The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-12-24
The Educational Needs of
Her People.
HOW TO MEET THEM
Changes Radical as to Principles and
Revolutionary as to Methods" Re-
port by Committee on Aims
and Purposes Of Educa-
tionaI Association.
tional Association.
(By the Assoeiated Press.)

Washington, Dec. 23-A report
calculated to awaken interest in the
forthcoming meeting Of the Southern
Educational Association at Jackson
VILE Fla. has just been issued by
the Committee ON "Afms and Pur-
poses of the association. The re-
port disclaims the existence of the
association as due to sectional senti-
ment, but" it adds, there is a COM
munIty of interest in educational mat
ters in the Southern States. such as
belongs no other group of States
in the American union.
The imDoverishment of the endoW-
ed and private schools and the pass
ing from the educational system.
which met the needs of the white
citizens in former DAYS TO a system
of schools supported by the people
and framed 10 nett the needs of all
citizens and the demands of the
twentieth century, ''have rendered
necessary educational changes radical
as to principles and revolutionary as
TO methods
THE enfranchisement of the me-
negroes" the report says, added to
the citizenship of these States a gen.
Grafton ago an uneXampled burden OF
illiterary, the mode of relief from
which it is our duty TO determine and
to accomplish.
'"rhe effort 10 provide rural schools
in any sense worthy of the people has
disclosed from the Appalachian
mountain section TO the pine woods
of Georgia. Florida and Mississippi,
and even in the rich delta of the Mis-
sissippi. difficulties that are almost the
despair of those who know what eff
cient school management means.
TO these difficulties, affecting pri-
nlarily the development of the schools
fof The Whtte race. il added tile enor-
nous burden of responsibility ell
presence Of the negro. and the neces-
sity. for preventing his degradation
and helping him to a better and more
useful life
THE conditions named have mark
ed the section in which we live with
a degree of illiteracy that is appall-
ing. The South holds twenty-four
per cent of the native white popula-
ton of the country, and sixty-four per
cent of the native white iliterates OF
the country. To this is added the
enormous and dangerous burden of
negro illiteracy.'
While the association heartily ap-
preciates the interest and sympathy
of philantropistS everywhere, the re-
port says, ''the problems confronting
s are too complex to be easily under
stood by study at a distance, too deli
cate for unsympathetic handling and
too great for anything less than united
effort 10 be effective in their solution.
I'm dealing with the municipalI
schools, graded schools, high schools
ana college work, as to coordination
and methods, we need to know at
once whaht can and wat cannot be
tod
And when we have strengthened
our faith and hope by mutual counsel
regarding the work of education for
the white race, we need 10 look we'll
TO that other work for which. whether
we wish it or not, we are held re-
sponsible to the world and to ourl
posterity-the training of the negro
race.
"To study and discuss the problems
and the policies with which we. who
live and work in the Southern States
are concerned, to compare the expert
ences of each so that they may be
profitable to all, to investigate condi-
tions and needs peculiar TO our own
section and to encourage each other
in these efforts are the aims of the
Southern Educational Association.
However, widely the educational
needs of the South, may differ from
those of other sections, they are still,
in an important sense national needs,
and must be considered in the light
of rational ideals and in the spirit
of that broad patriotism which re-
CARDS sectional problems as vital ele-
ments i'm the life of the nation
The report is signed by j. II. Phil |
lips, Birmingham, Ala; Charles d.
McIver, Greensboro, n c.; and r. 3.
Fulton, of the University of Missis
sippi.