The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1914-05-01
WOODLEY PLEADS
FOR VOCATIONAL
WORK IN SCHOOLS
ADDRESS OF HATTIEseURe EpU.
GATOR FEATURES MIssIsslP-
TEAcHERs' CONVENTION.
SAYS MISSISSIPPI IS, ~.
BACKWARD IN EDUCATION
Declares Modern System Tends To
Take Young People Away From
Farm, And Should be Directed To-
ward Keeping Them There-Makes
Drastic Suggestions.
Special to The NetCS.


Jackson, Miss, May 1.-"My friends,
our economic salvation and our ideals
of greater Mississippi will come and
come only when we teach our boys
and girls how to grow and make all
the things we need. Because of the
false idea that it is beneath the dig
nifty of an educated, cultured man to
soil his hands by manual labor, the
schools have educated away from the
farms and the workshops and not to-
ward them. Our aims in the future
must lead to three kinds of education
physical, liberal and vocational"
So spoke Prof. F. B. Woodley, Of Hat
tiesbLrg, President of the Mississippi
Teachers Association, whose address
featured the opening session of the
convention here last night. More than
1900 teachers from all sections and
grades in the state listened to the Hat
tiesburg educator with close atten-
tion as he unfolded his plans for dras-
tic changes in the educational meth
DDS in Mississippi.
Mr.. Woodley declared Mississippis
progress in education has been re-
markable, but he minced no words in
pointing out what he believes to be
the weak places in the present system.
Playing at the Business.
."When It comes to giving the great
body Of our people vocational training
we are simply playing at the business"
he declared. "In truth, Mississippians
have never awakened to the realization
of the fact that it is the serious busi-
ness of the state to give to the ninety
five per cent of our population who are
industrial workers an education that
will bear somewhat the same relation
to their life work as the education Of
the lawyer, the doctor, or the teacher
bears to his future work.
1.-THE resources Of any state are pri-
mariIy and Fundamentally land and
people. Mississippi has some Of the
most fertile land on the globe, yet
the major part Of its land is below the
average of fertility. 1t has no great
mineral deposits and we have sold our
timber patrimony for a mess of pot
tage. What about our people? We
have blood and brains equal to the
best, yet we are the most dependent
people on the face Of the earth. II
you we're to take a thousand average
Mississippians and put them on an is
land as was Robinson Crusoe, seri-
ously doubt whether you would have a
single man that could build modern
steam engine. dynamo, or a home
equipped with modern conveniences,
though they had all the necessary
tools and materials.
To make long story short, we must
continue to educate lawyers, doctors,
bookkeepers, stenographers, and must
greatly strengthen our efforts to edu.
cate teachers. farmers, and Industrial
workers.
squandering Money on Negroes.
1--WE are annually squanderlne thou
sands Of dollars on negro education
Why not teach the negro to read, to
write, and enough arithmetic to keer
his simple accounts and then give hin
a vocational education, mainly home
economics and agriculture? II educa
tion is good for the white man, the
right kind of education is good for the
negro, but we are making colossal
blunder in trying to graft on to this
child race the white mans ideas, ideals
and twentieth century civilization"
Prof. woodley admitted It is seri
GUS problem to raise enough money t.
t9eiHnued on Page Four.)