Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1915-08-05
EpueATIoNAL WORK OF NORTH
SARoLINA INTERESTINGLY TOLD

OdIOkluds i
realizing that the press is the most
POlent OF all agencies In moIdfIir SEN
ument, IN shaping public policies. and
II promoting all movements for pub
TIC welfare, I count it not only a nieas-
ure and an honor, butea great opDor-
UNITY as well, to speak to the mem
pers OF the North Carolina Press assoc
ciatfon.
In my opinion, with the exceptions
the teachers and others actively en-
geged u educational work, the editors
CT North Carolina have contributed
more Tor less pay than any others to
q educational progress of this State
uurlng the thirteen years of my adj
MInlstrat1on. With the exception of
school, the public press is
perhaps n greatest instrumentahtv
for public education. Appreeiafine
Your activity and assistance in this
great work in the past, 1 shall take he
liberty of talking to you today infor-
tnfally, as to friends and coworkers in
a great aus for the common good.
about some of the most important
parts OF our educational program.
II I'M permitted, / should like to
discuss with you big problems that
thaI constitute 81 per cent of our pop
gram OF educational work in this
State:
Rural Education.
Its adoption to rural life, to the
everyday needs of the country people
that constitute so per cent of our pop
ulation, preparing them to make the
most and to get the most out of all
that is about them-soil, plant. and
animal, the three great sources OF
wealth-and to use, what they make
and get in the best ways to enrich.
sweeten, beautify and uplift n
life socially, morally, intellectually,
spiritually, making it the idea life that
men will seek and love to live. The
development of a type of country
school by reasonable consolidation and
local taxation, of not less than three
teachers, adequately equipped in all
respects to give such preparation, yo-
cational and cultural, to country boys
and girls, and 70 become the social,
intellectual, Industrial, INT civic CEN
ter of the whole community.
We have been working on this prob
lem for some years and we are begin
ming to have some encouraging sue
cess in the establishment in a number
OF counties of farm-life schools. rural
high schools, and consolidated rural
district or community schools prepar-
ed to give instruction and training in
rural-life subjects. You are acquaint-
ed with this work and have given it
your hearty support in the past, and
bespeak the same in the future.
More Efficient Teaching and Su-
perYisiOn.
z. Increased compensation, ~increas-
ed qualification, professional
ton, and professional protection for
teachers n superintendent of
schools, raising the most delicate and
difficult Of all work committed to man
to the dignity of a profession requir-
ing reasonable special preparation.
Adult Hlfteracy and It's Elimination.
3. The limitation of the time, how
ever, compels me to content myself
with the briefest, statement of the first
two problems, with which you are al
ready familiar, and to devote the re-
mainder of my time to the third prob
lem, with which you are less familiar.
With 12.3 per cent of the total white
population over ten years of age and
ID per cent of the white voting popu-
1atfon unable to read or write, accord
ing to the last census, the editors of
N. C. will agree with the teachers
and all other patriotic citizens that
the reduction and final elimination of
ilffteracy is one of the first and most
urgent educational duties-a duty al
ready too long neglected. The recent
decision of the United States Supreme
court in the Oklahoma Suffrage Amend
ment case adds new emphasis to this
question Of adult white illiteracy in
North Carolina. In the enactment and
l OrfnrNnnonn IF Tho I-o--x
ance law for children between the
ages of 8 and II, c~onservativeIy
strengthened later, will be found a
most effective means for the elimina-
ton of illiteracy in the rising genera
lions and its prevention in future gen
%eratons. The present crop of adult
Dliterates already beyond the reach OF
the regular public schools must be
] reached by some other means. They
constitute an army of 132,189 native
white i1lfterates, of which 1910 are
native white illiterates of voting age
140 out of every thousand white voters
} unable eve to read their balIots-an
army marching under the black ban.
ner of ignorance, a prey to all the ills
that follow in the wake Of ignorance
a menac to all that is best in civil.
! zation in a democracy, doomed tc
darkness, ineficiency. intellectual and
industrial bondage, ambitionless, hope
less, helpless, unless some effective
means be found and found quickly fol
their relief and liberation.
This army of adult iIliterates is an
inheritance from former generations
from slavery, from an aristocratic in
} stead of a democratic civilization from
civil war and devastation, the pow
erty, and the destruction of our school,
S system and institutions that followed
1t must inevitably handicap the pro,
gress of the State, discourage immi.
grafton of the desirable sort, and in
the future, as in the past, invite the
sneers of the scorner and the defama-
ton of the willing to the shame and
Injury of the State for the next two OF