The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1911-08-01
PEOPLES FORUM
A Plea For the Mountain Folks.
Tor of The Richmond Virginian:

|
Editor of The Richmond Virginian:
Sufficiently there WAS a public announce
meht that young female teacher had thrown
w her Jop. In the OPEN and going back
10 the mountains to teach because my people
need me-"
This was taken by The virginian as a text
LOT paregyrle on the sef-sacriiicing mission
airy IN general and this in particular.
Mountain White used of course to en-
phasive the immensely of space existing be-
tween the unctious pulpit trumpeteers and the
educational egotst and the ignorant uncouth
ana uncultured boor of the mountain districts
lay In and out people of the hills sub
Jected 70 this kind of insulting reflection from
every kind and condition of croakjng advisors
teae hers and mentors, who for some occult
reason or other, imagine that they are in
teihgent. Every spawned college professor who
hopes TO make a record, every female clubster
VINO finds 1t healthy to be away from home,
and every little normal peewee who can chirp
ms patitudes, and gable his gibberish is blub-
berlng over the condition of the Mountain
whites and are Juggling to get their silly bat
teries in action Theirs to renovate, reju-
vinate, reconstruct revise and make over again
a job that they fondly believed that the great
Creator left. uncompleted.
Were this matter not aggravatng it would
ne wonderfully amusing. your normalite with
his mads and fooleries is an elegant thing to
send to the mountains to teach common sense.
Your Home Journal female abroad in the
mountains to teach morals and social organza-
ton Is glorious substitute for the Bible, that
We read from cover to cover, ain: she
Now l wish to emphasize, people of the
country are tired of this kind of criticism and
advertisement We tired of the constant
song that all. who live beyond the corporation
limits of town hopelessy degenerate, and
need the ministratons of the elect. OF
we recognize that all this is the result of gnor-
ance but this does not make it any less nauseat-
ing and sickening.
Communities without common sense have no
business meddling in the mountains 1t is
derstood by all, of course that this educa-
missionary wholly
OF that much needed article.
Now there is another question that natur-
ally lntrudes at this important point What is
this glorious propaganda of righteousness ana
worth mot ability and brains) gong bring
u.s. This question is necessary, because I'm
obliged to suggest that the man who lives II
a seventeen foot front, and spends one-half
of his time in the alley bowling for the ash
man and the other chasing from the frying
pan to the corner grocery for eggs and fake
breakfast foods, must show up big before he
can make an impression on the mountain
whites"
Are our daughters to be instructed in the
anatomical display now 5, prevalent in the
up their legs in two packages and ride horse
back straddle? Are their appetities TO be cui-
| tivated for the nauseating literature of the
'yeliows?"
Is she to be rugged in rag called Mobile"
to minee through the mountains FOR the glory
of heaven and advanced civilization.
Is hard listed. substantial one-gallussed
buck to make way for a cock-eyed. arch-backed,
pigeontoed Aphonse with fifteen pounds OF
be snapped for Gwendolyne, dressed in a
cheese Goth aud stockings prepared expressly
for the hammock?
| Is our culinary department to side step for
/ the well beaten egg, the rind of a lemon and
a little powdered sugar of your Cordelia Bed
fords and Madame Rohrers?
The fact is this miserable baby stun you call
culture, is looked at by the counrryman with
derision and contempt Instead of furnishing
missionaries for the mountain Whites We
would recommend that all uplifters try their
hands the ALLEY whites OF your NUM-
cipalities.
| We doing very well in the hill country,
and instead of waiting for missionary attention
are ready to furnish them.
Now while many worrying themselves
about the hill people. allow to present a
! few facts.
| This writer reared I'm the foothills Of
| the mountain. From the same community at
one time there were twenty-oue men and four
women drawing salaries ranging from 5000
to 10000 per year in different parts OF the
county. From one lone country school, deep in
were twenty men occupying puipits of chris
| tianity. Daniel Philips, Western educator, one
of the great artists of Chicago. and Ira l..
| Reed Phi. D., who died a great preacher at
! thirty-one years of age. This list could be con-
| tinued indefinitely.
That society Is rapidly degeneratiug.is known
to all thinking men. False and ignorant
teachers tinkering the rules OF common sense
which the rules of humanity fast bring =
ing Wanted civilization to destruction. 1t
I is the people of the hills who are furnish
the seed OF the resurrection. the cities,
moribund. cannot.
/ Respectfully,
| WN.REED.
| Long Glade, Va, July q.