Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-31
In Blue Ridge Hollows.

In Blue hldge h0ll0WS.
The depths of ignorance and squalor
found in isolated clusters Of mud
plastered log cabins in the Blue Ridge
Mountains within one hundred miles
of Washington hardly can be eXag-
gcrated.
IT is by no means n pleasant picture
of contemporary America-this glimpse
of people dropped by advancing civil
ization on the wayside somewhere in
the eighteenth century.
The basic fault lies in the character
Of the people themselves. Granted
that they have been cut off from cul-
t,lral influences, that they have lacked
schools and churches, and that there
have been few sources of revenue: still
poverty and illiteracy need not be ac-
companied by such living conditions
No degree of poverty could excuse the
utter inadequacy of the living quarters
for such large families with ten or
twelve in a single room barely large
enough to contain stove and bed.
&
are covered with logs. The rankest
amateurs, cast away on forested
island, could provide themselves better
homes In a few days. And these noun
tain people certainly are not pressed
for time. Poverty hardly explains why
there are communities without hogs
or chickens, which might forage for
themselves in the hollows, for there GER
tainly is no density of population which
would make this Objectionable.
And the ignorance seems often to
extend far below the level OF illiteracy.
There are thousands the world over TO
whom the printed page Is a blank. but
who read with uncanny skill the pages
of nature with its letters of sight. sound
and odor. But the beautiful, varied and
exceedingly interesting nature OF the
mountainsfde, with its oceans OF cloud
washing the crags, has not been
school to these primitives. The senses
of the children, according to those who
have tried to teach them, are dull be-
cause the sense areas of the brain have
not been developed due to lack OF
stimuli. It hardly is lack of innate in
.telligence, because both children and
adults develop rapidly with instruction.
And there is a striking contrast be-
tween those families which have held
their heads up and which still fight the
degenerating effects of the environ
ment and those which have relapsed
into aimless drifting with forgotten
yesterdays and with no thought of to-
morrows. Before there car DO much
real improvement the people must b.
rescued from this drift-this vicious
circle of malnutrition with loss of
energy. generating in turn more mall
nutrition and more loss of energy. So
cisl workers are agreed that the pri-
mary problem is one Of medical treat
Inent and sanitation which must be
established as a basis for education.
1t certainly is not a problem which
can be solved by undirected charity.
This only would ruin what little in
itiative still remains to these people.
Any relief must come from scientific
ally directed program which uncovers
and remedies fundamental causes.
Meantime the mountain hollows are
interesting laboratories Of sociology,
psychology and ethnology.
The sociologist can find little COM
munities where the social structure has
broken down almost entirely. The
ethnologist can find splendid material
for the study of the progress effects of
heredity and environment on the hui
man mind and character. And the
ethnologist will find people still pre-
serving remnants of the English of