New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1911-04-25

saving: Great trees from little acorns
| grow"
The Berry School began In log cabin
with five pupils and two teachers; now It's
home is In log buildings indeed, erected
/ by the boy pupils, but such beautiful build
ings that an artist might cQyet them. ana
instead Of five pupils there are two hum
dred and fifty. not to speak OF the nun
dreds who have been graduated and gone
out, some TO start little schools OF their
own in the lonely mountain regions. others
to carry improved farming methods they
had learned 10 the backwoods cabins they
came from.
Pupils don't like TO graduate from the
Berry School When the first applicant
appeared at the girls school, which year
ago last Thanksgiving was added to the
original boys school. Miss Berry said to
her:
Now. II YOU work hard you will grad
uate"-
81 didn't come ter graduate walled the
girl. II come ter stay"
, The girls school is the latest branch on
the tree which Miss Berry planted.
II began with boys" she told the Trib-
une reporter yesterday at the Hotel Ar
lington. first, because ] saw the crying
need of getting some knowledge about
farming into those Businesses where people
struggle for livelihood. cut OFF from the
world and second, because | thought boys
would he less of a problem. But. dear me.
they're a worse problem-they eat so much.
II costs g month more 10 feed BOY
than 10 feed a GIRL I've discovered.
Not but what they work TO provide
their food Last year the boys canned
eight thousand gallons Of fruit and vegeta-
bIes Everything is raised on the farm by
the pupils and cooked and served by the
p,rils. .gld-what do you think?-last
Thanksgiving, quite of their own motion,
the boys cooked dinners for one hundred
and twenty-five convicts in a convict camp
near the school and carried the not foou
TO them
The dormitory and school for the girls
pre- some distance from the boys buildings
with thick grove Of oaks between.
I'VE are emphatlcally not co-educatlon-
al" Miss Berry said. once a month there
j. a reception where the girls and boys
meet. and every Sunday they are at services
together. but | find 1t better 10 preserve IL
certain amount Of formality. The girls
think Of marriage soon enough, anyhow.
I said to q girl who came to the school
With drcadfully decayed teeth which l had
the dentist fix up:
What would have become Of you with
cut that dentist?
She answered nonchalantly that she had
expected her teeth TO 'drap out but she
thought she'd get married before they all
drappcd out Her mother married at III
tecn. and she lowed she could do the
same.
"All the girls marry in those mountains.
II is the only thing there Is for them And
we try to teach those who come to us to
be good homemakcrs. They learn to COOK.
TO sew. to do plain dressmakin2. They learn
simple nursing and gardening and dairy
nork. and. of course. all the pupils have
the branches Of common school educa-
ton This Is even more necessary for the
girls tran for the boys. No one knows
Row empty women's lives arc In those lone
Is parts. The men can gather at the coun-
try stores and swap stories but the women
have nothing"
Miss Berry Is exceedingly proud " tho
good looks Of her pupils
Clifford Pinchot. when he visited us, told
mo ] must have raked the mountains for
handsome girls. but 7 told him mine were
iust the average" she said. YOU see
those mountainecrs are az pure American
stock as We have-dcGended from the
carly English settlers. We have boys IN
the school with fca turc-F startlingly like
Abraham Lincon's. Whn the girls FIRST
come they look vacant lifecss. but 1t Is
touching to see how the faces round out
and brighten as they get into the work.
1t pays one for all the struggle. all the
times Of disbursement and there have
been such times. though we have always
managed 10 make our finances square nj
the end of the year There have been
days when | thought the school couldh
go on-and then would come big ray or
sunshine. such as Mrs. Russell Sage's grit
Of 5000 toward the endowment FUND
three years ago"