The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-09
BERRY SCHOOL AND
 NATURE 0F ITS WORK Georgia Institution Visited By
 President Yesterday HAS HAD HARD STRUGGLE Bounded Near Rome, Ga, to Give the Boys and Girls of the Mountains Chance to Acquire an Education
HAS HAD HARD STRUGGLE
BY CLYDE ". ENNIS

The Berry school which was yesterday visited by Col. Theodore Roosevelt, and a distinguished company of men, Is sit- uated on the Summerville road about six miles from Rome, Ga. When one visits that town lying between the rivers one either must visit that school or set at naught that well-known and oft-repeated quotation:
 .sWhen in Rome do as Romans do."
 For there are few Romans who do not think this school monument to the city, the state and the south. And it is.
 But the singular part of 1t the entire institution has resulted from the single handed efforts of a young woman-Miss Martha Berry-and to her the entire state secured the interest of Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt some years ago, and they have since that time given a great deal to its maintenance. The school Is the result of almost insurmountable struggles and upon Miss Berry reflects degree of courage and stick-to-it-iveness that Is singular in its final analysis.
 IHC oCHOok was AOuboOo pg HUI AOi ehV purpose of giving the boys and girls of the wildwood chance. She early real ized under what difficulty the average country boy of the mountains labors and she conceived the idea of giving him at least the rudiments of an education.
 She came in contact with the results of the untutored mind and the handicaps under which man struggles for want of Knowledge. For the purpose of founding the school a site of several acres was se- cured in a valley not far from Rome. There was built on this site a principal building, since enlarged, three or four auxiliary places and in the meantime the school started. Miss Berry alone taught for while. Success was meted out to her in a volume that made her broaden the scope of her work. Rome being small town she went to Atlanta and enlisted the aid of such men as J. K. Orr, Mayor Maddox, Alex Bonnyman, H. M. Atkinson and others.
 Has Several Instructors
 Miss Berry has now several instruc- tors at the school. The prime requisite after culture Is love for the down. sist in their uplift. There are now at this institution several instructors who every year polish into jewels about IS In . tellects that formerly were untutored and of no value to the possessor or the country.
 The school teaches several forms of trades. It is fashioned not unlike the ordinary industrial school although the academic department is excellent. The boys and girls who annually attend reach over the 100 mark and every one of them is enthused over the work. Miss Berry naturally did not possess enough individual fortune to carry on the work. She founded the place; paid for its operation until time came for more money from other sources. She has trav- eled the country over, relating her strug- gles for the rural neighbors until the entire southeast is more or less familiar with that bright-eyed. earnest woman whose sole object in life Is apparently to help this class of boys and girls.
 Carrying Battle Onward
 Miss Berry Is carrying the battle on- ward. She manifests the same un- dimmed enthusiasm that made a tre- mendous impression upon the restless Colonel Roosevelt And she states that her greatest pleasures are found among the youth to whom she is delivering the most priceless of gifts-knowl- edge.
 Miss Berry comes from a distin- guished family of Georgia and Is re- lated to some of the best people of her home town. She is cultured woman with every possible grace and among her neighbors Is singularly re- spected. She early evinced striking interest in the country or mountain boys near her homo town and when completing her own collegiate course she started to assist the mountain boys and girls. To assist them to learn wage-earning trades, to cultivate ex- ceptionally brightly endowed intellects and to assit them to become men among men, was the problem that Miss Berry started out to B,lve.
 Miss Berry began to gather the crude and uncouth mountain lads and lasses from the immediate surroundings. Her fame has gone forth and there are tn ousands of her fellow natives who have no vocabulary sufficient to wait her praises to the blue. They swear by her and her work, and as an evi- dence of this general reputation the only living and most widely known of all Presidents visited this school. With him was Clifford Pinchot, the deposed forester. and MT. George Gordon Craw- ford of Birmingham.
 The children taught are not gath cred from the nearby town of Rome but as generally understood only from the rural districts of that section.
 Taught Useful Trades
 They are taught many useful trades.