The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-10-08
Living Issues.
FOUR GREAT EDUCATIONAL NEEDS IN
THE SOUTH.

Tulane University Of Louisiana, in New York
OutlOOk.l
The South is a rural community.
Four ffths of it's people live in the
country. This is a tremendous OBJ
staole TO educational progress. The
first great need of this rural com,
munity is more money with which
30 provide a nine months school for
its children in every school district,
with better-paid and better equipped
teachers. The average length of the
rural school term in the South does
not much exceed twelve weeks out
of the year. A nine months school
term woulJ give birth TO secondary
schools, and they in turn would
strengthen universities and colleges.
The money needed for this great end
must come from home, from the peo-
pie who see it's influence upon the
lives of their children; and it is my
belief that these people will gladly
spend this money when they T en-
lightened and aroused and made TO
feel in their marrow and bones it's
vital Importance. Is is difficult to
arouse d-emocracies, and especially
rural democracies. They must be
talked to and plead with and written
at in effective ways, but the people
of the South are still old fashioned
enough to submit to this. The great
est opportunity ever offered to con-
structive philanthrophy lies just
here, in my Judgment. If there ex
listed in each Southern State a group
of able men, of power and proven
experience, guided in a systematic
way, whose business was TO cover
the territory of that State in an I'M
firing campaign of education for a
number of years, the close of the
first decade of this century would
see the wise adjustment of most of
the educational difficulties of the
South. There would be opportuni-
ties for these men to teach the teach
ers and the people, TO convert clever
politicians and journalists into edu
cational statesmen, to transform
State Legislatures into educational
associations, TO suggest wiser educa-
tional organization, and to stimulate
so helpfulness and benevolence the
growing wealth of the South. 1t
was not the fashion in the South of
the past, nor is it much the fashion
of the present, save among women,
TO give money TO education partly
because Southern people are in the
acoumulative stage of money-getting
after an experience of direst poverty,
and partly because, as a stunting in.
heritance from that poverty, they
have grown accustomed to the use of
small means for great objects. The
law of philanthrophy, however, is
local. If Southern institutions are
TO grow great, Southern wealth must
lead in that movement. The temper
of the Southern States is just ready
for this campaign of education. 1t
is in the mood to be helped to self
help.
The interest On a few million dol
lars would put this movement on an
enduring basis. If the Peabody
Fund has stimulated its thousands to
encouraging beginnings, this would
influence its tens of thousands to
splendid fDalities. Is it too much to
hope that there will arise some
genius of social co operation who
will undertake to make possible this
great agency-some PierpOnt Nor
gan of the educational world, with
his eye upon the common people who
work in the shadows of the world,
and upon a land somewhat overborne
with difficult and vexed problems?
The next great need of the S Juth
in education is a scientific 90 rela-
ton of the various branches of it's
So called educational system. E1u-
cation is one whole process. Primary,
secondary, higher are nor convent
emit terms, like day and night, month
and year. There is a deadly reality
in these unrealities in our educa-
tional system. That system is IN
connected, un-oo-ordinated and self
sufficient. The public schools, the
high schools, the colleges and the
universities are not articulated in
sympathetic ways, but stand off and
against each other as if they
were rivals. Feeble colleges multi
ply. There are more mono hippo
colleges and universities in Tennes-