The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-06-15
n is common and embarrassing knowl-

II is common and embarrassing knowl-
edge that the lowest standards of
education in the Tilted States exist
in the south.
1t is equally as well known and more
embarrassing that Alabama stands close
to the bottom of the list of southern
states In educational standards and facili-
ties. The ghost of illiteracy stalks abroad
in daylight below the Mason and Dixon
line
For many years the southern boy and
girl have been Handicapped in the race OF
life beside their brothers and sisters or
eastern. northern and western states by
the strongest shackle that the world
ever clasps about the life of human be-
ing-the shackle of inadequate public
schools. The Russell Sage school report
and the data recently made public by
the Carnegie institute have been the talk
not only of the south, but of the entire
country. While people conversant with
actual conditions know that many fea-
lures of these school reports were not
exactly reliable. yet they admit that III
the main the condition and standing or
the schools of the south are correct.
Tearing Away the Barriers
But the shame is a passing one. The
true spirit of the south is tearing away
the barriers of illiteracy and opening up
schools and educational systems which
are breaking the shackles which for
years have tied the hands of the south's
boys and girls. Every year sees new
and better conditions, improvements over
the one preceding. There has been, is
and will continue to be much talk as to
the ways and means to be used. Some
states are going at it one way and some
bv another, but the fact remains that all
are making progress and that WITHIN
few more years the educational STANDARDS
of the south will rank with any other sec
ton of the American republic.
Over six million children are enrolled
on the rostrum of the public schools or
the middle and eastern southern states
and probably that many more should be-
Twenty-Five years from now these will
be the men and women of the south,
.he men, and women who will conduct the
affairs of the state as we'll as the affairs
of commerce of the coming New Eng
of their education in order to fit them
to compete with other sections OF the
country needs no emphasizing and CO.
terie of able and distinguished men who
have sized the problem up from every
angle are now at work educating these
coming men and women of the land OF
sunshine.
These men come from every state OF
the section, but only the ideas and plans
of two or three can be dealt with here.
likewise what Alabama is doing to i'm
prove her educational system could not
be told unless a dozen or more institu-
tions were dealt with, but this story can
tell but of one.
Chance for the Girl
There has been a time in the not Tar
distant past when education and learning
was applied only to man, when schoois
and colleges opened their doors only TO
the masculine gender. Time has passed
and things have changed, and today the
girl of America stands on an equal educa-
tional basis with her brother "A woman
we'll bred and we'll taught writes Daniel
Defoe in the early part of the seventeenth
century. when the agitation for educa-
tion of women as we'll as men was Just
beginning. Furnished with the additional
accomplishments of knowledge and be-
haviour, is a creature without compari-
son. Her society is the emblem OIL
sublimer enpoyments, her person Is
angelic and her conversation heavenly.
She is all softness and sweetness, peace,
love, wit and delight On the other hand'
rob her of the benefit OF education ana
she degenerates to be turbulent clamor-
Gus, noisy, nasty, the devil.
Defoe might have been rather extraVa-
CANT in his use of adjectives. but never
theless it remains a fact that he had the
right idea Sad enough is comparison
between an uneducated and an educated
man. but additional pathos is added when
the comparison Is made between two
women No place in Alabama probably
is as much being done for the practical
and cultured education of the girls of
this state as at the Alabama Girls Tech
nical institute at Montevallo, and some
thing of the work being done at that
institution is part of this story.
When Alabama became a state. the
state of Georgia gave her her territory.
Georgia is Alabamas mother state and
the two have always been bound by ties
that will never sever. At the present time
at the head of the public school system
of Georgia is comparatively young
man who has made a deep study of edu-
cation and educational problems in the
south. Georgia State Superintendent of
Schools Marion Luther Britain knows
much about education In the south. He
is president of the Southern Educational
association and one of the most impor-
tant factors in the educational life of the
southern states.
True to Large Extent
There can be no divine assumption of
accuracy says Dr. Britain, lin either
the Carnegie or the Russell Sage founda-
tlon report as to the educational stand
ing and the degrees of illiteracy of the
southern states. However, while there
are some inaccuracies in these documents
which have been so widely discussed, we
admit that to a large extent they are true.
AS is well known, Georgia and Alabama