Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-08-24
FOR AUGUST "a. 1913
FOR AUGUST "a.
WORTH WHILE FOLK
LYMAN WARD. A SOUTHERN SCHOOLMASTER

summer birds and baretOOted boys
may be seen in midwinter but where
the open fireplace burning wood is
not only delightful luxury, but stern
necessity, found a school. This school
is not merely place where boys and
girls spend four years studying books.
1t fits its pupils for life, taking them
at all ages and at all degrees of IN
education.
Back of the school is a man, and the
fact that man and school are there is
largely the result of two spoken SEN
fences. "The difference between Seth
Low and myself is this: Seth Low be-
lieves in helping men. believe in help
ing men to help themselves" So spoke
Henry George in that memorable cam
paign Just before his death. In the
throng that heard him was a young
Universalist preacher, and the sentence
struck home. "I'm doing the wrong
thing,-I'm trying to help men instead
of helping them to help themselves"
he admitted to himself.
1t SO happened that this young min
lister was about to go upon Southern
trip in behalf of his church-"the
Save-An Church." as the negroes of
the South called it. And thus a SEN
tence of Henry Georges became we'd
ded to a sentence of Booker T. Wash
ington's, "To uplift the negro, you must
uplift the white man with him. for, as
Lyman Ward travelled. he learned of the
thousands Of white boys in the South with
out education or means Of education. Booker
Washington was struggling to train the
ignorant colo-ed youth; but where was
similar opportunity for the backward white
boy of the South? Here. then. was work
worthy of a man who wanted to help men
to help themselves; end. seeking the line OF
greatest resistance, he settled IN Alabama.
Alabama is proud State, and among the
boasts that she can make IS that she IS first
in illiteracy! Sidney Bowie of Birmingham
estimates that there are hundred thousand
white boys and girls in the State who can
neither read nor write. In 1911, out OF
eight hundred thousand boys and girls OF
school age (both races), nearly five hundred
thousand were not in school single day.
Add to these facts that eighty per cent. of
Alabamans live in the country, and you can
dustrial School in the very heart of Ala
bama, near a little town called Camp Hill.
He had no money, and but few friends;
but he had a realization of the need and
spirit that does not know how to spell the
word encouragement" He soon learned,
of course, that the people of Alabama were
like the people anywhere else that the
young men and women wanted an educa-
ton, and that many poor parent would
give his last dollar to give his children
"chance."
One of his first supporters was poor
woman who drove fifteen miles to bring the
school twenty-five cents. One man Of forty
six entered the school as a pupil in 1907, and
today is teaching a school of his own. On
the day was in Camp Hill met man who
had driven twenty miles in a prairie schooner
(and driving is not boulevarding in rural
Alabama) to place two pupils in the school.
He had brought all the money he had in the
world (thirty-five dollars) to pay for their
board and tuition and he cheerfully gave it
all, except seventy-five cents, which he re-
tanned for food for himself and horses on the
return trip.
The school educates both sexes 1.-THE ages
range from sixteen to thirty) and there are
girl boarders who have no money whatever
and whose bread and clothing must be found
while they are acquiring an education. Ward
took them in, and Ward will find a way to
put them through; but-bm-is it not a
marvellous thing that some of our multi
millionaires find it hard to give away some
small part of their money worthily?
The school started in rickety three-room
building, heated by only one stove There
are no luxuries even yet; but there are sew
eral buildings built bv teachers and pupils