The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1915-11-12

Academic training supplemented b
normal training; the rudimentar
principles of sociology; knowledge o
practical house work, cooking an
sewing; of hygiene, house sanitation
plumbing and carpenter work; of ma
ture and forestry and irrigation; o
medicine and nursing the sick; spiri
dedicated to work among people un
appreciative and Indifferent, and read.
to express tolerance and patience a
every turn, are the requisite qualltle
of the teacher in the mountain school!
of the Central South" declared Mis-!
Lucy Lester, of Thomson, Georgia, II
recent address before Georgia clut
women.
Miss Lester, a Southern woman Of
means and college graduate, accept.
ed the position Of head teacher in d
Georgia mountain school that she
might better acQuaint herself with the
needs Of the mountain people, might
see wherein the weakness of the school
lay and why the teachers failed SO
frequently to accomplish their pur-
pose.
Her finding repeated the k""
gained by each person who does re-
search work among the mountain peo-
pie. and that is, that upon the teacher
lies the heaviest burden. The text
book work becomes an incident to the
general requirements, for the first les
son that has to be taught the noun
tain children in the school is the way
to live. The average child knows no
more about body sanitation than the
mother does about taking care of the
home or the father does about tilling
the soil, building a silo or even the
toughest shed for the protection OF
stock.
In the experience of the mountain
school-teacher is reflected the real
status of the mountain people as they
are today. The subject has been pre-
sented picturesquely but vaguely in
books and magazines. Novelists and
dramatists have written of mountain
types and the horrors of the feud still
produce daily matter for the press.
The pictures of the mountain moon
sinner are familiar subjects, and the
movies" revel in scenarios that show
revenue officer in pursuit of the law
breaker, or mountain wife bending
over the PROSTATE form Of her son,
shot while defending his still.
The Federal courts of Georgia, Ken
lucky and Tennessee are taxed with
the excess of crime among mountain
people, the cost to the state enormous,
yet little has been done by the state
to reach these people educationally. 1t
is too much trouble. Georgia, for eX-
ample, has no law at all for compul~
sorry school attendance, and even
where the poorly built and poorly
equipped school is furnished by the
state, there is nothing done to encour-
age or to force the child who needs it
to take advantage of the school. |
am told that laws in this direction are
lax in neighboring states, all the states
with mountain people carrying a bur
den Of illiteracy directly hampering
their progress.
To reach these people as they are
today the state, the church, the phil
anthropic agency must pull together
through the school. and as much mon
ey will have to be expended in the
campaign as is sent each year from
the South to missionary work in Chi
ma, and other remote countries. | do
rot intend this latter statement as
reflection on the usefulness of foreign
missions. ! believe today's civiliza-
ton can accomplish both the mission
i'll the FOREIGN land and that at home.
l do think, however, that the mission
work at home is being neglected, and
that to our great detriment. | believe
that if the same amount Of money
We're expended at home for expert
teachers, and missionaries, doctors and
spiritual directors, that is sent an
Eually to foreign lands, we would he
gin new era in our civilization. The
South would come into her own in the
development of her natural riches by
the efforts of her own people. large
element Of whom are a burden to her
at present in their isolation, idlenes5
and ignorance.
In the present crisis precipitated by
the war, when this country has 4
chance to become the most independ-