THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION
I A Dream of Empire
A keen Atlanta business man leaned forward on his chair and spoke
eagerly. "Yes, sir," he exclaimed, "the world is ours. We have the
biggest, finest batch of undeveloped resources in the country--perhaps
on the planet. Iron, coal, stone, timber, power--our hills are full of
them, so full that we have never even inventoried our treasure-house.
Our possibilities are beyond the power of words, and we've got to live
up to them."
This man knew Georgia and the South. He had helped, and still is helping
to convert the iron, coal, timber, and water-power into Southern
prosperity. He was still unsatisfied.
"The trouble with us is, we can't go fast enough," he admitted. "Do you
know why? Do you know the biggest burden we have to carry--the most
determined enemy we have to fight? Well, sir, it's ignorance--the
ignorance of the common man about his farm or his trade; the ignorance
of the business man about outside things; the ignorance of the teachers
who are supposed to enlighten us." He leaned forward again. "That sounds
strong, doesn't it? But it's gospel."
I reminded him of the rapidity with which the South was forging ahead in
its educational activities. He threw his head back proudly. "Of course,"
he cried, "the experiment stations, the colleges, the high schools, the
club movement, and all that--of course we're going ahead. I'm not
speaking of that. My point is that we must wake up to two things. First
of all, we must never make the mistakes that you did in the North when
you built up your educational system. That means no pedantry, or
classical snobbery. We mustn't go that way. Our way is plain though. I
see it more clearly every time I think the matter over--we must train
the intelligence of the Southern people."
He continued, in his enthusiastic mood. "Yes, there is a great future
for the South. Its resources make a future possible; but unless those
resources are intelligently used, our prosperity will not go very deep,
or reach very far. We must take the people with us."
This man's view typifies the educational vision that is sweeping over
the South. "We must take the people with us," he said. There is nothing
novel in the idea; but coming as it did from a representative business
man, it carried weight and conviction.
Another thing he said in the same connection enforced his argument.
"They talk about the race problem in the South," he said. "That is, the
old generation does. We younger men are not so much concerned about the
race problem as we are concerned about efficiency in industry and in
agriculture. The races are here to stay; we cannot change that if we
would. Meanwhile, all of us, whites as well as blacks, are slovenly in
our farming, indifferent in our business transactions, and hopelessly
behind in our methods of conducting affairs. From top to bottom we need
trained intelligence. That, more than anything else, will solve the
South's problems."
II Finding the Way
The step is a short one from a vision of trained intelligence to a
demand for effective education. Throughout the South, the will to
progress is everywhere in evidence, and with unerring accuracy, one
community after another is turning to this as the way.
There is no Southern city in which the agitation for increased
educational activity is not being pushed with vigor and intensity. On
all hands there appears the result of a conviction that the only means
by which the effectiveness of the South can be maintained and increased,
lie along the path of increased educational opportunities. The South, if
it is to fulfill the greatness of its promise, must remodel its
educational system in the interests of a larger South, as the West has
remodeled its educational system in the interest of a larger West. The
notable State universities of the Middle and Far West, the Normal
Schools, the prevalent system of education, have been felt, and are now
being felt, in the progressive, efficient, Western population. Nothing
less than a generally educated public could have made the West in the
brief years that have elapsed since it was a wilderness. Nothing save
general education can make the resources of the South yield up their
greatest advantage to the Southern people.
The time for traditional formalism has passed in the South, as it has
passed in every other progressive community. Whatever the needs of the
community may be, those needs must be met through some form of public
education. In the South the most pressing need appears in the demand for
intelligent farming. For decades the tenant farmers, largely negroes,
cultivated their farms as their fathers had cultivated. They raised
cotton because the raising of cotton offered the path of least
resistance. Farm animals were scarce, because the farm animals only came
with surplus cash, and surplus cash was scarce indeed in districts where
the tenant farmers lived through the year on the credit obtained from
the prospective cotton crops. There was little corn raised, because the
people did not understand the need for raising corn, nor did they
realize the financial possibilities of the Southern corn crop. In a
word, the agricultural South lacked the knowledge which modern
scientific agriculture has brought.
The past generation has seen a revolution in Southern agriculture,
because of the revolution which has occurred in Southern agricultural
education. Led by the experiment stations and universities, the South
has undertaken to reorganize its system of living from the land.
The Atlanta banker fully realized the need for culture. He was himself a
cultured gentleman; but he also saw that before the people of the South
could have culture, they must have an economic system directed with
sufficient intelligence to supply the necessaries of life, which must
always be taken for granted before the possibilities of culture are
realized. Cultural education comes after, and not before, education for
intelligent and direct vocational activity.
During the educational revolution of the past twenty-five years, no
section of the country has thrown itself into the foreground of
educational progress with more vigor and with greater earnestness and
zeal than that displayed in the South. In certain directions the South
has proved a leader in the inauguration and administration of new
activities. In other directions the Southern States have followed
actively and energetically.
A traveler through the New South stumbles unavoidably upon countless
illustrations of the part which modern education is playing in Southern
life. Individuals, families, communities, are being re-made by the new
education.
III Jem's Father
Jem wasn't a good boy, but he was interested in his school. He was one
of those fortunate boys who lived in a county that had been possessed by
the corn club idea, and the corn club was the thing which had given Jem
his school interest.
Jem never took to studies. Each year he had told his mother that "there
weren't no use in goin' back to that there school again." Persistently
she had sent him back, until one year when Jem found a reason for going.
A new teacher came to Jem's school--a young man fresh from normal
school, full of enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas. The boys felt from
the start that he was their friend, and before many weeks had elapsed,
the community began to feel his presence. This new teacher was
particularly enthusiastic over the "club idea." "We must get the boys
and girls doing something together" he kept saying to his classes.
The year wore on, but interest in the school did not flag, because all
through the winter months there were entertainments, parents' meetings,
literary meetings, spelling bees, reading hours, and other evening
activities. In fact, the time came when there was a light in the
school-house three or four nights in each week.
Toward spring the new teacher began to push the "club idea." He started
with the boys, and, as luck would have it, picked out Jem. "Jem," he
said one day, "I want you to stay after school, I want to speak to you a
minute." Jem stayed, not knowing exactly what was coming. When the rest
of the pupils had tumbled out of the school door, and disappeared along
the muddy road, the teacher and Jem sat down together.
"Jem," said the teacher, "we ought to have a corn club in this school."
Jem looked up doggedly, but gave no sign of interest or enthusiasm.
"You see," the teacher said, "it's this way. Farming isn't all that it
might be around here. People raise things the way they have always been
raised. Our county superintendent has an idea. He proposes to teach the
farmers in this county how to raise corn."
Jem looked skeptical. "Are you to do the teaching?" he asked.
"No," was the answer, "you are."
"I?" said Jem.
"Yes," said the teacher, "you and the other boys in the school."
Jem scratched his head. "I ain't never taught no one nothing in my
life," he commented.
"It's this way," the teacher went on. "Up at Washington and out at the
State College they have been doing a lot of thinking and working with
corn. They found, for instance, that if you pick seed corn carefully,
you get a better crop than if you are careless in seed selection. They
have also found that if you follow certain rules about planting and
cultivation you get a better crop. For years the men at the Experiment
Station and at Washington talked about these things in Farmers'
Bulletins. They established experiment farms, and demonstration farms,
too. Lately they have been doing something more, and something which I
think is better than anything so far--they have decided to have the boys
teach their fathers how to raise corn."
"Do you mean to say," asked Jem, "that I could teach Dad anything about
corn-raisin'?"
"Yes," said the teacher, "you can, and, what is more, you will, won't
you?"
"Well," said Jem, "I dunno."
"Here is what we have to do," said the teacher. "This year the county
superintendent is going to offer prizes for the boy with the best acre
of corn. He sends out rules. You have to plough a certain way, plant a
certain way, and cultivate a certain way. If you do not follow the rules
you are not allowed to stay in the contest. Now I'll tell you what I
want to do. The boys in this school are as smart, if not smarter, than
the boys in any other school in the country; so I guess it is up to us
to get some of those prizes right here at home."
Jem was visibly interested. "Money prizes?" he asked.
"Yes, money prizes," said the teacher. "The first prize will be fifty
dollars."
Jem's eyes opened wide. "I'm in for that," he said with conviction.
That night, when Jem sat down to supper, he broached the corn
proposition to his father.
"Shucks," his father exclaimed. "You raise an acre of corn? Why you
wouldn't get twenty-five bushels!"
"Twenty-five," said Jem, contemptuously. "I'd get a hundred."
"A hundred," said his father. "Here, look here, boy, I have been
farming this land for thirty odd years, and the best I ever done on an
acre of corn was seventy bushels. I'll tell you what, though," he added
conclusively, "this here talk about corn clubs makes me tired. You and
your hundred bushels! I was looking over the paper when it came in this
noon, and I saw a piece about a chap over by Southport with over a
hundred bushels to the acre. Do you know what I'm goin' to do tonight?
I'm goin' to write that editor a letter, and tell him that any paper
that publishes lies like that ain't fit for my family to see. This
year's subscription ain't run out, but they don't need to send me the
rest. I'll get a paper somewhere else."
Despite home opposition, Jem persisted and prevailed. His father gave
him an acre grudgingly, but it was a good acre. And when, following the
rules which he and the other boys who had agreed to enter the contest
read over with the teacher, he disked his land and ploughed his narrow,
deep furrows, he listened, not without misgivings, to the remarks which
his elder brother passed at his expense.
"Say, Jem," this brother remarked, "you have spent three times as much
time on that acre as any acre of corn raised in this county was ever
worth. Are you diggin' graves for 'possums?"
When, later in the season, Jem cultivated with persistent regularity, he
was forced to listen to similar comments. Jem wasn't good at repartee;
so he said nothing; but, sustained by the encouragement of the new
teacher, who came to see his acre every week, Jem followed the rules to
the letter.
He had his reward at harvest time. When the ears first set it became
apparent that Jem had a good crop. As they developed, the goodness of
the crop became more manifest; but when the acre had been harvested,
put through the sheller and bagged, and Jem had stowed in his pocket a
certificate of "ninety-six bushels on one acre," it was time for some
explanations.
"Jem," said his father at the supper table on the evening of that
memorable day when Jem's corn went through the sheller, and his
certificate showed ninety-six bushels, "I wrote a letter to that editor,
and sent him next year's subscription in advance."
IV Club Life Militant
The experience of Jem's father has been duplicated many times by parents
and communities during the past ten years of club growth in the South.
The school, working through the children, has educated fathers, mothers,
villages, and whole counties.
All of the agencies of government,--local, State, and national,--have
cooperated to make the children's clubs one of the leading agencies in
developing that trained intelligence which is so great an asset in the
prosperity of any community. Thanks to the tireless efforts of men like
William H. Smith, the children's clubs have become one of the most
aggressive factors in educating rural communities to higher standards of
efficiency. There are many kinds of clubs--corn clubs, potato clubs,
tomato clubs, pig clubs. Anything which the children can raise is a
legitimate object of club activity. The work in the South started with
corn clubs.
The corn-club idea in Mississippi grew out of an educational experience
of Professor William H. Smith.[24] For years Professor Smith had taught,
in a mildly progressive way, the time-honored subjects which were
included in the study-course of the rural school. Two of Professor
Smith's students, a boy of twenty and a girl of seventeen, left school;
and they left, as the boy told Professor Smith very frankly, because the
school taught them very little that would be of use later on in the work
which they would be called upon to do. This boy expected to grow cotton;
the girl expected to marry the boy, manage his domestic affairs and
attend to the many duties which fall to the lot of women on a farm.
When he left school, the boy put it to Professor Smith in this way: "I
am goin' to be a farmer. I ain't fitted to be nothing else, and book
learnin' ain't helpin' me none. It's just a waste of time. I've got to
clear land and work it into a farm. If I was goin' to be a bookkeeper or
an engineer, or somethin', what you are teachin' me here might help; but
I can't remember that I have ever learned a thing since I got the hang
how to figure the interest on a mortgage, that will be of any account to
me on a farm. Almost all the boys has got to be a farmer like me. You
know, professor, it appears to me like these schools for the people
ought to be teachin' the children of the people how to make a livin' on
the farm--how to make life better and easier, instead of just makin' us
plum disgusted with ourselves."
This experience, standing out among a multitude of similar experiences,
led Professor Smith to an interest in some form of educational work that
would help boys and girls in their lives on the farm. The outcome of his
thinking and experimenting, combined with the thinking and experimenting
of many another capable educational leader, is the club idea for boys
and girls alike.
There was a real need for the corn club. For the year 1899 the total
corn area in Alabama was 2,743,060 acres. On these acres the farmers
secured an average of 12.7 bushels per acre. Ten years later, in 1909,
the total acreage had decreased to 2,572,092, and the per acre yield had
decreased to 11.9 bushels per acre. Here was a decrease of 170,968 acres
in corn; of 4,367,310 bushels in the corn crop; and of .8 of a bushel in
the average yield per acre. The boys' corn club movement was started in
Alabama in 1909. That year two hundred and sixty-five boys were
enrolled. The average per acre yield of corn in the State was 11.9
bushels. The next year the enrollment of boys reached twenty-one
hundred; the total yield increased more than sixty per cent.; and the
average number of bushels per acre rose to eighteen. The figures for
1911 and 1912 show an increase, though less extensive, in the total
acreage and the total yield of corn for each year.
Southern land will grow corn. Properly treated, it will better a yield
of twelve bushels per acre, five, ten, and even fifteen-fold. The
leaders of Southern agricultural education knew this. They knew,
furthermore, that the betterment could never be brought about until the
farmers were convinced that it was possible. How could they be shown?
The Farmers' Bulletin had a place; the experiment farm had a place; but
if it were only possible to make every farm an experiment farm!
The way lay through the boys. They could be induced to organize
miniature experiments in scores of farms in every county, and then the
farmers would see!
Backed by a carefully worked out organization, the authorities set out
with the deliberate purpose of educating the farmer through his son. If
his corn yield was low, he would learn how to get a larger yield. If he
raised no corn, he would learn of the spot-cash value of corn. Boys
were organized into clubs; directions were given; prizes were offered,
and the boys went to work with a will. For the most part they took one
acre.
When compared to the yield on surrounding acres, the corn crops secured
by the boys are little short of phenomenal. In Pike County, Alabama,
where the number of boys engaging in corn club contests increased from
one in 1910 to two hundred and seventy in 1912, the average number of
bushels per acre grown by the boys rose from 50.5 to 85.3. In the entire
State there were one hundred and thirty-seven boys who made over a
hundred bushels per acre each in 1911. The average per acre for each of
these boys was one hundred and twenty-seven bushels, and the total
profit on their corn crop was $12,500.
Records made by individual boys through the Southern States run very
high. Claude McDonald, of Hamer, S. C., raised 210-4/7 bushels at a cost
of 33.3c a bushel. Junius Hill, of Attalla, Ala., raised 212-1/2
bushels. Ben Leath, of Kensington, Ga., raised 214-5/7 bushels. John
Bowen, of Grenada, Miss., raised 221-1/5 bushels. Eber A. Kimbrough,
Alexander City, Ala., raised 224-3/4 bushels; and Bebbie Beeson,
Monticello, Miss., raised 227-1/16 bushels.[25] These boys were all
State prize winners.
There are several things worthy of note about these record yields.
Practically all of the high yields were made on deeply ploughed, widely
separated rows. The record made by Bennie Beeson (227-1/16 bushels, at a
cost of fourteen cents per bushel) was secured on dark, upland soil,
with a clay sub-soil, ploughing to a depth of ten inches, rows three
feet apart, hills six inches apart, with ten cultivations. Beeson used
5-1/2 tons of manure and eight dollars' worth of other fertilizer on his
acre. The seed corn was New Era. Barnie Thomas, who grew 225 bushels on
rich, sandy loam, ploughed nine inches, planted his rows three and
one-half feet apart, and kept the hills ten inches apart. He cultivated
six times, and selected his own seed from the field. Many of the boys
making the fine records developed and selected their own seed. One boy,
with an acre yield of 124.9 bushels, cleared six hundred and ninety-five
dollars, counting prizes. Another boy, with a yield of 97-4/5 bushels,
reports that his father's yield was thirty bushels. John Bowen, with a
yield of 221-1/5 bushels, reports the yield on nearby acres as forty
bushels. Arthur Hill, with 180-3/5 bushels, reports the nearby yields as
twenty bushels.
Such figures, uncertified, would challenge the credulity of the
uninitiated. The land on which these record yields were secured had been
raising twenty, forty, and fifty bushels of corn to the acre. Over great
sections, the per acre average was well under twenty. Into this
desolation of agricultural inefficiency, a few thousand school boys
entered. Under careful supervision and proper guidance, with little
additional expenditure of money or of time, they produced results wholly
unbelievable to the old-time farmer. Yet he saw the crop, husked, and
watched it through the sheller. There was no magic and no chicanery. He
had learned a lesson.
The records cited above are exceptionally high. There were hundreds of
others almost equally good. "Twenty-one Georgia club members from the
seventh congressional district alone grew 2,641 bushels at an average
cost of 23 cents per bushel; 19 boys in Gordon County, Georgia, average
90 bushels, 10 of them making 1,058 bushels. The 10 boys who stood
highest in Georgia averaged 169.9 bushels and made a net profit of more
than $100 each, besides prizes won. In Alabama 100 boys average 97
bushels at an average cost of 27 cents. In Monroe County, Alabama, 25
boys averaged 78 bushels. In Yazoo County, Mississippi, 21 boys averaged
111.6 bushels at an average cost of 19.7 cents. In Lee County,
Mississippi, 17 boys averaged 82 bushels at an average cost of 21 cents.
Sixty-five boys in Mississippi averaged 109.9 bushels at an average cost
of 25 cents. Twenty Mississippi boys averaged 140.6 bushels at an
average cost of 23 cents. Ninety-two boys in Louisiana grew 5,791
bushels on 92 acres; 10 of these boys had above 100 bushels each,
although the weather conditions were very unfavorable in that State. In
North Carolina 100 boys averaged 99 bushels. In the same State 432 boys
averaged 63 bushels. In Buncombe County, North Carolina, 10 boys
averaged 88 bushels. In Sussex County, Virginia, 16 boys averaged 82
bushels. Fifteen boys in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., where the
business men contributed about $3,000 to aid the work, averaged 127.4
bushels at an average cost of 28 cents per bushel. Many other records in
other States were equally good in view of the fact that a drought
prevailed very generally throughout the South in 1911.["][26]
Such returns challenge the attention of the most hidebound. These boys
got results that exceeded anything that had ever been heard of in their
communities. The old folks who had scoffed; the wise-acres whose advice
was not taken; and the "I told you so" farmers who had uttered their
predictions, all stood aside, while the boys, pointer in hand, taught
their respective communities one of the best lessons they had ever
learned.
V Canning Clubs
Parallel with the boys' corn clubs are the girls' canning clubs. If the
boys could grow corn (in a number of cases the corn contests were won by
girls), why might it not be possible to have the girls do something
along parallel lines? The idea found expression in the girls' tomato
clubs and similar organizations. During 1910, three hundred and
twenty-five girls were enrolled in such clubs in Virginia and South
Carolina. Dr. Knapp and his fellow workers decided that one-tenth of an
acre would be enough for a good garden. Each girl was urged to plant
some other kind of vegetable in addition to her tomatoes, and to can
surplus fruit. In 1911, more than three thousand girls, in eight
different States, had joined clubs and planted their gardens. By 1912
the number had grown to twenty-three thousand girls in twelve States.
Many of the girls put up more than five hundred quart cans of tomatoes
from their plots, besides ketchup, pickles, chow-chow, preserves, and
other products. Quite a number of girls put up more than a thousand
quart cans, and one girl put up fifteen hundred quart cans. Some of the
girls, in addition to the prizes, had a net profit of as much as a
hundred dollars on their gardens.
The United States Bureau of Plant Industry sets forth the object of the
girls' demonstration work as follows:
"(1) To encourage rural families to provide purer and better
food at a lower cost, and utilize the surplus and otherwise
waste products of the orchard and garden, and make the poultry
yard an effective part of the farm economy.
(2) To stimulate interest and wholesome cooperation among
members of the family in the home.
(3) To provide some means by which girls may earn money at home,
and, at the same time, get the education and viewpoint necessary
for the ideal farm life.
(4) To open the way for practical demonstrations in home
economics.
(5) To furnish earnest teachers a plan for aiding their pupils
and helping their communities."[27]
VI Recognition Day for Boys and Girls
The most astonishing thing about the club activity is the recognition
which it has won wherever it has been worked out on an extensive basis.
The reason for this general recognition is quite obvious, and its effect
is no less stimulating.
Public officials and business men have vied with one another in their
efforts to reward the winners of county and State club contests. The
same bulletin which records the astonishing figures on corn yields,
tells about the things that were done for the 56,840 boys who were
members of corn clubs. Fifty-two Georgia boys received diplomas signed
by the governor of the State and other officials, for producing more
than a hundred bushels per acre each, at an average cost of less than
thirty cents per bushel. Business men and citizens generally subscribed
liberally money, free railroad transportation, and trips to State
capitals. In 1911 the total value of the prizes offered in the South to
the boys' corn clubs approximated fifty thousand dollars. In Oklahoma,
one thousand dollars in gold was offered to the one hundred and twenty
boys making the best record in that State. The State prize winners were
sent to Washington for a week, where they were received at the White
House by the President, and at the Capitol by the Speaker of the House
of Representatives. They were presented with special cards of admission
to the Senate and House of Representatives, and, when visiting Congress,
they were presented to their Senators and Congressmen. By special
invitation these distinguished visitors appeared before the Committee on
Agriculture at the House of Representatives. They also visited the
office of the Secretary of Agriculture. They were photographed, and
large diplomas bearing the seal of the Department and the signature of
the Secretary were awarded to them.
One does not wonder at the widespread recognition accorded these boys,
in view of the fact that their efforts have been responsible for an
immense increase in the business prosperity of their respective States.
Once more have educators demonstrated the possibilities of teaching
parents through the education of children.
VII Teaching Grown-Ups to Read
The educational work which is being done in the uplands of the South has
already received widespread recognition. The slogan, "Down with the
moonshine still and up with the moonlight school," typifies the spirit
of the upland community.
One might journey far before discovering a more enthusiastic people than
the teachers and the scholars of the Southern uplands. The appalling
extent of illiteracy among the descendants of Marion's men finds a
parallel in their pathetic desire for some form of education.
The Southern hill whites love the old and fear the new. Traditionally,
they belong to a past generation; actually, they are reaching out for
the better things which the new generation can offer. The moonlight
schools are attended by old people and young alike. The struggling
colleges, the industrial and technical schools, with their record of
privation and hardship, bear eloquent testimony to the genuine efforts
which the upland population is making in these early years of its
educational awakening.
Every sincere effort among the hill whites meets with instant response.
For the most part, they deprive themselves of the necessaries of life in
order that they may send their children to school. Boys skimp and save;
girls walk for miles along mountain trails and paths; communities give
of the scanty means of their effort for the building and maintenance of
schools. Everywhere the spirit of the new education is permeating the
Southern upland communities.
VIII George Washington, Junior
One teacher, whose years of effort in the Piedmont have brought her the
confidence and co-operation of the community, tells of the success of
one of her earliest ventures with a boy of thirteen.
The boy's father was bad; his mother slovenly and indifferent. The boy
himself was bright and active.
When the time came for him to enter the cotton mill, the teacher
protested to his family, but without success. Still there was something
that she could do for him, still she saw an opportunity of serving him,
and she asked him to come to her home with a number of other boys, for a
couple of nights a week, when they sat together, reading, or playing
games.
The boy had appeared sullen at first, but toward the end of his school
term he showed an active interest. It became apparent that he was
particularly clever at languages. None of his lessons troubled him, and,
with the assistance of the teacher, he learned Italian readily, and
during the evenings, when the other boys played games or talked, he
worked over his Italian sentences with vital interest.
Just before Christmas, during the first year that this boy had spent in
the mill, a friend visited his teacher, became interested in her work,
and asked if there was any way in which she could help.
"You may," said the teacher. "You may buy Andy an outfit."
The friend went to the city with the order in her pocket,--a hat, a
suit, and a complete outfit, new, as a Christmas present for Andy.
On Christmas eve, Andy alone came to the teacher's house. She had not
asked the other boys,--partly because most of them preferred to stay at
home, partly because she had no such fine present for them as she had
for Andy.
"Never in my life," the teacher said, "had I seen Andy clean. I made up
my mind that for once he should have a clean body as well as clean
clothes."
When Andy came that Christmas eve, the teacher took him into a room
where there were towels, soap, a basin, and a new outfit of clothes.
"Andy," she said, "this is your Christmas present from my friend, and
now you are going to give me a Christmas present, too. You are going to
wash up and dress up."
Andy followed directions, and when he emerged from the room in his spick
and span outfit, his hat set side-wise on his wet, newly combed hair, he
stood up very straight, surveying himself as best he could from head to
foot, and exclaimed,--"Gee! I feel just like George Washington." The
bath and the new suit were a realization of his highest ideal.
"Andy and I were always friends after that," said the teacher, "and
since Andy was the moving spirit among the boys in the village, the boys
and I got along well together. It was my introduction to the heart of
the community, and it came with Andy's realization of an ideal which he
had long cherished."
IX A Step Toward Good Health
Having won Andy over, the teacher prepared to work her way past some of
the barriers of prejudice which the community had placed between itself
and civilization. The girls offered the readiest opening.
"The homes were wretched," the teacher said. "The people did not know
the simplest health rules. They were strangers to sanitation or
cleanliness. Their housekeeping was primitive and their cooking
miserable. I had won the boys by getting them together in something that
resembled a club. I decided that my best path to the girls, and from
them to the community, lay through housekeeping."
The hypothesis was, at least, worthy of a try-out. The teacher began by
keeping her own house in the most approved manner, and asking the girls
to come in and help her do it.
"You'll like to take supper with me this evening," she would say to a
group of girls at recess time. "Speak to your mothers when you go home,
and you, Sadie and Annie, will stay over night and sleep in the spare
bed."
They were slow to respond at first. Long habit made them suspicious, but
when the first few girls had spent their night with the teacher and had
come home with the tales of her wonderful household arrangements, the
others were looking eagerly for a chance to duplicate their experiences.
"Am I next?" a little girl asked anxiously one day, after the
invitations to a party had been given out. The assurance that she was,
made her face shine for the remainder of the afternoon.
"The school girls all came willingly," the teacher said. "It was after I
had them so interested that one of the factory hands came in. It was
Saturday night, and she rapped on the door before coming in with a
hesitating touch, as if she was afraid. She sat down across from me,
smoothing her dress and looking unhappy."
"You'll not understand," said the factory girl, apologetically. "But
Mame is in your school--she's my sister. You had her up last week to
spend the night. You'll remember?"
The teacher nodded.
"She came home, and ever since she's been telling us about the way you
did things. And I've been thinking,----"
She stopped and looked at the teacher, half suspiciously, half
appealingly.
"I've been thinking how nice it would be for me, if I could do them
things the same as you. You see," she spoke rapidly, "I'm gettin'
married soon now, and when Mame came a-telling that way, and our house
like it always is, and the baby crying, and nothing done exceptin' ma
a-scoldin', and I says to myself, I says, if I could do things like that
teacher can do 'em mebbe I wouldn't make mistakes like ma makes 'em."
She paused for breath, looking expectant.
"You would like to come here to see how I do things?" the teacher asked.
The girl nodded eagerly.
"Come Monday after hours, and spend the night with me."
"After that," the teacher said, "it was a great deal easier. The next
thing I wanted to do was to get the children examined for glasses and
throat trouble. There were two second-rate country doctors there who
knew little or nothing about modern medicine. The nearest man that I
could trust was forty miles away. He was a specialist, too, and high
priced. Still, I sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him how we
were fixed. He answered by return mail, making a special rate and
setting a day. I hoped to take twelve of the children, but I had car
fare for only seven. Then came our windfall. I told the railroad what I
was trying to do, and they made a special excursion rate and took the
children at less than half fare. We were all able to go, and the extra
money went for a treat to soda and the movies."
The children went back home, singing the praises of the trip, the
teacher, and the doctor. They went back, too, with expert advice and
assistance, and with the good news that others would soon have a turn.
Group by group, the needy children were brought down to the specialist
in the city. Some were even operated on, although at the outset the
parents would not hear of operations. In the end the children won,
however. Their enthusiasm for the teacher and their doctor carried the
day.
"It has been slow," the teacher said, "but at the end of it all, they
see better, hear better, eat more wholesome, nourishing food, live
better, and understand themselves better. On the whole it has paid."
X Theory and Practice[28]
The rural schools of the South have no monopoly on progressive
educational views. A number of Southern cities have taken up their
position in the vanguard of educational progress. Notable among these
cities is Columbus, Georgia,--a city of 20,554 people, in which
Superintendent Roland B. Daniel has undertaken a vigorous policy of
shaping the schools in the interests of the community. There were in
1913, 5,356 children of school age in Columbus. Of this number, 4,089
were in the schools. The school population is rather unevenly divided,
racially,--3,348 of the children of school age are white, and 1,198 are
colored. About one-quarter of the white population depends for its
livelihood upon the mills. Columbus is surrounded by an agricultural
district from which come many children in search of high school
training. The city of Columbus presents an industrial problem of an
unusually complex character, and the manner in which this problem has
been handled by the schools is worthy of the highest commendation.
Superintendent Daniel has laid down three definite planks in his
educational platform for the city of Columbus. In the first place, he
aims to provide school accommodations which are fitted to the peculiar
needs of each part of the community. In the second place, he aims to
shape the school system of Columbus in terms of the local environment of
the children. In the third place, he has inaugurated a high school
policy, which makes high school training practical as well as
theoretical.
Among the mill operatives of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel estimates
that there are approximately 800 children of school age. The situation
presented by these children was critical in the extreme. There was an
absence of compulsory education laws; few of the children attended any
school, and when they did enter a school they seldom remained long
enough to secure any marked educational advantage. Less than 5 per cent.
of the children continued in school after they were old enough to work
in the cotton mills.
Pursuant of his intention to make the schools supply the needs of all of
the children of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel organized the North
Highlands School in the factory district. Of this school he says: "It is
not made to conform, either in course of study or hours, to the other
schools of similar rank in the system, for the board desires to meet the
conditions and convenience of the people for whom the school was
established. Classroom work begins in the morning at 8 o'clock and
continues until 11 o'clock, with a recess of 10 minutes at 9:30. The
afternoon session begins at 1 o'clock, and the school closes for the day
at 3:30 o'clock."
The long intermission in the middle of the day is given in order to
allow the children to take hot lunches to parents, brothers, and sisters
who are working in the mill. Many of the mills are located at some
distance from the school. Some of the children are called upon to walk
as much as two miles during the noon hour, in order to carry the
lunches. These "dinner toters," when carrying lunch baskets for persons
outside of the family, receive 25 cents per week per basket. In case
several baskets are carried, the income thus earned is considerable.
The school thus organized on the basis of local needs is further
specialized in a way that will appeal to the needs of the mill operative
group. The academic courses are similar to the courses offered in the
other schools, except that more emphasis is laid upon the "three R's."
Superintendent Daniel says that the time is very limited in which these
children will attend school, and more attention is given as to what may
be regarded as fundamental. "While the prescribed course contemplates
seven years, few continue after the fifth or sixth year, so strong is
the call of the mills. Not more than 1 per cent finish this school and
pursue their studies further."
The three morning hours and the first hour in the afternoon are devoted
to academic studies, while the last hour and a half of the day is given
to practical work. The boys are required to take elementary courses in
woodwork and gardening, alternating these two branches on alternate
days. The girls are given work in basketry, sewing, cooking, poultry
raising, and gardening.
The results of the introduction of this applied work are summed up by
Superintendent Daniel in this way,--"In all of these lines of work it is
now the hope of the school only to better living conditions a little
among the people for whom it was especially organized. The
transformation is necessarily slow. In the beginning, no doubt, the
advocates of this type of school thought that many might be induced to
continue in school and do more advanced work, especially along
vocational lines. In this respect the school has been a disappointment
to some. We are seldom able to induce pupils to finish even the limited
course offered in this school."
The North Highland School, in addition to its work for the children, has
begun an organized effort to raise the standards of the local community.
Every day the principal and teachers of the school visit some of the
homes, giving helpful suggestions, caring for the sick, and in any other
possible way contributing to home life. Superintendent Daniel reports
the progress in this respect by saying,--"Confidence is now so strong
that one of the teachers every Saturday morning collects the physically
defective ones in the community and takes them to the free clinic for
operations or treatment. At first parents would see their children die
rather than permit them to be operated upon, but now they seldom decline
to permit them to be taken by a teacher to the free clinic, when in the
judgment of the teacher it is necessary."
The school has made an effort to organize the older people of the
community. There are entertainments and school gatherings in which
parents and children alike participate. As a further help to those
parents who are compelled to work in the mills, the school grounds,
which are amply provided with a full play equipment, are open to all of
the children at all hours of the day and all days of the week. "It is
not infrequent," says Superintendent Daniel, "that, when the mother goes
to work at 6 in the morning, she sends her children to the school to
enjoy the privileges of the grounds until the opening of the school at 8
o'clock."
The work of the negro schools is similarly fitted to the industrial
needs of the negro children. Boys and girls alike devote a considerable
portion of their time to industrial work. The main purpose of this work
for negroes is to prepare them for the line of industrial opportunity
open to them. The school reports that it has developed a number of good
blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, seamstresses, and laundresses. Pupils
who remain in the schools long enough to complete the course are able to
earn, upon leaving school, about twice what they would be able to earn
had no such training been provided.
A vigorous attempt has been made to reorganize grade work in the
interests of clearness and effectiveness. As Superintendent Daniel puts
the matter,--"We undertook to place before the teachers a definite
problem, and to put suggestions into tangible form. We stated that all
subjects could be taught with the books merely as helps and means to an
end, and contend further for the doctrine that a working knowledge of
books and subjects is far more desirable than accomplishing the feat of
memorizing the printed page." Many teachers will be astonished by the
doctrine which Superintendent Daniel evolves from this statement of
educational theory. "The teachers were asked to conduct the work in such
a manner that it would not be necessary to recite or take written tests
with closed books, but that school books be used as tools with which to
work, and that the child should use text-books as adults do books of
reference, while the teacher guides and directs in the development of
thought.["]
This attempt of Superintendent Daniel to proceed with the grammar school
work in a more natural way, and to relate all of it more closely to
life, met with some interesting results, as may be gathered from the
following test questions which were worked out by teachers in pursuance
of the instructions to make text-books incidental and thought primary in
the school work.
ARITHMETIC, THIRD B
Roy shops for his mother at Kirven's. He buys 2 boxes of hair
pins at $.05 each, 6 towels at $.10 each, and 5 handkerchiefs
for $.25. What was his bill? If he hands the clerk $1.00, how
much change will he receive?
THIRD A
If Isabel's 2 pair of shoes cost $4, how much will shoes for all
the girls in the class cost?
GEOGRAPHY THIRD B
Turn to the map on page 65 and find and write the names of seven
different shore forms.
ARITHMETIC, FOURTH B
In our room are 46 pupils. The class receives 230 tablets and
138 pencils for the term. How many of each does each child
receive?
GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH B
What products may be sent to us from New England? If they were
shipped from Portsmouth, N. H., on what bodies of water would
they travel?
GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH A
Why does the United States carry on more trade with the British
Isles than with Germany? At what seaport would our vessels land
in the British Isles? What would they carry and what would they
bring back?
GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH A
What highways of trade will be used for shipping oranges from
San Francisco to Columbus, Ga., by way of the Panama Canal? How
many miles is this, approximately? (Use rule and map on page
65.)
GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH B
What is the chief industry of the people of Columbus, and why?
Describe the climate of our city, tell what fruits, vegetables
and farm products find a market here. What would a boat coming
up the river bring to Columbus? What would it carry back?
Superintendent Daniel's viewpoint is clear and sane. "It is not
sufficient," he says, "to maintain courses in domestic science and
manual training for the grades, and to teach other subjects as if they
belonged to another realm." Consequently he has made every endeavor to
bring together the forces of the community and of the school in a
sympathetic whole, around which the educational life of the town must
center.
The industrial high school is an integral and highly important part of
the work in the Columbus schools. Side by side with the academic high
school, it affords an opportunity for the children who do not intend to
continue their educational work beyond high school grade to get some
assistance in the direction of a training for life activity. It was
originally intended to duplicate, in a measure, the conditions and hours
maintained in the industrial plants of the city. Formerly the school was
open for eleven calendar months; at the present time a vacation of six
weeks is allowed. The school hours are from 8 o'clock in the morning
until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, for five days each week. Pupils who
have not maintained the required standard during the week are compelled
to attend school on Saturday.
All pupils of the Industrial High School are required to take academic
work of high school grade in mathematics, history, English, and
science.
The introduction of manual training and domestic science into the grades
of all Columbus schools has pointed many children in the direction of
the Industrial High School. While it is not the intention of the school
authorities to make the work of the Industrial High School final, it is
hoped that those children who are enabled to continue with educational
work are benefited markedly by this specialized course.
Throughout this deliberate attempt of the Columbus school administration
to make the schools fit the needs of the community there is evidence of
a scientific spirit which is in the last degree commendable. The
community need is first ascertained. The school work is then organized
in response to this community need. If, perchance, the first effort
meets with little success, additional effort is continued until some
measure of success is assured. The school authorities are not afraid to
change their opinions or their system. They are not even afraid to fail
on a given experiment. The one thing of which they are afraid is failure
to provide for the educational needs of the community.
XI A People Coming to Its Own
The first great battle in the educational awakening of the South has
been won. The people realize the necessity for an intelligently active
population.
The second battle is well under way. The people of the South are shaping
the schools to meet the peculiar educational needs which the economic
and social problems of the South present.
A rallying-cry is ringing through the Southern States,--"The schools for
the people; the people for the schools; and a higher standard of
education and of life for the community."
The South is in line for the New Education. School officials are
working. Superintendent Daniel writes,--"Everyone connected with the
system has been too intent on doing his work well and in establishing
and maintaining the ideals of the system to be disturbed by petty
difficulties. The teachers," he adds, "have appeared to feel that it was
rather a privilege than a burden to participate in making the Columbus
system efficient through the preparation of her children for life."[29]
The public is asking for a correlation of school with life, and the
schools are educating the South through the children.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 24: Now State Superintendent. See an article
"'Corn-Club' Smith," P. C. Macfarlane, Collier's Weekly, May 17,
1913, p. 19.]
[Footnote 25: United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of
Plant Industry, Results of Boys' Demonstration Work in Corn Clubs
in 1911, Washington, May, 1912, p. 4.]
[Footnote 26: Op. cit., pp. 5-6.]
[Footnote 27: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant
Industry, Girls' Demonstration Work, Washington, January, 1913,
pp. 1-2.]
[Footnote 28: For a full statement of the work of the Columbus
Schools see "Industrial Education in Columbus,["] Ga., R. B.
Daniel, U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin 535, Government
Printing Office, 1913. Also, The Annual Report of the Columbus
Public Schools for the Year Ending August 1, 1913.]
[Footnote 29: Annual report of the Columbus Public Schools, 1913,
p. 18.]