The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-05
SCHOOLS FOR THE MOUNTAIN WHITES

BY MRS. BLANDrN.

v VI e%H oNn M 14M Wh8W 8HA&HH intelligent, religioas leadership. will ran at the most vital point Industrial education Is good and will help greatly m preparing the people to got some or the financial benefits from the fn- evitable commercial development of their country. It will be well enough and all the better If in connection with all the schools established in the
 mountains there could be furnished elementary instruction in forestry, agriculture, and similar practIcal sciences. Quite important also is normal instruction for those who ex- pect to teach in the public school now so inefficient. gF3s4 But the direct way to lead the noun tain people forward, outward. and up- word to higher ideals is to give them religious leaders whom they will fol- low and whose leadership will not be in continual circle on fixed plane. fas it is now in the mountains.
 Miss Bell H. Bennett. Superintendent or Mountain Work. for tho :. oman's , Home Mission Society of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church. South, says in answer to the question. How do you think the problem of the mountain whites can be solvsd7" says: If the large church schools already esta..ish- ed and at work in the mountain range had at their disposal a suficient amount of money to develop the extension sys- tenn projected by A number Of them that is, to select two or three strategic points in each county. erect a two- story school house of four rooms, and put into each of these, two earnest. godiy teachers with an open school for ten months in the year--t..e problem of the so-called ~inountain whites" would be quickly solved Why would church schools solve the problem any better or any quicker than public schools or industrial schools so urgently advocated by the writer of the circular already men toned? fJ
 Because they would be better att tended; those already established num- Der their pupils by the hundred while the attendance of the public schools in twenty-three counties Of North Carolina is forty-two per cent and in other sections a little higher In his annual report, the Superintendent of Education of North Carolina suggests that missionary work be done to over come the indifference and selfshness Of the parents and thereby increase, the attendance The attendance on the industrial schools other than church schools is likewise very poor. The en- rollment of the North Georgia Agri- cultural College DahloneRa. Rabun. and the agricultural schools In Ala bama all together does not equal that of one of the larger church schools.
 Why? Because the teachers of the church schools are friends of these people and co-werkers with them in the uplifting of their children, while the other teachers are paid agents. who give so much knowledge for so much money and their work is done.
 laar rfs v.Ir fx.tw AE.s obliteration of illiteracy will not ele- vate people. Knowledge without the restraining and refining influence only makes its possessor a more potent factor of evil The worst feuaists in Kentucky are not illiterate men; the murderees Of Governor Gobel were not illiterate, nor were the murderers of Judge Marcum.
 But the object in the establishment of an industrial school is not to obliter- ate illiteracy simply but to obliterate 1t because the negroes arc, out strip ping the mountain whites" in so do- Ing. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been contributed to aid the negro to obtain an education. while nothing has been contributed to aid the noun tain whites" These hundreds Of thousands of dollars have been applied to the support of high schools and colleges; long ago all primary work was Telegated to the public schools, so that negro and mountain white" have had the same opportunity to ob- literate illiteracy. out the white" hasn' cared for the public school enough to attend when the school house has been built and furnished for him, while the negro has been so anxious to have his children learn the three R's he has kept school under the trees when he could not build a school house.
 As an incentive to build this in- dustrjal' school the writer says: "It could be dedicated to the memory of the Confederate women monument to the heroic women of the Confeder- acy A very poor monument to the noble Southern women. a sehcool in a cove of the mountains. for there's where it must be to do any Good at all. and the chances are that 1t would be very short lived.
 But the conditions in the mountains are not so bad. so hopeless as the slum sections of the cities. even cities of the size of Galveston and Houston. where every vice named under the sun Is rampant in the sections where dwell the foreign element.
 The results already obtained in the mountains are encouraging. results in the cities are infinitesimal The out look in the mountains is hopeful in the cities gloomy. dismal. and what will be the come out God only knows
 From personal knowledge this writer is of opinion that an extension of the system already begun the three fold