Norwich bulletin., 1918-08-13
SEVENTY-sEvEN STARS IN |, HINDmAN SCHOOL FLAG
Notable Record By Kentucky School Where Norwich Girl Has Taught.

SShStS tNVTNftSH SSif1 fIAS tA6SHhs
 
 Norwich friends of Miss Ruth Hunt ington, head resident of the Hindman settlement school in Hindman. Ken lucky, win be interested in story about that institution, which appears in recent edition of the Courier Journal, a Louisville newspaper. Miss Lucy Furman, who wrote this article, has charge of the farming and gar denlng work of the school, and is well known to the reading public through her charming books, Mothering on Perilous and Sight to the Blind, which deal wit hthe joys-and some of the snocks-of settlement worker, dur ing the pioneer days at Hindman on | Troublesome Creek
 Seventy seven stars now adorn the | service flag of the school, which means i that number of sturdy. patriotic | young mountaineers are serving the | colors. Not one boy over seventeen | is left in the school; some have not | even waited for their eighteenth birth | day to enlist This will be no sur prise to those who know the ancestry Of the mountains-how every boy is a 1 born sharpshooter and cava1ryman, and how. at their country's call, the young men have always poured forth as one to serve.
 From the decisive Revolutionary
 battles of Kings Mountain and Cow
 pens, down through the War of 1912,
 the Mexican War, the Civil War (when
 iS0,o00 sharpshooters from the noun
 tains came to the rescue of the
 Union), and the Spanish War, when
 the mountain boys fairly flew to arms, 1 the call of country has ever been a
 welcome summons; and now, in the
 great war, the only sections of the
 United States. so far as we know,
 which have filled their quota by vol
 unteering before a draft could be
 made. are some of the mountain coun-
 ties of Kentucky.
 In the heart of the Kentucky noun tains, that region popularly regarded as the home of feuds and moonshine,"
 a rural social settlement was begun
 in 1899 under the auspices of the I State Federation of Womens Clubs
 of Kentucky.
 Half dozen young women from the more prosperous sections of Ken lucky went up into the mountains,
 several days journey from a railroad,
 and. pitching their tents, spent three successive summers holding singing,
 sewing, cooking and kindergarten
 classes, giving entertainments, visit ing homes. and generally establishing friendly relations with the men, wo- men and children of three counties. The following summer these inter z ested workers came again. setting up their "cloth houses" or tents, on a , steep hill overlooking Troublesome ,, Creek and the little town of Hinds . man. the Knott County seat, and about as lawless as any town could be.
 Shortly after the women arrived a
 dozen young men, leaders in former
 troubles, climbed the hill tO the tents
 one day, fully armed, to offer theil
 protection and services. and to assure
 the visitors that they should have S peace if it took steel bullets to get it
 Later on were held mass meetings f of the citizens" of the county. urg-
 ing the women to remain permanently
 and start school for the young. thc
 people offering to raise $700 to buy { small strip of land on Troublesomt y and the frame building on it.
 e The call was too earnest and tot
 urgent to be refused. Miss Petit ant II Mss Stone went cut that winter ant
 made talks and got the money neces T sary for the buildings and equipment
 and in the summer of 1902, the Hind
 man Settlement School, an institution II combining academic and .industria
 training with various forms of socia .a service, was opened.
 It was the only school of it's kin T, in existence in the mountains. Boy n and girls desiring to learn could com = without a cent of money, and, in re ,e turn for a few hours of labor daily ,f could get a first rate education. 'l scholarship of $100 a year had to lf Lf raised on the outside for each resi- 'e 't dent child.
 'l In sixteen years the kindergarte IeaI L.. '0 100 boys and girls now live in +h
 school, while 250 more attend da ?r school: the three acres have grown t l. 150, the one building 10 fourteen. A n along, the aim has been to fit the chil .S dren for successful life in their ow l- mountains, and, to this end, in addi 1e ton to the academic courses, the boy oL are taught agriculture, carpentr, V woodwork mechanics and dairyini le the girls cooking, sewing, laundr IS work, weaving and home nursing. r- Besides the school proper, man De forms of social service are engage ie in. There is a hospital, in which cir a- ics have been held for years by th a. best physicians of Lexington an nt Louisville, and in which far -reachin SC campaigns have been launche lie against traehoma, hookworm, tubercu at losis and typhoid; there are two trair ed ed nurses, one for, school work or n for district visiting; there is Sunda! lis school work. and a library, and mott ed CTS clubs and glee clubs and gan K clubs and debating clubs; also a d.
 pertinent of fireside industries, whic e. encourages and finds a market f. t. the beautiful products of mounta n- looms. There is an extension worke cil who carries instruction in cannin s. cooking, gardening and the like to T, S: moter neighborhoods.
 at From nearly all the mountain coul do ties the children come, walking som ole times as far as fifty miles, to try s- enter the school. Nearly a thousa1 IT. boys and girls are on our waiting lii six and have to be turned away eve
 year for lack of scholarships and rool
 It is cruel, when they are eager al bright, and willing to work The it- should be a school like this in eve ite mountain country: and various trac GIT of land have been offered us for staJ il- ing similar schools But so far. b
 cause of the difficulty of raising fuut
 only one other, the school at Pi 'n- Mountain, recently begun by Miss Pc ery tit, has been started. Miss Stone I or mains at Hindman, assisted by M ld- Ruth Huntingdon.
 fch The influence of the Hfndm nld school extends through at least f the counties, the entire tone of the
 being changed for the better.
 all The mountain people come of fl ms, old stock. having the same ancest ew as those in the Bluegrass region; th za- are virile race, of fine natural 'si- teIfigence, and it is not surprising ys- find much personal dignity, even ge A tleness of manner, among these IT lint and women who have never had nix, opportunity for an education. the War times are pressing hard ur
 this school, to which every Hindn in d ho,, or girl asnires tn 20. a n1ml