The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-05
FOR BETTER SCHOOL HOUSES.

 News and Observer we find this para graph:
 The recent organization of the women of North Carolina into an association to promote the building and improvement of school houses in the rural districts is an event of deep satisfaction. If that or ganization can be extended into every school district in the State. 1t will revo- lutionize the public schools of the State.
 As an addition. in one way, to that statement, we take an extract from pa- per contributed to The Southern Farm Magazine. by Miss Elizabeth D. Abcr- nathy of Pulaski. Tenn. This lady has made teaching her life work, and that work has largely been carried on In the country and in the small villages. She IS familiar with the conditions existing in many portions of the South. and in for- cible, terse sentences. she says:
 Come to thls crowded schoolroom, with its unsightly surroundings. Look at the broken panes, the bare walls. Listen now the blinds flap in the. wind. Here IS nor a tree or vine. Do not touch the desks. or they will topple over and preak i 1ne states and spill the ink. Water? We have no water near. Better not drink II. anyway. It would give you chills. This is no place for your children: rms scnooI you maintain for the children or your tenants No provision have you made in it for your own. This school contin- ues only three months of the year. four boys and girls expect to go 10 colese Sy- and-by They cannot get even ther eie- mentary training here.
 ~This may seem an extreme presenta- ton of the case. and no doubt there are a great many communities in Alabaa. for example, where her picture will not ex- hibit a fair delineation of the facts, but will readers of The Advertiser claim that there is no truth in the picture? We know that 1t does fit some cases in our State, much as we may feel ashamed of it, and we know, too, that 1t Is applicable to some communities where parents who wish for better things have no opportu- nifty to send their children off to be educated under more favorable circum- stances and surroundings.
 There is very intimate relation be- tween the physical and mental qualities or constituents of the human body, es- pecially in childhood. A child who Is shivering with cold, or who is breath ing foul and confined air, or is striving to study in an insufficient light, or who is in any other way uncomfortable. can- not get such advantages and benefits from the school room as can the child who is comfortably and healthfully situ- ated In other words, if the body is suf- fering there will be a corresponding lack Of attention to study as well as a corresponding lack of benefit derived from such study. This is fact so obv:- ous as to be seif-evident, and need not be enlarged on, for intelligent people must see it and acknowledge its truth.
 But there is a humanitarian side to the question, as well as an educational one, and 1t appeals to the fathers and moth view of it, as nothing else can do. Neith- CT the State nor the parents of Alabama have a right to imperil the health and the lives of the children when 1t can be prevented or avoided. Cold draughts in winter, foul and confined air at anw time, leaky roofs, open floors, lack of artificial heat-these or any of them may cause the death of the little one or lay the foundation of a disease or disability which will go through hfe.' Lack of properly arranged light affects the eyes and the affection may be permanent.
 These are not strained, fanciful or inn aginary arguments but are facts from which there is no escape, and there is no defence for such conditions. There Is positively no excuse for the lack of com fortable school houses in Alabama today. There is not community in this State. if there are enough children to need a school house, where the people cannot build a good house if they will. It may be built of rough boards, with a rough floor, if nothing better can be afforded. but it can contain the three essentials of light, warmth and thorough ventila- ton.
 Upon the mental. moral and physical training and upbuilding of our children depends the future of Alabama. We de- pend on the teachers to train them and on the doctors to preserve their health, but the first and important work lies with the parents. The State is not able to build proper school houses but the people are. If the children are subject ed to such conditions as Miss Abernathy points out, and if they suffer for 1t in the future. and if the citizenship of Ala bama in the years to come Is not all that is expected or desired. on the peo- pie of today rests the primary blame.
 And there is still another feature of this subject that should not be lost sight of. The very best friends of our State deplore the tendency of the country pop ulation to leave their homes and flock to the cities. The almost invariable reason given for this removal Is that the chill dren cannot be educated at thoir country homes. It is the ambition of the parents for the proper education of their chill dren, but in a majority of cases that l~.nbition can be thoroughly gratif1ed if the parents in each community will do their duty. There may be, and probably are, some sections of the State where enough children cannot be found to au- thorize a school, but even in such places would 1t not be better to have one good school with boarding facilities than it is to take the children from the free air of the country to the crowded streets and homes of the city? For all the ordinary avocations of life the children of the