New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1908-11-24
TEACHING HIGHLANDERS.
Martha Berry's Unique School of Mountain
Bows in Georgia


Agricultural missionaries, They are badly needed
IN the mountains OF Georgia and Tennessee and
Alabama. and they what Miss Martha Berry
IS turning out at her school among the Southern
Appalachian And she is making them out Of the
mountaineeTs OWL sons From a little Sunday
school which Miss Berry gathered about her in
log cabin 'fPossum Trot." a mountain stream
near Rome. Ga. ten years ago, the work has
grown its present magnitude school with
fifteen teachers and one hundred and fifty pupils
plant worth sl25.os0 large tracts Of well farmed
land and solid and artistic buildings. erected by
the boys themselves under the direction Of mas
Ter mechanics school 10 which the mountain
boys come trudging-1orty, fifty, sixty miles. some
CT them. from their isolated homes carrying their
possessions in q handkerchief over one shoulder,
Nrot q few Of them tail young giants Of twenty or
FEnOre, but who have never learned read: a
school where by paying SO year, either in money
n labor, boy receives board, lodging, clothes
and schooling in all the English branches carpen-
try agriculture and many other things, an accred-
ited high school, whose certificate is accepted by
eli the Southern universities
Each boy costs the school about 500 a year
Miss Berry, Who is just now in New York at the
Hotel Arlington, said 10 Tribune reporter yes
terdsy- so So a boy must be raised somehow.
We have no endowment fund. and want one
badly- We want a cannery. TOO. We have about
FIVE thousand peach trees, and this year the boys
canned little Of the fruit, but il had a mod
eTn hygienic canneTy We could make a profitable
thing CT IL
We teach the boys how 10 work and We en-
courage them, when they've finished school, 10 go
back 70 their homes and make things different
there The Southern highlanders-they don't like
50 be called -nounta!neers-know nothing about the
rotation Of crops: they don't even know about
planting vegetables. They live on hog meat and
cornpone and raise few patches Of cotton. The
women Know little about housekeeping. Ny boys
when they 50 home from school, teach their moth
ers and sisters how 10 scrub and cook What
aOry o z school
tain girls.
It isn't easy &c get at the mountain people"
Miss Berry continued They have hearts of gold
but they are proud and sensitive, and they have
lived isoated-far from schools, far from railroads
for generations made many trips with my old
Sunday school horse call him. before I even
paved the way fer beginning"
do the boys want 20 come, O. co their parents
make them"
oh, It's the boys. It's pretty hard at first 10
make the parents see the need. We've no larnia,'
they'll say. an We get on But when boy
out OF family comes. there's trouble about his
brothers coming. And il means a good deal TO
those mountain people 20 give up sons work
for z whole year.
Here's picture Of married pupil" and Miss
Berry brought out a photograph Of q young giant
pioEghing a field. We didn't know he mar
ried TIL the boys caught him kissing the picture
OF E baby, and found i his. I didn't aim 10
TELL he said II turned out that his wife could read
and write and he couldn't, and she made him come
80 or school. We had her there 10 visit one day
I'm willing TO work and take care Of baby and do
snything,' she said Jim learn TO read n
write
Virgil P-uitt. another big fellow Of twenty. is
working on cur farm Tor year to the right
sor his little brother 20 come school next year
he larn quicker'n me Virgil told US.
one Of the best thIags about Mss Berry's school
IS that has inspired tie starting OF other smaller
schools in the mountain districts. and not a few
OF her graduates teachers in these schools
OF the afternoon Of Sunday. December 6. Miss
Berry viii speak at the Colony Club.