The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-23

To the Editor of The Age Herald:
 l address this letter to you, as the head of the department of education of Ala bama, and hope to enlist your interest in a very large part of the population of this state. who seem to me to be especi- ally needing the attention of our leading ,men.
 The university stands at the head of our state system, and has received the financial support of the people until it would seem to be on a solid basis. Techni- cal education is well represented in the Agricultural Mechanical college at Au- burn, and the aid it receives from the state and the $25,000 annual appropria- ton from the federal government provide well for it.
 Our different normal schools and col leges are sending out teachers, who should be able to supply the schools of the state with much needed instruc- tions
 The nine agricultural schools now in operation may be able to give some as- sistance to the farmers of our state, if they are really what they claim to be. and of this there is no better judge than yourself. If the instruction in these schools enables their pupils. after d reasonable time to undertake farming and make it successful then they are doing all that can be expected of them. But if they are only county high schools un- der another name, or if their graduates can learn more on the farm in one year than at one of these schools in d whole course, they are evidently failing to ac- complish their purposes.
 The county schools need all the teach CTS the normal and agricultural schools can supply. But the salaries paid for teaching in these schools is so much be- low what is paid in the towns that teach CTS will not so to them, if they can get positions elsewhere.
 A few industrial schools at points far thest removed from the centers of popu- latlon would do much to help that class that is unable to attend the schools in the towns, on account of poverty.
 In a school of this kind there should be sufficient acreage to allow diversity of crops and to give employment to all the pupils for some part of their time. Not less than forty acres would afford land comfortable and there should be school rooms, dormitories and shops. The pupils should be required to spend half of their time in the school room and the other half in the pursuit of the various indus tries that are found in any well ordered community, and in these industries the aim should be not to make specialties, but to make reasonably good workmen. In other words. they should know how to do any work on the farm with the least waste of energy and with the best re- suits. They should be required to remain al the school the whole year, or with only a short vacation, and they should be boarded and clothed by the institution in order that all might be on an equal foot ing. In the same way the institution should be responsible for the health and moral care of the pupils. That such school would be expensive at the outset goes without saying. But the state would be well paid for it's outlay in the end. There would soon be no necessity for employing immigration agents to pursuade foreigners into the state. The schools if properly managed, would send out people who could build up the old worn out fields.
 The value of such a schol to the state will be evident to d thoughtful man, but the means of carrying out the plans will not so readily suggest themselves. The cost per annum, per scholar. to the institution would be approximately Sl50. Children are supposed to be able to sup port themselves at II years of age and below that they are an expense their wage earning ability at years of age being practically nothing. over the age of II their labor becomes more and more profitable until they reach the highest efficiency at manhood or little later period, of course, skilled with tools, in telligence and health, all tend to modify this estimate. Individual enterprise would not originate an industrial school, and the state alone could carry it on sue cessfully.
 You know peter than any one else, whether the resources of the state can be used at the present time for such a purpose, or whether special legislation would be neded to inaugurate this en- terprse.
 In closing this letter I will only add that l have no motive except the desire to help the poor whites. who live in the mountains of North Alabama, or in the wiregrass region that lies just above the tide water on the south, and having seen the benefit of such schools in the west I would be glad to see the .eXperi- ment tried here. w. w. WILSON.
 Birmingham, September 21, 1907.
 Too Roomy.
 From the Catholic Standard and Times.