The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1915-03-16


admirable address of President D. B.
Johnson, of Winthrop college, before
the teaci-ers O.. Newberry county Oh
last Saturday:
President Johnson spoke o. his visit
to Newberry in 1888, wnen he attended
tie State convention of the Y. NJ. C. A
held here that year, and said that iac
had had ever since a high opinion o.
Newberry people, which was strength
ened, if possible, by tie fine represen-
tation of students at Winthrop from
county for the past twenty
years. He said that Newbcrry ranked
in this particular up among the nine
leading counties O. the State, and that
a good test Of C nty progressiveness
was its interest in the education o.
its boys and girls. Judged by such
test Newberry county stood high.
He took for Lis subject the Eff
cient Country School, and said in
part:
The efficient country school is the
most vital educational need today, no
only of the South, but of this whole
country o.: ours. The whole rura.
problem is practically the problem OF
t e country school,
me farms are being abandoned By
the owners, and agricultural progress
and production are failing to keep
pace with growth in population and
with progress in other directions
mainly because the country school mas
failed and is failing to relate its wor:
10 tie life of the rural community.
t startling exodus from the rura:
districts to the cities al over our
country is generally attributed to the
lack of proper educational and social
conditions in the country, which the
properly organized and conducted
country school might lave supplied.
From social and economic surveys
It has been found t at in Ilinois about
95 per cent of the land owners who
move to town do so because o. the in
adequacy of the country schools; that
in an area covering 1854 square miles
of the best farm lands in Illinois SO
per cent. of the farmers are tenants
and that in many parts of Missouri
more than l1alf of the farmers are
renters. The agricultural conditions
in these two states are typical of those
in other states.
The evils Of farm tenantry are i'm
pressively brought out in recent book
by Jack London. He calls the average
tenant land cog who takes every
thing possible out e land and puts
nothing back into it, He gives in
stances of where tenants nad skinned
enough out of rented land in Califor-
MIA in three years to buy land for
themelYes. He RECALLS the story OF an \
OLD farmer WEo told a pro. essor at
an agricultural experiment station:
"They amt no sense in trying to teach
me farmin'. l know all about it. Amt
I worked out II rec farms?' and adds
that it was this kind of farming that
destroyed rural New England.
According to the census of 1910, 45.o
per cent. O. the land in this country
available for agriculture is not cult
vated either by owners or tenants.
Prof. j. l.. Coulter, of the George
Peabody College for Teachers, has as
certained from the census of 1910 t1at
during the ten years from 1899 to 1909
agricultural production in the United
States increased only 10 per cent. over
that of the preceding decade, while
the population-the number of mouths
to be fed-increased 81 per cent.
Egglestop and Bruere, in an adm1ra-
BILE book on tie Work of the Rural
sd.ool, just published, mold that it is
"the menace of hunger that is turning
the nation to the rural school as the
only instrument capable OF aVerting
widespread disaster"
Although the prosperity of every
other calling. of tie country itself, de-
pends mainly upon the prosperity OF
the farmer, the wealth producer OF the
country, his interests have been over
looked in legislation and in the organ
ization of courses of study, schools
and educational institutions until COM
paratively recent years. Now the lead