New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-02-05
SOUTHERN EDUCATION.
Mr.. Tufts Work for Boys and Girls
of the Mountains.

When the Rev. Edgar Tufts. principal of the
girls department Of the Lees-McRae Institute
at Banner Elk. y. c.. had got through telling
the new New York Auxiliary 10 the Southern
Industrial Educational Association at it's annual
meeting yesterday about his poor white girls
away up among the cloud capped mountains of
North Carolina. one Of his hearers was so moved
that she resolved then and there to give him q
dormitory TO help along the work The gift viii
come through the auxiliary. which prior to its
formal organization last May had already raised
e considerable amount for the mountaineers,
Miss COrnelia Akin Taylor alone having given
$4,000 while recently Miss Mary Sinclair Burk-
ham gave $500. not to mention large number
Of other contributions, scholarships etc.
The mountaineers are in one of our natural
home mission fields" said Mr. Tufts, but they
cut off by high ranges they are timid and
difident and they've been overlooked. They
are tremendously clannsh, these people. There
will be three hundred of them inhabiting some
valley, and every individual related either by
blood or marriage so when family starts a
feud whole communities are instantly involved.
In many cases the characteristics of the original
family that settled in a place will be handed
down from generation to generation.
They travel little. There was once a noun
taineer who wanted to take to himself wife
co He uIONe up the next mountain and down
into the next valley, where he married a girl
telling her he was going to take her TO Ken
lucky 10 live Then he drove with her four days,
up and down mountain after another till
they were eight miles from her home There
she lived two years. thinking she was in Ken
lucky all the time. Then one day she hap
pened 10 climb a mountain, whence she could
look down into the next valley. And she heard
the tinkle Of a cows bell
Il decar'," she said to herself EFF that don't
sound like pops old cowbell' And It was So
then she knew she hadn't been living in Ken
lucky after all"
These mountain folk are deeply religious
They love church, and viii go miles through mud
end slush and cold to attend the week or ten
day long services. Preachers they prize accord
ing 10 the length Of the sermon and the loud
ness OF their voices
After a certain minister had preached once
10 a mountain congregation" said Mr. Tufts,
zone OF the pillars of the church accosted him
Is It true he asked that you have been 70
college? Yes. four years And then to a
theological seminary" Yes, I was at the sem
mary three years Been seven years to col
lege and seminary, and you give US a sermon
only thirty minutes long, Why, there are men
IN this town never been 10 either college or
seminary. and they can preach for two hours at
& lick
Then their hospitality WHY, they are the
most Eospitabe people in the country; they'll
receive any one who comes" exclaimed the
speaker Il know a man who drove two weeks
IN q buggy through the mountains with his little
daughter and at the end he turned I'D with 81
more than he started with. Nobody would
take a cent for boarding him, and one man
actually said, Here. / want to give YOU this dol
fact
There were two men driving through the
country who applied for a nights lodging at a
little cabin.
why. yes. guess we can stand Yer IN some
W. f9Ir
children besides the father and mother and
only one bed. and the traveller felt doubtful.
When the first two children got sleepy they
were laid in the bed, and s soon as they had
fallen asleep were taken out and laid on a pallet
on the floor Then the other two got sleepy and
they were put to bed, only to be taken out as
soon as they were sound asleep, and laid on a
table. There's the he'd; go to sleep any time
yer like said the host to his guests. So they
did. And in the morning they found themselves
on the floor and the man and his wife in the
bed"
Speaking Of the mountain men. Mr.. Tufts said
they went on beastly DRINKS and were terribly
lazy. while the women We're worked almost to
death.
II never knew a mountain woman to touch
a drop Of liquor" he said. They excite the
pity OF every stranger who sees them. and early
snow the traces or hardship They do most Of
the heavy teamwork, split wood-do a mans
work, in short. They said never to smile
but they do sometimes; I've seem them. AS for
the children, they're as bright. intelligent and
ambitious any in the country They'll drive
100 miles over the toughest country roads at the
beginning and end Of a term. and walk nine
miles before in the morSng TO get to day
schoOl-and without any encourag cement from
their parents either. for the people want to
keep their girls at home to work the farm
IN the summers"
This was one. Of the reasons he went on to
say, why the girls school at Banner Elk opens
in May and closes at Christmas for the year
20 get the girls off the farms in summer Mr.
Tufts told how, i'm that valley, four thousand
feet above the sea, surrounded by peaks 6.00O
feet high, ninety miles from Asheville and forty
from town Of any size standard railroad,
n T1 in or tow
Ten years ago, when he began operations Ban
ner Elk was called 1.-THE toughest little valley IN
Western North Carolina Now We'll
wouldn't like 10 claim that it's the most cultured
town in the United States" he smiled but its
lot better than II was" For the very sake Of
creating another centre Of Christian industrial
work they built their boys department III tre
next county. at PLAN Tree. There ave nos 1:tI
girls snd 40 boys IN the two. and Nr Tufts
Interested his hearers greatly with his story