EDUCATIONAL GFZGIAL Mputh Carolina,Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. VoLXXV. Ho. 25. RALEIGH, N. C, JUNE 25, 1910. Weekly: $1 a Year. - " " " - ' .. - ... ....... , . " T1 The School the Hope of the South. r 'RAVELING this week across a considerable section of our Progressive Farmer end Gazette territory, we could but dream of the time when all our Southern country shall be come as fair as the rural districts of France and England as we saw them two years ago when our muddy roads shall give way to beautiful highways; when our old fields shall be redeemed to life and useful- when our half-cultivated patches shall be ness converted into broad and fertile fit Ids ; when herds of cattle and flocks of sheep shall dot. our hillsides; when a gully shall be reckoned a dis-; grace and a fire-ruined wood a crime .; when cabins and ugly cottages shall be replaced by homes made beautiful by' loving care,- however, humble they may be; and when a thickly-settled and well trained population shall not only relieve country life of that isolation which has most retarded its development, but shall give needed support for all the conven iences of twentieth-century rural life rural telephones, water-works, the town ship high school with its public library and lyceum course: the school a center of intellectual and the church of spirit ual activity, each giving symmetry and beauty to a community life which finds its material basis in a high degree of efficiency on the part of the average man. v Even as ; the painter: when he goes to his canvas, sees with his mind's eye some beautiful vision which he is to work out, even so A Si Arc c j all of us should have before us as we go about our daily tasks this vision of the South that is to be, and the part, however insignifi cant, that we may have in helping. Us fulfillment We should all of m like to live to see it with our own eyes, as Moses yearned to see the promised Canaan to which he led his people. But whether we shall ee with the physical eye or, only in our dream, it is enough that we nay have a hand in bringing it about, enough that we may worti intelligently and unselfishly to has ten the coming of this better day. And the one way is by giving th e child a chance. That boy of yours, that boy of ycur neighbor's, who i ... .14. . .. r : : . , - .. - . ' ii i in ii Liu iii pin- i "l.J t . " 1 " '"" 1 ." !" J '" ' 1 i."1 '. 11 " " i ' ' already has the basis of all character in that he is learning to work', that boy who "warms his feet cold mornings in the place where the cows lay the night before" he is the hope of the South. That girl of yours, that girl of your neighbor's, whose mind and spirit will some day give tone and color to everything in a homeshe is the hope of the South. And only through the school they can be developed. The boy and girl in the towns are getting good schooling ; the farm boy and girl in the North and , 5 West are "getting good schooling: Shall it be, i then, that among alt our twentieth-century Ameri-, can youth the Southern farm boy and girl alone shall enter life's race handicapped by shackles of ignorance ?' " ; It must not be so. The best investment the South could make in 1910 would be to double its . school taxes and double the patronage of our high schools and colleges. Only by providing the best of facilities can we attract to the South that tide of im migration which we need to increase our percentage of white population and to relieve rural life of isolation ; and only by educating all our people can we ever work out our dream of a South the beauty of whose rural and urban life, the intellU gence and efficiency of whose people, shatt make it indeed the foremost and- the fairest section of America. - 7 ijj? ww.t rr .a .ii. n, i-4 '1 f: ij r(; Qyoiteiy Notth Canlina Department of Edncatta ? '?'; ;V;;': THE OLD AMD THE NEW ;;-:'f ' ' '"f nr U a itrlklnc example of What coMoHdation of rural K&oob and the local tax waife eUU hundreds of each echool houses ai thoee shown m the two opper jpte tures. soittertd about over the 8outh school houses without any facilities stsll lorrood work and without pupils enough to permit of the ear ployment of a rood teacher, nhere two or meat such schools can be combined and an tp-to date botldina r with modern equipment prorided and a rood teacher tmployed. Is It not work well worth whUe to do M Erery person who helps In making luch a chauge has a rteht to be proud of his work; and so one can tell what difference the better surrouxdinsjs will make in the Ures of the boys and xirls who attend the school. '. EDUCATIONAL FEATURES OF u-ir THIS ISSUE. A, B07s Most Important Prob- lem . . . . . . . ..... . . . . . . . . . . 522 A Nqw Kind of Text-Books Need ed 526 A Year's Progress in Virginia. . 535 College Training for the Oonn- rjr Girt . ... ... '. ...... . . 525 llow. the Home Can Help the . School) . . . ... ... . . ....... 524 Improyement of the Schools as . ' a Help to $500 More a Year . . 510 . Practical Training for Busy . Housekeepers w 534 Progress in North Carolina. ... 520 The , Educational . Demands of i Our Tfme . .' . ',' ... . 520 The Southern Fanner's Needless , . ", '.'; Burdens .'. . . '.'.I... . . . . ' : 518 What ;Each of Us Can Bp to .". '.V Help ;...V...t ... 620 What Some Communities Haye Bone ................523--523 What the South Can Learn From , . New, England ....... . . . . . 527