The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-10-15

Mr.. CONE s WORK
FOR SCHOOLS
Value of the Appalachian
Teachers Training
School.
A Woman Teacher Who Has Studied
Educational Policies. Writes OF
the Educational Status OF Wa.
tauqa County.

To The Editor: The educational sit
uat.On i'm Watauga county Is full oil
promise. Many are Interested as they
have never been before. Gradually
the fathers and mothers are learning
that higher and better things will come
10 their children in consequence of the
schools.
owing TO the barriers which Nature
has set up about us, our people found
il impossible not only to educate
themselves. but even to learn that they
needed any other training than that
of the hard home life. They have not
gone down to the world. but the world
has come up TO them. Each year
brings a greater number of summer
visitors an added number of summer
homes. Each visitor is a teacher and
each well-Ordered summer home is
school The mountaineer is slow of
speech but not of understanding. He
not only adds comforts 70 his home
like those he sees in the house of his
new neighbor: his wife and children
not only dress better but he and they
understand that the pleasanter sur
roundings are the outcome OF a bigger
purse than theirs and they see, too
that not one of these prosperous sum-
mer folk but is educated. not one but
can read and write. The result is
sure The school is DatroniZed more
each year. True they have not ali
learned TO distinguish between the
trained and the unframed teacher
They do not object to a second grade
certificate They do not know that
"A child can not be fitted for life by the
young man or woman who leaves tbs
plough or the wash tub for -four
months in order to get the s10O paid
to the District teacher. School Is
school to them and will be for a gen.
Grafton or two unless the State sees
TO il that her teachers are. prepared
To do the work. DO the doctors and
lawyers get second grade certificates
To practice their profession? If not
why should the teacher be allowed
one? Mr.. Dougherty. the county su-
perintendent. has recently mailed one
hundred second grade certificates. EIe
had eighteen first grade of which
eleven are men and seven are women.
There IS but one local TAX district
i'm this county. IT is the village OF
Blowing Rock. where the school CEN
sus reports ninety-siX children between
the ages of six and tWenty-one. Ihe
tax is ten cents on the hundred dol
lars which in addition to the county
fund runs the school seven or eight
months. Last, IeaI4 the school eprell-
ed siXty-fiVe With an average daily at
tendance of 50 per cent, except IN
zero weather. OF the ninety-siX OF
children. four young men in business
three had moved from the community
while thirteen attended other schools
OF the school population of Blowing
Rock only about eight We're absen
fron; school without cause. This is
ina contrast with conditions of eight
years ago when the census reported
125 children of whom there was an
average daily attendance of twelve
Sometimes there were but two Then
the teacher told ME he closed school
and went TO his "other work, that OF
clerking in a village store. The dis
tl.ict was divided later and now should
again be consolidated. Another dis
trict. that of Cove Creek. will sool
vote on the local tax and probably vii
carry ii by Il good mapority. 1t is in
section of country whose people hav
supported private schools during tn
intervals between public school SEES
sionS. From that section have gon
into the world men and women o
worth and intelligence who are film!
positions of trust and profit. Anon.
these is the efficient Superintendent o
Greensboro City Schools, Mr.. Wiley n
Swift.
Watauga's school tax amounts to
$4,000 while it costs $S,364 to rul
the schools four months for her D,
$50 children, or about sixty-two cent
for each child Can man or woman
make teaching life-work on sucl
terms?
When n father. late in the session
brought his boy to the village schoc
last wear the teacher cordially wei
coined the boy remarking that sh
had regretted his absence since sh
knew he belonged in the District an
should have been in her schoci
"ves' said the father Il got rigi'
TO send him. I've got the right Z
send all three. because pay tn