Biennial report, Public Schools of North Carolina

              BIENMAL REPORT
OF THE
SUPERINTENDENT OP PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
OF
NORTH CAROLINA
FOR THE
SCHOLASTIC YEARS 1914-1915 AND 1915-1916
RALEIGH
Edwards & Broikjhton Printing Compamv
State Printers
1917
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
J. Y. JoYXEii Superintendent of Public Instruction
W. H. PiTTMAN Chief Clerk
A. S. Brower .Statistical Secretary, Clerk of Loan Fund
E. E. Sams Supervisor of Teacher Training
N. W. Walker State Inspector of High Schools
L. C. Brodgen State Agent Rural Schools
N. C. Newbold State Agent Rural Schools
T. E. Browxe Agent Agricultural Extension
Miss Annie Travis Stenographer
W. C. Crosby Secretary Community Service Bureau
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
Locke Craig Governor, President
J. Y. JoYNER Superintendent Public Instruction, Secretary
E. L. Datjghtridge Lieutenant Governor
J. Bryan Grimes Secretary of State
B. R. Lacy State Treasurer
W. P. Wood State Auditor
T. W. BiCKETT Attorney General
STATE BOABD OF EXAMINERS
J. Y. Joyner Chairman ex officio
W. H. PiTTMAN Secretary, Raleigh
H. E. Austin Greenville
N. W. Walker '. Chapel Hill
J. H. HiGHSMiTH Wake Forest
L. N. HicKERSON Wentworth
B)
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
State of North Carolina,
Department of Public Instructiox.
Raleigh. December 10, 1916.
To His Excellency. Locke Craig,
Governor- of North Carolina.
Dear Sir:—According to section 4090 of The Revisal of 1905 I have the
honor to transmit my Biennial Report for the scholastic years 1914-15 and
1915-1916. Very truly yours,
J. Y. Joyxer,
Superintendent of Puhlic Instruction.
53G.il
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
Summary in Brief Outline of Two Years' Progress in Education.
Recommendations.
Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
Statistical Summary of Two Years' Progress.
Statistics for 1914-15.
Statistics for 1915-16.
PART II
PART III
Report of State Inspector of Public High Schools, 1914-15.
Report of State Inspector of Public High Schools, 1915-16.
Report of Supervisor of Teacher-training.
Report of State Ageni Rural Schools.
Report of State Agent Rural Schools.
Report of Colored Normal Schools, 1912-13 and 1913-14.
Report of Cherokee Normal School.
Circular Letters of State Superintendent.
PART I
SUMMARY AND BRIEF OUTLINE OF TWO YEARS FROfiRESS
IN EDUCATION.
REC0M3IENDAT10NS.
WORK TO BE DONE AND HOW TO DO IT.
STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF TWO YEARS PROGRESS.
SUMMARY AND BRIEF OUTLINE OF TWO YEARS PROGRESS
IN EDUCATION
The following summary and brief outline of the progress in education for
the biennial period beginning July 1, 1914, and ending June 30, 1916, is based
on the official reports on file in the office of the Superintendent of Public In-struction
and can be verified in detail by the published statistical reports of
this biennial period.
Increase in School Funds:—The total available school fund for the year
ending June 30, 1916, was $7,272,887.70. This is an increase of $1,153,284.98
over the total available school fund for 1914. Of this total available school
fund for 1916, $3,377,039.13 was raised by State and county taxation and ap-propriation,
and $1,640,985.^0 was raised by local taxation in syecial-tax dis-tricts
of which $937,385.29 was raised in urban districts and $703,600.51 was
raised in rural districts. This is an increase in 1916 over 1914 of $159,018.03
in the amount raised by local taxation in rural districts and $114,019.12
raised by local taxation in urban districts.
Of the total available school fund for 1916, $4,573,931.62 was the rural
school fund and $2,698,956.08 the urban school fund. In percentage there
has been an increase of 29 per cent in the funds raised by local taxation in
the rural districts, and 14 per cent in the funds raised by local taxation in
the urban districts, and 18 per cent in the annual available fund raised by
general State and county taxation and appropriation in 1916 over 1914.
Excluding bonds, loans, State appropriations, and the balance from the
previous year, the whole amount raised by county and local district taxation
for public schools during 1916 was $4,191,472.76, an increase of $184,693.25
over 1914. These figures show that during 1916 $8.80 was raised for each
child of school age enumerated in our State school census, $6.90 for each
child outside the cities and towns and $16.49 within the cities and towns.
This was a per capita increase in 1916 over 1914 of 93 cents for each child,
an increase of 51 cents for each county child of school age and $2.46 for
each city child of school age.
These comparisons are made between the last year of this biennial period,
1916, and the last year of the preceding biennial period, 1914, so as to indi-cate
the progress of the period. The figures for the year 1915 and the rela-tive
progress in 1916 over 1915 can be easily ascertained from the published
statistical reports found elsewhere in this report.
For What Money Was Spent.—^^'ith this increase in available funds for
educational purposes, there has been during the year a corresponding in-crease
in those things that can be provided only by increased funds. There
has been an increase of $1,104,350.16 in the value of rural school property
and 1,306,828.34 in fhe value of urban school property, making a total increase
of $2,411,178.50 in the value of the public school property of the State.
There has been spent during the period $2,155,984.27 in building, improving,
and equipping public schoolhouses. Eight hundred and forty-five new rural
schoolhouses have been built at an average cost of $1,109.95. There has been
an increase of 822 in the number of rural schoolhouses equipped with patent
8 Two Years Educational Progress
desks, and $154,045.96 has been expended during the biennial period for furni-ture
for rural schoolhouses and $86,202.96 for furniture for urban schools.
Two and eight-tenths days have been added to the average annual school
term of the white schools of the State, and the average annual school term of
the colored schools of the State has remained the same; 2.2 dajs to the
white rural school term; 4.5 days to the white urban school term. There has
been an increase of 1,007 in the number of white teachers employed, and
269 in the number of colored teachers employed. There has been an increase
in the average annual salary of white teachers of $25.26 and $2.23 in the
average annual salary of colored teachers. The average annual salary of
rural school teachers has been increased $18.45 or 21 per cent. There has
been a necessary increase in the expense of collecting, administering, and
expending a larger fund, and an increase in the current expenses for longer
terms with more schoolrooms and teachers.
The total expenditures for all schools during 1916 was $6,561,646.84, which
represents an increase of $994,653.95 over 1914, an increase of $655,473.55 in
the expenditures of rural schools, and $339,180.40 in the expenditures for city
schools. Of this increase, rural teachers and superintendents received $433,-
920.78 and urban teachers and superintendents received $192,504.22. There
was a decrease in the expenditures for administration in the rural schools,
which includes expenses of county board, treasurers' commissions, school
committeemen, attendance officers, teachers" institutes, postage, stationery,
etc., of $6,271.88, and an increase in the urban schools of $4,629.40. The in-crease
in the expenditures for repaying borrowed money, i. e., money bor-rowed
temporarily for paying teachers' salaries between the time of the
opening of school and the collection of taxes for money repaid State Loan
Fund, payments on bonds, and errors and overcharges in taxes, was $323,-
861.21 for the rural schools and $237,092.65 in the urban schools. The ex-penditures
for public high schools showed a reasonable increase. In this
report the expenditures for rural high schools have been included with the
other rural school expenditures, and will not be found listed separately as
heretofore. The detailed report of the high school expenditures will be
found in the report of the State Inspector of Public High Schools, found
elsewhere in this report.
There was a slight increase in the amount spent for buildings and furni-ture.
Taking collectively the gain in the expenditures under each head, there
was a net increase in the expenditures for the State for public schools of
$994,653.95 in 1916 over 1914. This shows a gain in the expenditures for
schools of 17 per cent in 1916 over 1914.
Increase in Value of School Property.—^In 1916 the total valtie of school
property of the State was $11,489,881.77. Of this amount, the value of rural
school property was $6,135,060.18 and the value of city school property was
$5,354,821.59. This is an increase in 1916 over 1914 of $2,411,178.50 in the
total value of all school property, of which $1,104,350.16 is the increase in
the value of rural school property and $1,306,828.34 the increase in the value
of city school property. The value of white school property in 1916 was
$10,205,859.77, of which $5,467,795.61 was rural and $4,738,064.16 was urban.
The percentage of increase in the value of school property during the biennial
period was 26 per cent, 22 per cent rural, 32 per cent urban.
In 1916 there were 8,088 schoolhouses in the State—7,743 rural and 345
urban, 5,449 rural white and 2,294 rural colored, 225 urban white and 120
Two Ykaks Ei)rt'ATioKAL Fk()<;kkss 9
urban colored. The average value of each rural white schoolhouse was
$1,003.45, the average value of each urban white schoolhouse was $21,058.06;
the average value of each rural colored schoolhouse was $290.90, the average
value of each urban colored schoolhouse was $5,137.98. There has been an
increase of $151.90 in the average value of each rural white schoolhouse, and
$43.42 in the average value of each rural colored schoolhouse in 1916 over
1914. During the biennial period $943,421.55 was spent for white rural school
buildings and sites, and $729,067.03 was spent for white urban school build-ings
and sites, and $83,235.29 was spent for colored rural school buildings,
and $125,437.13 was spent for urban colored school buildings. Taken collec-tively,
this means that $1,026,456.84 was spent for rural school buildings and
sites, and $854,504.16 was spent for urban school buildings and sites.
Isfeio Rural Schoollwitses Built.—As will appear from the table found else-where
in this report 845 new rural schoolhouses have been built during the
biennial period, 639 white and 206 colored, valued at $937,904.23. This
means an average of one rural schoolhouse built for every day in the year,
and including the city schoolhouses built, the average runs considerably over
one per day. This pace of building at least one new schoolhouse for every
day in the year according to approved plans of modern school architecture
prepared by competent architects under the supervision of the State Depart-ment
of Education and distributed from the office of the State Superintendent
of Public Instruction, has been maintained for the past fourteen years—
a
total of 5,624 new rural schoolhouses having been built during this time
—
in 5,114 days. This also means that two-thirds of all the schoolhouses in the
State have been built or rebuilt within the last fourteen years.
Improvement in Scliool Furniture and Equipment.—During the biennial
period $240,248.92 has been spent for school furniture and necessary equip-ment.
In 1916 there w-ere 4,268 rural schoolhouses equipped with modern
school furniture—3,711 white and 557 colored—an increase of 662 white and
160 colored over 1914; 2,6.26 rural schoolhouses were equipped with home-made
desks—1,436 white and 1,190 colored.
Increase in Local-Tax Districts and Funds Raised by Local Taxation.—
During the period 205 local-tax districts have been established by voluntary
vote of the people in rural communities and small towns, an average of more
than two districts per week for each week in the two school years. This
made a total of 1,834 districts in the State at the end of the school year. In
1916 $1,640,985.80, or more than 22 per cent of the entire school fund of
this State, was raised by local taxation, $703,600.51 in rural districts and
$937,385.29 in urban districts. All the counties of the State now have from
one to 67 local-tax districts each, levying special taxes therein to supplement
their apportionment from the State and county funds for longer terms, better
schoolhouses and equipment, better teachers paid better salaries, and for
better schools.
Increase in Attendance and Lengtliening of School Term.—The increase in
the school census in 1916 over 1914 was 48,037—35,600 white and 12,437
colored. The increase in the school enrollment was 49,599—39,709 white and
9,890 colored. The increase in the average daily attendance, 37.727—30.083
white and 7,644 colored. These figures indicate a most remarkalile increase
in the enrollment and attendance when it is remembered that the compulsory
attendance law went into effect in 1914, and there was at that time an in-
lU Two Years Educational Progress
crease in thq attendance of 75,919. This means that in four years the num-ber
of children attending the public schools of the State has been increased
by 113,646, or more than 30 per cent.
In 191C the average length of school term in the white rural schools was
117.6 days, in the city white schools 170.5 days, in all white schools of the
State 127 days, in the rural colored schools 104 days, in the city colored
schools 166 days. This is an increase in 1916 over 1914 in the average term
of rural white schools of 2.2 days. The average increase in the term of all
rural schools was 2 days. The increase in 1916 over 1914 in the average
term of urban white schools was 4.5 days.
As stated above, there has been an increase of 1,276 in the number of
teachers employed, white and colored.
Improvement in Teachers' Institutes and Other Facilities for Teacher-training.—
Under amendments to the school law by the General Assembly of
1909 a two-weeks' teachers' Institute was made mandatory in every county
biennially. Teachers' institutes were held in twenty-nine counties in 1915
and in sixty-two counties in 1916. Institutes were arranged for in Ashe and
Wilkes but could not be held on account of flood conditions. The number of
institutes conducted in 1916 was smaller than in 1914 because the General
Assembly of 1915 amended the law so as to equalize the number of counties
having institutes in 1916 and 1917. This change took eighteen counties from
the 1916 group and put them in the 1917 list. Special arrangements were made
in Durham, Craven, Guilford, Jackson, McDowell, Orange, Pitt, and Watauga
for the training of the teachers in summer schools or otherwise to take the
place of institute work. With the aid of the Supervisor of Teacher-training,
also made possible by an amendment to the law in 1909, the work of the
county teachers' institutes and the county teachers' associations has been
organized and systematized, and through teachers' reading circles, a valuable
course for home study and home training for the professional improvement
of the rank and file of the teachers is being successfully conducted. Teach-ers'
associations, holding monthly meetings, are in successful operation in
more than ninety counties. Most of these associations have also organized
teachers' reading circles for pursuing the prescribed course of professional
reading.
A trained man and a trained woman have been appointed to conduct each
of these county teachers' institutes. All institute workers have been required
to attend a conference of three or four days with the State Superintendent
of Public Instruction and the Supervisor of Teacher-training, for the discus-sion
of their work and the arrangement of uniform and definite plans of
work before beginning the institutes, and have been furnished with bulletins
containing definite outlines and approved suggestions for the work of the
institutes. Under this plan there has been marked progress in the organiza-tion
and the direction of this institute work. It has been uniform, practical,
and progressive, with more teaching and demonstration and less lecturing,
with more emphasis on the essential subjects and less on the frills.
The reports received from these institutes have been the most encouraging
ever received by the State Superintendent. They have been more largely
attended and the teachers have been more interested and benefited than
ever before. A fuller report of this institute and teacher-training work, by
the Supervisor of Teacher-training, is printed elsewhere in this report. An
attempt has been made, with encouraging success, to correlate and coordinate
Two Years Educational Pkogress 11
the work of these agencies for home study and professional improvement of
teachers—the teachers' institute, the county teachers' association and reading
circles, to plan the work so as to make it more progressive and continuous
.from year to year. North Carolina Education, our official State teachers'
journal, is heartily cooperating and rendering valuable assistance in carrying
on this work.
Improvement in County SuperviHion.—There has been an increase in the
number of county superintendents giving their entire time to the work of
supervision and an increase in the time devoted to their work by nearly all
the superintendents. Seventj'-five county superintendents now devote their
entire time to the work. The county superintendents are thoroughly organ-ized
into State and district associations, holding annual meetings for the
discussion with each other and with the State Superintendent of their com-mon
problems, for an exchange of views and experiences, for mutual counsel
and advice and for forming plans for carrying on more uniformly and suc-cessfully
the great work of educating all the people in the schools for all the
people. It has seemed to me that during this biennial period the county
superintendents have shown an unusual improvement in the efficient and
intelligent discharge of their duties and that on the whole they have mani-fested
a fine spirit of loyalty and devotion to their work. Much progress
has been made in the organization, training, and directing of their teaching
force and in systematization, classification and gradation of the work in
the rural schools.
As will appear elsewhere from the reports of Mr. Brogden and Mr. New-bold,
the State Agents for Rural Schools, there has been during the year
marked progress in a number of counties in closer and more efficient super-vision
of rural schools. At least 18 counties employed during the year com-petent,
trained women to assTst in the supervision of their rural schools.
Progress in Rural Public High Schools.—During the biennial period seven
new public high schools have been established, making a total of 212 stich
schools in ninety-six counties of the State. There are, therefore, only four
counties that do not have one or more of these schools. The annual State
appropriation for their maintenance is $75,000, and has not been increased
since 1911. During the biennial period $503,505.32 has been expended for the
maintenance of these schools. The total enrollment of country boys and girls
in them was 8,986 in 1915 and 10,379 in 1916, a total of 19,365 for the biennial
period—9,406 boys and 9,959 girls. This is an increase of 3,103, or 19 per
cent., in the total enrollment in 1916 over that of 1914. There has been an
average daily attendance of 6,773 in 1915 and 7,873 in 1916. The percentage
of the enrollment in average daily attendance for the past two years was 75
per cent.
In connection with some of these high schools dormitories have been built
and equipped, in which high school students may secure board at the actual
cost and pay for it in money or in provisions at the market price.
These figures show an encouraging increase in enrollment and attendance
upon these public high schools, indicating a commendable growth in public
sentiment among the rural population for high school education, for the ele-vation
of the average of intelligence, and for better preparation for citizen-ship
and service. A fuller report of these public high schools, prepared by
the State Inspector of Public High Schools, is printed in another section of
this report.
12 Two Years Educational Progress
Increase in Rural Libraries.—During the biennial period 493 new libraries
have been established costing approximately $14,790.00, containing an aver-age
of about eighty-six volumes each of well selected books which are lent
to the pupils of rural communities for their use; 248 new supplemental
libraries have beeii added to the libraries formerly established, costing
$3,720.00, and adding about thirty-five books to each of these original libra-ries.
The total number of rural libraries in the State at the close of the
biennial period was 4,102, the total number of supplemental libraries 1,773.
Almost one-half of all the school districts in the State, white and colored,
are now provided with rural libraries.
Loan Fund for Bidlding SchooUwuscs.—During the biennial period the total
amount of new loans made from the State Loan Fund for Building and Im-proving
Public Schoolhouses was $208,985, an increase of $1,538 over the
preceding biennial period, to seventy-four counties for building and improv-ing
houses valued at $781,796. The total amount of loans made from this
fund since its establishment in 1903 aggregates $1,105,008.50 to ninety-eight
counties for building and improving 1,772 houses valued at $3,193,296. This
means that nearly one-fourth of all the schoolhouses in the State have been
built with the aid of this fund. The total amount of outstanding loans unpaid
November 30, 1916, was $524,963.80.
This fund continues to be of incalculable service in building and improv-ing
public schoolhouses; the loans from it often make possible at once much
needed new houses where they would not otherwise be possible without clos-ing
the schools and using the entire apportionment for one or more years
for building. A timely loan from this fund also often means to a district
the difference between a pooi* cheap house and a good properly constructed
one. By the method of extending the payments over a period of ten years
and charging such a small rate of interest a district can take care of the
repayment of a loan from this fund without seriously hampering the effi-ciency
of the school, or materially shortening the school term. Loans from
this fund are made only for houses constructed in accordance with plans
approved by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the plans
for any house not constructed in accordance with one of the plans issued by
the State Department must be submitted to the State Superintendent for his
approval before the application will be filed or the loan made. A fuller and
more detailed report of the loan fund will be found elsewhere in this report.
Boys' and Girls' Club Work, An Increased Interest in Agricultural Educa-tion.—
With the aid of Mr. T. E. Browne, agent for Agricultural Extension
"Work, his corps of able assistants, Mrs. Jane McKimmon, agent in charge of
Girls' Demonstration Work, and with the active cooperation of the county
superintendents and teachers, boys' corn clubs, pig clubs, poultry clubs, baby
beef clubs, and girls' tomato clubs have been organized in many communities
in the State. The growth of this work has been most remarkable, and it is
doubtless doing much toward giving the country boy and girl real practical
instruction in agriculture and home economics. A report of the work of these
clubs will be found elsewhere in this report.
Farm-Life ScJwols and Rural Uplift Movement.—Since the amendment to
the farm-life school law, allowing any county that will provide the required
equipment and an annual maintenance fund equal to the amount received
from the State to avail itself of the State appropriation not to exceed a maxi-mum
of $2,500 for instruction in agriculture, sewing, cooking, household
Two Years Educational Progress 13
economics and other farm-life subjects in connection with one or more of its
rural high schools, nine new farm-life schools have been established during
the biennial period, making a total of twenty-one such schools in seventeen
counties of the State. No part of the annual maintenance fund for these
schools or of the funds for their necessary equipment is allowed to be taken
out of the regular school funds and to shorten the regular public school term
until those funds are sufficient to provide a minimum of six months. The
significant and hopeful fact about their establishment through the cooperation
and sacrifice of the people of the communities in which they are located is the
evidence that it furnishes of intense interest in the education of country boys
and girls for country life, and of the faith of the country people in a sort of
education and school that can and will provide better preparation for more
profitable, more comfortable, more healthful, more joyous and more contented
living in the country.
The farmers, individually and through their various organizations, have
lined up enthusiastically behind this movement. All the rural uplift forces of
the State and county, educational, agricultural, public health, have actively
cooperated in the movement.
These schools are in successful operation now, and their results more than
justify the wisdom and the expense of their establishment and maintenance.
In cooperation with the A. and M. College, arrangements have been completed
for supervision and aid in the direction of the vocational and extension work
of these schools by trained specialists in these subjects who are connected
with the State Department of Public Instruction also as supervisor of these
schools and of this sort of work in other public schools, devoting such time
to that work as may be necessary.
As will be seen from the reports of Mr. Brogden and Mr. Newbold, found
elsewhere in this report, a number of consolidated rural schools with three or
more teachers are also doing some excellent work in instruction and practical
training in farm-life subjects without State aid under the direction of the
county superintendents and. the rural school supervisors.
I regard the establishment of these schools and the remarkable increase in
the number of them through the efforts and demands of the country people
themselves as perhaps the most significant, practical, and far-reaching single
forward step of this decade. In my opinion, it marks the beginning of a
new era in rural education and in the adaptation of the work of the rural
schools to the life and needs of the country people that is destined to result
in increased efficiency of the rural population and in a redirection and a
reorganization of rural life and a revolution of rural conditions within one
or two generations.
Community Service Work.—One of the most hopeful, successful, and stimu-lating
movements for rural uplift was the inauguration and observance of
Community Service Week in 1914. So gratifying was the result that the
idea was extended in 1915 to include a month, which was devote:l entirely to
the elimination of adult illiteracy and was known as Moonlight School Mouth.
Again success was marked. But the feeling grew that community service
should mean not a spasmodic, or periodic, but a continuous and permanent
effort. The final culmination of this feeling was the formation, in 1916, of
the State Bureau of Community Service, supported and directed cooperatively
by the State Department of Public Instruction, State Board of Health, State
Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural and Mechanical College, State
14 Two Years Educational, Progress
Experiment Station, State Normal and Industrial College, and State Farmers'
Union. Through this bureau community service has been made a permanent
part of our work by means of the organization and registration of local com-munity
service leagues under the following plan of organization and work:
1. The area covered by a Community Service League should consist of one
school district of at least sixty white families.
2. Before a community is organized under this plan, it shall be visited by
a representative of the State Bureau of Community Service and a report made
indicating that conditions favor the success of the organization.
3. Each local league shall adopt its own method of electing officers and
new members.
4. The officers shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary-treasurer,
and an executive committee consisting of the president and the secretary
of the league, and the chairman of each of the five permanent committees
named below.
5. The president and secretary of each local league shall keep in touch
with and report to the State Bureau of Community Service, Raleigh, and
circulars and literature from the bureau shall be sent to them.
6. The five permanent committees of the local league, and their duties,
shall be as follows:
I. Committee on Education. Objects:
(1) Increasing efficiency of community school in teaching, studies, at-tendance,
etc.
(2) Improving school grounds, buildings, equipment, and library.
(3) Cooperative extension work: corn, pig, poultry, cooking, sewing,
and canning clubs, traveling libraries; increasing book and
newspaper reading among the people; teaching adult illiterates;
making school community center, etc.
II. Committee on Farm Progress. Objects:
(1) Better farm methods, aiming especially at richer lands and crop
diversification so as to make a self-feeding community, with
"money crops" as surplus crops.
(2) Increasing interest in live stock, dairying, poultry-raising, canning,
and home industries.
(3) Getting better tools and machinery and better breeding sires, with
cooperation to effect this result.
III. Committee on Cooperative Marketing. Objects:
(1) To secure standardization of sales products, scientific grading,
warehousing, and pooling.
(2) To promote economical buying on cash basis, and encourage thrift,
credit unions, cooperative associations, etc., as aids to this end.
(3) To encourage good roads as aids to economical marketing.
IV. Committee on Healtu. Objects:
(1) To study local health conditions and promote community and
home sanitation.
(2) To teach individuals, adults and children, methods of disease pre-vention.
(3) To combat agencies of fraud and superstition in treatment of
disease.
Two Years Educational Progress 15
V. Committee on Okganizatioxs and Social Life. Oiwixts:
(1) To promote and assist the local farmers' organization, farm
women's club, young people's debating society, and community
fair.
(2) To encourage lectures, debates, musicals, entertainments, local
plays, picnics, celebrations, etc., and to make community surveys
and maps.
(3) To promote wholesome sports and recreation, outdoor and indoor
games, and a community playground, and to cooperate with the
committee on education in making the school the social and
intellectual center of the community.
7. The executive committee of the local league, in consultation with the
State Bureau of Community Service, will determine upon the specific and
strategic lines of progress it is desirable to stress each year, selecting from
the general and permanent aims of each committee some particular and
urgent problem on which attention should be centered.
8. An official registration card shall be furnished free to each local league
(one each for officers and chairmen of committees and one for filing in State
Bureau). The registration card shall set out name of community, county,
regular meeting place, names and addresses of all officers and chairmen and
secretaries of committees, and the definite line of work each committee is to
carry on for a given period, as agreed on under section 7.
9. All the services of the State Bureau of Community Service, including
lectures, lantern slides, literature, etc., shall be rendered free to communities
registered under this plan.
10. The executive committee of each league so organized and registered
shall sign the following agreement:
We, the executive committee of Community Service
League, in consideration of the aid offered by the State Bureau of Community
Service in working out our community problems, hereby join the officials of
said bureau in agreement to all of the articles of organization above set out.
The object of a Community Service League is to organize permanently the
combined strength of a community. The purpose of such leagues is for each
community to find ways to increase the happiness of country life; to improve
the educational, social and moral conditions of the community; to conserve
the health of the community dwellers; to lighten their labors by the intro-duction
of home conveniences and farm inachines; to add economically to the
productivity of their farms; to encourage community thrift and saving, and
in general to promote community welfare by united effort.
Poor schools and churches, pathetic loneliness, poverty of soil and soul,
tenantry, isolation, bad roads, bad health, joyless drudgery in home and
field—these are a few of the rural ills to be combatted by the organization
of community service leagues.
During 1916, 33 communities were organized and registered through this
bureau. Annual reports already in hand from 20 of these leagues show that,
although the first was not organized until March, and the last in November,
an aggregate of 152 meetings were held with an average attendance at each
of 47.
16 Two Years Educational Progress
In addition to the regular work of organizing and registering community
service leagues and directing their activities, two great county-wide com-munity
service schools were held, one in Union County and the other in Samp-son,
where all the community service leagues of a county gathered in a great
five-day school, and where the grown-ups were taught along the line of their
everyday problems and the youngsters were given special instruction by
experts.
Practical Instruction in Pul)lic Health and Hygiene.—With the valuable
assistance and cooperation of the State Board of Health and its efficient and
energetic secretary and assistant secretaries, much valuable work has been
done in the public schools in increasing interest and giving instruction in
public health and hygiene. Bulletins, dealing in a concise, simple, and prac-tical
way with the simple hygienic laws affecting the everyday life of the
child and the people, have been prepared under the direction of the Secretary
of the State Board of Health, and printed and distributed to teachers of the
State by the State Department of Public Instruction. A list of these bulletins
will be found under Educational Literature.
Directions have been given to the teachers, through the county superin-tendents,
to make use of these bulletins for the systematic instruction of
the children of their schools in public health and hygiene, and to give to
the entire school at least three brief health talks a week, the information
for which, progressively and logically arranged, has been furnished them in
the Health Talks Bulletins. Another one of these bulletins, enlarging some-what
on the first ideas, is now in the course of preparation.
This health and hygiene work is a long step forward toward the improve-ment
of sanitary conditions and public health in the rural districts. County
superintendents and public school teachers have responded intelligently and
enthusiastically to the call for it. Emphasis was laid upon this work in the
county teachers' institutes, and special attention is being given to it in the
county teachers' associations.
By addresses and talks to the teachers and to the general public, the secre-tary
and assistant secretary to the State Board of Health and the physicians
of the State generally are aiding greatly in this campaign for the instruction
of the children and the people of the State in public health and hygiene and
in the cultivation of public sentiment therefor. It is impossible to calculate
how much can be done, through simple instruction, line upon line, precept
upon precept, for the rising generation in the public schools for the preven-tion
and eradication of typhoid fever, tuberculosis, hookworm disease, scarlet
fever, smallpox, diphtheria, and other preventable diseases that constitute
the chief scourges of our population. The sentiment is rapidly growing and
the demand rapidly increasing that such instruction shall be made an essen-tial
and organic part of our educational work.
Whole-time health officers have been employed in a number of counties,
and with their cooperation and the cooperation of the State Board of Health
an excellent beginning has been made in several counties in medical inspec-tion
of school children.
Camimign for Education.~The campaign for education, by bulletins,
through the press, and by public addresses, has been carried on without cessa-tion.
The State Superintendent has used all the time that he could spare
from his work in the office for field work and educational campaign work.
Two Years Educational Pkogkess 17
In this work he has also been assisted bj^ the State Agents for Rural Schools
and the State Inspector of Public High Schools and other members of his
staff.
In many counties, of course, enthusiastic and consecrated county superin-tendents
have carried on almost continuously effective campaigns for public
education and school improvement, by personal work, public addresses, circu-lar
letters, newspaper articles, etc. In this work many of them have been
assisted by consecrated teachers and public spirited citizens of all classes and
vocations. After all, the most effective part of this campaign is that carried
on from year's end to year's end, without blare of trumpets, in the county,
under the direction of an efficient county superintendent of common sense and
consecration.
Wo7na?i's Association for the Betterment of Public Schoolhoitses and
Grounds.—Through the unselfish work of the patriotic women of the State,
county and local associations, thousands of dollars have been raised for the
improvement of schoolhouses and grounds, and much valuable voluntary
service that cannot be measured in dollars and cents has been rendered in
making the schoolrooms and school grounds more beautiful and attractive,
and in cultivating public sentiment and public interest for the betterment
of the public schools. Many county superintendents, public school teachers,
county boards of education, and school committeemen have given their hearty
cooperation to the women in this work.
County Commencements.—Another significant and distinctive forward step
in the educational progress of the period has been the increased number of
county commencements held and the Increased Interest and improvement
in these events. Successful county commencements have been held in most
counties in which thousands of school children participated in parades, con-tests,
school exhibits, school fairs and other events and hundreds of children
received certificates after examination for the completion of the work of the
seven elementary grades.
These commencements have come to be, perhaps, the most effective educa-tional
rallies and the most popular public gatherings in the counties in which
they have been held. They have proved one of the most effective agencies
for the stimulation of county pride, school spirit, community emulation, for
the cultivation of public sentiment for public education, and for the encour-agement
of children to remain in the public schools for the completion of
the elementary grades and to enter the rural high schools and the farm-life
schools. A bulletin on the county commencements, containing accounts of
some of them, typical programs and valuable suggestions for their organiza-tion
and successful conduction, has been issued from the State Department of
Public Instruction, and a copy of the same can be obtained from any county
superintendent.
MOONLIGHT SCHOOLS FOR TEACHING AMLTS TO KEA1> AND AVRITE
In response to the appeal of the State Superintendent, about five thousand
public school teachers volunteered their services, without additional com-pensation,
to teach night schools to instruct adults that could not read and
write. The North Carolina press actively and generously joined in the cam-paign
for the elimination of illiteracy, the State Council of the Junior Order
of United American Mechanics appropriated fifteen hundred dollars to aid the
work, and its State Councilor, Col. Paul Jones, unselfishly devoted much time
Part 1—2
18 Two Years Educational Progress
and effort to assisting in the work. The State Federation of Women's Clubs,
local women's clubs, and other organizations in all parts of the State re-sponded
to the call and rendered most valuable assistance.
To ascertain the results of these schools in the reduction of adult illiteracy,
a careful survey in two typical counties, Pasquotank in the East and Caldwell
in the West, was conducted for the Department of Public Instruction by Mr.
W. C. Crosby, Secretary of the Bureau of Community Service, in cooperation
with the county superintendents of those counties.
The report of those surveys reveal the remarkable facts that in those
counties white illiteracy has been reduced fifty per cent—one-half—since the
census of 1910; that practically all illiterates under eighteen years of age
in 1910 have since been taught to read and write in the public schools; that
practically every one of the illiterates remaining at the time of the survey
were past thirty years of age. These facts justify the belief that, with a
proper enforcement of the compulsory attendance law, illiteracy in the present
and in future generations can be prevented and that, with a well organized
and properly directed system of night schools, practically all adult illiterates
can be reached and taught to read and write in a few years.
I did not feel that it would be right to call upon the poorly paid, hard-worked
public school teachers of the State to continue to give their services,
without compensation, to this work of teacning night schools for adults, nor
did I believe that this work could be efficiently and permanently conducted
under a volunteer plan, therefore I have earnestly recommended for its con-tinuation
an appropriation by the State to be duplicated by the county and
the community. With the aid of such an appropriation I confidently believe
that adult illiteracy can be practically wiped out within the next few years.
Below is given a brief report of the surveys in Pasquotank and CaldAvell
counties:
A list of the white illiterates ten years of age and over, by name, age, and
voting precinct, as found by the Federal census takers in 1910 in each of
these counties, was secured from the United States Census Bureau. With
this list in hand, a representative of the Bureau of Community Service
visited each county and, with the aid of the local school officials, made can-vasses
and secured definite and, it is believed, accurate information concern-ing
each illiterate.
In this manner the following significant facts were obtained:
Pasquotank County.—Nearly half, or 253, of the 569 illiterates reported
in 1910 can now read and write—have learned to read and write since 1910.
Thirty-six had moved away from the county, 68 could not be found at all,
51 are dead, and only 28 per cent, or 161, were definitely established as still
being illiterate.
Caldwell County (five townships and town of Lenoir).—Six hundred and
seventy-five of the 1,598 reported in 1910 can now read and write, 137 have
moved away, 138 could not be found, 105 are dead, and 30 per cent, or 543,
are still illiterate.
Granting that the reduction in illiteracy among those who moved away
and those who could not be found is approximately the same as among those
accounted for, and deducting from the number those who have died, we find
that 62 per cent in Pasquotank County and 55 per cent in Caldwell have
definitely passed from the illiteracy class. In Pasquotank County the per-centage
of the white population illiterate in 1910 was 7.5. According to the
Two Years Educational Progress 19
above it would now be less than 3 per cent, while Caldwell County, which in
1910 had 18.8 per cent of the white population illiterate, there now would
be only 8.5 per cent illiterate.
A most striking fact, and one that will be of especial interest to school
folk, is that, almost without exception, it was found in both counties that
those illiterates who were under 18 years of age in 1910 have since been
taught to read and write in the public schools. Further, practically every
one of the 704 illiterates remaining in the two counties was past thirty
years of age. And here lies the task of the Moonlight Schools. If these
people are to be reached at all, they must be reached either by these schools
or by personal workers.
The facts disclosed by this survey are especially interesting and valuable,
since they form a concrete basis upon which some idea of the present condi-tion
of illiteracy in the whole of North Carolina can be based.
Surveys are planned for two more counties—Lincoln and Catawba. The
lists have been secured and the results will be published as soon as the sur-veys
are completed.
Following will be found the tabulated results of the surveys in Pasquotank
and Caldwell counties:
Results in Pasquotank County by Townships.
Township
Elizabeth City (proper)
Elizabeth City
Providence
Mount Hermon
Newland
Nixonton
Salem
Totals
o
o
20 Two Years Educational Progress
Imiiortant Educational Legislation.—Yo\\o^\ms is a summary of the edu-cational
legislation enacted by the General Assembly of 1915:
State-wide Bond Act for School Buildings.—This act enables any county,
township, or school district which embraces an incorporated town or public
high school, to vote upon the question of issuing bonds for building school-houses.
The rate of interest shall not exceed 6 per cent, and the maximum
amount that may be voted by any county is $100,000, or by any district or
township f25,000. A sinking fund and interest are provided for by means of
a special tax, and the bonds cannot be sold for less than par.
Census.—Section 4148 was amended so as to place the taking of the census
in the hands of the school committee, and provides that they may employ
the teacher or some other competent person in each district to take the
census.
Compulsory Attendance.—The compulsory attendance law was amended so
as to require monthly reports of absences from teachers instead of weekly,
and also to require the teachers to ^notify the parents of absences of
children. Further provides for attendance officer requiring parents to report
on a certain day in each month to render excuse for unexcused absences of
children.
High Schools.—The public high school law was amended so as to require
an average daily attendance of 20 pupils to entitle the school to appropriation
from the State. The minimum apportionment possible from the State was
reduced to ?200 from $250, and the maximum possible apportionment was
raised to $600 from $500.
Educational Literature,—During the two years the following new educa-tional
literature has been prepared, published, and sent out from the office
of the Superintendent:
Program for North Carolina Day, 1915, 40 pages.
Program for North Carolina Day, 1916, 16 pages.
Handbook for High School Teachers, 1916, 30 pages.
Public School Law, complete edition, 136 pages.
Public School Law, short edition, 93 pages.
Directory of School Officials, 1915, 48 pages.
Directory of School Officials, 1916, 48 pages.
Teachers' Reading Circle, 1915, 12 pages.
Teachers' Reading Circle, 1916, 50 pages.
Seventh Annual Report of the Inspector of Public High Schools, 1914, 96
pages.
Eighth Annual Report of the Inspector of Public High Schools, 1915, 96
pages.
Proceedings and Addresses of the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly, 1915,
347 pages.
Proceedings and Addresses of the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly, 1916,
279 pages.
Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1914-1916,
485 pages.
Daily Schedule of Work for Teachers' Institutes, 1915, 36 pages.
Daily Schedule of Work for Teachers' Institutes, 1916, 48 pages.
Song Collection for Teachers' Institutes, 1915, 56 pages.
Song Collection for Teachers' Institutes, 1916, 56 pages.
Public School Register, 48 pages.
Two Yeaks Educatio^stal Progress 21
Arbor Day, 1915, 36 pages.
Arbor Day, 1916, 32 pages.
How to Teach Spelling, 1916, 16 pages.
Uniform Gradation and Certification of Teachers, 1916, 16 pages.
Adult Illiteracy in North Carolina, 1916, 32 pages.
Twelve Lessons for Moonlight Schools, 1916, 40 pages.
Corn Bulletin, 1916, 96 pages.
Rules and Regulations of State Board of Examiners, 8 pages.
Course of Study for Farm-Life Schools, 1916, 50 pages.
Approved List of Books for Rural Libraries, 1916, 45 pages.
Reports of the Colleges of North Carolina. 1916, 13 pages.
How to Teach Reading, 1916, 104 pages.
Various pamphlets containing extracts from school law and other matters
of interest.
In addition to these, a supply of the most valuable bulletins heretofore pub-lished
and reported has been kept on hand and will continue to be kept on
hand for distribution. Besides the foregoing, blanks covering every phase of
school organization and work have been sent out. These have aided all school
officials in keeping their records and making accurate reports of "the work
done. A new and improved system of accounting has been introduced
throughout the State to aid in keeping record of school funds. A new system
of statistical records of the county superintendents has been provided during
this biennial period. The efforts along this line have aided greatly in the
gradation of rural schools, which means a great saving of time to the children
who attend these schools by enabling them to do more consistent and con-secutive
work. A card index system for the statistical record of the schools
has also been devised and furnished the counties where desired.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF
PUBLICINSTRUCTION
In accordance with my duty under the law, I beg to submit the following
recommendations and statement of the reasons therefor:
I. The Establishiueiit of a State Board of Exaniiuers and Institute Conductors.
For the uniform certification, by examination and by accrediting without
examination, of all public school teachers, principals, and superintendents,
rural and urban, except second and third grade teachers, the examination
and certification of whom will be left iu the hands of the county superintend-ents,
by some equitable, definite, uniform plan for examination, gradation,
and accrediting. For the conduct, in cooperation with county superintend-ents,
of county teachers' institutes and the supervision and direction of other
work in the county for the professional improvement of the rank and file of
public school teachers.
The need of a better method of examining, accrediting, and certificating
teachers and superintendents in North Carolina is apparent from the follow-ing
explanation of the present method that has been in operation in this
State, almost without the crossing of a "t" or the dotting of an "i," since
1S81:
1. All teachers in the elefnentary rural public schools are required to be
examined and certificated by the county superintendent of the county in
which they teach: first grade teachers biennially, second and third grade
teachers annually. There is no provision for them to secure exemption from
this endless round of examinations on the same subjects. Their certificates
ai'e valid only in the county in which they are issued. The same teacher
may be legally required to be subjected to a new examination on the same
subjects in every other county to which he removes and desires to teach.
There is no legal provision for the renewal of certificates without further
examination, for the issuance of permanent or life certificates, or for allow-ing
credits towards certification without examination for work done in stand-ard
colleges, normal schools, or high schools, or for successful experience.
Previous preparation and successful experience count for nothing toward
certification. All must be subjected to the same examination on the same
subjects for all grades of certificates in the elementary rural schools.
2. All teachers in all city, town, and other public schools operated under
special acts of the General Assembly are exempt from examination or certifi-cation
of any sort by anybody.
3. Each county superintendent is authorized to prepare his own examina-tion
questions and grade his examination papers. With a hundred county
superintendents, some rigid, some lax, all differing temperamentally and
intellectually, it is possible to have a hundred different standards for the
same grade of certificate in North Carolina; it is impossible to establish any
uniform standard of qualification or certification for teaching or any State
standard that will command or deserve the respect of the public or of the
profession, or that will afford reasonable protection in either.
24 . Recommendations
4. Some rural high school teachers, only those in State-aided rural high
schools, are .required to be examined and certificated; others are not. No
high school teachers in city and town schools are required to be examined
or certificated.
5. Under the present law there are no required qualifications in scholar-ship,
professional training, or experience for superintendents of city and
town schools, and only the glittering generalities of a liberal education and
two years experience in teaching within the five years preceding their elec-tion
for county superintendents.
6. The tyro just entering the work of teaching, often as a stepping-stone
to something else or as a mere temporary means of making a little money
to do something else, is placed upon the same footing as the professional
teacher. Under such a system there can be no adequate protection to the
teaching profession or to the public against incompetents and charlatans;
without professional protection there is no adequate inducement to strong
men and women to enter it as a life work, and no guarantee to the public and
to the taxpayers against the waste of money and the sacrifice of the precious
time and the interests of their children by the employment of incompetent,
untrained, and inexperienced teachers on the same footing and practically
at the same salaries in unjust competition with competent, trained, and
experienced teachers. Every other profession in North Carolina has been
granted by the General Assembly the professional protection that it asked
for itself and for the public against incompetents and charlatans in the
profession.
From the above explanation of the present law regulating the examination
and certification of teachers in North Carolina, its injustice, its inconsistency,
its lack of uniformity, though Article IX, sec. 2, of the Constitution of North
Carolina explicitly directs the establishment of a uniform system of public
schools, its. inadequacy to meet the changed conditions in the State and to
conform to the progress in education along other lines, and to the demand
for a better guarantee for better trained teachers and better service for
largely increased expenditures for teaching, ought to be evident to every-body.
A law enacted thirty-six years ago, fairly well adapted, perhaps, to the
needs of that time, could hardly be expected by any reasonable man ac-quainted
with the changed conditions since that time to be adequate to the
needs of this time. It is out of date, a half-century behind progressive legis-lation
upon this subject in many other States and out of harmony with pro-gressive
educational thought everywhere upon this subject.
For these and other reasons, in the name of a long suffering profession,
and a long suffering public, I earnestly and confidently recommend to this
General Assembly the enactment of a law for the uniform certification of
teachers and superintendents, urban and rural, by examination, and without
examination, by a proper accrediting for previous preparation and successful
experience, by a competent representative State Board of Examiners in co-operation
and consultation with county and city superintendents. Forty-five
of the 48 States of the United States already have State examination and
certification of public school teachers.
After an investigation of the methods of examination and certification of
teachers in many other States, I beg to suggest the following outline of the
plan that I would recommend as best adapted to our needs at this time in
this State:
Recommkndations 25
(a) That the work of examinins;', accrediting, and certificating all super-intendents
and public school teachers, except second and third grade teach-ers,
and tlie work of conducting county institutes and of supervising and
directing other work in the counties for the professional improvement of the
rank and file of public school teachers, and for allowing them proper credits
for such work, be combined under one board to be known as "The State
Board of Examiners and Institute Conductors." That the work of this board
shall be conducted in cooperation and consultation with the county super-intendents.
(b) Tliat the Board shall consist of not less than six appointive members—
three men and three women—who shall devote their entire time to its work,
and who shall conduct in person—one man and one woman to each county
—
the two weeks biennial county institutes for teachers. These members of the
Board can devote to the county institute work thirty-two weeks each annu-ally,
thereby holding institutes in lialf of the counties of the State each year.
This will leave twenty w'eeks annually to be devoted by the members of the
Board to certification of teachers and to the other work of the Board. The
members of the Board in this Avay will be brought into close, sympathetic
touch with the county superintendent and with the rank and file of the public
school teachers of every county at least two weeks every two years. The
knowledge and sympathy thus acquired by them at first hand will fit them
better for planning wisely, sympathetically, and conservatively the work of
examination and certification, and for planning and successfully carrying
out a continuous, progressive, systematic course of work and study through
county teachers' institutes, teachers' associations, reading circles, etc., for
the professional improvement of these teachers. This w'ill largely remove
the serious objection and the possible danger of a Board of Examiners that
might become too unsympathetic, exacting, and theoretical because of a lack
of practical knowledge of the educational needs and conditions of the differ-ent
counties of the State by personal acquaintance with county superintend-ents
and teachers, and of an appreciation of the difficulties under which so
many of these in so many counties are compelled to labor. By providing a
whole-time stenographer and a whole-time secretary for this Board, and mak-ing
provision for tlie employment of competent help in the grading of exami-nation
papers when found absolutely necessary, such a board will, in my opin-ion,
be able to handle with ease all this certification, county institute, and
teacher training work, to correlate it all, and to have it all done much more
efficiently, expeditiously, and, in the long run, economically. The money re-quired
to be appropriated biennially by every county for institute work to in-stitute
workers working at it only a few weeks each summer and constantly
changing, could be used far more wisely for paying the salaries and expenses
of the members of the State Board of Examiners and Institute Conductors,
who could give their entire time and thought to the work, and would certainly
be able to render more valuable service. From $10,000 to $12,000 is now
annually spent for this desultory and, in many respects, unsatisfactory and
uncorrelated county institute work. About $1,000 is annually expended
for the work of the present State Board of Examiners for the certification
of high school teachers in 214 State rural high schools, and for the certifi-cation
of a comparatively small number of first grade elementary public
school teachers. Not more than $10,000 additional would be needed for the
2G Recommendations
salaries and the expenses of this combined Board of Examiners and Institute
Conductors. It is evident, without argument, that such a whole-time board
could do all of this work far more satisfactorily, systematically, and pro-fessionally,
with little additional cost to the State, and that the increased
efficiency of the work would far more than compensate for the small increase
in cost.
(c) That this Board shall be authorized to establish a uniform standard,
scholastic and professional, for the certification of all public school teachers,
superintendents and principals, rural and urban, by examination, or without
examination in accordance with a uniform plan of accrediting applicants
for satisfactory work in standard colleges, normal schools, and high schools.
(d) That the certificates issued by it upon examination or upon credits
and successful experience without examination shall not be valid until signed
by the county superintendent or the city superintendent for the county or
city in which the applicant resides, or by whom the examination is con-ducted,
who shall have authority to pass upon the personality, character,
and general qualifications, other than scholarship, of all such applicants for
the work of teaching, and to withhold for valid reasons his approval of such
certificate, with- the right of appeal by the applicant, however, to the county
board of education, or the city board of trustees, and from them to the State
Board of Examiners for review and investigation of the causes of such re-fusal
and for final determination of the matter.
(e) That certificates so issued and validated shall be valid without further
examination in every county in the State, subject, however, to revocation by
the State Board of Examiners for good and sufficient cause.
(f) That examinations prepared by the Board shall be conducted by the
county superintendents and the town and city superintendents under such
rules and regulations as may be prescribed, and the papers transmitted to
the State Board for gradation.
(g) That the State Board shall arrange a uniform plan for the classifica-tion
of certificates and for the promotion of teachers from one class to
another, for the renewal of certificates and for the issuance of life certifi-cates
that shall encourage and reward successful experience, professional
training, and advanced scholastic attainment.
(h) That all certificates heretofore issued shall be valid until the date of
their expiration without further examination, and that the State Board shall
provide for issuing certificates without examination, upon satisfactory evi-dence
of character and qualification to all teachers now engaged in teaching
in town and city schools in which certificates to teach have npt heretofore
been required, and for the renewal and extension of such certificates.
(i) That the Board shall m.ake similar provisions for certificating, without
examination, all county, city, and town superintendents and assistant super-intendents
now in service. The Board shall fix a uniform minimum profes-sional
and scholastic requirement for each class of certificates issued by it
upon examination or without examination, for all teachers and superintend-ents
entering the work hereafter, and shall gradually and conservatively
raise this minimum standard of requirement after due notice in advance.
(j) That the Board shall require at least the same minimum qualifica-tions
in scholarship, professional training and experience for county and
city superintendents hereafter entering that work qs shall be required for
the highest grade teachers whom they supervise.
IvECOMMENDATIONS 27
(k) That the examination or certification of second and third grade ele-mentary
teacliers shall be left in the hands of the county superintendent
of each county as at present, thereby preventing a dearth of teachers in any
county until more first grade teachers can be prepared, and leaving open the
door of entrance to the profession to all worthy aspiring young men and
women of limited means and limited opportunity for preparation for first
grade work, with ample opportunity to fit themselves later for such work.
The advantages of this proposed plan for examination and certification of
teachers and for the organization and efficient direction and correlation of
the county institute work and the whole teacher training work in the counties
for the professional improvement of the rank and file of the public school
teachers over the present plan ought to be evident without further argu-ment
to any thoughtful person who wall take the time to compare the two
plans.
Some of Its Advantages May Be Summed Up As Follows:
1. It will establish a uniform standard of qualifications for all public
school teachers, urban and rural, without special privileges to any.
2. It provides reasonable protection to the profession and the public and
to the children against incompetents and charlatans.
3. It provides for the rational certification of teachers with or without
examination, and the classification of certificates according to the work to be
done and the subjects to be taught.
4. It provides for academic and professional credits for work done on the
basis of scholarship and training and successful experience.
5. It gives relief from the everlasting round of senseless examinations
of the same teachers on the same subjects for the same grade of certificate
by making provision for renewals of certificates without examination and
for permanent and life certificates.
6. It will protect the members of the teaching profession from unjust com-petition
with inexperienced, unqualified, and untrained teachers, and make
it possible to develop and maintain a real teaching profession in North
Carolina.
7. It will gradually eliminate incompetent teachers, stimulate professional
pride, and encourage better preparation, scholastic and professional, by put-ting
a premium upon this.
8. It will relieve superintendents from the embarrassment of personal and
political influences in behalf of local applicants and from criticism and an-tagonism,
injurious to the schools, from the friends and relatives of appli-cants
refused certificates by them for lack of scholarship and for other good
reasons.
9. It takes care of all the worthy among the present teachers and super-intendents
and throws proper safeguards around entrance to the profession
in the future.
10. With little additional cost it provides a much more efficient and system-atic
plan for examination and certification of teachers and for the conduct
of teachers' institutes and all other teacher training work of the counties
for the improvement of the rank and file of teachers.
11. It leaves open for those who are not qualified for first grade certificates
and high school certificates, second and third grade certificates, so that no
worthy person need be deprived of his means of livelihood. In the meantime
28 Recommendations
he is afforded a better opportunity for professional improvement and for
qualifying for higher and better paid work in the profession.
The Success and Practicability of State Certification Already
Demonstrated.
In 1907, when the rural State high schools were established, in order to
safeguard them against unqualified high school teachers, a State Board of
Examiners was established for the certification of teachers in these schools
by examination and by accrediting without examination for satisfactory work
in standard colleges and normal schools. This Board was also empowered
to issue five-year State-wide first grade elementary Certificates. The work of
this Board has been most successful and has resulted in maintaining a high
standard of efficiency for teachers in these high schools and in encouraging
and stimulating higher scholastic and better professional preparation. What
such a board has accomplished for this limited number of schools and teachers
can be accomplished for all the schools and all the teachers of the State by
the State Board of Examiners and Institute Conductors under the plan
recommended. In fact, the establishment, under this recommendation, of
a larger and better equipped State Board of Examiners to have charge of
the certification of all superintendents, high school teachers, and all first
grade elementary teachers would be simply an enlargement and improvement
of a plan already in successful operation for the past ten years for a limited
number of such teachers. The success and practicability of such a plan has
already been demonstrated, therefore, in the State. Under the present law,
however, the chief clerk in the Department of Public Instruction is secretary
of the State Board of Examiners, and the stenographer of the State Super-intendent
has been compelled to do the stenographic work of the Board. The
work of the Board and the necessary correspondence has increased so greatly
that at least one-half or more of the time of the chief clerk and the stenogra-pher
in the State Superintendent's office is now required to attend to the
work and the correspondence of the Board of Examiners. In the meantime
the regular work of this office has greatly increased also. The work of the
State Superintendent's office has consequently suffered greatly, necessitating
unavoidable and sometimes annoying delays in the work of the office and
imposing much work upon the chief clerk and the stenographer, with no
additional compensation. It is impossible for this arrangement to continue.
Unless this recommendation for a Board of Examiners and Institute Con-ductors
with a whole-time secretary and stenographer to take charge of all
the work of examination and certification of teachers is adopted, it will be
absolutely necessary either to abolish the present State Board of Examiners
or to provide an additional secretary and stenographer for it.
Resolutions of the I^. C. Teachers' Assembly and the State Association of
County Superintendents fob State Examination and Certification.
At the annual business meeting of the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly,
held in Raleigh, December 1, 1916, the following resolution was unanimously
passed:
That we renew our pledge of support to the efforts being made by the State
Department of Education to improve the standards of the teaching profession.
We request the Legislative Committee of the Assembly to strive vigor-
Recommendations 29
ously in assisting the state superintendent to induce tlie Legislature to enact
a uniform plan of examination and certification of public school teachers.
At the annual meeting of the State Association of County Superintendents
the following resolution was unanimously passed:
Resolved, That we heartily endorse the bill for the establishment of a State
Board of Examiners and Institute Conductors for the uniform examination
and certification of teachers and general direction of the county institutes
and other teacher training work, respectfully and earnestly petition the Gen-eral
Assembly of North Carolina to enact it into law for the protection and
elevation of our profession and the advancement of the cause of education,
and pledge ourselves to use all honorable means to secure its passage.
Similar resolutions in favor of State certification and examination of teach-ers
have been passed by teachers assembled in the summer schools and by
many County Teachers' Associations, and hundreds of personal petitions
from individual teachers for its adoption are already on file. All of these
will be presented to the General Assembly later.
II. The Appointment of an Educational Commission.
My second recommendation is for the appointment of an educational com-mission
of three or five members to make a thorough study of the school
laws and the entire educational system of the State and a careful survey of
the educational conditions, and to report to the General Assembly of 1919,
with a view to codifying the laws, and recommending such amendments as
will give the State a complete, correlated, coordinated public school system
that shall in all respects be modern and effective.
For forty years we have been gradually amending and improving our
school laws and improving and enlarging our school system a little at a
time. We started with the University and the elementary schools. One by
one at different times the A. and M. Colleges and the Normal schools were
added. In 1907 a general system of public secondary schools was started;
in 1911 the first provision was made for starting a system of vocational
secondary schools. Each of these necessary and important parts of a com-plete
educational system has been started at different times and developed
more or less independently of the other and more or less disproportionately,
according to the influence and activity of its respective advocates and
friends. .Naturally in a system that had to be developed in this way there
are some duplications of work and some lack of uniformity, correlation, and
coordination.
In my opinion, the time has come for a thorough study of the whole system,
a careful survey of thfe State's educational conditions and needs, and a com-parative
study of the best in the school systems of other States by a compe-tent
educational commission in cooperation with the State Department of
Public Instruction, with authority to call to its assistance in this work any
expert help that may be available either from public or private foundations.
I have the assurance of such assistance from some of these foundations, if
desired and requested. As State Superintendent, I should welcome the
assistance of such a commission. With its aid a much more thorough and
comprehensive study can be made of the whole educational system, its con-ditions
and needs, in two years than would be possible in many years by the
State Superintendent and his corps or workers, each busy with his special
work and with the numerous executive details thereof. The report and
30 Eecommendations
recommendations of such a commission ought to form a safe basis for pro-gressive
educational legislation in the State in 1919, that would at once set
the State forward educationally many years and make it possible for North
Carolina to have one of the most modern, complete, and efficient public school
systems in this whole country. Such commissions have proved successful
and helpful in other States, notably so recently in the State of Maryland.
After investigation of the cost of this work in Maryland, I feel sure that with
such assistance as can be easily obtained from outside sources, if desired,
the cost of this work to this State need not exceed $5,000.
III. County Boards of Education.
The present plan of selecting county boards of education has, in my
opinion, some serious defects. In the first place, it is not uniform. Six
counties of the State are allowed by special acts of the General Assembly
to elect the members of their county boards of education, and three of these
counties are also allowed to elect their county superintendents. County
boards of education in all other counties of the State are appointed by the
General Assembly, and county superintendents of these counties are elected
by the county boards of education. Section 2, Article IX, of the Constitution
directs the General Assembly to provide for a general and uniform system
of public schools. To have elected boards of education in some counties
and elected superintendents in some counties and appointive boards of edu-cation
with authority to select county superintendents in all other counties,
in my opinion, is a violation of the spirit of this mandate of the Constitu-tion;
and whether this be true or not, it is certainly unwise and has become
a constant source of agitation and irritation.
Experience everywhere has demonstrated that partisan and factional poli-tics
cannot be mixed with the management of the public schools without
proving disastrous to their best interests. Both political parties in North
Carolina profess to favor removing the public schools from politics. The
present plan of appointing county boards of education by the General As-sembly
has not removed the public schools from politics, and, from the very
nature of the method of appointing the chief administrative officers of the
county school system by a political body upon recommendation of political
and sometimes partisan factional representatives, or of the executive com-mittee
of a political party, cannot remove them from politics. It has not
been satisfactory mainly because these appointments have been too subject
to factional and political influences and have sometimes been thus con-trolled,
to the injury of the schools.
The law inaugurating this plan of appointing counfy boards of education
was enacted by the Democratic General Assembly of 1901, before the present
State Superintendent came into office. It is not his plan, and is not the plan
that he has recommended or that he now recommends. He has advocated
the appointive plan in preference to the plan of electing county boards of
education by popular vote advocated by the Republican Party in its plat-form,
in its campaigns, strenuously fought for by its representatives in
every General Assembly for the past ten or fifteen years, and favored by
some Democrats, because he believed and still believes it to be a better plan,
in that it removes the selection of the chief administrative officers of the
county school system, and, therefore, the county schools, farther from politi-cal
and factional influences and wrangles.
Recommendations 31
Election of County Boards of Education by Popular Vote.
The election of county boai-ds of education by popular vote would neces-sarily
make the co.unty school system and the county schools more subject
to political influences, political prejudices, political and factional discontent,
and political and factional revenge than the appointment of them. It would
make it easier to revolutionize the educational policy of the county every
two years, more difficult to secure a reasonable degree of stability, perma-nency,
and continuity of progressive educational policies in the county, found
by experience here and everywhere to be absolutely necessary for getting the
best results in educational work and for permanent growth and development
in that work. From the very nature of education its growth and development
must be comparatively slow; the results of educational policies cannot be
fairly tested in a few years. The election of county boards of education
would finally mean the indirect election of the county superintendent, who
would generally be the main issue in the election of the board. This would
make it difficult and almost impossible to maintain a proper professional
standard of qualification for this position, and would reduce the position of
county superintendent to the plane of a political oflftce instead of a profes-sional
position. The best qualified men for county boards of education and
county superintendent, the most important and, at present, the most poorly
compensated positions in the county, would not be willing to enter a politi-cal
scramble for these offices. I can conceive of no greater disaster that
could befall the schools of any county than the adoption of a plan of elec-tion
that would make possible and almost unavoidable the selection of the
county superintendent, the head of the county school system, for political
rather than professional qualifications.
The election of county boards of education by popular vote W'Ould always
place the county school systems of a considerable minority of the counties
of the State under the control of the minority political party of the State
and render it practically impossible to secure uniformity and harmony in
administering the State system and in enforcing the State educational poli-cies
of the majority party. The constant temptation to play the county
system in these counties in antagonism to the State system and policies for
which the majority political party is held responsible for political gain to
the minority party would, I fear, be too great for political nature to resist.
A business, like education, that is mainly professional can never be "most
successfully administered under a method of selecting its chief administra-tive
ofllicers that is mainly political.
The minority party in its recent platform and political campaign made the
election of county boards of education by popular vote in each county and
the administration of the public schools the chief issue, and was defeated
by an overwhelming majority.
For these reasons, and others that might be mentioned if time and space
permitted, I cannot recommend the election of county boards of education
by popular vote. I believe that the present plan of appointment by the Gen-eral
Assembly is preferable to that plan.
Suggested Plan for Selection of County Boards of Education.
I believe that the public schools of North Carolina are very close to the
hearts of the people, and that a great majority of our people honestly desire
82 Recommendations
that the administration of their schools shall be removed as far as possible
from partisan politics and factional bitterness. The leaders and campaign
speakers of both political parties in their discussion of this subject with the
people have vied with each other in their advocacy of keeping the public
schools out of politics. The Republican Party definitely proposed to do this
by election of county boards by popular vote; but the people had sense
enough to see that the schools could not be taken out of politics by a plan
that necessarily threw them into the turmoil of partisan or factional politics
in everj^ county every two years.
Have not the people by an overwhelming majority in the recent election)
declared that election of county boards of education by popular vote is not
the remedy that they desire or approve?
In my opinion, the wisest way to select county boards of education would
be through a State board or council of education appointed by the Governor
or the General Assembly, or by the Governor confirmed by the Senate, com-posed
of representative men, teachers, farmers and men of other professions
and vocations, at least one or more from every congressional district of the
State, acquainted with the conditions and needs and with the people of the
various counties of those districts. This board or council should be non-partisan,
having, like the State Board of Elections, minority representation
of the minority party of the State. Every county board of education should
have at least one representative of the minority party of the State, where a
suitable representative can be found. The members of this board for the
selection of county boards of education and the members of the county boards
of education should be chosen because of their known interest in education
and their known fitness in character and intelligence for this position. Since
the schools are maintained by the taxes of all the people, patronized by the
children of all the people, irrespective of their political views, and need for
their success the hearty support and interest of all the people, they should
be removed as far as possible from partisan politics and directed by a board
of education as nonpartisan as is consistent with the constitutional require-ment
for a uniform system of education and with the responsibility of the
majority political party of the State for the successful administration of the
system in every county of the State. It is wise, fair, and just that wherever
well qualified men can be found in the minority party, representation should
be given to both of the leading political parties upon the county boards of
education in every county.
If the two political parties, their leaders and their representatives in the
General Assembly of 1917, are honest in their protestations and their advo-cacy
of taking the public schools out of politics, they have an opportunity
of showing it. Let them advocate and enact into law a plan that will remove
the selection of county boards of education, the chief administrative officers
of the county school system, farthest from political and factional influences.
There is a division in the Democratic Party upon this question of the selec-tion
of county boards of education, manifesting itself in almost bitter dis-sension
in the last General Assembly and in several previous General As-semblies,
to the injury of the party and to the injury of the educational
interests of the State. Would it not be wise for the representatives of the
Democratic Party in the General Assembly of 1917, responsible for State
educational policies, to meet in the early days of the session, to call to tneir
Recommendations 33
counsel, if necessary, some of the wisest and most representative citizens and
leaders of the party in the State to consider carefully and discuss freely this
whole question, in the hope of finding and agreeing upon a plan for the selec-tion
of county boards of education that will remove their selection as far as
possible from the turmoil of partisan and factional politics, and that will be
more satisfactory than the present plan of appointing them by the General
Assembly, inaugurated by the Democratic Party, or the proposed plan to
elect them by popular vote, advocated by the Republican Party and rejected
by the people? I believe that the plan I have recommended, or some
similar plan for a nonpartisan representative State board for the appointment
of nonpartisan county boards of education with a majority control of the
majority party of the State of each board, would remove the administration
of the schools as far as is possible in a democracy from partisan and fac-tional
politics and would add greatly to the efficiency of our public school
system.
IV. County Supervision.
In every county the county superintendent is necessarily the business and
professional head and director of the county school system. No big business
can be permanently successful without a competent head devoting his entire
time and ability to the organization and direction of the business in all of its
departments. The education of thousands of children through scores of
schools and teachers in each county is the biggest and most important busi-ness
in that county. The business has been growing bigger and more impor-tant
in every county every year. The expenditures for it by State, county, and
district taxation have been rapidly increasing every year until in 1916 they
were in the State at least five times what they were in 1902. The business
has grown most rapidly and its success along all lines has been greatest in
those counties that have employed competent whole-time superintendents at
a living salary and have given these superintendents adequate assistance
where needed.
Increased expenditures, increased attendance, increased teaching force,
lengthened school terms, demonstrated successful results in counties that
have tried it as set forth elsewhere in my biennial report, seem to me to
make the conclusion irresistible that the time has come for the employment
of a competent whole-time county superintendent at a living salary in every
county, and, in the larger counties for the employment of such additional
assistance, clerical and professional, at the expense of the county, as efficient
administration and supervision of the work may demand.
I, therefore, recommend for more efficient supervision
:
(a) That the law be so amended as to require the county board of educa-tion
of each county to employ for his entire time a competent superintendent,
who shall be required to give his entire time to the direction of the educa-tional
work of the county and the visitation and supervision of the schools
while in session and who shall be forbidden to engage in any other profession
or regular business while superintendent.
(b) That county boards of education in the larger and wealthier counties
be specifically authorized to employ such additional clerical and profes-sional
assistance for the county superintendent as may be deemed necessary
for the greater efficiency of the work; provided, however, that each county
Part 1—3
34 Recommenbations
shall provide the additional expense necessary for such assistance out of its
special levy, or its regular county school funds, and that no part of the same
shall come directly or indirectly from the State Equalizing Fund.
It is, of course, apparent that the additional expense necessary for the em-ployment
of a whole-time superintendent in counties employing only part-time
superintendents now, will be provided by the special levy for necessary
expenses for a four-months term, or out of the "State Equalizing Fund" in
counties in which such a levy is unnecessary. As the State, therefore, bears
directly or indirectly this additional expense for whole-time county superin-tendents,
as the school term in the county will not be shortened thereby, as
the smaller and weaker counties, because of their lack of them heretofore,
need them worse now, I can conceive of no valid objection to providing whole-time
county superintendents for these counties as well as for larger and
stronger counties, practically all of which now have them at State expense.
Nor can I see any reasonable objection to authorizing specifically any county
to provide at its own expense additional assistance for its superintendent, if
it is able to do so and needs it.
V. Increase in State Appropriation for Rural Hi;?h Schools.
I urgently recommend an increase of at least $25,000 annually in the State
appropriation for rural high schools. There has been no increase in this
appropriation since 1911. The enrollment and daily attendance have rapidly
increased, and will continue to increase. In 1911 the enrollment in these
high schools was 6,514 and the daily attendance 4,716. In 1916 the enroll-ment
was 10,379 and the daily attendance 7,873. These schools are the only
means of placing high school education within the reach of the vast majority
of the country boys and girls, of giving them preparation for college and
better preparation for citizenship and life. The cities and towns of the State
have public high schools, and the country people ought not to be compelled
to move to town to get high school advantages for their children. Without
an increase in the State appropriation for these rural high schools it will be
Impossible to meet the increasing attendance and the increasing demands
upon those- already established, or to establish others where they are badly
needed, for the establishment of which numerous applications are on file.
For fuller information about the very successful work and growth of these
rural high schools and the need of increased appropriations for their future
development, I beg to ask your careful consideration of the report of Prof.
N. W. Walker, State Supervisor of Rural High Schools, contained in my bien-nial
report.
VI. Compulsory Attendance.
I recommend that the compulsory attendance law be amended so as to
extend the compulsory attendance age from 12 to 14 years, and so as to
strengthen the provisions for its enforcement.
VII. Health Inspection and Medical Inspection.
I recommend an amendment to section 4116 of the Public School Law that
shall authorize the county board of education to make an appropriation out
of the public school fund not to exceed $500 annually to be used in coopera-tion
with the State Board of Health and the county board of health, for health
Recommendations 35
instruction and medical inspection of the cliildren of the public schools, and
to include such appropriation in the budget of annual necessary expenses,
for which a special tax shall be levied.
YIII. Increase in Salaries of Clerks and Stenographer.
In consideration of the largely increased cost of living, their constantly
increasing work, their efficient and faithful service, and the inadequacy of
their present salaries to the work required and the responsibility imposed, I
earnestly and urgently recommend an increase of the salary of the stenogra-pher
of the Department from $900 to $1,500 a year, and an increase of 25 per
cent in the salaries of the Chief Clerk and of the Statistical and Loan Fund
Clerk.
WORK TO BE DONE AND HOW TO DO IT
Notwithstanding the encouraging progress along all former lines and the
encouraging beginning along new lines of educational work during the past
two years, as revealed by the official reports, the w-ork to be done and the ways
and means of doing it have not been materially changed since my pi-eceding
report. As I discussed most of these subjects somewhat fully and to the best
of my ability in that report, basing my discussion and suggestions on the
most careful study of our educational conditions that I have been able to
make, I have deemed it wise to bring forward, with some changes and addi-tions,
parts of my previous biennial report. This is the work to be done,
as I see it; these are the ways and means of doing it, as I see them. I can
do no better than to cry aloud and spare not until the General Assembly and
the people hear and heed the suggestions or in their wisdom find and adopt
some better ways of doing this needed work.
Thoroughness in Essentials.—The foundation of all education is, of course,
a mastery of the rudiments of knowledge—the elementary branches of read-ing,
writing, arithmetic, and spelling. A knowledge of these and the training
and development which comes from the effort necessary for the acquisition of
such knowledge are absolutely essential for every human being. It is folly
to talk about higher education or special training along any line for any
useful sphere of life or work until the children have secured at least this
much instruction. According to the United States Census of 1910 12.3 per cent
of the white population and 31 per cent of the colored population over ten
years of age in North Carolina could not read and write. While I have no
doubt that we have reduced this per cent of illiteracy during the past six
years, it is still painfully true that there is yet a large number of illiterates
among us and a large number of children on the straight road to illiteracy.
A large majority of our country schools are still one-teacher schools. The
average length of our white rural school term is still only 117.6 days. Our
chief attention should, therefore, be given to doing thoroughly this founda-tion
w^ork and making adequate provision for it. If the foundation be not
well laid first, the entire educational structure must fall to pieces.
The law now wisely forbids the teaching of any high school subjects in any
school having only one teacher. It requires, however, the teaching of thirteen
subjects in these one-teacher schools. It is absolutely impossible for one
teacher, with as many children as are to be found in the average rural school
in seven grades, to do thorough work in so many subjects. It seems to me
that the number of required subjects should be reduced, that the teacher In
every one-teacher school should be required to devote more time—in fact,
most of the time—to teaching thoroughly these fundamental essentials-reading,
writing, arithmetic, and spelling. It is folly to attempt the impos-sible.
In my opinion, at least the first four years of the elementary school
with only one teacher should be devoted almost exclusively to these four sub-jects,
sandwiching in just enough of geography, mainly in the form of nature
study, talks on everyday hygiene, etc., to give a little variety to the course
and to furnish some foundation for a little more extensive work in these and
kindred subjects later.
38 WoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It
There is more educational value, more acquisition of power and of correct
intellectual habits in a thorough mastery of a few subjects than in a super-ficial
knowledge, a mere smattering, of many. The one lays the foundation
for real culture; the other lays the foundation for nothing better than veneer-ing.
I am satisfied that there is great need for a substantial reform along
this line in the required course of study in our elementary schools. The
sensible teachers in the one-teacher schools are not attempting to teach this
multiplicity of required subjects, and those who are attempting to teach all
of these are failing to teach any as they should be taught. The law ought not
to require a vain and foolish thing.
Public High Schools.—Every child has the right to have the chance to
develop to the fullest every faculty that God has endoAved him with. It is to
the highest interest of the State to place within the reach of every child this
chance. By the evidence of the experience of all civilized lands of the past
and the present, the study of the higher branches is necessary for the fullest
development of these faculties. Unless provided in the public schools, in-struction
in these cannot be placed within reach of nine-tenths of the children
of North Carolina. If the great masses of our people are to be limited in
their education to the etementary branches only, we cannot hope for any
material improvement in their intelligence and power and any material in-crease
in their earning capacity. This State cannot expect to compete suc-cessfully
with those States that have provided such instruction in their public
schools for the highest and fullest development of all the powers of all their
people.
"The old idea that instruction in the public schools must be confined to the
rudimentary branches only, or the three R's, as they were called, was born
of the old false notion that the public schools were a public charity. This
notion put a badge of poverty upon the public school system that was for
many years the chief obstacle to the progress and development of public edu-cation
in North Carolina. The notion still lingers in the minds of the few
that at heart do not believe in the power and rights of the many. It has no
place in a real democracy. It must give place to that truer idea, accepted
now in all progressive States and lands, that public education is the highest
governmental function—in fact the chief concern of a good government. This
was the conception of our wise old forefathers when they declared in their
Constitution that 'Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of educa-tion
shall forever be encouraged,' and when they wrote into their Bill of
Rights, 'The people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the
duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.'
"No man in this age will dare maintain that instruction in the mere rudi-ments
of learning can be called an education or that the people have been
given the right to an education when instruction in these branches only has
been placed within their reach. Under this broader democratic conception of
public education and its function the obligation of the Government to the
poorest is as binding as its obligation to the richest. The right of the poorest
to the opportunity of the fullest development is as inalienable as the right of
the richest. Good government and the happiness of mankind are as depend-ent
upon the development of the fullest powers of the poorest as upon the
development of the fullest powers of the richest. Where the Creator has hid-den
the greatest powers no. man can know till all have been given the fullest
Work to Be Done and How to Do It 39
opportunity to develop all that is in them. Every taxpayer, rich or poor, has
an equal right to have an equal chance for the fullest development of his
children in a public school with the fullest course of instruction that the
State in the discharge of its governmental function is able to provide.
"Public high schools constitute a part of every modern, progressive system
of public education. If our system of public schools is to take rank with the
modern, progressive systems of other States and other lands, to meet the
modern demands for education and supply to rich and poor alike equal edu-cational
opportunity, instruction in these higher branches, whereby prepa-ration
for college or for life may be placed within the easy reach of all, must
find a fixed and definite place in the system."
Under the act of the General Assembly appropriating $75,000 from the
State Treasury to aid in the establishment of public high schools, 212 public
high schools in 96 counties of the State have been established, and applica-tions
for the establishment of many others have had to be refused each year
on account of the insufficiency of the appropriation. A report of these schools
by Prof. N. W. Walker, State Inspector of Public High Schools, is published
elsewhere in this report. I commend it to your careful attention.
Under the law and the rules adopted by the State Board of Education, not
more than four of these schools can be established in any one county. No
public high school can be established except in connection with a public school
having at least two other teachers in the elementary and intermediate grades,
and the entire time of at least one teacher must be devoted to the high school
grades. No public high school can be established in a town of more than
twelve hundred inhabitants.
Each district in which a public high school is established is required to
duplicate by special taxation or subscription the amount apportioned to the
school from the State appropriation; each county is required to apportion to
each public high school out of the county fund an amount equal to that appor-tioned
to it out of the State appropriation. The minimum sum that can be
apportioned annually from the State appropriation for the establishment and
maintenance of any public high school is ?200 and the maximum sum $600.
The total sum annually available for any public high school established under
this act ranges, therefore, from $600 to $1,800. The high school funds can
be used only for the payment of salaries of the high school teachers and the
necessary incidental expenses of the high school grades.
No teacher can be employed to teach or can draw salary for teaching any
subjects in any public high school who does not hold a high school teacher's
certificate covering at least all subjects taught by said teacher in said public
high school, issued by the State Board of Examiners, of which the State
Superintendent is ex officio chairman. The course of study is prescribed by
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
As indicative of the need and demand for these schools, I beg to call your
attention to the fact that there have been applications for many more such
schools than could be established with the appropriation, and that the number
of such applications would have been greatly increased had it not been under-stood
that the appropriation was already exhausted. As a further striking
indication of the need for them, of the desire among the masses of the country
people for higher instruction, and of their willingness and determination to
avail themselves of the opportunities placed within their reach for such in-struction,
I beg to call your attention to these significant facts, taken from
40 Work to Be Done and How to Do It
the official reports of these schools, all of which are in country districts or
small towns of less than twelve hundred people: 10,379 country boys and girls
were enrolled in the high school grades of these schools during the ninth
year, and of these 7,873 were in average daily attendance.
Do not the large enrollment and the remarkable average daily attendance
of more than 76 per cent of the enrollment in these high schools indicate
almost a pathetic eagerness of the country boys and girls for high school in-struction,
and a commendable willingness on the part of their parents to
make the sacrifices necessary to give their children a chance to avail them-selves
of the opportunities to get it? Is it not more than probable that per-haps
nine-tenths of all these boys and girls enrolled in all the grades of these
high schools would never have had an opportunity for any higher instruction
or better preparation through higher instruction for service and citizenship
had not these public high schools been established within their reach and
means?
The State and county cannot afford to ignore this demand and need. An
adequate system of public high schools will be found to be a part of every
modern system of public education in all progressive cities and States in the
country and in the most progressive and prosperous countries of the world.
It Is a need and demand of the age. By no other means than by the public
high school can high school instruction be placed within the reach of the
children of the many. By no other means than by the rural public high
school can it be placed within the reach of the great majority of the country
boys and girls.
The private high school cannot meet this demand, because the tuition and
other necessary charges for its maintenance place it beyond the means of the
majority of the country boys and girls, and because the number of country
parents who are able to bear these necessary expenses of instruction in
private high schools for their children is far too small to maintain enough
of these private high schools to be within reasonable reach of more than a
very small minority of the country boys and girls. No one church is able to
support enough of these high schools to place high school instruction within
reasonable reach or within the financial ability of more than a mere handful
of boys and girls in the rural districts.
The church high school could hardly hope for the patronage of more than
the children of the families accepting its tenets or inclined to its doctrines.
For a complete system of high schools, therefore, that would reach all the
children, it would seem to be necessary for each denomination to maintain a
system of high schools in every county and to have as many systems of high
schools in each county as there are denominations in that county. The im-practicability
and expensiveness of meeting adequately the demand for high
school instruction among the masses of the people, especially in the rural
districts, by private high schools or by church high schools must be apparent,
therefore, to any thoughtful student of rural conditions.
The task of placing high school instruction within reasonable reach of all
the children of all the people, irrespective of creed or condition, is too great
and too complicated, it seems to me, ever to be successfully performed by
church, private enterprise or philanthropy. If performed at all, it seems to
me, it must be by all the people supporting by uniform taxation a system
of public high schools of sufficient number to be within the reasonable reach
of all the children of every county and community, with doors wide open
Work to Be Done and How to Do It 41
to the children of the poor and the children of the rich, irrespective of creed
or condition, affording equality of educational opportunity to all the children
of a republic, of which equality of opportunity is a basic principle.
The church high school and the private high school will still find a place
and an important work in our educational system, but they can never take the
place or do the work of the public high school for the masses of the people.
There will always be those among us who will prefer the church or private
high school, and who will be able to indulge this preference, but the main
dependence of the many for higher education must still be the public high
school, supported by the taxes of all the people, belonging to all the people,
within reach of all the people. God speed the work of the church and the
private high school in this common battle against ignorance and illiteracy.
There is work enough for all to do; but surely in a republic like ours, one of
the cardinal principles of which is and must ever be the greatest good to the
greatest number, friends of the church high school and of the private high
school will never undertake to say that all the people must get out of the
way of a few of the people, and that the many public high schools, supported
by all the people for the benefit of all the children, must get out of the way
for a few private and church high schools that can at best hope to reach
but a few of the children of the people.
Future Developnient of Public High Schools.—There are now from one to
four public high schools in each of 96 counties of the State. There are, there-fore,
four counties in which no public high schools have yet been established.
For the proper maintenance and development of these high schools more
money will, of course, be required.
It is our hope to be able to select the best high school in each county, taking
into consideration the location, the accessibility, the environment, etc., and
develop this into a real first-class county high school, doing thorough high
school work for four full years and some vocational work in agriculture, sew-ing
and cooking and other rural life subjects. Around this school should be
built a dormitory and a teachers' home. The dormitory, properly conducted,
would afford an opportunity for the boys and girls from all parts of the
county to board at actual cost. Many of these could return to their homes
Friday evening, coming back Monday morning. Many of them who do not
have the money to spare to pay their board would probably be able to bring
such provisions as are raised on the farm and have them credited on their
board at the market price. A small room rent could be charged each student.
The principal's home would make it possible to secure a better principal and
keep him pi'obably for years, thereby giving more permanency to the school
and more continuity to the work, making a citizen of the teacher and enabling
him and his family to become potent factors in the permanent life of the com-munity,
contributing no small part to uplifting it, morally and intellectually,
by their influence.
It is my hope to be able to secure the development of a number of these
central county high schools in the most favorable counties, equipped with dor-mitories
and teachers' homes, and demonstrate the practibility, success and
the value of them. Having done this, it will be easy to secure their establish-ment
and development in other counties. We should gradually develop in
every county of the State at least one first-class county high school with
dormitory and teacher's home. Then the other high schools in different sec-tions
of the county should be correlated with this central school, and the
42 Work to Be Done and How to Do It
course of study in these should be limited probably to not more than two
years of high school work, requiring all students desiring to pursue the last
two years of the four-year course to attend the central county high school,
which will be fully equipped in all respects for thorough high school work.
The central county high schools, as they grow and develop, should become
also the nuclei for successful industrial and agricultural training. Parallel
courses of study for the last two years might be arranged, one course offering
thorough preparation for college of the small number of students desiring
such preparation and the other offering practical industrial and agricultural
training for the large number whose education will end with the high school.
The dormitory would afford a splendid equipment for practice work for the
girls in cooking, domestic science, household economics, etc.; while the boys,
during the last two years, could have training in agricultural subjects that
will fit them for more intelligent and profitable farming. The practical side
of this work could be supplied by acquiring by purchase or lease a small farm
in connection with the high school.
All this development must, of course, be a gradual and perhaps a some-what
slow growth. It is best that it should be. We must be content with the
day of small things. We cannot far outrun the desire, demand, and ability
of the people. Our schools must have their roots in the life and needs of the
people and grow out of these. They must not be lifted at once so high above
these that their roots cannot touch them and that the people will be unable
to reach up to them. They must connect with the life and conditions as they
now are, and grow upward slowly, changing these gradually and lifting them
upward with them as they grow.
The best colleges of the State are raising their entrance requirements with
a gradual elevation of their courses of study to standard colleges, thereby em-phasizing
the necessity for the development of more high schools prepared to
give a full four years course of high school instruction, in order to prepare
students at home for entering these higher institutions.
The demand for vocational work in agriculture, sewing, cooking, household
economics and other rural life subjects for preparation of country boys and
girls at home for country life is increasing, and becoming more insistent
every year, thereby also emphasizing the necessity for the establishment and
maintenance of more rural high schools with a full four years course of study
including instruction in these rural life subjects. If these demands are to be
met, there must be an increase in the State, county, and district appropria-tions
for the establishment and maintenance of more of these central rural
high schools, prepared in faculty and material equipment, to give a full four
years course of study for preparation for college and for vocational prepara-tion
for country life.
Industrial and Agricultural Education.—"Every complete educational sys-tem
must make provision also for that training in the school which will give
fitness for the more skillful performance of the multitudinous tasks of the
practical work of the world, the pursuit of which is the inevitable lot of the
many, for that training which will connect the life and instruction of the
school more closely with the life that they must lead, which will better pre-pare
them for usefulness and happiness in the varied spheres in which they
must move. All these spheres are necessary to the well being of a complex life
like ours. The Creator, who has ordained all spheres of useful action, has not
endowed all with the same faculties or fitted all for the same sphere of action.
Work to Be Done and How to Do It 43
"We are all hut parts of one stuvendous whole,
Whose hody Natu7-e is, and God the soul!"
"Every wise system of education, therefore, must, beyond a certain point of
educational development, recognize natural differences of endowment and fol-low
to some extent the lines of natural adaption and tastes, thus cooperating
with Nature and God. The education that turns a life into unnatural chan-nels
and into the pursuit of the unattainable fills that life with discontent and
dooms it to inevitable failure and tragedy. In recognition of these established
laws of Nature and life, manual training and industrial education are begin-ning
to find a fixed and permanent place in systems of modern education.
They have already been given a place in some of the higher institutions of
our public school system—in the A. and M. College for the white race at
Raleigh, in the State Normal and Industrial College for women at Greensboro,
in the A. and M. College for the colored race at Greensboro, and in our county
farm-life ^schools. Under the new supervision industrial training is empha-sized
in the State Colored Normal Schools at Winston, Fayetteville, and Eliza-beth
City. Some of the city graded schools, notably those of Durham, Ashe-ville.
Wilmington, Winston, Greensboro, Charlotte, and Raleigh, have intro-duced
manual training and industrial education.
"This sort of education, however, must come as a growth, a development of
a general school system that provides first for the intellectual mastery of
those branches that are recognized as essential for intelligent citizenship and
workmanship everywhere. It must be remembered that the first essential
difference between skilled labor and unskilled labor is a difference of intelli-gence
as well as of special training; that a skilled farmer must be first of all
a thinking man on the farm; a skilled mechanic, a thinking man in the shop;
that a skilled hand is but a hand with brains put into it and finding expres-sion
through it; that without brains put into it a man's hand is no more
than a monkey's paw; that without brains applied to it a man's labor is on
the same dead level with the labor of the dull horse and the plodding ox; that
a man with a trained hand and nothing more is a mere machine, a mere hand.
The end of education is first to make a man, not a machine.
"It will be well to remember, also, that industrial education is the most ex-pensive
sort of education, on account of the equipment necessary for it and
the character of the teachers required for it. Teachers prepared for success-ful
instruction in this sort of education must, of course, be in some sense
specialists in their line, and always command good salaries. For the majority
of the public schools of the State, therefore, with one-room schoolhouses with-out
special equipment and with one teacher without special training, with the
present meager salary, and barely money enough for a five months term and
for instruction in the common school branches, with more daily recitations
already than can be successfully conducted, industrial education and technical
training are at present impracticable.
"A study of the history of this sort of education will show that it has come
as a later development, after ample provision had been made for thorough in-struction
in the lower and in the higher branches of study, in those schools
that were provided with school funds sufficient for instruction in the ordi-nary
school studies, for the expensive equipment and for the teachers trained
especially for industrial and technical education. In fact, I think it will be
found that such education has been provided first in towns and cities and
44 WouK TO Be Done and How to Do It
great centers of wealth and population or in institutions generously sup-ported
by large State appropriations or by large endowments. To undertake
such education in the ordinary rural schools of the State in their present con-dition,
with their present equipment and with the meager funds available for
them, would result in burlesque and failure, and would, in my opinion, set
back for a generation or two this important work."
We can and should, however, continue to give in all our public schools
elementary instruction in agriculture, and to encourage nature study in these
schools. An admirable little text-book on agriculture has been adopted for
use in the public schools, and in the course of study sent out, nature study
has been provided for every grade.
In a number of counties, with the aid of the county superintendents and
their assistants in rural school supervision, many public schools with three or
more teachers have been organized by consolidation and enlargement of small
districts. In these schools, without interference with thorough instruction in
the required elementary school subjects, some efficient instruction is being
successfully undertaken in sewing, cooking, gardening, agriculture,* and other
subjects adapted to country life. We must reduce to a necessary minimum,
as rapidly as possible, the one-teacher schools, and multiply as rapidly as
possible the number of schools with three or more teachers if we expect
to place more thorough instruction in the prescribed elementary branches and
any sort of efficient industrial and agricultural education within close reach
of the majority of the country children. I beg to call special attention to the
fuller reports of the work of the elementary rural schools of this type and to
the encouraging results thereof, contained in the reports of the State Agents
in Rural Supervision published elsewhere in this report.
I beg to call attention, also, to the discussion of these subjects contained in
the address of the State Superintendent to the State Association of County
Superintendents published elsewhere in this report.
The longest and most successful step in the direction of efficient industrial
and agricultural education for preparation of country boys and girls for
country life yet taken, is the establishment of the county farm-life schools, a
fuller discussion of which will be found in the first part of this report.
Illiteracy and 'Nonattendance. and How to Overcovie Them—Compulsory
Attendance.—With 131,992 native white illiterates over ten years of age, or
12.3 per cent, according to the United States Census of 1910; with only 79
per cent of the white children between the ages of six and twenty-one enrolled
in the public schools and only 57 per cent of them in regular daily attendance;
with about 115,000 white children between these ages unenrolled in the public
schools; with North Carolina still standing in the United States Census of
1910 near the last in the column of white illiteracy; the urgent need of finding
and enforcing some means of changing as rapidly as possible these appalling
conditions must be apparent to every thoughtful, patriotic son of the State.
Two means suggest themselves: (1) Attraction and persuasion. (2) Com-pulsory
attendance.
Attraction and Persuasion.—"Much has been done, much more can be done,
to increase attendance through the attractive power of better houses and
grounds, better teachers, and longer terms. An attractive schoolhouse and a
good teacher in every district, making a school commanding by its work
public confidence, respect and pride, would do much to overcome nonattend-ance.
The attractive power of improved schools and equipment to increase
"Work to Be Done and ITow to Do Tt 45
attendance is clearly demonstrated by the statistics of this Report, which
show, with few exceptions, the largest per cent of attendance in consolidated
districts, rural special tax districts and entire counties that have the largest
school fund, the longest school terms, and the best schools.
'The general rule seems to be, then, that attendance is in direct proportion
to the efficiency of the schools and the school system. I have already called
your attention to the fact that with the improvement in the public school-house
and schools, and the increased educational interest during the past
few years, has come also an increase in the per cent of enrollment and at-tendance
in the public schools.
"Much can also be done to increase the attendance upon the public schools
by earnest teachers, who will go into the homes of indifferent or selfish
parents whose children are not in school, and by persuasive argument and
tact and appeals to parental pride induce many of these parents to send their
children; who will seek out children in homes of poverty, and remove,
through quiet, blessed charity, the causes of their detention from school.
From the census and from the report of the preceding teacher recorded in
the school register each teacher can ascertain at the beginning of the session
the names of all illiterates and non-attendants of school age in the district
and reported cause of nonattendance. Under the rules recommended by the
State Superintendent and adopted by many county boards of education the
teacher is required to spend two days immediately preceding the opening of
the school in visiting the parents and making special efforts to get these
children to attend school. I have no doubt that many of these can be and
will be reached by these efforts. Much can be done, also, by active, efficient
school committeemen and other school officers who will take an interest in
the school and aid the teachers in finding and bringing- in the children.
"The compelling power of public opinion will do much to bring children
into the school. Logically, as public sentiment for education increases, public
sentiment against nonattendance will increase. Public opinion might, in
many communities, be brought to the point of rendering it almost disgrace-ful
for parents to keep children at home without excellent excuse during the
session of the schools. Self-respecting parents would be loath to defy such
a public opinion and run the risk of forfeiting the esteem of the best people of
the community.
"It is the tragic truth, hoAvever, that there are some parents so blinded by
ignorance to the value and importance of education, and others so lazy, thrift-less
or selfish that they cannot be reached by the power of attraction and
persuasion, or the mild compulsion of public opinion." It is the sad truth that
those whose children most need the benefits offered by the public schools are
hardly to be reached by any other means but compulsion.
Comindsory Attendance.—The tendency of illiteracy is to perpetuate itself.
The majority of illiterate children are the children of illiterates and perhaps
the descendants of illiterates. It is natural that ignorance and illiteracy,
being incapable of understanding or appreciating the value and the necessity
of education, should be indifferent and apathetic toVvard it—just as natural
as it is for the children of darkness to love darkness rather than light. The
intervention of the strong arm of the law is the only effective means of saving
the children of many illiterates from the curse of illiteracy. The intervention
of the strong arm of the law is, in my opinion, the only hope of saving, also,
46 Work to Be Done and How to Do It
the children of literate, and sometimes intelligent, parents from the careless-ness,