
one is an eastern or urban state. They
are all, with the exception of New Jer
sey, far western or middle western
stated.
Following this western agricultural
group we find that the rich and largely
urban states of the North and East
come next. They fall in almost a solid
group.
The third group, the states that ralik
lowest in school expenditures, is alto
gether southern. Two southern states,
Louisiana and Oklahoma, fall in the sec
ond group with respective school ex
penditures of $12.18 and $14.36 per in
habitant. Of the southern group Geor
gia cotnes last with $6.80, while North
Carolina ranks midway, spending $8.17
per inhabitant for all public school pur
poses.
^h.y High or Low
It is naturally to be expected that
the wosterr- states would rank highest
in school expenditures per person. As
a rule these states have large farms, a
large per capita wealth in farm proper
ties, sparse population, and large white
population ratios. Living costs are
high in this area. Large amounts have
been spent on modern school buildings,
school term averages eight months or
more, and teachers and other school
officials receive salaries which to us
seem extremely high. Under such con
ditions the annual cost of schools per
inhabitant is necessarily large.
Smaller school expenditures per in
habitant in the northern states do not
mean that they do not have as good
schools. Because of dense population
the best of school facilities can be pro
vided at a lower unit cost. The unit
cost of schools of equal value is lower
in a densly populated urban area than
in a sparsely populated farm region.
Therefore the wealthy urban states rank
neither^ high nor low but, largely be
cause of density of population, they are
able to maintain excellent schools at a
moderate cost per inhabitant.
Again it is natural to expect the
southern states to rank lowest in a
study of this type. Many reasons ac-1
count for our meagre average expendi- i
tures in public schools. In the first j
place the perinhabitant wealth is small-1
est in the South. Along with our lack !
of wealth there has not been a very |
keen and widespread desire for the j
best educational facilities. A third i
factor is our overwhelming farm tenant [
population, and a fourth is our large ;
negro population ratio.
Practically every southern state has |
made great progress during' the last •
decade or so, but even with a program i
such as North Carolina has recently ■
undertaken it will be several years be-1
fore our schools are on a par with'
those of the average state at the pres-;
ent time. For the entire South the j
school expenditures per inhabitant are
only about one half as great as the
average for the United States. The
average for North Carolina is only half
as much as the average for all the
states, while Wyoming spends nearly
j four times as much per person on
schools as North Carolina.
Expenditure Purposes
' The net expenditure for all public
school purposes in North Carolina in
1921-22 was $21,649,696. This total was
distributed as follows: teaching and
supervision $13,767,400; • administration
$463,354; operation and maintenance of
school plants $1,300,066; and outlays
for buildings, sites, repairs, and debt
service $6,118,887. Of the total the"
rural schools with an enrollment of
687,472 pupils cost $13,148,553, and the
3ity schools with an enrollment of 166,-
226 pupils cost $8,601,148.
Gratifyiug Progress
It is very likely that North Carolina
has made more progress in public edu
cation during the last decade or s«
than any other southern state. We
are gradually working out of the cellar
position which we so complacently oc
cupied for so many years.
The best evidence of progre.'''^ ir the
large increase in expenditiir..i' fur
school purposes. The total school fund
in North Carolina in 1903 was only $1,-
912,047. The total expenditure for
Schools in 1910 amounted to only $3,-
424,768, and in 1916 to $6,132,213. The
most marvelous gains in public educa
tion have occurred since 1915. During
the last eight years millions have been
invested in modern school buildings,
gratifying,progress has been made in
consolidating small weak districts into
large effective ones, teachers are uni
formly superior in training and fitness,
and teadjer salaries have been mater
ially increased.
The best evidence of recent progress
is that total school expenditures have
increased from a little more than six
million dollars in 1914-16 to about twen
ty-three million dollars in 1922-23. New
buildings erected last year cost more
than the ontire public school system in
1914-15. -
But even with our marvelous gains
within recent years the present cost of
public education is relatively low in
North Carolina. . Including Colorado
for which definite figures are lacking,
39 states spend more per inhabitant
annually on public education than does
North Carolina; The eight states that
rank below us including Mississippi,
for which we lack data, kre all south
ern, and most of them have larger
negro population ratios than ours. We
are making splendid headway but we
certainly have not reached the point
where we can boast of our large school
expenditures, nor complain . about ex
cessive tax burden for public school
support. At the present time the total
cost of public education in North Caro
lina is-only half as great per inhabit
ant as the average cost for all the
states of the Union.
In proportion to our taxable wealth
per inhabitant as reported by the Fed
eral Department of Commerce for 1922
public education cost less in North Ca
rolina than in any other state in ♦the
Union. All of which is extremely grat
ifying in view of the fact that North
Carolina schools are undoubtedly super
ior, to those of several southern states.
Considering the relatively small cost of
our schools per inhabitant it appears
that we are getting our money,’s worth.
—S. H, H., J^r.
SCHOOL EXPENDITURES IN THE UNITED STATES
Per Inhabitant for the School Year 1921-22
The table is based on information furnished by the Superintendents of Pub
lic Instruction of the respective states showing the total amount spent on public
education during the school year 1921-22, including outlay payments, divided by
the population as estimated by the Census Bureau.
Wyoming ranks first with total public school expenditures averaging $30.96
per inhabitant. The average expenditure per inhabitant was smallest in Geor
gia with only $5.30. Colorado and Mississippi are omitted because of our in
ability to secure information. Colorado-i^anks near the top, while Mississippi
ranks near the bottom.
During the school year 1921-22 North Carolina spent a total of $21,649,696
on public schools, exclusive of higher education. The total expenditures aver
aged $8.17 per inhabitant. Seven states, all southern, spent less per inhabitant
for public school maintenance and outlay than North Carolina.
S. H, Hobbs, Jr.
Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina
Rank State School Ex
penditures
per Inhab.
1 Wyoming $30.96
2 South Dakota 28.40
3 Montana 26.24
4 California 25.16
6 North Dakota 23.13
6 Nevada 23.08
7 Minnesota 22.80
8 Nebraska 22.66
9 Iowa 22.46
10 Utah,.... 22.30
11 New Jersey 21.66
12 Oregon 20.43
13 Washington 20.23
14 Arizona 20.10
16 Indiana 19.68
16 Kansas 18.89
17 Ohio 17,87
18 Idaho*... 17.73
19 New York 17.60
20 Co -.iFi :icMt 17.34
21 Wisconsin 16.90
22 16.63
23 Pennsylvania ” 14.39
Ma;';'.eancG only, i 1922-23.
Rank
State School Ex
penditures
per Inhab.
Oklahoma $14.35
Michigan* 13.90
Massachusetts 13.66
New Mexico* 13.67
West Virginia 12.32
Louisiana 12.18
New Hampshire 12.15
Vermont 11.92
Missouri 11.80
Rhode Island 11.50
Delaware 10.93
Maine 10.73
Maryland 10.06
Florida 9.52
Virginia 8.78
North Carolina 8.17
Texas 7.66
Kentucky 6.94
Tennessee 6.67
Suath Carolinat 6.48
Arkansas 6.95
/.liiuarna 5.87
Georgia 5.30