Evening star., 1928-11-04
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had washed the soil from their hands,
had rushed by them. leaving them and
their children in profound ignorance.
She told patriotic societies that many OF
these mountain children were the lineal
descendants of their own Northern SOL
diers, who during the reconstruction
period following the Civil War had
come to the South as "carpetbaggers.'
Here are your purest Americans,
she said. Your Anglo-Saxons. You
spend thousands of dollars to 'Ameri-
canize' the hordes of Latins and SlavS
that come to these shores. You plant
schools among the negro settlements.
Will you not heed the call of these
boys and girls of the mountains, blood
of your blood?"
Money began coming in from her
begging tours" as she called them
and ever more children kept
coming, making more and more money
necessary. From all over the country
tiny streams Of contributions began
flowing over the Appalachians into
Georgia to the Berry Schools. Yet
never. never sufficient, never COM
mensurate with the need Of the children
of the uplands. An unending file OF
boys kept trickling down the mountain
trails, their packs on their backs, their
overcoats patched, their hats battered.
Footsore, shy, they stood gazing through
the open gates down the Road 10
Opportunity
Others Hear Story.
Gradually the story of the Berry
Schools and the sublime devotion OF
its founder spread beyond the State OF
Georgia Men like Andrew Carnegie
heard and needed the story and started
an endowment which assured a small
annual sum. Women's clubs heard.
Churches heard Theodore Roosevelt
exclaimed: This is the real thingt,
when he listened to Martha Berry tell
the story of her school. There should
be a school for girls, too," he an
Rounced.
Through his influence 1t became pos
sible to build the first girls dormitory,
Sunshine Shanty." With the opening
of this dormitory, slim, sunbrowned
girls in sunbonnets, calico aprons tied
about their waists in the manner of
little old grandmothers, walked down
the trails their brothers had walked to
enter the Berry School, to work with
their hands for the privilege of an
education.
"We-uns has come" they said
"Wimmin-f wants larnin' same's
rnen-folks."
So the school grew and grew; grew
from its dozen into the hundreds.
Building multiplied. More teachers
came. More acres were cultivated.
There were additions to herds and
flocks. And with the growth of the
school its undaunted founder faced
continually the problem of money for
its maintenance, for equipment, for
teachers.
1t is now 26 years since the three
little dusty boys listened to Martha
Berry tell magic stories In tiny shack
They are grown men now. And Mar
tina Berry, white haired, gentle, with
eyes both brilliant and tender, looks
down from the House o. Dreams
which the boys and girls themselves
built for her on the summit of Laven-
dar Mountain, upon the spreading re-
alization of her girlhood'S dream.
Blue moutain ranges, covered with
brown sedge and piney woods encircle
her. Below lies the Foundation School
where children, irrespective of age, are
inducted into the cooperative spirit oi
Berry. Half hidden beneath tulip, dog
wood and elm trees are the brown log
buildings of the girls school, the lovely
colonial chapel, the brick schools fol
the boys, shops, barns. dairy houses
and Faith Cottage. where live the nine
orphans that Martha Berry ha:
adopted.
Nearly all the buildings have beer
constructed by the boys themselves. Ir
the warm meadows beyond the campu!
sturdy boys in the uniform of the
| school-overalls--a blowing. Girls ir
blue dresses and pink sunbonnets bend
like flowers themselves, over flower gar.
dens and vegetable rows. "Blue-ribbon'
cattle Craze in the meadows. Frui
ripens in the orchard.