Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-03-07
SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE.
By Frederic ]. Haskin.


Every organized agency engaged IN
promoting rural advance in the south VIII
meet in Richmond. Va, from Aprii 10 "
IS, for the purpose of uniting on one great
comprehensive plan to make country HE
in the southern states more hvabie ana
more profitable. All told there Will be
more than twenty conferences taking up
different aspects of this problem. In
sentimental business men who want the
armer to earn more on his farm that ne
may spend more in the city Will meet by
themselves to devise ways and means.
Farmers-real farmers, with the furroW-
earth on their bootheeels-will get to-
gether to learn how they can obtain more
for their crops. State, county and district
Supervisors of rural schools will plan
methods of Improved organization; teach
ers In the Schools, professors in the col
,esyes and nniversities, will find out by
the interchange of ideas how to make
themselves more effective; southern edi-
tors and rural preachers. In separate con-
ferences. will map out the ways by which
press and pulpit may advance the move
ment.
\
At none of these conferences will there
be the delivery Of fine-drawn papers.
Eloquence likewise will
ElOouence at be barred. Instead the
r4 proceedings win be like
: OlScVuAt. those at board meet
ing Of some great industrial corporation,
where the directors, understanding the
needs of the company, assemble about a
he
deal merely with general problems. but
rather will go at once into the questions
of solving the problems. And. when each
conference has hammered out its own
conclusions there will be a general meet
ing of all the sections, where federated
plan of action will be laid down.
With the definite completion OF this
plain, every southerner, no matter what
his interests or occupation may be, will
have a chance to do something to adj
vance farm life In his section with the
assurance that whatever he does VIII
give strength to this general union of ef-
fort. In other words. there will no long
er be. any overlapping of activities nor
working at cross purposes. Moreover
as the great majority of southerners live
ON the farm. every advance in the pros
perity and happiness of the rural districts
will mean a like advance to the whole
body polite.
= =
The official name of this convention Of
workers for better country living Is the
sixteenth conference
Is Sixteenth for education in the
south. The fundamen-
Conference. tai aim OF this body,
when founded, was to advance the gen.
eral well being of the fifteen southern
states: and as an immediate instrument
to this end the schools Of the section
were selected for Improvement 1t was
early discovered, however, that the
schools could not be improved to any ma
terial extent till they were voted more
money. With this. also. came the fur
Their discovery that the south was al
ready voting a larger proportion OF taxes
to its schools than was any other Sec
ton. and that the burden could not fur
Their be Increased without likewise In
creasing the resources of the popula-
ton.
Now. owing to the fact that farming
is the preponderant industry OF the
resources of the country IL directly
bound up with that OF making the farmer
more prosperous. Hence. BY degrees,
the conference for education In the south
was led to the apparently irrelevant
subject of improving rural conditions,
which 1t is now taking Up this year on
a scale never before attempted.
n IS