The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-12-05

nn.eiisent readers in advance. Four
ol the inhabitants Of North Car
DINA live in the Shor1d not
me boys and girls from these homes
oe mace TO feel that they are a part
oI me history of the State? Are thev
Ilaue 10 feel this in the pages of he
poilticai histories that have been writ
ten?
chapter on agriculture would
not be filled with statistics but il
would beSin with a brief reference to
as a world influence in
c~lFillzatlon and then pass directly to
North Carolina. There should be an
abundance Of illustrations, a discus
SION or the more epoch-making dis
ctVerles and Inventions, a clear state
men. Oh the nature of the soil and the
resultant localization OF industries.
With a hint Of the immense possibii-
Ties yet undeveloped. The purpose is
not TO make professional agricultural
lists but enlightened citizens. The en-
rhasls. therefore, should be put upon
agriculture as conditioning history.
he discussion should be broad, inter
esting, but elemental, the facts being
SC stated as to furnish a key to the
narrative n a has preceded.
Transportation.
The same general treatment would
be followed in the chapter on trans
portation. 1t would be we'll to begin
With the good roads movement. Is
this not constructive? Is it not maxi
ing history? Does it not contribute
to the exchange Of ideas and to the
facilitation of neighborliness as we'll
as to the increase Of commerce? Or
n might begin with the proposed At
lantlc interior passage. from New Eng
land to Florida and the Gulf Of
Mexico. Once touch the constructive
Imagination Of the pupil and you have
enriched his civic consciousness. We
hear much today of the future-mind-
ed man. No one doubts his value as
Il civic asset. But the future-minded
mar is only the paSt-nlinded boy
grown up. If the boy is taught to see
that the great things all about him
are not detached and isolated but
rather the product of Influences
working silently and convergentlv
through the centuries, influences that
he can stimulate or retard, he will be
the. future-minded man of his gener-
alton.
A map Of the State, showing the
old highways yielding place to rail
roads or being transformed by ma
CdOdIl SI1OWlilS dlSO Tic pOSSljJlIllicS
Of new landways and waterways,
would give the pupil a glimpse into
the future of the State that he could
not obtain from the most elaborate
POLITICAL map. Emerson says that he
found roads out West that began
broad, then narrowed to- a squirrel
path, and finally took refuge up q
tree. But he must have been Journey
ing backwards. These roads probably
began in the tree, passed into a squir-
rel path, widened into a hog path.
swelled into a COW path and gradu-
ated into a man path. Road-building
does not go backward, and the mem
DRY of road-builders should not be al
lowed to lapse. It was evidently a
future-minded man who wrote the in
scription on the lone 4leadstOne be-
tween Hendersonville and Moun
Hebron:
sHere lies Solomon Jones,
The Road-maker,
A True Patriot.
He 1abored fifty years to leave h
world better than he found IT,
Manufacturing.
GAS late as 1870" says President ..
H. Hill, in his Young Peoples History
of North Carolina. out of fifteen hun
dred men present at a military drill
all but forty were dressed IN nome
spun." There was at hat time not a
cotton mill in the South. The growth
of manufactures in the South since
1910, but especially since 1870, is an
epic of absorbing interest. Last year
alone more than 100000 people in
North Carolina labored in factories,
and the value of their products was
more than $150,000,0 200.
The transition from the spinning
wheel and loom {still seen in remote
districts) to the cotton mill,
from homemade tobacco to the to-
bacco factory, and from handmade
furniture to the furniture factory IS
a transition that has never been ade-
ouately treated in u histories. IL
is a story that is written large over the
face Of our State but meageriy, II al
oil in our school textbooks. But a
moments consideration will show that
If the study of history in the school-