Omaha daily bee., 1909-04-26
public schools In the south.


Prominent in the educational cause Of
the south is the influential organization.
the. Daughters of the Confederacy.
which adopted resolutions a year or two
ago pledging its support to the public
school systems extension and develop
ment. Still another force working pow
erfully for the advance has been, of
course, the board of southern education
of which the leading spirit for years
past has been Robert c. Ogden of New
York. The good effect of the twelfth
annual conferences for the promotion of
education which that board has held in
southern cities cannot be overestimated
At the recent conference at Atlanta.
under the auspices of the Ogden board'
the state superintendent of schools in,
Georgia. Mr.. Pound, presented a sumnlarg y.
Of the work now being done in the south.
the data having been gathered from the
official reports of the school su%perintend-
ents in fourteen southern states. In
presenting a brief digest of the facts so
creditable to the new educational move
ment. one may quote directly from the
excellent abstract of Superintendent
Pounds paper sent by an Atlanta CORES
pendent TO the New York Tribune;
The summarized reports Of the state
superintendents of schools show that In
AldOdIId NItIe ~ " NllA0 aHh AAl "
negro normal schools. The state has also
appropriated $4,000 annually for the main
tenance OF a summer school for teachers.
Arkansas has one normal school. Florida
has established summer traininE schools
for teachers. Georgia. perhaps leeds In
this feature of educational develo'ment
there being eleven district agricultural
high schools. two normal schools and one
summer school. Kentucky has a normal
school for whites and another for negroes.
Louisiana has one normal school. The
state legislature of Mississippi has passed
q law which provides for one agricul-
tural high school in each county. This law
appropriates 81. 900 annually for each of
these schools and requires each county TO
grant at least twenty normal departments
in as many selected hiEh schools. The
Virginia polytechnic institute is also do
ing good work along these lines.
Tho state superintendents are greatly en-
Outraged by the establishment by legisla-
tive appropriations and enactments of many
new high schooIs-a type Of public school
which has hitherto been remarked In SOUTH
ern rural neighborhoods mainly by its alb
sence. Last year Georgia increased ma
~terially It's number Of state high schools.
The Kentucky legislature passed a bill pro-
viding for the establishment of one or more
high schools in each of the counties. The
Louisiana legislature at its last session
provided for additional high schools and
laboratory equipment for the old as well
as the new ones. The high school move
ment in South Carolina is reported az
most encouraging" A number OF new
high schools have been built in hat state
during the last year and a number are still
under process of construction. Tennessee
is arranging for a comprehensive high
school system, and the state, il is believed
/ will soon make large appropriations toward
1t. Texas increased its number of high
schools by thirty in the last fiscal year. IN
Virginia there are now 35 high schools.
two years ago there were only sixty-seven