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Mountain Life & Work vol. 13 no.3 October, 1937

Mountain Life & Work vol. 13 no.3 October, 1937 Council of the Southern Mountains 400dpi TIFF G4 page images University of Kentucky, Electronic Information Access & Management Center Lexington, Kentucky 2003 mlwv13n31037 These pages may freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Mountain Life & Work vol. 13 no.3 October, 1937 Council of the Southern Mountains Berea College; Council of the Southern Mountains Berea, Kentucky October, 1937 $IMLS This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). No corrections have been made to the OCR-ed text and no editing has been done to the content of the original document. Encoding has been done through an automated process using the recommendations for Level 1 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines. Digital page images are linked to the text file. MOUNTAIN Li FE WORK 66OIJR MOUNTAIN AE's" NEW BOOR ON HANDICRAFTS OLIVE DAME CAMPBELL THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD R. F. THOMAS APPALACHIA SPEAKING MARGRET TROTTER OCTOBER, 1937 VOLUME R1II NUMBBR3 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORN IS PUBLISHED QUARTERLY AT BEREA, KENTUCKY, IN THE INTEREST OF FELLOWSHIP AND MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS AND THE REST OF THE NATION. IN THIS ISSUE THE DAUGHTER OF t1 NORTH CAROLINA- POTTER Photograph -Doris Ulmann 1 -R. F. Thomas -Marion Holcomb Skean. 6 THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD "BOOK LARNIN"' PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION IN THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS 2 --Glyn D. Morris 8 A WAY OF ADVANCE FOR THE COUNTRY CHURCH -Dumont Clark REBUILDING A COMMUNITY PLAY IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS APPALACHIA SPEAKING "OUR MOUNTAIN AE'S" NEW BOOK ON w HANDICRAFTS THE REVIEWING STAND -Samuel arid Nola Vander Meer -Richard Seaman -Margret Trotter -Olive Dame Campbell 30 12 17 20 25 28 "THE DAUGHTER OF A NORTH CAROLINA POTTER" Lilt r.uimn F.icinL4 E,.y I-l6 m~~" mh,,.,im MOUNTAIN VOhUM1? XIII I have the best job in the world, best not financially but from the standpoint of satisfactions. Do not talk to me about sacrifices in the missionary's life! It depends upon your point of vices. For eleven years now I have been a plain country doctor, and for interest, thrills, the satisfaction that comes from doing my ordinary job as well as I can, and just general joy of living, I would not trade places with any one on earth. I think I always wanted to be a doctor, but before I finally got around to studying medicine I did a number of things which were interesting to me but not quite as good as "doctoring." There was a rough, unpainted one-room school up next to Pinnacle Mountain in the Moosic Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania where I taught after my graduation from high school. That was great experience! But I was not at my real job in life. Before I finished that school year, though, I had a "vision" and heard a "voice" which called me by name and said, "I want you to be a minister of the Gospel!" Taking that to mean primarily the "ministry of the Word," I talked the "call" over with my widowed mother the next morning at breakfast; she said, "well, you'll need to go to college next fall." Whereupon she sold her home and went to a college town with me; she kept house for me for the years of school and some years afterward as mistress of the parsonage. The year following her death an opportunity for missionary service in the "Golden Chersonese" of Malaysia drew me, and for three glorious years it was my privilege to work in Penang, Straits iivi Settlements, which I often tell people is without exception the most beautiful island in the world. The greater part of my energies there were spent in teaching Malay, Chinese, Parsec, Battak, and other boys of high school age in the same large Ang1o-Chinese School, but I had other duties such LIFE AND OCTOBER, 1937 THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD R. F. THOMAS WORK NUMBI~,R 3 as being the pastor of the English-speaking F1tGgerald Memorial Church until I could learn Malav, itinerating weekends over a large district on the Malay Peninsula, supervising a rubber plantation which the mission owned, and other interesting tasks. How vividly now there come before my mind's eye faces and scenes out there! There was that blistering hot afternoon when, tired from walking out by the paddy (rice) fields up near the boundary of Siam, I was invited by a hospitable Malay laborer into his kampong (village) in the cool shade of great cocoanut palms. As we sat on the bamboo platform of his house he asked me if I would like a drink of cocoanut water. I assured him that I would, but could not at first see how he was going to obtain a young cocoanut for this most refreshing beverage. He, however, went to a corner of the yard and untied the rope which kept a brok (large tailless monkey) captive. Up the tall palm tree climbed the brok, at the end of his rope, and twisted loose the stems of the cocoanuts to which the Malay directed him. After the brok was again secured to his stake, the man with a deft stroke of his parang (a large heavy knife) cut through the heavy husk down to the shell, and then removing a piece of the shell handed to me nature's bottle all unspoiled, from which to drink. Delicious is a poor word for it! In lower Siam I saw the little boys taking elephants down to the creek on a hot Sunday afternoon and laughed at their nonchalance as they rode the big beasts and ordered them about. i marvelled as 1 saw how careful the elephants were when the boys got off-and what a time the elephants had playing in the water. I visited the Sakai (jungle people) back in the jungle, who had never before hard of Christ. Java I visited and found to be an island paradise with teeming million; of the neediest, most poverty stricken October, 1937 MouN [AIN L11 I AND WORK people to be found anywhere. While I was in Malaysia the big influenza epidemic struck, and it seemed that funerals were always going by our kampong. All through my experiences out there I could not but see what a wonderful service a Christian physician could render. Finally, high on the slopes of Goenong Gedeh, a beautiful volcano in Java, I made up my mind that at the end of my term of service in the Far East I would return and study medicine. This I did. But shortly before the fall term of college I borrowed money to get married. Then with a wife to help me I worked my way through medical college, having in mind that same beautiful hospital in the mountains of Java. And strange to say, I was actually appointed to go out there as the doctor in charge, but was unable to do so. Following interneship I worked for a while as assistant to a busy surgeon, then practised in a country village of northern New York for a year. But I could not be content with ordinary country practice. The story is rather interesting to me because 't seems as I look back over it that there is such a thing as "providence." "There is a Destiny which shapes our ends . . . ." It happened something like this. Having definitely prepared myself for a particular missionary task I was quite disturbed not to be able to engage in that work. Trying to think of a reasona'b'le solution to my problem it occured to me that perhaps Dr. Eli Pittman, for whom Pittman Community Center was named, could advise me. At once I wrote to him, and he did not wait to write-he telegraphed: "Meet me Monday morning at nine office Thatcher Manufacturing Company." With my wife and four-year-old boy I met him, and a mountain missionary superintendent, and a Christian manufacturer. And so we came to Pittman Community Center. We have now completed eleven years in the Great Smoky Mountains. Like Balzac's "Country Doctor" I have found myself doing many other things besides handing out pills. My therapeutics sometimes include loaning money on a man's unsecured note. Sometimes they mean getting a church school class in the North to subscribe to a magazine for a crippled lad. Many times I have found that what vas needed was not drugs but an order at the Page 3 store for food. Of course, like any country doctor, 1 have all kinds of cases, from acne to snake bite. Largely the work that fills my days (and sometimes nights) is that of a country doctor in an extremely isolated and rural situation. I found people who were living in such poverty as I had never dreamed existd in America. This was not Java or China, but America! And yet a whole people of the best white racial stock, proud, independent in spirit, sensitive, I found living in cabins and so-called "boxed houses," with very little money, depending on a little corn crop for their winter's bread, "getting by" with very little, and never complaining. The trouble was not only material poverty, but all that seems to go with it. Roads just were not, in the ordinary sense. Within five miles there were two dozen fords on the "Creek Road." When the river was "past fordin"' there was no mail. Ignorance and superstition abounded. In this kind of practice I wore out my first saddle pony. The constituency to which I ministered was scattered over a fairly wide area, roughly two hundred square miles-rather, I should say two hundred rough square miles. Some of my calls required from fifteen to twenty-five miles one way. I often found it easier to journey to "yan side of the mountain" by going around, especially after I got lost on the mountain trying to make a short cut at nightfall. It's a big territoryfrom Boogertown and Powder Mill Fork to Chavis and Cosby, and from the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the "foot o' the mountain," where the mountain's big toe has been cut by the graded road. If human need is what constitutes a missionary challenge then some mountain communities surely are a mission field. It was possibly five minutes after my arrival in the mountains when I had my first case, a bone felon. Since then there have been many infections of all sorts, the unusual number of them being due partly to the faulty and improperly balanced diet, as well as to lack of knowledge of how to care for injuries. There was the time when J-- came riding up on his gray mule. He was in real trouble. His wife was going down into the dark valley 1'agc 4 MouNrnm Lil 1: AND WORK and needed help badly. The operation required would not be considered such a difficult one if performed under other circumstances, such as a modern hospital, but in a mountain log cabin I undertook it with considerable trepidation because of the danger of infection. At least plenty of water could be boiled over the open fireplace, and attention could be given to "cleanliness." How proud I was, not only because the baby was alive, but because the mother did well and recovered uneventfully without any infection. When I first came into the mountains, untrained midwives had many of these cases, and it was unusual for a mother to have pre-natal or post-natal care. I can see now that there has been progress in this field, and expectant mothers demand good care in many cases. Much progress has been made, too, in the control of such diseases as typhoid fever and diphtheria. Day after day during my first year here I had to saddle Maude and ride over to Short Mountain-a time-consuming trip-to see a whole family down sick with typhoid fever. This year I have had not a single case of typhoid. The reason is to be found largely, I think, in the extensive program of clinics for immunization. I co-operated with the public health authorities to the fullest extent, conducting clinics in chapels, schools, stores, and other places and "giving shots" to literally thousands of persons each season, immunizing not only against typhoid fever and diphtheria, but also vaccinating against smallpox. When an epidemic of smallpox broke out on Indian Creek, vaccinations were done wholesale in all the schools and communities of this section, and the public health officials were glad to delegate all authority to me because the roads were so terrible. Various types of clinics have been developed from time to time. Chest clinics have been held for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. Eye clinics, too, have been conducted with the help of a specialist sent by the United States Public Health Service for the purpose of diagnosing and treating trachoma, that dreaded eye disease which often causes blindness. Tonsil clinics have been held for removal of tonsils and adenoids. A splendidly trained dentist helped with dental clinics. Mothers' and babies' clinics were held. Uctobcr, 1937 Some boys and girls who had very poor vision were helped to get suitable glasses, the oculist making his examinations free, and the optical company charging wholesale prices for their work. Some of the money for such aid came from the Friends of the Mountain Children. Pees for professional services have many times not been in the "coin of the realm." Sour John apples, pumpkins, honey, "rich pine" kindling, "taters," work building the doctor a road, corn, fodder, even a cow and a calf-all these and others have been paid on doctor bills. One day when I was at the house of a man named Pink, he said, in his peculiar voice that at unpredictable times was falsetto, "Doe, I hate it that I hain't never ben able to pay ye none, but I've got a cow I'll let you have if you want her." Well, I went out across the ridge with fink and down into the cool, shady hollow, where we finally found the cattle. After looking the poor old cow over, I told him I could allow him no more than sixteen dollars: "Doe," he said, "hit seems like she ought to be wuth twenty." So I took her at twenty dollars. Then I immediately let a mountain family of eight have her to milk. When they were through with her, a man wanted to buy her at thirteen dollars and gave me his note. Best of all, the note has after a long time been paid. But a mountain doctor's pay is not in money. After all, it is not the comparatively well-to-do ones who make the missionary problem. Those who live in the "heads of the hollers" need our help most. To them the problem of where to get just bread is often serious. Members of our community center staff have "sold" a good deal of corn which will never be paid for in money. In one "head o' the holler" community a child welfare station was started, headed by one of our graduates, with some aid from the Save the Children Fund and other help. Here children were fed but they were also taught to play, to keep clean, to sing. Among many calls for help, other than medical, was one from the principal of a two-teacher school. Upon investigation I found a school of fifty children, only one or two of whom had been able to obtain books. Many were barefooted because they had no shoes. The teachers told me that much making and drinking of whiskey wa. October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK going on in the neighborhood. T was also told that there were a considerable number of illegitimate children. Surely this is a mission field right at home! I was glad to be able to secure help which meant books, shoes, pencils, sweaters where most needed, as well as school lunches, not only in this one needy neighborhood but in others in the county. The implications of some things I have told may be rather discouraging, but I can see that some progress has been made in the last ten years. Roads have been graded and gravelled. Bridges have been built. Schools have improved. I believe that even "moonshining" is on the wane. Best of all, folks are being stirred from the attitude expressed in the words, "What is to be will be," and are coming to have the feeling that it is worth while to try to better their condition. They are 'beginning to feel a little shamefaced if they admit having their warts "blown away" or if they "put a dime in the churning." There are a few so far below the level of decent living that it is discouraging to try to help them. One well-to-do mountain woman said to me about my efforts in one family, "You might as well save your breath to cool your broth." But in spite of this we try to help those who seem below the level of self-respect, remembering that Jesus preached to the poor. Even these "least ones" say from their hearts, "Thank ye, Doc'!" Some time ago I rode by a mountain cabin, typical of many. It had one room, one door, and no windows. Just recently built, the stone chimney daubed with clay at one end of the cabin had not yet been finished, but was in use. Page S The little family of a young man, wife, and two small children who lived in it, faced the future up in that hollow without work animal or cow, pig or chickens, or "enough corn to do 'em," without a job for the father assured. How will they get along? I do not know. Rufe's wife said about her husband when asking me to prescribe for the pain in his back, "I don't want him to get down jest as he's ablin' to he'p me." If you could see the steep hillsides he cultivates you. would not wonder why he had lumbago. Too many mountain families are trying to make a living on marginal or sub-marginal land. In telling about my work I could not avoid mentioning ignorance, poverty, isolation, superstition-these are the foes I have had to fight as a mountain doctor. It has been a real fight and one tremendously worth while. Let me assure you that it is worth while to try to do something. And in the trying I value the friendship of the mountain people. I have heard them say, "We're pore folks but he'p yourself. Eat every bite you can. You're welcome to what we have." When I first came into the mountains it seemed to me there was a certain coldness and aloofness in the way the mountain men looked at me. I imagined that they were thinking, "Who is the `furriner'? What's his business here?" But now, if I ride through a mountain hollow at nightfall, I will hear a friendly voice say, "Howdy, Doc'! `Light and sup! Stay all night!" Yes, for opportunity to serve and the satisfaction that comes through serving, mine is the best job in the world. MOUNTAIN LIYr: AND WORK ,-,-BOOK LARNIN"' MARION HOLCOMB SKEAN Imagine yourself walking in the hot dust every day to the smoke-blackened walls of a school equipped with battered desks and rough blackboard. Imagine, too, that you are twisting and wriggling in your seat this hot summer day, when your natural impulse is to be out catching minnows in the little pools under the sycamore. Day after day you half-hear the teacher's voice as she disciplines her "scholars." Day after day you hear the loud word-by-word droning of those who stand by her side to recite. "Then-a--"Thought," prompts the teacher. "A--thought-came-to-him. He-took"A pebble." "A--pebble-and-dropped-itinto"The pitcher." "The-pitcher." "That will do," says the teacher. Day after day you do your sums, spell words, follow your fingers across the pages of the reader, memorize "pieces." But textbooks are scarce, so in times of idleness, many a soggy paper-wad hits its mark, and a stranger would be amazed at the pets concealed within the desks for the amusement of the children when the teacher turns her back. It is no wonder that a sort of "catch-meat-it-if-you-can" game has grown up-to be followed by the "threshings" considered so inevitable by teacher and pupils alike. Perhaps you do not need to imagine this situation. Perhaps you have carried cold biscuit, cooked apples and a sweet potato in a tight little bucket to just such a mountain school. In that case you will know that until the last year or two, in our state of Kentucky, many of these rural one-and two-room schools had virtually no books-few textbooks and no supplementary material. Over-population and exploitation of the land in the Appalachian Mountain region have of late years created a poverty here that has made the buying of books a luxury. Consequently, the isolated rural schools often used only what books the teacher herself provided. It is good to know October, 1937 that now free textbooks are provided through the sixth grade. But our rural school teachers are paid miserably low salaries. Naturally then, the better-prepared teachers flock to the cities and towns where there is more equipment, a higher wage scale, and a better chance for advancement. One cannot blame them. This is not saying that there are not many excellent rural school teachers. Nor is it saying that all city teachers are good. Then too, it is an all too well accepted fact that many rural schools throughout the South are political plums to be bought and sold in the market of petty county politics. That in no way helps to raise the standards of these schools. Taking all these things into consideration, one can easily understand the high attendance mortality of pupils in the rural schools. In six Kentucky mountain counties last year, for every twenty-two children starting in the primer class, three finished the eighth grade and approximately one finished high school. Most of the pupils who reach high school and then drop out do so because they read too slowly and laboriously to keep up in their classes. Obviously the need for better training, more books and wholesome guidance in the lower grades is acute. Some six or seven years ago the late Mr. E. O. Robinson of Cincinnati established at Ary, Kentucky, Homeplace community center. One day Miss Lula Hale, the director, loaded into her car some children's books. These she took to a few of the schools in her neighborhood for the children to borrow. These children, at first awed and then entranced, made their own selections from the books spread before them on a blanket. Each week during that school year those few children had the excitement of a new book to read. The teacher was as delighted as the children to see the "book woman" come. Discipline was easier as long as there were books available for those who were quick to learn their lessons. And she often found for herself a book to read during her shut-in winter evenings. So was born in the back of a little Ford car what is now known October, 1937 1Vlourv rAiu LI t. Axu V'our. as the Homeplace Traveling Library. From a library of 600 volumes in 1930 it has grown to nearly three thousand volumes; and from a circulation of about five thousand in 1930 to fifteen thousand in 1936-37. There is now a full-time librarian who drives a specially built book truck with shelves opening outside, within easy reach of the boys and girls. It is still :a very small library, but the book truck visits in two counties some thirty rural school rooms each week, taking not only books but songs and gams to the six or seven hundred children. Thus the library serves not only its own local community but twenty-four other communities. The children take the books to their homes, where it is estimated t h a t three or four others read them before their return to the truck; so indirectly the library serves nearly every hom° in the communities it reaches. The county superintendents and teachers arc very co-operative and are unanimous in their approval of the traveling library. If at first they are a little dubious, thinking there surely must be a "catch" in it, they are soon as enthusiastic as the children. As new roads have been opened up, more schools have been added to the weekly schedule of the book truck. Calls from other counties have constantly to be rejected for lack of time and books. A second book truck and many new books were added this summer, so that more schools may be reached this fall. It is interesting to observe what selections the boys and girls make from the truck. Schools that have not had library service are-in reading ability-conspicuously behind those that have. Children in these schools rarely select books above about the third grade level, while children in the schools that have had library service the longest Page 7 .:re reading books of their own grade level or above. Children in the lower grades enjoy animal and fairy tales and the attractive little supplcmcntary readers. Older girls like fairy tales and the easier novels. Boys, of course, want adventuresome of the older ones read quite difficult books on aviation. The boys and girls learn to take care of these books, though to many of them a book is something very precious already. The children pride themselves on having their books back on time. Not only their pride but- their keen desire to get another book on book day prompts them. Some schools go through the entire year with not a book late or lost. Much depends on the teacher. As most of the books carried on t h e book truck are selected from approved reading lists for boys and girls, the children develop not only fluency in reading and a sense of the value of property, but also a taste for better books. Their choices often reflect it. Who can estimate the value? If we believe that the education of rural children, not only in the mountain section but everywhere, is essential, then we should see to it that they have as good a chance for getting it as the children in towns and cities. Library service is one vital way of helping them. `while this library truck reaches 24 different school districts in Breathitt and Perry Counties, there are 176 more in these same counties that have no library service. Some of these are too romote for any book truth to reach. In the six counties of Breathitt, Perry, Knott, Magoffin, Leslie and Wolfe, there are 503 county schools. Twenty-four of these are high schools and have some kind of library, but 489 of them are rural grade schools with a total enrollment of 35,753 V 'U.i.KLt VISIT OF TH r: BOOK TRUCK. Page s MOUNTAIN LTPI: boys and girls. One of these counties has a small library in its county seat village that operates on a very limited budget and serves those who live in or near the town. Another county has a federal project of "pack-horse libraries" distributing books to some of its rural schools. There, too, is reported a need for books for primary grade children. A few of the teachers take advantage of the loan collections sent out by various colleges and the stag department. There are also small private collections of books in the various mission centers in these counties. But the great bulk of these 35,753 rural boys and girls do not have access to any library. The same situation Progressi,vDe Education in GLYN A. W;, associate with parts of the Kentucky mountains and with many other sections of the Southern Highlands a picture of backwardness and retardation. This picture alone would be dark indeed, were it not for the fact that it has prompted progressive experimentation in dealing with social problems, which is resulting in guideposts to a solution of the mountain problem. The very urgency of the social and economic problem has led to such a project for example as the T. v. A., and all over the Highlands are cropping up smaller experiments in agriculture, producer-- and consumerco-operatives. This experimentation includes also the field of education, particularly in those schools whose circumstances make it possible for them to break without too much pain with traditional methods and to proceed along the lines most adequate to cope with the mountain problem. Pine Mountain Settlement School is one of several such schools which have departed more or less from the traditionally standardized program. In substance, what Pine Mountain is doing could be duplicated many times and probably in a much better way by schools on the outside. But the particular problems of the area, represented by a student body from coal camp and hollow, form a setting which must naturally be reflected in the school and its program; thus, in a far away valley of the AND WORK October, 1937 exists in other counties of the mountain section of Kentucky. To put good books in the hands of these boys and girls is an exceptional opportunity for someone. Adequate county library service for rural people as well as townspeople is still more or less a dream in the mountain counties. Some day it will be considered as necessary as our County Health Department or the Government Extension Service. But until then the small school and private libraries must do their utmost in educating the public to demand library serviceespecially for boys and girls. the Kentucky ,Mountains MORRIS Southern Highlands, we have just a little different expression of the whole progressive educational movement. No further mention need be made here of the background of mountain boys and girls. Their culture and heritage have fascinated all who have known of it. Their economic poverty and lack of opportunity have challenged many. Pine Mountain Settlement School, founded in 1914 by Miss Katherine Pettit and Mrs. Ethel DeLong Zande, is a boarding school for boys and girls of high school age. In a valley on the north side of Pine Mountain, it is sixteen miles from the nearest town, and until very recently could only be reached by a logging train or on muleback. From a radius of about fifty miles come its one hundred students, representing two very diverse areas of mountain life-the extremely rural and the less progressive coal camps. Each student pays an entrance fee of ten dollars and tuition of five dollars a month. The privilege of working this out in the summer is given to all who cannot afford to pay. Board and room is paid for by two hours' labor each day. Practically all the work incident to maintaining the school plant is done by the students under supervision. This includes farm, dairy, poultry, kitchen, laundry, repair and upkeep of buildings, light plant, water works and house work. The October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE school is a complete community in itself. It is well-equipped for woodworking and shop; has a print shop including a linotype machine, and equipment for teaching home economics, as well as weaving, shorthand and typing. It would be tedious and unnecessary to present a detailed account of all that goes on at Pine Mountain. There is space here to suggest only those features which characterize the newer trends in education as they are found at the school. .'. Basic in Pine Mountain's educational program is "guidance." Without this an elaborate curriculum might easily become the tool of chance; and with guidance, the most limited curriculum can be made into something infinitely richer. What is guidance? It is a philosophy; and the description of what Pine Mountain is doing that is in any way different from the usual school is a partial explanation because the school is striving towards the goal of a perfect guidance program.' The nature of the answer can be further suggested by another question found in the preface to "Education as Guidance," by Dr. John M. Brewer. Since as Dr. Brewer says, most educators would agree that the final purpose of all education is that students may learn to live better lives, "why then do we not set up living and guidance therein as the curriculum, rather than the so-called subjects or fields of knowledge?"z This is essentially what Pine Mountain has been trying to do. The entire life of the school is the curriculum, and the traditional studies, such as English, mathematics, history and science, are no longer ends in themselves, but function in a contributary way as needed in the development of a student's personality and character. Lest this sound as though we were calling the old horse by another name, it should be said that there are certain agencies which characterize a g'dance program. The most obvious and dis ul *ble is the office of counselor. A brief dis cerm I I cussion of his tasks will throw much light on the 1. Pine Mountain is indebted to Dr. O. L. Hatchet, President of the Southern Woman's Education Alliance, for aid both inspirational and technical in setting up a guidance program. 2. Brewer, John M. Education as Guidance. New York, Macmillan & Co. AND WORK Page 9 meaning of guidance. The counselor's work begins with the gathering of data on the life and family history of a prospective student. If possible he visits the student's home, and carefully, and systematically records all information that may throw any light whatever on the student's life. The better trained he is to evaluate and recognize pertinent facts, the more helpful can he be in uncovering motives, and interpreting activities. Before the opening day of school the counselor and the teachers through him have already begun to know the student. After the student arrives, he is given such tests as are needed to throw supplementary light on his academic achievement level and suitable personality tests as seem necessary. Then follows the first of many conferences with the counselor, who, on the basis of all the information already gathered, begins his task of guiding the student through those experiences which the, school has to offer that seem best suited to him. Here begins, perhaps for the first time in the student's life, the experience of self-analysis, and here he is given for the first time expert guidance in the matter of evaluating himself and of making choices. The counselor does not superimpose"he enlightens and helps to solve." The matter of a student's selecting a curriculum cannot be left to chance, to his whims nor to the varying interests in him of the members of the faculty, no matter how progressively trained they may be. It is a matter of careful guidance. But this is merely the beginning of the counselor's task. For from this time on, being free from all other tasks in the school, he devotes his time and energy to a systematic gathering, recording and interpretation of every bit of data available in regard to the student's life at school. He collects and records anecdotal material, and thereby fills in the more prosaic data with interesting sidelights on personality: He holds conferences with teachers, work supervisors and house mothers. He stands ready to co-ordinate and interpret all of the resources of the complex school as they are needed to provide varying life experiences for the student. Students go to him for guidance in the matter of the next step to take, and naturally he .becomes Page 10 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK the school expert in the matter of vocational choices and opportunities. Here again, nothing can be left to chance. He holds a class in the study of vocational possibilities and the requirements needed. He gathers all available information on local job possibilities, and passes it on to the students. What is obvious as a result of this account of the counselor and his work is that here is a carefully-thought out plan which safeguards for the student all that can be gained through the efforts of a person who is a specialist in doing just this thing. We have too long believed that if a student is exposed -to a grand array of courses and activities he will become educated. How much more effective this grand array can be if interpreted by one who understands it, and uses it as needed. The child needs systematic and organized help in this matter. This is the counselor's task. Now we come to the next point of departure, if a school is to achieve maximum efficiency in guidance. If the form of curriculum is to become life-like and free from competitive strain, it must discard some of the old forms of standardization which have become an end in themselves and outgrown the purpose for which they were intended. Therefore, it seemed wise not to give grades, nor credits, nor to issue report cards with the traditional numeral or letter markings. A student is not graded at Pine Mountain nor can his level be exactly identified by the particular course he may be taking. For convenience, there is organization and system, but this is flexible and serves only for efficiency in giving the maximum service. It is not an end in itself and can be changed at will. Within each group there is awide divergence of achievement level and ability made permissible by individualization of the material which is being studied. This also makes possible a varied combination of interests which may be followed and permits of a flexible curriculum for any student. A student may take English with a group the first hour or two in the morning, but not be with the same group again throughout the entire day. Once one refuses to do homage to standardization and accreditation, many blessings follow. October, 1937 The matter of giving credits for work done has been the most difficult problem to solve. Recently, the University of Kentucky, expressing its very active interest in furthering the cause of a less standardized high school curriculum, has granted Pine Mountain the privilege of sending its graduates to the University without the necessity of presenting the usual number and order of high school credits. This has been a great boon in overcoming the annoying allegiance which some students have to the credit system. Any other problem of transference on the secondary level we meet as conditions warrant. This leads to the matter of reports and records. If any part of our program can 'be said to be sI ific, it is the matter of records. This is c enti I 1 1 basic to guidance. This is the counselor's work and again here nothing is left to chance. In a student's file will be found a complete and detailed account of his life and work while at Pine Mountain. To compare a report card, with the traditional symbols and a transcript of credits, with the information in these files, which gives a student's actual achievements both in factual knowledge and personality, is like setting the herb doctor's diagnosis beside that of a well-trained and well-equipped physician. In this file are not only subjective and objective evaluations, but a complete history of experiences, failures, achievements and personal evaluations by the student himself. They give, through their detail, an insight into the entire personality. Each teacher evaluates the work done in terms of a desirable goal for the student and his ability to achieve this goal, and not in terms of a comparison with other members of the class. This eliminates vicious competition, a striving for grades above all else, and makes the student see himself now in relation to what he was a week, a month, or a year ago. If a student wishes to be transferred to another school, we can send our records of what he has done at Pine Mountain. We do not believe that for technical reasons any child will be made to suffer in the matter of transference from Pine Mountain, and a standard achievement test after leaving Pine Mountain to go to a public school will place him, as far as the public school system i I is concerned, about where he belongs. '%YJe have said tHat rasi~ LQ Q;j-r program is what October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE ANU WORK is known as guidance. Guidance becomes effective in proportion as the school provides a practical curriculum with as many life activities as possible. We teach no subject because it is required by some outside agency. A student is taught only those things which have value for him as an individual. The curriculum is made as rich and interesting as possible through projects, and whenever possible it has been decompartmentalized. Here it must be said that there are draw-backs in a boarding school, much as these draw-backs are minimized by the cottage plan of housing as is found at Pine Mountain. But as far as the student is concerned for the time being, Pine Mountain is his entire life. Every effort is made to set forth any comparisons between life in the school and out, so that the student does not lose perspective. From among the student activities, three stand out as of major importance. (I) A citizenship committee consisting of three workers and six students, which is the student and staff civic governing body. All problems of citizenship are discussed and the proper action which follows has its origin with this group. Meeting twice each week, not at night, but in the middle of the day, often taking up hours of regular class time, it has become, not an artificial body for making students feel they have autopomy, but a necessary group for staff as well as students, without which the school could not function as a democratic body. It is an active, co-operative group, promoting through its many ramifications and committees, the best interests of the entire school. Despite the failures of many student governing bodies, it can be said that this one has been on the whole most successful. (2) A student co-operative store. This is priFnarily a project of the middle age group and requires at least two hours each day. Stock is sold at twenty-five cents a share, and all the problems of a co-operative store from buying supplies through to declaring and distributing dividends are tackled. When the 64 stock holders received a dividend of nearly 25 per cent ,at the end of the first .six months, theta was a Powerful object lessor! in the value of co-op ZI S- sd_ ___r ~nr mmmor~ groi~p_ _ .rh;s -sd____ co______w___-t wgrosof Page 11 older girls spends its time working in and studying the problems of an isolated and povertystricken community which spreads out through the lonely hollows in the vicinity of the school. The life at the school is not the life from which our students come nor to which they will return. 'their years at Pine Mountain are cloistered and sheltered. They lose contact with their own people. Much as we desire to be realistic, our tools for training our students are limited by the very fact that we cannot adequately duplicate the conditions under which they live. Who can create isolation and poverty and the rigidity of parental opinion and their fatalistic outlook? Our schools are sociable places, where every effort is made to help the student with his problems. Eventually, unless he leaves the mountains, he returns to a situation alien to all his schooling. Everything is against him. Furthermore, very little opportunity is given our more mature students to develop leadership and initiative under real life conditions. And too, the young people of the mountains should have an active share in solving the pressing problems which they as a group must face. After they are through college it is often too late. They have been trained away from the mountains, or in their desire to get to the top of the heap, they unconsciously aim at positions which mark them off from the life and problems of the folk from which they have come. So our girls call regularly on the people in their territory and help in the local schools. There is no end to what they can do after rapport has been established. They are trained in home nursing, and in the social case method. Their studies are based on the problems which they meet, and therefore they have a rich experience in the field of psychology, sociology and economics. They are brought face to face with the personal problems of isolated families, as well as the social problems of the area; and with the possibilities through agencies both local and national of bringing about a more abundant life, even for those who must remain in the far corners of the mountains. Flnallt'. 1'11W MOOI1tdW i-. ~ h ,dry tp°oL£d bt' tt. Social life and recreation- For the past 'f1vF years there ha~,-e been no athletsc contests wit1, OrhAr c~h~,~1g. F=hh°_,-mfr`, arhlet!~s at Pin.`. Page 12 MOUNTAIN LiI,F AND WORK Mountain have found a place proportionate to their importance as a part of the life, but no more. Hiking, dramatics, music and folk dancing are. as important as basketball or baseball. Folk dancing for boys and girls, young and old, is as important an the minds of the students as any basketball game, if not more so. There is no racking of brains on Saturday nights for plans to provide the students with games. The school, through the wise planning of its founders, has received a rich heritage of English country dancing and the Kentucky running-set. They form a perfectly natural part of the school's curriculum, so that nearly every student, boy and girl, as well as staff members, spontaneously and naturally takes part an them. Their average repertoire of about forty c14 Way o f Advance In a group of three country churches which formerly received a $700 supplement from the Home Mission Committee, we undertook self-support. With the help of the Lord's Acre plan we found it easily possible. Three years ago one of the churches of this group, financially the weakest of the three, decided to have a full-time pastor and undertake selfsupport. This meant the building of a manse. Now we near the close of the second year of full-time self-supporting work at Duncan's Creek Church, and plan by the end of the church year to make the final payment of $234 on the new tenroom brick veneer manse. During the past year a Delco light plant for use of the church and manse has also been installed and paid for. We are convinced that our undertaking could not have succeeded without the help of the Lord's Acre projects. These are the words of Rev. R. T. Baker of Duncan's Creek Presbyterian Church, telling of ,his practical experience with the Lord's Acre plan. The origin of the Lord's Acre plan is the Bible ,practice by which the children of Israel dedicated the first-fruits of the ground and the firstlings of their flocks and herds for the support of their religious institutions. The Scripture commandment is: "The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shall bring unto the house of the Lord thy God," Exodus 34:20. This method, especially in Old Testament times, was most useful in filling the storehouses of the Lord. More October, 1937 well-known dances provides endless hours of delightful and beautiful recreation. Boys and girls live a normal life together so that there is no strain. Rules governing their conduct have been made with their assistance, and while every effort is made to safeguard them from undue temptations, every effort is also made to promote self-control, honor, and an inner discipline. Everywhere on the school grounds visitors will find them together. It is as men and women together that they will have to face the trials of life in the homes which they will make. So we believe that not only should they plan those hom°s together in the classroom, as they do at Pine Mountain, but they should taste together the joy of wholesome companionship. for the Country Church DUMONT CLARKS over it is significant, concerning the development of religion in Israel, that the custom was followed of the whole family working together in the fields for God. It brought the sense of duty to God and the consciousness of God's presence into everyday life. This custom among the farming population of Israel was continued, according to the evidence, through New Testament times. In one form or another, the separation of crops for God has been practiced throughout the history of the church. In England, for example, through many generations a tithe of the crops, as some remaining tithing-barns still bear witness, was taken by tax for the support of the church. In American church history, from Colonial times, the setting apart of certain crops for religious purposes has been practiced in occasional ways. Today, conditions are probably more favorable than at any time since Bible days for the systematic cultivating and marketing of specific crops for the Lord's use. The Lord's Acre plan was first developed as a movement among all denominations by the Farmers Federation of Western North Carolina. James G. K. McClure, Jr., President of the farmers' co-operative, with the unanimous support of the directors, set up a religious depart October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 13 meat in the organization with the primary purpose of developing the Lord's Acre movement. He gave to me the privilege of starting and carrying out this work among the country churches. Seven and a half years ago the Lord's Acre plan was started in six churches, of three denominations, in two counties. Now there are approximately three hundred churches, of eleven denominations, in twenty-one counties engaged in this plan in our territory. This year over thirty-five hundred Lord's Acre buttons or badges have been sent out in response to requests to be awarded to workers, and there are probably five thousand engaged in projects. A considerable number of churches are doing very well in this work, many more are carrying it on with a small number of projects. Each succeeding year shows a substantially larger number of workers and of churches participating. The conditions for advancing the movement in connection with the religious department of the Farmers Federation, which gives an approach to all denominations and which offers markets when desired, are particularly favorable. It is indicative of the esteem which this movement has gained in the hearts of church people that during the past year two of the best farms in Western North Carolina, in Burke and Henderson Counties, have been named in honor of this plan, "The Lord's Acre Farm No. 1," J. L. Houk, manager, and "The Lord's Acre Farm No. 2," Mr. and Mrs. L. V. Lyda, managers. Some of the many outstanding results of the Lord's Acre plan follow: The Fairview Baptist Church, Fairview, North Carolina, has for nearly eight years, with the help of the Lord's Acre yields, met its yearly obligations in full, as not before in many years; and, in addition, has installed a new $700 furnace fully paid for, and has completed the payment for seats. A leader in the project work said, "I do not know what we would have done without the Lord's Acre Plan." Tweed's Chapel Methodist Church, Fletcher, N. C., paid off its 5300 mortgage with Lord's Acre yields, added to its furnishings, and year by year has met all obligations. The chairman of the Lord's Acre committee said, "I do not see how we could hate ` met our payments without the Lord's Acre yields." The Sunday School superintendent added, "Our attendance has prac tically doubled since the Lord's Acre work was started." The Sulphur Springs Baptist Church in Rutherford County reported in 1937 $400 paid from Lord's Acre yields over and above the regular offerings. The pastor, B. M. Strickland, writes, As one who has had experience with the Lord's Acre plan, I can heartily endorse it as a plan among plans, which wonderfully increases the regular church gifts and deepens the sense of individual responsibility toward God and makes the individual a more consistent Christian. The pastor of the Micavill_e Methodist Church in Yancey County, Rev. H. C. Bolick, writes, In the two years we have been on the Micavillc circuit we have found the Lord's Acre plan very successful. This year the charge has received from it about two hundred and fifty dollars directly. It has also been the means directly of the charge being fully paid out for the first time in years. It has also been the means of increasing the attendance of our Sunday school, young people's organizations, and church services. My convictions are that the Lord's Acre plan is the salvation for the average rural church. The largest total yield from Lord's Acre projects in the Lord's Acre movement so far recorded is $1500, received in the year 1936-1937 by Cooley Springs Baptist Church near Chesnee, S. C. It is expected, however, that this mark will be considerably surpassed this year by t'he returns from thirty-six and a half dedicated acres of corn and potatoes and from many individual projects of pigs, chickens, apples, raspberries and eggs, at Dana Baptist Church, Dana, N. C. Space does not permit a detailed recording of substantial individual gifts made possible, of large increases in individual contributions achieved through the use of the Lord's Acre plan. Young boys, and girls, men and women who formerly could give little or nothing are now contributing from the very small child's fifty cents to the young people's and older people's gifts up to thirty-five and forty dollars. However, let me give just three instances of such giving, two of them that have been brought to the writer's attention in the very week this article is written. Billy Leopard, about fourteen years of age, has just turned in to Radcliffe Cove Baptist Church $15, the proceeds from his fiftyfoot square patch of spinach. A young man, David Norton, has just received from his Lord's MUUWCAIN LINE AND WORK hive, the best of his hives, $11.40, to be given at once to Brevard Methodist Church. James Hubbard, about fourteen years of age, of Duncan's Creek Presbyterian Church, has raised two pigs and one field of corn for the Lord in the past three years, yielding respectively, the first about $14, the second $19, and the third $12. All of the above contributions represent money for the respective churches, which apart from the Lord's Acre projects, would not have been available. Likewise, many hundreds of small children are raising chickens and are carrying out field projects that are yielding returns of from fifty cents to four or five dollars for their churches. One group-project of potatoes at Tweed's Methodist Church, cultivated by children eleven to thirteen years of age, yielded $47.25 for the church. The Lord's Acre plan, explicitly, in the form in which it is used today, is that each member of the church and Sunday school, indeed each one who receives the benefits of the church, shall dedicate some worthy field project or stock project to the Lord, raise and harvest the produce, sell it and give the cash proceeds to the church. The standard for the project or one's total gift is the tithe. The Lord's "Acre," it should be understood, is a convenient term for the project, whether it be a child's chicken or a man's five acres. The Lord's Acre plan is not a substitute for regular cash giving but a supplement to such giving. That is, it is not meant to take the place of cash gifts when these can be given, but to provide many contributions which would not otherwise be possible; and also to enable everyone to give supplementary aid for special causes. The plan is carried out through both individual and group projects. The individual project is strongly recommended. It is to the worker a daily reminder of duty to God, it gives the spiritual satisfaction of serving God in the home and on the farm, and it develops individual responsibility. Group projects, in addition to individual projects, make for fellowship in Christian work, and are encouraged where there is good leadership. Some of the values of the Lord's Acre plan may be summarized as follows: It is a most practical, proven means of supplementing church support and dives everyone in the church and Sunday October, 1937 school opportunity to have a just and self-respect,ing part. It sets aside the Lord's portion at the beginning and does not depend upon a late and indefinite "left-over." It builds Christian character by giving all in the church a definite daily work for the Lord; is an aid to true evangelism, and makes clearer the meaning of Christian discipleship. It greatly increases the total contributions to the church, supplementing and stimulating other methods of giving. It is an ideal method for training all in stewardship, and for most of the farm children it is the only practical method of stewardship training. It brings the satisfactions and stimulations of religion naturally into daily farm life, uniting the work of the week effectively with the program of the Kingdom. It can be made the means, through intelligent supervision, of raising the whole standard of farming, so benefiting the farmer and his church. It makes more vital many Bible teachings-"Christian growth," "Working with God," "God's blessings," "Guarding against evil," "Love of God's soil." It adds a pleasing bond of interest between the pastor and his people, greatly increases interest in the church, and raises up leaders for the church. It unites with every church activity, deepens fellowship between all the workers, and strengthens the whole of church life for its work in the home, in the community, in the world. Some striking testimonies concerning the Lord's Acre plan are given below: "The Lord's Acre plan gives daily contacts with God, bringing growth and power to farm and church life."A co-operative leader. "The Lord's acre plan enables us to put more of ourselves into the Lord's work; and hard work loses some of its drudgery when it is done in His name."-A Lord's Acre worker. "It is the Lord's Acre or nothing."-A missionary on furlough from Africa. "The Lord's Acre work is doing for my boys something that no other plan can do."-A Methodist mother. "When a boy brings his Lord's Acre return he brings not only his money but himself."-An Episcopal layman. "The rural church that will not adopt and prove the benefits of this plan is surely missing one of its greatest spiritual forces."-A Baptist pastor. "I believe that country church that will faithfully use the Lord's Acre plan may now face the future with courage."-A Presbyterian pastor. October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 15 The Lord's Acre plan is not just another form of stewardship added to regular cash giving. It is a fundamental method for which there is a definite need in any complete program of stewardship in the real church. Consider, first, that the uncertainty of farm income makes many a farmer, who would like to 'help his church, un willing to pledge a cash sum. The memory of broken cash pledges is a familiar one in country churches and deters many from promising definite money payments. Many also have little or no ready cash. A large proportion of such people are willing, as experience shows, to pledge a certain part of the farm crop or stock in addition to such cash payments as they may be able to make from week to week. Second, the Lord's Acre plan supplies a very practical means of training children, and a considerable proportion of adults, in Christian stewardship. Dr. H. C. 'Weber, President of the Stewardship Council of the United States and Canada in 1935-1937, who has made a field study of the Lord's Acre plan, writes, I welcome every technique or plan which personalizes giving. The Lord's Acre does this pre-eminently. Toil goes into it. Sharing with the Lord that which is a daily care and concern goes into it. Forethought and watchfulness are required. The muscle, thought, skill and self are involved. When the Lord finally gets the result, He has in His hands a significant offering. Actually thousands of children and older people are now learning the duty and practice of Christian Stewardship through the dedication and care of farm projects, and the final gift of the proceeds from them. Rightly guided, it seems that the plan will generally lead to tithing. Third, the Lord's Acre plan, when well worked out, brings into the country church the satis MEMBERS OF THE RADCLIFFE COVE BAPTIST CHURCH, HAYWOOD COUNTY, IN THEIR LORD'S ACRE BEAN FIELD, WHICH HAS MADE 859.77 FOR THE CHURCH TREASURY. factions and stimulations of co-operative participation in stewardship. When the membership of a church realizes that all or most of its people are doing a worthy part, immediately the doors of progress are opened wide. The very spirit of a co-operative, working membership heartens all and manifests itself in every field of church endeavor. It is sometimes feared by those who are not familiar with the actual working of the Lord's Acre plan that it will interfere with the regular cash giving. The whole experience of the Lord's Acre movement shows that, on the contrary, when rightly explained to any church, the plan a 1 w a y s increases the regular cash gifts, and then adds the returns from the projects as well. It keeps the duty and practice of stewardship before the church in a most interesting and effective way. Certain other principles recognized as fundamental to or highly valuable for progress are inherent in the Lord's Acre plan. A most important principle is that of expressing ideals in action. Ideals without action, as William James so convincingly taught, are useless, even harmful. The Lord's Acre plan produces action; it puts teaching definitely into practice. It directly applies, in the fulfilling of certain Christian duties, Jesus' teaching, "He that heareth these words of mine and doeth them." It is learning of God by doing for God. 1n a word it is making religion more effective in the daily conduct of church and Sunday school members. Another fundamental principle inherent in the Lord's Acre plan is the interest-approach. It is an axiom of education that all advanced teaching Page 16 must begin with what a person already knows, and ,preferably should begin with that in which a pqxson is already interested. The Lord's Acre plan does this for most of those with whom it is used. Professor Kenneth J. Foreman, of Davidsan .College, who knows well the background and thoughts of children and youth in the farm regions of North Carolina, said, "It is probably true that most of our farm children, up to adolescence at least, are soil-minded rather than bookminded." Accepting this judgment, the Lord's Acre work offers a most natural means by which to lead the farm child to think of God and to serve God. It is indeed the strong testimony of many Sunday school teachers whose pupils carry through dedicated projects that this work gives the. children much more interest in, and makes more. meaningful, the Sunday school lessons; especially as the lessons are related in some real way to their daily work for the Lord. A principle in the Lord's Acre plan much emphasized today and that is highly valuable for progress, is the project principle. Professor Erwin L. Shaver, an authority on religious education, justifies the project principle in these words: The practical demands of life insist that education fit (a child) to carry on a specific task and to make a definite contribution to society rather than to be efficient in.general.' It is just such a task and such a contribution to society that the Lord's Acre plan comprehends; and with its spiritual motivation this definite work for the Lord can be made an ideal exempli fication of the project method. The church and Sunday school field and. stock "projects, when well planned, intelligently supervised, and wholly completed, seem to fulfill" every requirement for sound project work.Moreover, the steadily growing interest jp -,,the projects of 4-H Clubs and, Future Farmers' organizations offers the church a wonderful opportunity and stimulus to utilize, through the Lord's Acre plan, the project method. Another and most important -principle in the Lord's. Acre plan is that of the daily spiritual habit. The church has long desired a practical means for bringing spiritual service into the weekday. living of a large proportion of its mem 1. The Project Princijyle in Religious Ed2ecation. University of Chicago.Press, 1924. . :.,.,: MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK October, 1937 bers. Some plan in addition to Bible reading and prayer has been needed to lead people to fulfill ,the Scripture teaching, "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." The Lord's Acre plan is making it clearer that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," and is bringing the sense of duty to God and the joy of serving God into the lives of many day by day. The church may look for boundless spiritual results in consecration, initiative, leadership, with the continuance and development of this practice of daily, specific, Christian service on the farm. The Lord's Acre plan will not work of itself. Intelligent, enthusiastic,persistent leadership is required. The pastor himself must be thoroughly interested, and the plan should be effectively presented to the church as a whole. The Lord's Acre Determination Committeetwo men and a woman, or three men and two women-should be appointed, and begin active work in December or earlier. This Determination Committee will: (1) Determine the best way to work out the plan in the local church. Conditions vary, but the plan is flexible and can be successfully adapted to widely different conditions. (2) Determine the sum to be sought through the Lord's Acre crops. It appeals to the imagination of the people to indicate that the sum will be used for some special object, or that it will be proportionately divided between several special objects. (3) Determine the most salable crops. This is very important and should include the matter of the standard grading, and of marketing opportunities. (4) Carry through the plan with determination and supervision to a complete and successful conclusion. With a vigorous leadership, an informed congregation, and appealing objectives, this plan seems thoroughly workable in every country church. Helps have been prepared: a placard to be posted at some suitable place in the church building, reading, "God Wants a Working Church, Let Each Work a Lord's Acre Project." Buttons or badges with the words "A Lord's Acre Worker, 1937," attractively printed with blue letters on a silver background are available, and also a Lord's Acre play, "The Courage of Consecrated Giving." In our own territory stereop October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK ticon slides and charts are taken directly to the country churches. A pamphlet, "The Country Church at Work With the Lord's Acre Plan" costs nine cents to anyone who sends for it to the writer at The Farmers Federation, Asheville, North Carolina. The Lord's Acre movement has been greatly advanced, not only by personal presentations of the plan at country churches, but also by the general Lord's Acre meetings for all denominations which have been held in Asheville. These have been addressed by Robert E. Speer, Secretary, Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions; Henry A. Wallace, U. S. Secretary of Agriculture; Marshall Nelms, Pastor, Baptist Churches, Hartwell, Georgia; James G. K. McClure, Jr.; Frank P. Graham, President, University of North Caro Rebuilding A SAMUEL AND NOLA "Uncle Sam, God has been awfully good to us; we sure got a lot to be thankful for, ain't we?" For a moment or two "Uncle Sam" was too surprised to reply. The night was so dark that he could not even see the ears of the mule he was r*ding down the swollen waters of Bolin's Creek. The girl who had asked the question had been up since two-thirty in the morning, had ridden muleback about twenty miles in a heavy rain, about fifty miles on the train, had a full day at a 4-H club leaders' conference at the Experiment Station at Quicksand, and now about nine P.M., cold, tired and wet, with the Middle Fork of the Kentucky still to be forded and then four more miles of creek bed road before she reached her home, she voiced her gratitude to God and asked "Uncle Sam" to agree. Do you wonder that he was momentarily at a loss for an answer? Then he realized that she was not thinking of the physical discomforts of the journey but of the fact that through the goodness of God, opportunity had at last come to the folks of the Morris Fork Community to which she belonged. And so he answered, "Yes, Louise, God has been awfully good to us-we have a lot to be thankful for." The start' of how this opportunity came to such an isolated community in Breathitt County Tina; Robert B. House, Dean of the University of North Carolina; and Toyohiko Kagawa, of Japan. These meetings have generated much enthusiasm and power for the Lord's Acre movement. The spread of the Lord's Acre movement is most encouraging. It is taking root in many parts of the United States and is being used in a systematic way in foreign lands. Many missionaries have come to make a field study of the Lord's Acre work while on their furloughs from Africa, India, Siam, China, Japan, Korea, South America, and other countries. It is reasonable to believe that this plan, coming from the Bible, and proving itself so fruitful in present use, will be steadily developed, both at home and abroad, in the life of the country church. Community VANDER MEER is too long to tell here. But we must tell of Ike Gabbard of Cow Creek, the faithful man of God, who came to this community for many years, and how he would ride back to his home over the mountain, sick at heart because boys and girls were growing up in an atmosphere of sin and lawlessness, where pistols cracked and moonshine was imbibed, while he endeavored to preach the gospel of peace and love. With the burden of this community upon his heart he would kneel before the open fire at his home and pour out his heart to God for help. God heard those earnest petitions and sent His servants to open wide the door of opportunity so that these neglected people might have a chance for the development of all of life. Because of the bad reputation of this community the workers had been warned against entering-these people loved sin too much to give it up, they were told. But the call of God had clearly been heard and in His strength they began the attack upon crime, illiteracy, disease, shiftlessness, and poverty. The first building, a large rustic community house, was erected in 1926. Many of the people were tired of the old way of living and very generously gave lumber and labor to make the building possible. Their ready re Page 18 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK October, 1937 sponse made us realize that the situation was not as hopeless as it appeared and soon the folks, with us, caught a vision of a different Morris Fork where, through a constructive program of Christian education and the transforming power of Christ, there would be created an atmosphere in which boys and girls might grow up into outstanding men and women. In the fall of 1927, the Forest Hill Presbyterian Church of Newark, N. J., heard of the work being done and after thorough investigation offered to pay the salary of the two workers who up to this time had had no financial backing. This offer was gladly accepted and the relationship between the Newark church and the Morris Fork Community is to this day a most happy one. Gifts of lumber, money and labor were offered by our people for additional buildings. One day a man from a neighboring community heard the sound of hammering as he came in and his first thought was that another "still box" was being made. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that instead of a "still box" they were building a church! This building, made of native stone, logs and shingles, has been called "the most churchly little church in the mountains." A mountain woman after her first visit to the church, having seen the white-robed choir and the reverent manner in which the people worshipped, went home and said, "It minded me so much of the place my Saviour was borned in I might' nigh cried." Practically every one for m'les around attends the Sunday services, which include a graded Sunday school, church service, junior and senior Christian Endeavor. During the week there are the various boys' and girls' clubs, choir rehearsals and the women's missionary meeting. Chapel is conducted in the school and in a few neighboring communities Sunday schools and daily vacation Bible schools are carried on. The little church is becoming increasingly precious to us all, for here folks have found through their Saviour the more abundant life; happy brides and grooms have stood at the altar; here families have said farewell to their dead. Since the old saying is true that there is nothing else to make men and women out of but boys and girls, we soon realized that unless existing school conditions were radically changed, there would not be much hope for the future of this settlement. A dilapidated, drafty, poorly lighted building, open pit toilets, inadequately trained teachers were some of the reasons for much of the sickness and delinquency. We dreamed of a modern school building, with sanitary privies, a large basement for recreation, manual training and domestic science, a well-filled library, and well=trained teachers with high standards and ideals, and then rolled up our sleeves to make the dream come true. A Parent-Teachers' Association was organized, the co-operation of the County Board of Education was requested and refused. We convinced them we meant business, and then the County Board woke up and backed us, and the dream came true. The building has been dedicated, it is filled with happy boys and girls who not only are offered the regular curriculum, but also Bible, music, dramatics, home economics and agriculture. We are grateful to the W. P. A. in helping make the present county school building possible. During the fall and winter months a hot lunch is prepared by the boys and girls under the supervision of "Aunt Nola," who carefully watches food values, and sees to it that everybody eats what is prepared. And so part of our education is to learn to eat carrots, raisins, vegetable soup and other "guar things. The story of the work at Morris Fork would not be complete without telling of the fine cooperation given the workers by the State Board of Health and the County Health Unit. Coming as a nurse and bride into this locality which seemed "chock full" of trachoma, hookworm, diseased tonsils, "misery in the stummick," undernourished children and folks feeling "jest tol'able," Mrs. Vander Meer at once got in touch with the State Board of Health. Soon a trachoma and tonsil clinic were in full swing at the Community House. Baby clinics, vaccinations, inoculations, sanitary privies became part of the regular program, until now we are proud of our blue ribbon babies and generally improved health conditions. We are grateful too for the fine co-operation given by the L. & N. Railroad, and to the surgeons and hospitals at Richmond, Lexington, Louisville and Winchester. October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 19 Until a few years ago farming in this section was a very simple procedure. One simply had a garden with a few vegetables, a piece of land was saved for pasture, and the balance was put in corn. Now in most communities this has been changed and we hear men talking of Korean lespedeza, soy bean hay, lime and phosphate, and soil conservation, and the women speak of kohlrabi, Chinese cabbage, wilt resistant tomatoes, and cold pack canning. Even the children are heard talking about vitamins, balanced meals, pure-blooded chickens and full stock hogs. The reason for all this change is not difficult to discover, because each month county and home demonstration agents come into the organized communities to conduct 4-H clubs, Homemakers' and Farmers' meetings. The genuine interest of these agents and the College of Agriculture in Lexington, in helping our people solve the economic problem, is much appreciated, and on every hand the splendid results of their work can be seen. One Sunday it was announced that the Conference of Southern Mountain Workers was offering us the services of a trained director of recreation for two weeks. Did we want him? Well, one of the elders arose and said, "We've had all kinds of programs here, but this is the first time I ever heard of a purely play program. I don't know as we need such a feller, but if you do, fetch him in!" And we did. How the folks did enjoy learning to play together. Old and young alike enjoy the parties, baseball games, picnics, community fairs and all the social occasions when they can get together and have a good time in the right way. During the Christmas holidays especially our people enjoy and appreciate the difference in the festivities, for now the entire family rejoices at this season which used to be approached with dread. As the carolers go up and down the creeks on Christmas morn and sing their message of "Joy to the world, the Lord is come," we are all glad that He has also come to Morris Fork. Eleven years have passed since the work was started on Morris Fork of Longs Creek. Much prayer, thought, money, work, interest and love have gone into this settlement. And naturally enough we join our friends in asking whether it has paid. Has the type of program carried on been successful? We ask you to come and see and judge for yourself. A lawyer at the county seat, in making an address at the Kiwanis Club on the subject, "Crime and its Control," said that when he thought of crime he thought of a community in the county where he used to teach school. Here the men usually carried their pistols and seldom hesitated to use them. As a result there were always a large number of major cases on the court docket from this particular locality. During the past few years he had not heard that community mentioned in the courts, so he decided to investigate the records. To his surprise he found that during the past six or seven years no major cases from that community were listed on the docket. Eager to know the reason, he began making inquiries and learned that in that community a church had been built and a constructive program that reached every phase of the life of the people was being carried on. He then told the Kiwanians that he believed that this community, at Morris Fork, had shown the way to the control of crime. One day one of the members of the Church Session said, "Sam, you and Miss Nola and Aunt Minnie are doing a heap of queer things that we can't understand, but we know that you are working for the good interests of us and our children, so go ahead and we'll try and follow." And so they are-some much better than others. As workers, we are far from satisfied with the results-so much remains to be done, so often the old customs stubbornly reassert themselves, folks get too easily satisfied, and we are so eager to see them reach out for the best and be willing to pay the price! Roads are coming closer to us, changes are ahead that will test the work as nothing else has ever done. And as we send out boys and girls to Berea, Buckhorn, Mossop, Farm School and Eastern, we pray that the foundation laid here in their lives might be sufficient for the building of worthwhile character. Yes, there is sill much to be desired and we have made many ti mistakes, but each evening at dusk as the vesper bell rings out from the steeple of the little brown church, we are reminded that "God has been awfully good to us; we sure have got a lot to be thankful for." MOUNTAIN LI1~L AND WORK October, 1937 PLAY IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS RICHARD MORGAN SEAMAN At each jerky stop of the one-coach train, people of the little Kentucky mining communities along the right-of-way clambered off and on, carrying babies, groceries, a cardboard box or a squirrel gun. The train passed houses with a gaunt, unfinished look, huddled together at the openings of "hollers," as it shuttled up a valley and down again, before the longer run to its final destination. As the engine gave a final snort, announcing the last stop, 1 got off with my suitcase of games, one of books, one of clothes, a briefcase and a typewriter. The little logging train ahead looked a bit unreliable, judged by its unpainted wooden bridges; so I decided to take a "mountain taxi," a mule, to get me across the hills to my destination. Stepping up to the general store I found a happy man who offered me hospitality in the use of one of his two mules. Mounting I found that I could always count on the mule's rearing whenever I put my typewriter on the edge of the saddle behind me. After a little lesson in cooperation, off we jogged over something resembling a road. With many splashes the mule found its way across the creek which meandered down the hollow between the buildings of the school, a large square wooden building and several cottages beside the general store. Several of the faculty greeted me as I dismounted after my five-mile r'dc. 1 1 I There was ev'derit interest written over the faces of the students and adults who gathered around; it looked as if the coming two weeks were going to be fun for all. Next day the little logging train which came over the mountains brought the suitcases; so I was shortly settled in the boys' dormitory, ready to begin activities as a field worker in recreation. The teachers decided to have me visit each schoolroom at least once a day to teach games and other recreational and folk material. They also asked for a special session for the faculty to discuss future plans for the. recreational program of the school. The weather was occasionally uncomfortably cold, but children of the grades came running out to the playground with great anticipation. There were line games, games of tag, running games, circle games, and folk games in which everybody sang. After a good time with this, the class groups would troop inside to be ready for the quiet games which were always played there. Sometimes, if they felt like it, there were new songs to sing about unusual places: folk songs about carrying water in a donkey cart on washday, and hauling at the capstan aboard ship; songs from other places in the mountains. The melodies were easy to learn, and before long, everyone was singing them in a spare moment. How my ears did ring from morning to night with stray wisps of melody, like "I've been to Harlem; I've been to Dover." The folk games which the older boys and girls did in the large living room of the girls' dormitory, where they also ate their meals, really demonstrated the fact that the school had been rushed to completion when it was built, years ago; the green timbers sagged and rebounded with ;.very group movement. I played for some of the games, but for most of them, all that was needed was the united effort in singing of those playing. The women up the creek met one afternoon and asked me to teach them some new games. It was very satisfying to see those women of various ages quietly passing a coin from one to the other in time to their singing "Dollar, dollar, how you wander." They enjoyed seeing how innocent they could look as they gave the coin to somebody else right under the nose of the neighbor who was "it." The faculty spent several hours in discussion with me and in examination of materials which would prove of use in planning future recreational events. That opportunity and one later when I spoke before the church group were used to make the point that "it really didn't matter so much that anyone might learn a new game, as that he might play it with someone." I tried to help them see the need for people to have fun October, 1937 MOUNTAIN Lu r AND Worm Page 21 together in order that they might be better able to work together. In several ways, the recreation work at the different schools and centers visited during the year was similar to my first experience. Stories and incidents from various schools will add to the general picture. At one school there was a noticeable newness of the addition of "furrin"' life. Several houses were going up for which the owners had to do all of their own finishing and much of the building; regular carpenters and painters were not available. This valley had been little touched by the outside world until the depression and government relief work led to constructing a dirt road into it. It was once noted as a hideaway for outlaws, principally those hiding from "revenoors"; the time is past however when men there bragged about the number of notches on their guns. At the last breakfast, which came at the usual hour (locally) of 5:30 A. M., the following note was found under my plate: To express our appreciation of your presence with us, we wish to say that this has been a wonderful week for each one of us. We are sure it will be one of the bright memories of our school. We hope you won't forget us, as we arc sure we will always think of you. May God ever bless you and your work. Goodbye. At another settlement school the evident lack of a number of recreational elements in the lives of the students and neighbors was undoubtedly due to the lack of time on the part of the teachers. It was always wonderful to work and play in the three-story stone school house which the neighbors together had built for their children. Even the hog which lived under the steps of the general store next door evidenced interest in the folk games; he often stuck his snout in the window of the combination auditorium and chapel, which was on a basement level. It was in the same room that the children liked so much to act out stories; the coal bucket served as a well in several plays. I will long remember seeing the young people congregate at the log cabin and follow the faculty down the side of the mountain in a procession of o'I lamps with which to light the school room for evening games. At the Opportunity School held at Berea, Kentucky, a group of young and old gathered for four weeks from different sections of the moun tains to study various lines of knowledge. On a table at one side of the room in which all general group meetings were held, there were board games of various descriptions, many of them played with colorful marbles. Here a constant interchange of questions and information was carried on as to rules of these games which were new to the group. Many of them were folk games from such far away countries as India, Africa, China, Japan, Sweden and England. The students were soon at ease in playing these common folk games. Here, in charades one evening, a good half hour was spent in trying to unravel the act of one group; all of it was done by a girl dressed in gray, who stood as if eating. The word? "Ingratiate." At another school, there were several demonstrations of community interest in recreation work. A man who owned a summer hotel gave me a room; several local basketball teams gave up their gym periods in order to take advantage of the good times offered several evenings in the school gymnasium. Here there was a very real eidence of the impact of the outside world due vi I to the proximity of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Many people, bought out of their homes back in the vast stretches of land now in the Park, settled in nearby towns and took up trades which brought in some of the tourists' money. In addition to any money realized from sales, these people occasionally got some queer notions as to what life was like in the outside world: evidently vacationists are not always at their best. It is difficult to realize the tremendous strides of changing life; thirty years ago it was thought to be a real achievement when anyone was able to get over the mountains from Gatlin burg with a buckboard. One afternoon, women in the community who weave for the school sales and realize some income thereby, met for a periodic pay and order day. It was a genuinely interesting experience to play games with these older women and to listen to a form of singing which might be called real "folk recreation." The songs, all hymns, were written in shaped notes-that is, a different shape for do, for nil, fa, and so forth. The whole system is called "harp singing"; dating from Middle English times, it probably derives its name from singing with a stringed instrument of limited range. The voices were tight and nasal by common standards, but beautiful as a part of the free expression of these weavers. It was here, too, that early consciousness of sex became more apparent. Boys and girls five and six years of age found it a real effort to take hold of the hand of one of the opposite sex in games. No wonder people marry so young here; life is not sufficiently full. At one community center the two weeks' period of visitation offered several interesting experiences. In the kindergarten and first grade room, there were about fifty children with one teacher. The room was heated by a stove; the children's desks were tables with half the boards taken off; they also served as pens. In playing cat and mouse one little child would play he was the cat asleep under the table; a group of children would gather around and scratch at the table top, acting the part of mice; the cat would awaken and give them a chase around the room. That was a difficult game to stop! It was here that some of the difficulties a recreation leader must meet in a mountain community were brought out. Comments of some of the people there put a stop to a plan which the high school boys and girls had made to have folk games on Saturday evening before the basketball game. It was a sad moment when the young people were told of the decision. Naturally there were some rather heated counter-comments. The last of the matter had not been heard when I left, but several weeks later the school was represented at the Mountain Folk Festival in Knox vffle. I i Some real education of parents had evidently been going on, for the group came with the approval of the school behind them. In several schools visited, the common use of known competitive games was evident. Where there is no one with training and resources in recreational material of other interesting types, resort is made to activities which are fairly easy to promote because they are competitive in nature. Hence the wide use of competitive games. A girls' school in Tennessee had just been through an epidemic of mumps when I arrived. A few days afterward, they started in on a small one ^f influenza. However; several play classes were MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK October, 1937 held. As the small barn which had been floored for gymnasium use was unheated, it was considered unwise to use it much in cold weather. No other room was sufficiently large for folk classes; so the double doors to the living room were thrown open and the hall space added to it, and the visitor might be surprised to see girls come whirling out of a doorway as they practiced a folk dance. One of the most interesting informal times here was the puppet play in which the stage hands made their own puppets, painted and dressed them, rehearsing for a "command" performance for the rest of the girls. Having set up the puppet booth in a large doorway, they started the phonograph with introductory music for the Japanese play in which everyone enjoyed seeing the puppets break a piece of real china. Then they gave the story of Bre'r Fox, Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby. What fun actually to hear Bre'r Rabbit drink at the spring! Most of the audience came backstage after the performance to see the way it was managed and were much surprised to see that the sound of Bre'r Rabbit's drinking was made by a girl blowing through straws into a glass of water. The plant is unusually well equipped to carry on recreational activities, at one Kentucky center. There is a fine gymnasium and fireproof school building with a well-designed auditorium. Inasmuch as the faculty felt the particular need for activities in which the older boys and girls could play together, most of the time here was spent with the high school groups. The time was spent in preparation for an informal folk festival, to which the boys came with dark trousers and white shirts, and the girls wore white aprons bordered with gay colors. The Danish March was so well liked that they insisted on doing it three times in succession. The faculty group, including men and women from twenty-five to fifty, came out for their own class in folk dancing as strongly as any others in the school. It was a real evidence of interest on their part and a demonstration of what fun could be had by a group of adults together. They didn't feel themselves expert enough, however, to give one of their dances before the entire school_ as part of rh2 folk f2sri;~~-ra'_. October, 1937 MOUNTAIN Lm:r: AND WORK Page 23 One Sunday afternoon, while I was out walking in the mountains around the school, a group of children whose families lived in the tumbledown miners' shacks around the school confronted me with the request for a game. With sticks and broken automobile springs, we dug a circle of holes and played Piggie in the Hole until sundown. Next day in school came the question, "Why don't you ask Mr. Seaman to stay with us?" The teacher replied, "You mean as one of the teachers?" The answer was, "Oh, no! He's too much fun!" This might easily be interpreted as showing that these mountain children realized their own great need for more ways in which they might get creative release. At the next center the large squared-log gymnasium was used nightly for folk games for the high school boys and girls living there. My itinerary took me on to the one college visited during the year, where most of the time was spent instructing prospective teachers in community rcreation methods. By the time I reached my last destination, time had rolled around to that part of the_ year in which folk festivals have had and should have full sway. Various dances were learned by junior and senior 'high school groups for the festal day, on which the one doctor in the county gave ribbons for health standards. Here much interest was shown by students in making "tooting canes" or shepherds' pipes from bamboo. The director of the school even went so far as to buy a painter's long bamboo paintbrush handle; in order to have enough bamboo sections for all who wished to make these musical instruments. After a season of journeying which took me through three states, among varied types of schools and communities, I began to have a more complete picture of the recreation situation in the Southern Appalachians. Persons in contact with the development of schools in the area suggested several years ago that a solution for certain problems was to seek the aid of someone trained in recreational leadership. They had observed social situations which gave evidence of the need for training in the use of leisure tome. Th° privat° s::hools; so^:° of vrh!::h 1=3d only recently been established, to supply those academic backgrounds which are the privilege of other parts of the country, were unable, due to limitations of finance, to offer more than the ordinary educational opportunities." This gave little opportunity for those attending school to learn how to use their leisure time. The pattern of life which might be called typical of most mountain communities includes a certain amount of time which is quite honestly, but not necessarily consciously, used up in "jest settin'." The rigors of generations of breaking hard ground and forcing the soil to yield up a living filled lives for the most part during the last several decades, but times and soil have changed. In many instances a decadent life has set in, for the ground now cannot yield that which it no longer possesses. The encroaching industrial system, with its enticingly high wages, appeared as a godsend. This did not last long; coal mining has been uncertain and families suddenly found themselves at sea between living a life which they had known before and the possibility of continuing in industry. Detroit and other industrial cities of the North beckoned. Naturally part of the picture included returned workers with money in their pockets. The mountain people were at a crossroads, between the frugal life of their ancestors and the comparatively "jazzed" living of their industrial brothers. Elements of the life of earlier times which might prove constructive were being repressed. Few circles of individuals today in the mountains can risk the ostracism of having an evening of square dances. A sense of balance is lacking as to what constitutes legitimate recreation. One must realize the impact taking place in the minds of these people: the emotional background engendered by the Calvinistic philosophy worshipped in succeeding generations as that of their pioneer fathers; on the other hand, the rapid storm of things almost supernatural, the scientific age, the political life, the economic war and the accompanying social disturbances. The adjustment of people of the Southern Mountains has been just as difficult to individuals coming to them from the outside world. The strangers dressed, talked, acted and thought differt~ntl; . They were difficult or impossible to understand, and their good intentions easy to misinterpret. The door between them and the outside world has not yet been completely opened for the mountain people. Nor is it desirable that all aspects of the outside world and the "furriner" be construed as a better life. However, the outside world is making rapid inroads on mountain lift and the mountaineers must find themselves prepared to work constructively through the times to come. Because the mountain environment has been so limited, clannish thoughts have been passed on to descendants just as intact as a coverlet. The family and its preservation come first and the rest of society can be forgotten. A disdain of social responsibilities takes such forms as perjury to get a relative out of jail. This is done with no regard for the charge society at large has placed against that individual. Instances persist in the mountains where an individual is not content to rely on society to mete out justice, but takes it in his own hands whenever convenient. It is necessary for individuals to be a part of a growing process of governing and accepting government. In situations in play, individuals freely accept responsibility and the judgment of the rest of the group. Community groups in the mountains sorely need this; they might thus overcome by social pressure many material and abstract hindrances to their progress. Two problems of recreation have now been outlined. One, the dissemination of knowledge to individuals so that they may follow a creative form of existence. The other, social education MOUNTAIN LITE AND WORK October, 1937 to the end of a dynamic society. How are these problems met at the present time? The mountain private schools are not all in the same situation of growth or finance. All those who recognize the existence of the need in their school and community also recognize the need for trained leadership. The kind of training implied is not limited to factual knowledge, but also extends to a theoretical and philosophical approach in order that any program may have a coherent whole. Once a need is sensed in a school for leadership of a certain type, that school is not usually able for some time to place one or more persons in the breach. This problem has been met by the maintenance, for the last four years, co-operatively by interested schools and the Kappa Delta Phi Sorority, under the auspices of the Conference of Southern Mountain Workers, of a worker to visit centers and give periods of instruction and consultation. Afterward, the responsibility devolves on one or two persons at each center to carry on the recreational leadership, social education, group work or whatever it may be called. At the same time that mountain people may be their own worst enemies, they are their own best hope. They may not know how to cooperate economically, but they have as an asset the inherited tendency of self-reliance, though undermined in a number of instances among those who have fallen completely on the government for support. What is needed is understanding of the happier returns for assuming moral and social responsibility. This is the task of recreation work in the Southern Mountains. October, 1937 MourrrnrV Lrr.r: AND WORK Page 2 5 APPALACHIA SPEAKING MARGRET TROTTER For more than a hundred years the Southern Mountains have captured creative imagination. As long ago as 1813 Daniel Bryan, a forgotten Virginia poet, published "The Mountain Muse, Comprising the Adventures of Daniel Boone; and the Power of Virtuous and Refined Beauty." For some time, however, Americans were more inter ested in following the example of the great frontiersman than in writing about his exploits, or considering abstractions like virtuous and re fined beauty. After Bryan's time the mountain muse may be said to have enjoyed a rest period which continued through the Civil War. Then, in the last quarter of the nineteenth cen tury, when Americans were beginning to feel more settled, the national consciousness began to include an interest in localities. The beginnings of regional literature might be seen in Bret Harte's west, Mark Twain's Mississippi, the south, not only of Harris and Lanier, but (most important nor our purposes) Charles Lgbert Craddock. Craddock was really a woman-Mary Noailles Murfree, (1850-1922), of Murfreesboro, Tennes see. During the Civil War she was a refugee in a mountain village, and her recollections of early neighbors there gave her enough material for a lifetime of authorship. Her stories of a people apart and untouched by the world around them, living in their rugged fastnesses the lives of pioneers, had a tremendous vogue among the readers of the "Atlantic Monthly," and probably brought the people of the Southern Mountains for the first time to the attention of literate America. A wider audience was gained by the more spec tacular John Pox, Jr. (1860-1919), who soon ap peared upon the scene. His dramatic tales of mountain life-"The Heart of the Hills," "Hell fer-Sartain," "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," and "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" --arc still well known, and probably count their readers in millions. The public began to be interested in the region thus popularized. In 2895 an article called "The `Mountain Whites' of America," by Mrs. S. M. Davis appeared in a missionary publication. It is worthy of interest because it was one of the first theatre. attempts to describe the people of Appalachia as a separate species, and one of the earliest applications in print of a term still resented. In other magazine articles the mountain people were referred to as "Our Contemporary Ancestors," "A Race of Rip Van Winkles," and "Our Own Lost Tribes." At least one of the explorers seems to have felt himself persona non grata, for he entitled his piece "Stalking the Biggest of Big Game -Kentucky Mountaineers." The mountains and the people continued to furnish good copy for the occasional writer from the outer-world who braved the dangers of impassable roads, isolation and mountain cooking, and also yielded valuable material to the serious philologist and student of folly arts and crafts. Yet the "Rip Van Winkles" were stirring from their long sleepwhich after all had not been too deep to efface the memory of their traditional ballads and racial culture-patterns. More children were going to school; soldiers were returning from Prance with tales of the outside world; industry, for better or worse, was laying its dark hand on some of the valleys; and the mountain people found themselves with new problems and new desires calling for expression. An outgrowth of the increasing interest in regional America, an amateur dramatic association called "The Carolina Playmakers" presented its first bill in 1918, at the University of North Carolina. The conscious aim was to produce a folk theatre in America, giving plays by Carolinians which would depict the varied life of the state. Of the three one-act plays given that evening, one is of particular interest to us. It is "The Return of Buck Gavin," a brief episode upon a characteristic mountain theme-the arrest of an outlaw; the author was Thomas 'Wolfe, a nineteen-year-old from Asheville. In years to come he was to reach a position of national importance in literature, a position beyond regional boundaries, but his heritage was that of the mountains, and the sincerity and dignity of this little play make it a good precursor for the mountain Page 26 The Carolina Playmakers under the able leadership of Frederick H. Koch have become flourishing and famous, with a theatre building of their own, and are justifiably proud of their successful tours in a dozen other states and production of more than a hundred plays by Carolina playwrights. Two of these-Thomas Wolfe and Jonathan Daniels-have received Guggenheim fellowships for distinguished work in the novel, and others (notably Paul Green) have made a place for themselves in the national theatre. Mountain themes began to app°ar on Broadway about 1923; in that year Lulu Vollmer's "Sun-up" ran forty-nine weeks. It has since been played in at least five foreign countries. Miss Vollmer, a native of North Carolina, has placed an authentic mountain woman on the stage in the character of Ma Cagle, a matriarch brought up in a pioneer tradition and faithful to its code, until she realizes that vengeance is not as strong as mercy. Hatcher Hughes, another North Carolinian and organizer of the famous playwriting at Chapel Hill, won New York success in 1934 with a melodrama, "Hell=bent for Heaven," in which the salty language, the situation and feelings of the characters ring true. Fortunately the mountains cannot lay claim to "Tobacco Road," the current sensation of several years' standing; yet the Lester family in this play might find their cousins in some mountain slum. Less dramatic, possibly truer, presentations have come from those who have served the mountain people in school and settlement. Ann Cobb's "Kinfolks" (1922), is a group of poems suggested as she worked at Hindman Settlement uggested School. Lucy Forman, for many years her fellow-teacher, has written a series of books which are similar in their sincere and sensitive fictional portrayal-"Mothering on Perilous" (1913), "The Quare Women" (1923), "The Glass Window" (1925), and "Lonesome Road" (192?). Others who have chosen the mountains for their literary country are Grace Lumpkin ("To Make My Bread," 1932), Alberta Pierson Hannum ("Thursday April," 1931; "The Hills Step Lightly," 1934), Jean Thomas ("The Traipsin' Woman," 1933), and Fi.swood Tarleton, whose book, "Bloody Ground," (1929), showed promise, despite surprising dialect and sensationalism. His MoUNrnm 1-11 F AND WORK October, 1937 accidental death with his friend, Horace Kephart', the authority on the people Smokies, is to be regretted. To some from the outside world, the mountains have made the expected appeal of quaintness, of folk survivals and archaisms. Maristan Chapman (Mary Hamilton llslcy and John Stanton Chapman) and Percy Mackaye have passed on to the world some of their delight in these picturesque elements. There arc also three novelists who have attained prominence in the last decade, and who might at least be cared stepchildren of the mountains, sine:: they all live in the general area, and each has managed at times to express something of the mountain spirit, though they differ widely from each other. Fielding Burke (Olive T. Dargan), will be remembered for "Call Home the Heart," her novel of a mountain woman whose hunger for experience caused her to leave home and children for a mill town, where she joined forces with the struggling workers. This book not only pictures the mountain home, but deals with the problems of the hill people who have turned to industry. The setting of the sequel, "A Stone Came Rolling," is the mill town, and as its social implications become stronger, the heroine becomes regrettably less alive. T. S. Stribling's "Teeftallow" is a realis tic study of events in a small county seat in Tennessee. Elizabeth Madox Roberts, the most distinguished member of this group, finds her greatest concern, not with realism or social implications, but with human meanings: "The Time of Man," her slow-moving epic story of tenant farmers is written with a sense of the pity and inevitability of life. It is evident that the culture of the mountains cannot best be transmitted or evaluated through outsiders, even though they are relatives. If it is a good culture and a vital one, it ought to find means to speak for itself, and the indications are that it has already begun to do so. In 1934 a voice came from Greenup County, Kentucky, which could not but be regarded as authentic. Jesse Stuart published seven hundred sonnets, chiefly autobiographical, in a book called "Man with a Bull-tongue Plow." Aside from mere quantity (have so many sonnets, good or bad, of the Great October, 1937 ever been gathered between the covers of a book before?) there are other reasons why Jesse Stuart won sudden fame. In a world which was stale, sick and a little frightened by its own technical progress, such upsurgings of energy find lyric emotion from the roots of our pioneer stock seemed a good omen. Though there was some doubt as to whether he was a poet, there was none whatever about his vigor, and his love for the Kentucky hills. In 1936 "Head o' WHollow" followed: a collection of short stories which revealed his surprising ability to recreate the sights and sounds, the speech of his country. Despite a college education, his observation is keen with the keenness of people who have lived without books, and his stories are full of scenes as vividly present as this: Mom comes to the door with me. She takes a piece of pine kindlin and sticks it between the forestick and the firebrands and gets a tiny blaze with a tiny black smoke twirlin up. She lifts the lantern globe and touches the kindlin fire to the wick. She lowers the globe and wipes off a speck of mud with the corner of her checked apron. I can see Mom, tall, sinewy, dark as a pawpaw leaf bitten by frost, her straight black hair, her white teeth there in the dimlighted room. I can see the tears roll down her cheek without the curve of her lips for cryin. Not only does Jesse Stuart see with sharp eyes, he also thinks and feels; he shares the human experiences and troubles, the work that goes on and on, the little children that have to be borne and fed, the tragedy of old men worn out and done with nothing to show for it, the joy of sun after a dark winter, the belling of a bride. His fluency (possibly inherited from a preaching grandfather) sometimes needs restraint which it does not get, but Jesse Stuart is one of the most promising of our young writers. He has recently been given the recognition of a Guggenheim fellowship, which he will use doing creative writing in Scotland. Harriet Simpson is another young mountain writer whose work has had a favorable reception. "Mountain Path," her first novel, appeared in 1936. Her art is unpretentious, and she has the beginner's preoccupation with situation and difficulty with plot, but her picture of a mountain MOUNTAIN LIPI-: AND WORK Page 27 community is surprisingly effective. She has a strong feeling for mood and atmosphere, and it is these rather poetic elements which lift "Mountain Path" above its somewhat worn story. The newest voice is that of James Still, of Hindman, Kentucky, whose first collection of poems, "Hounds on the Mountain," appeared several months ago. His work has attracted general interest, and many of the poems in this book have previously appeared in periodicals. He too remains faithful to the mountains: Being of these hills, being one with the fox Stealing into the shadows, one with the newborn foal, The lumbering ox drawing green beech logs to mill, One with the destined feet of man climbing and descending, And one with death rising to bloom again, I cannot go. Being of these hills, I cannot pass beyond. Though straying sometimes among verbiage a little too lush, he shows true poetic quality in his discrimination among words, and his feeling for sound. His gift on the whole is an unusual ability to make poetry out of simple things, as in this picture of "Night in the Coal Camps": Cold yellow windows to the night, the trees Frozen with dark, and eyes sleepless Along rutted streets. Clear the sparrow words Pierce thumb-latched doors; blowing the pass Like field larks dustily through standing grass. Drawn faces on pillows, mouths hollowed in breathing The unquiet air; and the million-tongued night tremulous With crickets' rasping thighs, with sharp cluckings Of fowls under drafty floors. In the caverns deep The picks strike into coal and slate. They do not sleep. In this time of fearful transition, when the machine in America is replacing the hand, and in the mountains verbal culture gives way to book learning, and the old self-sufficiency is in danger of falling before communal poverty, young writers have an exceptional opportunity. This is the time, before the best of the old is lost, for it to find expression. For many years the Southern Appalachians have been furnishing raw materials to the rest of the country, even in literature. Jesse Stuart and others of his mountain generation will have a wealth of material at hand which is particularly their own, and which only they can use to the fullest. Page 23 MOUNTAIN Ltor, AND WORK October, 1937 "'Our Mountain AE's" New Book on Handicrafts OLIVE DAME CAMPBELL Some important critic outside the mountain workers' family must appraise Allen Eaton's very beautiful and important new book, Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands, Russell Sage Foundation, 1937. The many of us who live in this happy field of highlands and crafts are too close to it to assume a properly objective attitude. We can only rejoice that our long expectations arc so richly fulfilled; that we have such a thorough, sympathetic, and delightful study of the handicrafts of the Southern Highlands bound in so worthy a setting of cover, print, and illustrations. Naturally, the illustrations make the first impression, especially the fine reproductions of Doris Ulmann's photographs. True and beautiful portrayals of mountain character and industry, they bring the reader at once into the Highland land of handicrafts, and into the spirit of the one who is writing about them. As Mr. Eaton indicates in a foreword, Mrs. Ulmann had a remarkable faculty for entering into and revealing the life and character of the people whom she photographed. She was both an artist and an understanding human being, sensitive to beauty, strength, humor, and suffering wherever she found them. We are grateful to Mr. Eaton for enabling her to do this special work which she so enjoyed, and for making available to the public at least a few of the several thousand pictures she took: the potter's daughter (facing page 146 and reproduced in this issue of MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK, page 1) stepping in Biblical simplicity from her father's door; the potter's son (facing page 142) shaping a jar by his window; Haden Hensley (facing page 126), the carver who spends just a little longer each time in perfecting the piece on which he is working; Isaac Davis (facing page 98) who lives in Blue Lick 'but might live almost anywhere in the mountain country; Wilma Creech (facing page 68), now a full-fledged doctor, wearing the linsey-woolsey woven probably by her grandmother; "Aunt Sal" of Pine Mountain (facing page 217); Jason Reed (facing page 92) at his shaving horse, still a common tool in the rural Highlands. One should not, perhaps, single these pictures out, for each and all have their special charm and significance. Quite aside from the illustrations, however, the context is worth owning for itself. Mr. Eaton has made every effort to get exact and complete data on a subject about which there was little definite knowledge. Over many years, and with infinite pains and loving interest, he has assembled an enormous amount of information. I have known him to travel days and miles to ferret out some obscure chairmaker; a forgotten patch of cultivated madder surviving from pioneer days; a family of potters working in the most primitive of potters' fashions; a single golden coverlet. His appreciation of the articles produced, his sympathetic understanding of what they mean to the producer, and his own unfeigned liking for these artists in cotton and wool, wood and clay, cornhusks, splits, straw, and honeysuckle vine, are c'denced in every page of the book. vi zn It is, indeed, with some difficulty that he holds himself strictly to the subject of crafts, for in his thinking, they cannot be separated from the craftsmen. His interest pursues Aunt Lydia Whaley, who spun and wove, and ran her own grist mill, plowed and went hunting, made medicine for the surrounding country, and "raised her children and her crops""she was nurse, preacher, undertaker, doctor, tailor and dressmaker, tanner, and shoemaker to the entire community." A remarkable woman, Aunt Lydia, thought not such an unusual mountain pioneer! Then there is Aunt Cord Ritchie who taught herself her basket lore, and Aunt Sally Gayheart, through whose recipes for dyes he sees the busy pioneer mother, who must have beauty in her hard life for all the added labor involved in securing it. He cannot resist a page from the "Anthology of Death on Three Mile Creek," written by Jake Carpenter, an old settler in western North Carolina. We see "Frankey Burlesan age 86 July 3 Bide 1896 she spon cloth by 5000 (yards)"; and "Kim Hone age 73 oc 15 1888 ware black smith had 6 gals that October, 1937 MOUNTAIN Lit F AND WORK Page 29 cod work in shop he ware 6 feet hi"; all the better for reading of Win. Davis who "got his thi broke in last fire at Kings mountain he ware a farmer and made brandy and never had no dronkers in famely"; Lib Wise, who "war greates womin for contrary"; Loney Ollis "grates dere hunter wreked bee trees for bony cild ratcll soak by 100"; and Samul Hugkin "ware farmer he ware a grate lier." We sympathise with him, and feel he has shown great restraint. Nor will we quarrel over such minor matters as whether a certain type of loghouse is generally known as a "but-and-ben",-or whether we "owe the survival of ballads and carols largely to the handmade instruments that accompanied the words." One who wishes to know how various articles are made will discover a good deal of helpful explanation. He will find, too, where such articles may be secured. 1n fact, a friend recently told me that she planned to use the book as a Christmas catalogue. Mr. Eaton has tried also, to indicate accurately and impartially the part which many individuals and groups, schools and centers, have played and arc playing in the preservation and developm:nt of the handicrafts. Although he does not inject himself into the picture, he has, from the beginning, been a valued critic and stimulator to many a craft center, and an active friend to the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild which he recognized as an important means for developing and safeguarding the handicraft movement in the mountains. The book, however, has a significance for the lover of crafts, beyond the special field of the Highlands. One is glad to have Mr. Eaton's clear, simple definition of what handicrafts are, their relation to art and to adult education, and their part in the making of a happier, more healthful, richer life. It is good, too, to have him face honestly the competition of the machine, and without discarding it, find the special niche which handicrafts may always fill. Each handicraft has its own special reward, but there are a few compensations which all handicrafts bring to him who works at this open window. First, and perhaps greatest, as has been said, is the opportunity for sclfexpression which much of life's work with the modern advantages does not give . . . . . Another compensation is a growing appreciation of beauty in the things of everyday life. The effort to make a useful object pleasing to the eye or touch gives the craftsman an understanding of the age-long struggle to bestow on objects of daily use that quality that renders their ownership one of life's little events. (page 26.) To appreciate the wide grasp of the book, one must read it. It admirably accomplishes the stated purpose for which it was written: "first, to make available information which it is believed wIII be helpful to the Highland people in solving their handicraft problem and the placing of their work on a better and more permanent basis; second, to acquaint those outside the region with this great reservoir of handiwork, to enlist their interest in its continuation, and to encourage a wider use of these products; and third, so to present the findings of the study that they may contribute to the development of the handicraft movement which is today engaging the serious interest of many individuals and organizations throughout the country . . . . ." (page 3). And when it is all read we may, with a real glow, echo at the end Granny Jude's exclamation: "Shucks, ain't it grand, the things they is to do and find out about." Page 30 MOUNTAIN Lm E AND Wpm: October, 1937 THE REVIEWING STAND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT By Hollis L. Caswell and Doak. S. Campbell. New York, Amorican Book Company, 1935, $2.50. READINGS IN CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT B)Hollis L. Castvcll and Doak. S. Campbell. New York, American Book Cotrthary~, 1937, $3.00. To the members of the Mountain Workers' Conference who heard the able discussion led by Doak S. Campbell of George Peabody College, these two books on the development of curriculum will be of special interest, for a study of these two texts provides some of the wealth of background with which the mountain situation was viewed by him. They follow the same general outline, reflecting in their organization and scope the point of view of the authors. Beginning with topics entitled "The Challenge of Contemporary Life," "The Social Responsibility of the School," and "Significant Influences in Curriculum Development," the authors move on to concepts, principles, aims and scope of the curriculum. The analyses of pupil purposes, selection of subject matter, grade placement, time allotment, teaching procedures, evaluation of outcomes, organization, unit basis, course of study and administrative considerations provide criticisms of techniques that fundamentally influence the teaching process and the curriculum. It will be seen from the breadth of this study that the authors go well beyond the traditional idea of the curriculum as the organized "subject matter," and se;: it as experience and consequences, "to guide boys and girls in fruitful experiences." They are, therefore, dealing with what the schools, concerned with character, consider in their program. They are vitally aware of the need for an education that meets individual and social problems. "Curriculum Development" presents the discussions and conclusions of the authors, enriched by a generous use of current issues and practices. For this they are well qualified through their extensive experience in studying the schools of the South and the part they have taken in guiding and advising in the growth of state programs in Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas and, since the first book, Tennessee. The "Readings" offer a wealth of material from current periodicals, beyond the access of schools in the Southern Mountain Conference. Where the reader may find occasional familiar references, the selection and use of material contribute to the understanding of issues involved in the topic under discussion. For those who wish an introduction to the problem of curriculum content the text will afford an orderly approach, and be of help in revealing general thought on the subject. Faculties might use the book as the basis for discussion in meetings that concern their own programs. The "Readings" add so much to the original discussion that is varied, stimulating, and pertinent, that schools mill do well to make use of both as a means of keeping abreast of thoughts dominating present educational trends. "Curriculum Development" has a comprehensive bibliography of fifty-seven pages, giving books and pamphlets which deal with general and specific phases of the subject. Both books are fully indexed, so that the busy schoolman will find them ready for reference use. While they fail to deal with the function of religion in education or with the relation of public to religiously sponsored institutions, it is hard to conceive of schools in the mountain area that would not be helped by a thoughtful study of these texts. FRANK C. FOSTER RURAL TRENDS IN DEPRESSION YEARS By Edmund de S. Brunner and Irvine Lorge, New York, Colnrnbia University Press, 1937. $3.25. This third survey of 140 representative American agricultural village communities, which Dr. Brunner has guided to completion, gives a carefully documented account of the major changes that are taking place in our rural life. Because the other studies were in 1924 and 1930, this one for 1936 is timed to look at the rural effects of the depression years. Drawing upon the wealth of materials that were put in tabular form in the first two surveys, the authors have recorded what has happened to villages and their surrounding farm areas during the last six years as compared with the previous six years. Forty-eight individuals either arranged the studies in their states by staff membcrs or students, or conducted the field work. The U. S. Bureaus of Agricultural Economics and the Census, the American Library Association, and the Division of Social Research of the Works Progress Administration each made available important information and staff facilities. Agricultural adjustments, population changes, village-country relations and changes in business and industry, banking, schools, adult education, social organizations, government and health, religion, and relief each have chapters devoted to their discussion in this study. Four regions are used in the comparison: the Middle Atlantic, South, Middle West and Far West. Among social organizations, lodges accounted for the most organization deaths, although 4-H, athletic, and musical clubs each showed a greater percentage of decline; the latter two types chiefly because of their ex.pens ive programs during the depression years, and the 4-H clubs possibly because of consolidation into larger clubs. October, 19;7 \lut N [AIN Lint: ANu Wont• Page i 1 In their final chapter on "Some Implications," the authors point out a fact of special significance to Appalachian and Ozark mountain workers: In localities of continued settlement, though of probable declining population and hence of declining support for social institutions and of migrating leadership, the social servants, such as extension workers, educators, clergymen, public health officials, and the like, must be schooled in leadership and in ways and means of sustaining the necessary minimum functioning of community life. During this era of unprecedented rural relief, It has become common of late to consider rural America as the reservoir of population for the nation as a whole. Care must be taken that this reservoir be not filled with the dregs of our poplation . . . . Perhaps in the South economic progress waits upon not only greater diversification but also upon a great educational campaign by the home economists in the schools and the Extension Service that would change and enrich the diet of the South. The implications in the final chapter would have little value if not accompanied by the facts and points of interpretation that are packed in the four hundred pages of the report. With the factual background, how:ver, this chapter is the most helpful part of the book. MERTON OYLER HOUNDS ON THE MOUNTAIN By Junes Still. Ncu York, The 1lifin,,, Press, $2.00. James Still is one of the small but active group of young writers whose work is an expression of the Scuthern Appalachians. Less prolific and spectacular than that other mountain poet, Jesse Stuart, he has a better car and at times a more discriminating use of words. He knows the secret of poetic finality, whether he is describing mountain country with its creek-bed roads Quilting dark ridges and pennyroyal valleys Or only telling how A lizard, timid and tremulous, swallowing clots of air With pulsing throat, pauses at the smooth trunk And runs up the sky with liquid feet. He knows what hill people are without quaintness and melodrama: Not all of us were warm, not all of us. We are winter-lean, our faces are sharp with cold And there is a smell of wood smoke in our cloth°s. His thought-patterns are simple, and his rather romantic philosophy is an uncomplicated loyalty to life and death and the mountains. In his pictures of mountain life he is unfortunately sometimes betrayed by facility or enthusiasm. In spite of all this "Hounds on the Mountain" is a book of promise, to be welcomed by all who arc interested in poetry and in American life. MARGRET TROTTER OUR CONTRIBUTORS R. F. Ti-tomAS is carrying on what he considers "the best job in the world" as a country doctor at I'ittman Community Center in the mountains of Tennessee. -MARION HOLCOMB SKEAN writes from her experience as librarian at Homeplace, Ary, Kentucky. GLYN A. Motttzrs is Superintendent of Pine Mountain Settlement School. DUMONT CLARK developed the idea of "The Lord's Acre" in connection with the work of the Farmers' Federation of western North Carolina. SAhtuL and NOLA VANDER M1icR are working at Morris Fork in the Kentucky mountains. RICHARD SEAMAN is itinerant recreation leader for the Southern Mountains, working under the auspices of the Conference of Southern Mountain Workers. MARCRr.r TROTTER has been associated with the office of Mountain Life and Work for seven years. Otuvr D. CAMPBELL is one of the leaders in the development of folk arts in the mountains-crafts, music and folk dancing. Page 32 !VLuuINrmN l.o r: AND WuuK October, 1937 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND CORK Helen H. Dingman _.__._. Wiffia177 James Hutchins Orrin I. Keener ___ nMar,;ret G. Trotter .__ Mrs. John C. Campbell Marshall E. Vaughn John P. McConnell Arthur T. McCormack John Tigert CONTRIBUTING EDITORS _______________ Editor Counsellor Associate Editor Associate Editor Brasstown, N. C. Lexington, Ky. East Radford, Va. Louisville, Ky. _ Gainesville, Fla. ISSUED QUARTERLY-JANUARY, APRIL, JULY, OCTOBEI; Subscription Price $1.00 per year. Single Copy 30c. Entered at the Post Office at Berea, Ky., as second class mail matter ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK BEREA, KENTUCKY A CHANGE IN STAFF It is with deep regret that we announce to the readers of MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK that Margret Trotter has left her position of Associate Editor to go to Columbia University to carry on graduate work. In the seven years Miss Trotter has been in the office, she has done much to build up the quality of our publication and we shall miss her literary skill and judgment. THIS ISSUE The emphasis in the October number is not on problems but on achievements. The heroes of these narratives go unheralded as far as recognition in the world is concerned, but they have the respect and appreciation of their mountain friends, and the joy that goes with satisfying and useful work. We hope that those who are studying Edwin White's Highland Heritage will find this issue a useful supplement to that fine book. EDUCATIONAL MEETINGS The Education Commission of the Conf:rence of Southern Mountain Workers announce three important state meetings where the educational problems of the mountain area will be studied and discussed by both private and public school Berea, Kentucky. leaders. Please note the dates and keep them clear, particularly for the meeting in your own area. For programs and more detailed information write to MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK. Kentucky November 16-17 Berea College Tennessee November 18-20 Norris Park North Carolina November 22-24 Farm School MOUNTAIN FOLK FFISTIVAL The next Mountain Folk Festival will be held at Berea College April 4-5, 1938. The list of the folk games to be participated in by all will be: 1. American Play Party Gams (published in Kit 24, Coop;erative~Recreation Service, Delaware Ohio. 25c) Turn the Glasses Over Skating Away Brown Eyed Mary 2. Danish Singing Games (Published in Singing Games Old and Need, John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, North Carolina. 25c) A Thief The Crested Hen Little Man a Fix Paul and the Chicken Roselil 3. English Country Dances (Published in The Coronation Country Dance Book, English Folk Dance Society of America, 235 1:. 22nd St., New York City. 50c) Galopcde The Long Fight The Circassian Circle 4. (Published separately by H. W. Gray Co., 159 E. 48th Street, New York City. 25c each) We Won't Go Home till Morning Gathering Peascods If all the World were Paper. A list of songs for the Festival will appear in the January issue of MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK. Enquiries regarding the Festival should be addressed to Miss lairabcth Watts, Secretary Hindman Settlement School Hindman, Kentucky or to MOUNTAIN LII•I? AND WORK Berea College

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