The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-04-28
RURAL SCHOOLS HAVE NOT POWER ID TRAIN LEADERS
 rnvNrrrr,
Delivers Address Before the Southern Conference for Education and Industry
 at Chattanooga

Chattanooga. April 27.-President J. Y. Joyner of the Southern Conference for
 Education and Industry, delivered his address to the conference at the night session in the city auditorium tonight. He depicted the evils of tenancy in the south and declared illiteracy is increas- ing. He said the country church is de- cadent and that the rural schools have not the power to train leaders for the various calings.
 MT. Joyner presented statistics gath | cred by committees of the conference. | under the direction of Prof. A. P. Bou- land, executive secretary, and state su- pervisors of rural education. These figures show that only one out of four farmers has more than a very meagret net profit as the result of his years work. The average per capita
 wealth of country dwellers in the south
 was given as $S33, or about one-thrd of that for the country at large. "In large areas of the south, one-half of the whole farmers are tenants, and l the average is 36 per cent for the white | farming population said MT Joyner 1 This means that in the entire south
 
 every year.
 One-R00m Schools Tn most of the rural communities
 therefore. there is a very large shifting. shiftless, landless population, continued ] MT. Joyner. "Only one who owns the 1 land lives on it and cultvates it ever 1 loves and improves the soil and gets the most out of it. The shifting. shftess, l andless man, caught in the ceaseless drudgery for scant subsistence, sinks into | a hopeless state of dull indifference and ofttimes despair from whicn it is almost 1 impossible to arouse him. He feels but a passing interest in anything, and takes an abiding interest in nothing. l The impossbility of enlisting tenant farmers in large and expensive under takings for the permanent improvement of conditions was dwelt upon by the , speaker.
 Between 1890 and 1910 the percentage of reoDle living in the country was de- creased from SS to 73 per cent, he said The percentage of people living in the towns grew from r to 27 per cent. In the south therefore, the urban popula- ton is increasing faster than the rural lpopulation
 | Eight out of ten schoolhouses in the l south are one-room affairs, costing an average of $676. said Mir. Joyner and | only eight teachers in a. hundred had
 remained in the same place for three 1 years.
 Any civilization is decadent and des- i tined to ultimate dissolution that does not provide adequate means for minis | tering approximately to the human needs of all the people, economcal,- in- | tellectual. social and spiritual, con- | tinued Mir. Joyner.
 That these conditions in the south cry aloud for speedy improvement no req l friend of the south and of our common | country that is not blinded oy provinca and sectional vanity can doubt: nor car
 he doubt, in the light of history tha
 this improvement must be an organi,
 growth from organic forces co-operat 1 ing from within states and counties ant | communities.
 "As friends and lovers of our commun l ity, our states, our section and our com. | mon country. it behooves us to fac,
 these conditions eandidly and take coun
 sel ard action together for improving them."
 MT. Joyner then analysed and dis oussed the work of the conference whicl is approaching a solution of the prob lem with the idea of aiding communt, development.