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Mountain Life & Work vol. 04 no. 2 July, 1928

Mountain Life & Work vol. 04 no. 2 July, 1928 Council of the Southern Mountains 400dpi TIFF G4 page images University of Kentucky, Electronic Information Access & Management Center Lexington, Kentucky 2003 mlwv4n20728 These pages may freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Mountain Life & Work vol. 04 no. 2 July, 1928 Council of the Southern Mountains Berea College; Council of the Southern Mountains Berea, Kentucky July, 1928 $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. Volume IV July, 192(8 Number II CONFERENCE GkUlVIBER Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . Mrs. John C. Campbell Is There a Mountain Problem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Arthur H. Estabrook The Unit of Organization for Rural Social Work . . . . Mary Camp Sprinkle Presenting Mountain Work to the Public . . . . Our Changing Mountains Round Tables Mrs. Evart G. Routzahn . . . . . . . . . Charles D. Lewis Published by Berea College, Berea, Ky., in th° interest of fellowship and mutual understanding between the Appalachian Mountuns and the rest of the nation Mountain Life"~~ Work Volume IV Mountain Life and Work Helen H. Dingman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editor Dr. Wm. James Hutchins . . . . . . . . Counsellor Orrin L. Keener . . . . . . . . . . Associate Editor Luther M. Ambrose . . . . . . Business Manager CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dr. Warren H. Wilson . . . . . . New York City Mrs. John C. Campbell . . . . Brasstown, N. C. Mr. Marshall E. Vaughn . . . . . . . . Atlanta, Ga. Hon. W. 0. Saunders . . . . Elizabeth City, N. C. Dr. John P. McConnell . . . .East Radford, Va. Dr. Arthur T. McCormack . . . . Louisville, Ky. Dr. E. C. Branson . . . . . . . . Chapel Hill, N. C. Dr. John J. Tigert . . . . . . . . Washington, D. C. Issued quarterly-January, April, July, October Subscription Price $1.00 per year. Single Copy 30c Entered at the Post Office at Berea, Ky. as secondclass mail matter Address all communications to MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Berea, Kentucky EDITORIAL (To make clear certain references in this editorial, the reader should know that Miss Dingman, the editor of Mountain Life and Work, was in Europe from February until after this number went to press.) Sixteen years ago the first Conference of Southern Mountain Workers was held in Atlanta. Sixteen years is not long, as time goes, but the changes which have taken place in the outlook of this body since that first meeting are so striking that the Secretary, as she relinquishes her trust into the able hands July, 1928 Number II of the editor of this magazine, pauses to look back before summing up the outstanding thoughts of the Conference recently concluded. I recall as if today Mr. Campbell's joy over that first meeting-a gathering for which he was largely responsible, but which convened at the invitation of the Southern Presbyterian and Southern Baptist Churches. The handful of men and women who answered the callfull of curiosity, and full of enthusiasm over their own particular projects-met as strangers the field and activities of each of us being largely unknown to the other. We had no conception of the similarity of many of our problems nor of the extent of such problems. No one had attempted to define the Southern Highland region, and indeed few of us realized that the situations with which we were called to deal were after all only more or less acute rural situations such as might be found in greater or less degree outside as well as inside the geological limits of the Southern Appalachians. We did not know that we already had an industrial problem in West Virginia, for at that time we did not think of West Virginia as belonging in the family. Nor did we suspect that eastern Kentucky was even then at the beginning of the rapid coal development which would soon take from it the distinction of being the largest state mountain-area untouched by railroads. The mountain country was still the land of mystery and romancea survival of a pioneer past, with all of a survival's fascination and pecularities. So we gazed curiously-almost suspiciously-at each other, while each kept his eye open for a concealed and unwary multimillionaire who might be easily convinced that his peculiar project was a little more worthy and important than that of anyone else. We enjoyed-not entirely modestly-an opportunity to talk in considerable detail of our special needs and our way of meeting them.-a temptation Page 2 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 against which, to be sure, we are not entirely proof today, for we are always hoping that our experiences are going to be useful to others. But in that first gathering-and for some time after we moved to Knoxville, the geographical center of the mountains-our program tended to become a recital of this or that individual accomplishment which might or might not be of enough interest to warrant our listening any great length of time to it. Within limits, this was of course right, for we needed more than anything else to become acquainted with each other and to broaden our knowledge and understanding of mountain conditions and work. This stage in our development was necessary. Indeed, without Mr. Campbell's skilful and sympathetic eliciting of the personal experiences of individuals the encouragement which made the shy worker feel that what he thought and did was of importance, and that even his prejudices and preferences deserved consideration-the cordial, united spirit of the Conference could never have resulted. Courtesy made us forbear to wrangle over questions which could have no fruitful solution-at all events thenand an unwritten law kept us from trying to commit the whole body to votes which could not be sanctioned by some of the denominational bodies from which delegates were present. If we can be accused of fearing to touch situations which called clearly for adjustment, we can only say that mutual forbearance has brought us, finally, much further along the road than any premature attempt to coerce certain members could have done. Here, among a group representing some sixteen different denominational activities as well as a large number of independent and not always orthodox efforts, has emerged a common ground on which all may mingle and express their convictions and experiences without fear of offense to others. I realize now that at first we hardly knew the direction in which we were moving, although here and there a disappointed individualist, on his return from Knoxville, would write back to the ofice of the Southern Highland Division of the Sage Foundation, "We regret to find that religion is not emphasized enough at the Conference meetings." While in the same mail, perhaps, would come the counter criticism, "The Conference is too religious-that is the trouble." "The Conference gives me nothing to help me in my work. I have stopped going," wrote another unquestioning worker with eyes fixed on the horizon of detail. All conferences have their limitations, and none can be all things to all people. Where is there one whose greatest help does not consist in the opportunity it furnishes for individuals to meet and discuss their problems outside the regular sessions? One really good and stimulating address is perhaps all that we have a right to expect. One might question, however, if we mountain workers have not acquired-or maybe we are in this type of work because we have naturally-some of the characteristics of the region in which we have chosen to labor. We are quick to scent criticism, and determined to hold fast-maybe too fast-to what we have always regarded as right-measured by our knowledge. And we are many times entirely justified in our complaint that imported social experts, acquainted only with city conditions, do not understand the extreme rural complexion of our social problems. Their advice has too often proved useless to us. We cannot ring up the S.O.S. when an unadjusted individual looms on our horizon, or consult a mental clinic. We cannot hurry the offending individual to a state institution, for the reason that there may not be one, or else its capacity is already far overtaxed. The question is, what are we to do in the face of circumstances? So it has happened quite naturally that all mountain workers do not affiliate with the Conference even when small salaries and heavy personal responsibilities do not keep them away. On the other hand, faces which became familiar at that first meeting sixteen years ago are still to be seen yearly in Knoxville, and the conference has grown steadily in strength and influence. The number of delegates, registered and unregistered ( for alas one cannot convince all this individualistic group that they all ought to register, no matter how often one reminds them), usually averages about two hundred. And may I say that one cannot attend July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 3 such a meeting as this last in Knoxville and listen to the searching papers and eager, frank discussion without coming away convinced that here, in this group and in the institutions and agencies which it represents, lies the real hope of constructive progress in mountain work. Not all of us pretend to be progressives; some may not change very much; but we have long ceased to be suspicious of each other; we are not critical of each others' activities either as individuals or denominations. We are no less interested in unwary millionaires, but we have learned not to expect them on the conference floor. What we really seek is the truth about the mountains and any light we can secure on ways in which our work may be made more vital and efficient. I suppose Dr. Estabrook would call us "a selected group," sifted through sixteen years, although I am not sure that he would thereby mean approval. Personally, I could not but reflect, at this sixteenth Conference, on the indignant denial which would have met Dr. Estabrook's very scholarly and fundamental analysis of one phase of the mountain problem, sixteen years, yes, ten years or less ago. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that whereas we were, in a sense, ready for it this spring, then we would not have grasped the significance of his study, or its relation to our work. We have been so busy hurrying opportunity to the "finest AngloSaxon blood" that we have failed to take a broad, dispassionate view of our situation. It will be hard, even now, for any one of us to believe that the character of our special workbuilt up almost with our lifeblood-may not be suited to our special conditions, whether those conditions have changed greatly or not; that in spite of a heavy investment in equipment we must have the courage to break new trails, even to let real forest grow up on the washed hillsides of some of the coves where we had hoped to see some day the results of a scientific agriculture. And, naturally, many of us are going to puzzle over how to change our programs either to meet conditions as they are or to suit the varying needs of individuals as indicated by intelligence tests (The word "intelligence" is, perhaps, an unfortunate choice in a discus sion of natural apitudes). How can we train those who cannot make high school and college grades so that they may live full, useful, and happy lives? How can we adapt our program to the community, our system to the individual, for, as Dr. Estabrook says, it is not "easy for anyone to set a value on one type of person above another. Every person has his right to training and whatever place in the world he can attain, whatever that may be." It is impossible to get away from some of Dr. Estabrook's findings and questions. On the basis of state levels, it is evident that many people in the Southern: Highlands are living in average or even above average rural conditions. "It is therefore questionable if the term `mountain' with all its connotation of isolation, underprivilege, etc., can properly be used any longer as descriptive of the greater part of the usually defined mountain areas." "Mental tests seem to indicate that in general the more intelligent people are found in the more privileged rural areas and the less capable intellectually are in the less privileged sections. This is apparently due to movement within the population in these rural areas, a sorting and biological selection, wherein the more active physically and mentally seek the places with more possibilities, forcing the less active into the less desirable spots." "Is the lack of economic development and social intercouse of probably three-quarters of a million people in the Southern Mountains the cause or effect? Is it that natural, inherent capacities of the inhabitants are undeveloped and unorganized because of the lack of training facilities, or have biological factors of selection taken out those with greater ability? Is it that those remaining are less trainable and inherently less capable of developing their communities to a higher level without continuous outside assistance and supervision?" Doubtless further scientific study will help us to answer these questions, just as new agricultural adaptations and new educational stimuli will modify factors, but the ramifications are many. We shall not be able to reach any immediate conclusions, though we may change our ideas of what constitutes success in life. Nevertheless. we must. because of Page 4 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 the character of our work, carry on further the thought which Dr. Estabrook has suggested but passed by as not within the province of his paper: "The relationship of this lower mental level to the work of the grade schools and the programs of community organizations for economic and cultural betterment is indeed quite apparent, but this cannot be discussed here." Are we justified in concentrating effort to build up the life of a section where the population seems to be distinctly below the average? Should we adapt our programs to existing conditions or choose a more hopeful region for the kind of program we have in mind? Are our programs sound in view of local and state levels, as indicated by income tax and farm census returns, resources, etc.? Some years ago at a large mountain school I inquired of the faculty, among whom were a number of mountain birth and upbringing, what teachers had given them the greatest help during their school days-those from their own section or from the outside. All the mountain teachers answered without hesitation, "Those from our own section. They had had the same experiences and understood us." Personality will always transcend any such limitations, and without doubt many mountain students would return quite a different answer. Nevertheless the point gives rise to thought. As mountain workers we often feel and say that the institutions we represent are the only constructive agencies for improvement in our county or section, and we often feel that this frees us from the difficult attempt to enlist local cooperation and leadership. From this point of view as well as from others, it was exceedingly interesting to hear what Mrs. Sprinkle had been able to accomplish as a state worker on a county-wide basis in co-operation with county agencies. And I must confess that, to me, her emphasis on the need of education and special training for her type of work was less impressive than her spontaneous recognition of the value to her, in her efforts, of a childhood and girlhood on a Blue Ridge mountain farm. Here again we must go back to Dr. Estabrook's paper: "One coming into the mountains from the outside brings with him his cultural and educational past and his definite behavior patterns which are built up in an entirely different environment. The tendency too often is to impose these standards irrespective of local and contiguous conditions. This might be eliminated if the standards of a county or section or a state as a whole would be fixed as a goal." It is tempting to linger over each paper presented-papers which as a whole reach the highest level yet attained in any Mountain Conference-from that of President Hutchins with its bridge-building ideal and its keen awareness of our failure to grapple with certain deeply important aspects of life, to Dean Lewis' challenge to recognize and meet the changes of the changing mountains, or Mrs. Routzarhn's question as to the picture of the mountains which we ourselves present to the outside world through our publicity. Possibly the trouble is that we have not been aware enough that changing conditions call for change in us-change in our point of view, our institutions and methods. Possibly we have not seen things quite as they are today and hence we cannot be convincing because wr have no very clear picture of our objective. Certainly this is clear: We who seek after truth about the mountains, through the Conference or elsewhere, must ask ourselves why we are here. We can no longer afford to be sentimentalists; we must study and understand the region in which we have chosen to live and work. If, after all the light of knowledge we can turn upon our situation and all the soulsearchings which must follow, we still feel our present course is the best, let us go about it fearlessly in the face of criticism. But if we are not meeting the conditions which face us, :et us be honest about it. Let us have the courage to give up the old and to work out the new salvation, be it with fear and trembling. ode are fortunate indeed to have Miss Dingmah's courageous leadership as we face the questions of adjustment which become clearer and more pressing with every year. We welcome her home and promise her our sympathetic support and co-operation in making the Conference a deeper and more far-reaching help toward the goal of a better life in our Southern Mountains. -Mrs. John C. Campbell July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 5 IS THERE A MOUNTAIN PROBLEM? By ARTHUR H. ESTABROOK, Carnegie Institution of Washington Much has been written about the Southern mountains since their settlement, both as fact and fiction. The greater part of this is valueless, however, to the person who desires to acquaint himself with the actual conditions in the mountains either in the earlier days or at present. The most comprehensive and careful study ever made of the whole Southern Appalachian area is embodied in the book, "The Southern Highlander and His Homeland," the result of twenty-five years study of the whole region by John C. Campbell, the founder and inspiration of this organization. Mr. Campbell in his book has taken up the origin of the stocks entering, the lines of migration s.nto the area, the early settlements, later developments; and has presented special chapters on the religious, educational, living, and industrial conditions in the mountains. The passing of Mr. Campbell was a great loss to the peoples of the Southern Appalachians. Even before Mr. Campbell's death in 1919 and to a greater extent since then, great changes have taken place in the mountain region. Railroads, improved roads, the telephone, telegraph, the radio; the development of timber lands; the mining of bituminous coal, minerals and other products of the inner earth; the opening of many sections to tourists; and the combined efforts of schools, both in and near the mountains-these have changed the complexion of large areas of the Southern Appalachians and raised the standard of living to levels unknown a few years back. Now one may travel almost anywhere in the region on improved roads and see auto trucks taking produce from the hills and returning with the manufactures of the outer world. Considering the great changes-economic, social, and educational-taking place in the nountain area, every person interested in any way in the population thereof, should step out of his niche and corner occasionally, and take a bird's eye view of the whole field in order to decide just where his own efforts are leading. Therefore, I make a plea to those attending these meetings to lay aside temporarily their cares, worries, and problems, and most particularly any preconceived opinions, that a free mind may be brought to the addresses, discussions and exhibits of this conference. Then when each takes up his own work again, to do so in the light of any new viewpoint which may be brought to him here. The group gathered here is interested in the peoples of the Southern Appalachian mountains. And so defined, this area has a population of six million people and is over 100,000 square miles in extent. But do all these people and all this area come within the purview of those attending this conference? At this point a few questions seem pertinent. How many people in this area are living in urban conditions? How many are now living under average rural social conditions, that is, average for the state at large? How many are living in isolated and backward communities? Is the population today in these various urban and rural areas biologically similar to the stocks which entered the mountains in 1800? Are the people now in the more isolated and unproductive areas less capable intellectually a,nd otherwise than those in the more favored areas, perhaps because of biological selection? Has there been a marked migration from the mountain areas? What part of the population, intellectually and kinetically, has left for other regions? Has there been migration in more recent years into the Southern mountains, and where and why? What has been the effect of industrial development on the peoples of the various areas? What part of the whole area can now be considered isolated? Are the conditions found in these isolated areas Page 6 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 duplicated in other areas in the United States which are similar geographically or are they peculiar here because of the special human stocks? Is there a definite mountain problem which in itself has a particular solution or are there a large number of differing individual problems similar to those found in all parts of the United States, more intense in some, less intense in other sectins? The first matter for consideration is the population data. The six million p e 0 p 1 e within the defined mountain area fall roughly into f o u r groups: the urban, the rurban, the rural and, what is termed by many super-rural. The urban population has average opportunities for social contacts, formal education and training, and economic livelihood. Here there are no particular social or educational problems not found in any like urban environment in t h e United States. Again the area classified as the ruraban, that is, the small town of from several hundred to several thousand population, is quite similar, educationally, economically, and socially, to other like population areas. The rural and super-rural populations in this area, however, predominate not only in number but also in the amount of land area involved. Conditions in these rural and super-rural areas range from those found in fertile, well developed areas with good roads and schools, such as one sees riding on the train through East Tennessee Valley, to the isolated cabins located far in the fastness of the hills, where the corn crop on the little patches of worn-out land may often be as low as six bushels per acre. from the educational, This is in The Mountains There is a wide range social, and economic status of the rural man, woman, and child living on the land worth a hundred dollars an acre, with a high level of productivity, and with easy and quick access to community center by means of automobile and improved roads, to that of the man trying to eke out an existence on an isolated unproductive hillside so steep sometimes that he can with difficulty maintain his balance in the corn patch This difference mush always be kept in mind. While the transition between these type areas is sometimes slight, m o r e often it is very marked. As a rule, accessibility, the kind of schoolhouse, the type of home, are simple gauges of the general social levels of these various sections. What is now known concerning these different type areas? What is their extent? Their population figures? What have been the changes in them in recent years? Four counties of South Carolina are classified as mountain. These counties are on the southeastern slope of the Blue Ridge range. According to the United States census, their population was 241,000 in 1920. A cursory survey of their ground area shows that the Piedmont plateau forms the southern part of thi tier of counties and is now dotted with cotton July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 7 mills and cotton and truck plantations. On the northern side of this area the mountains rise to an elevation of three thousand feet with only narrow valleys entering them. Here the roads are poor and agricultural production is low. A line has been drawn on the map separating the plateau region from the mountain area. The line on the map. is practically identical with the dividing line between the privileged and the underprivileged areas-the classification of privileged and underprivileged being based on school, road, and agricultural conditions. The population of the mountainous area of these four counties, here correspondingly underprivileged, has been figured from two sources, the township population data of the United States census and from the actual counting of homes. In 1920, 7,398 individuals were living in this northern mountain section. This s 3 percent of the 'total population of the four counties, and this 3 percent resides on a b o u t 30 percent of the land a r e a. In 1910, this same area had a population of 8,179, while in 1900 there were 9,087 people residing in it. This shows a decrease of 10 percent in population in the mountain area for each of the two past decades. The actual mountain population of South Carolina then should read 7,000 instead of 241,000, which is the total population of these four counties. The population of Perry county in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky was approximately eight thousand in 1900. About 1912, the railroad was pushed to the head after bituminous coal was found there. Since that time, the population of this county has increased to forty thousand. A study, as yet unpublished, of an area in this county along the railroad and inclusive of the county seat, Haz rd, shows that only forty-five percent of the present population is of local county stock. And So Is This Twenty percent came from neighboring counties in the mountains and thirty-five percent originated from outside the mountain area. Fifty-five percent then of the present population consists of people who have moved into the section because of the industrial development. Two-thirds of the land area of this county is untouched by the railroads and the three state roads now under construction there, yet less than one-fifth of the entire population occupies this underprivileged area. This one-fifth, apparently untouched by the new developments, is, however, directly affected by the proximity of the railroad and mines through the opportunity for the sale of garden truck and periodic employment. Thus Perry county has now a great industrial development area, the aspects of which, however, are changing slowly. On the other hand, there are sections of the mountains which are still purely agricultural and will probably remain so, where the conditions are m o r e advantageous than some rural areas example of this agricultural type is Greenbriar county in West Virginia with a farm population of slightly over 14,000. Here the value per acre of farm land and buildings, according to the United States farm census figure of 1925, is $42.51. The average value of land and buildings per acre for the whole state of West Virginia in that year was only $39.66. Tazewell county, in the Virginia valley, has a population of 28,000. In 1924, 735 individuals, or 26 in every thousand of the population paid a Federal Income Tax to the Government. The average for the whole state of Virginia that year was 30 individuals in every thousand with a taxable income. There are other spots in the mountains, not necessarily bounded in any way by existing county division lines, which have average, or of the lowlands. An Page 8 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 sometimes above average rural social conditions. One would here include, for example, RPveral areas in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, as in Watauga and Avery counties; certain parts of Pulaski, Laurel, Lawrence, and Wolfe counties in Kentucky; Jefferson and surrounding counties in East Tennessee; and especially Habersham county in North Georgia, which has completely changed economically since the introduction of fruit culture. If it is correct to assume the general state level as a criterion, it is evident that the number of mountain people living under average rural social and economic conditions is quite large and that one cannot consider the population of all the rural areas in the mountains as underprivileged. Hence the statement of the rural population of the Southern Appalachians gives no clue as to the number living in underprivileged areas. Balanced against all the foregoing there is Leslie county, Kentucky, which is considered by many as the most backward of any of the Southern mountain counties. The whole county is underlaid with most valuable mineral, bituminous coal, two-thirds of which3 however, is owned by outside interests. It still has valuable timber although the greater part of the virgin timber has long been gone. New second growth, however, is coming in and will soon be marketable. There is probably less than one-half of one percent of bottom land in the county and many of the richer coves have been worn out agriculturally. The main source of cash income for the region is from the floating of logs down the river, the selling of small amounts of truck vegetables and poultry at the coal mines on the railroad, and from occasional employment of men at public works. Leslie county has a population of 10,000 people, with- a density of population of twenty-seven to the square mile. There are no roads, either rail or improved dirt, in the county. Yet in this county there are sixty grade schools, one county high school and two other small high schools. There are eight nurses engaged in midwifery, general nursing, and public health activities. There is also one other nurse active in nursing and religious work at a community center. One hospital is in operation and a larger one in process of construction. Three registered physicians are all available for the county's health program. There are thirteen religious and community workers in various parts of the county and two regular ministers. Besides, there are four settlement schools in neighboring counties where good grade and high school training may be secured at a low cost, all within one day's walk of the county seat. The total number of social, religious, and health contact hours provided for this population by this corps of workers has not been estimated. Considering these advantages, the question arises: Does this county remain socially and economically backward because of lack of the development of natural resources, or because of the failure of the organized community activities, or because of the make-up of the resident human stock? I shall consider only the resident human stocks in this discussion, at a later point. There are approximately 700,000 people living in the mountain part of Kentucky. May I be permitted an estimate of 200,000 who cannot maintain an adequate standard of living on the land upon which they reside? The low standard of living in most of the underprivileged areas of the mountains is often due to the fact that the crop yield per acre is very small and the land has to be apportioned to so many families because of the high density of population. Should families be encouraged to remain on such land? Should children be persuaded to remain on the paternal holding, thus cutting up the farm and again lowering the standard of living, even if the crop yield per acre is increased slightly by different types of agriculture? Depopulation of some of these underprivilleged areas seems to be the remedy for some of the conditions found there. The apportionment of population for such areas should depend on the possibilities of adequate income from the land, that is, the possibilities for crop yield, be it in timber, truck produce, poultry, or fruit. July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 9 One may become weary of hearing figures and statistics. Statistics, however, should always be considered. They indicate change, the extent of change, and often the reasons for the change taking place. And of these everchanging conditions, some slight, some great, the worker must be cognizant if he would adapt his program to meet them. All this, however, leads definitely to the question of the types of population. What is known of the people themselves, who inhabit these mountains? The stocks that settled the Southern Appalachians in the period just following the Revolutionary War, as is generally known, were from the eastern seacoast, mainly from Pennsylvania southwest to South Carolina. The eastern seacoast was becoming too densely populated, hence movement westward took place. The first people to move were desirous of bettering their conditions. and to endure hardships because more opportunities of self-expression and economic betterment seemed open to them. These first migrants were therefore undoubtedly a selected group of the population selected inasmuch as the members were ambitious, energetic, hardy; it must be remembered, too, that not all of those who started out reached their goal -some turned back. Thus the Southern Appalachian area became quite populated within a period of several decades following 1780. Movement westward of all the peoples of the United States continued. Following the settlement of the Middle West, came the settlement of the Far West. Nor were the people in the Southern mountains static during this period. While in general the great flows of migration westward passed around the mountain region, because of the difficulty of passing through, thousands of people in the mountain area about this time became dissatisfied and left the region for points further west. A large number of families in the Bluegrass of Kentucky and in the rich agricultural area of Indiana have been traced through the mountain region of Kentucky in the early days. Several large families have been traced by the writer from the Atlantic seacoast in 1790, through North Carolina to Kentucky by 1820, and some were found in Indiana and Missouri in 1840, while by 1850, a few were located in Oregon and Washington. In 1870, another large group of these same people had settled in the Panhandle region of Texas. The greater part of the population of the Ozark mountains in Missouri and Arkansas originated in northern Alabama, Eastern Tennessee, and Eastern Kentucky. People from Claiborne county, Tennessee, for example, settled the Kings River Valley of Madison county in the Arkansas Ozarks in 1820. There was another large migration in 1890 from Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ozarks and the newly opened Oklahoma country. Examples are almost endless. There is, however, little actually known about the mental or temperamental characteristics of those who left the mountains in the earlier days. Several families which settled early in the Kings River Valley, just mentioned, have a high incidence of ability in the descendants, and have contributed leading citizens to the region and communities nearby. Many prominent citizens of the Far West, Oregon and Washington,, are traced back to the mountains, especially to the migrations about 1840. Were the people who moved on in the earlier days a selected group, constituting the more active and the more intelligent of their original groups? There is much more data available concerning the make-up, mentally and temperamentally, of the present stocks in the mountains and those who have left the mountains in more recent years. In 1900, there were 220 student in the grade and high school, then called Hyden Academy, at Hyden, Leslie county, Kentucky. In 1927, 85 of these were still in the county, 80 were in nearby counties or away from the region, while 55 others were completely unknown. Over one-half of the school population of Hyden in 1900, therefore, was away from the county one generation later. A study of the ex-students of Berea College from several underprivileged mountain counties in Eastern Kentucky shows that approximately one-half of the students from a county return to that county, the other half seek a livelihood elsewhere. The most significant Page 10 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 Yes, They Are fact appearing in this study, however, was that the higher the level of education reached in the college by the student, the greater the tendency of the student to remain away from his isolated home region. It also appeared that the longer the student's stay at the college, the greater the tendency to remain outside. The less trained, which possibly means the less trainable, returned to their home counties. Here again another sorting ,took place. The more capable of the group which returned to their native county gravitated either to the county seat or to other more advantageous places in the county, where they soon had the more promising situations politically or otherwise. The less capable gradually found the same social and economic level that they, or their parents, held in the home community before they went off to school. There is now available much objective data concerning the mental levels of the present population in various areas of the Southern Appalachians. This consists of school proficiency and intelligence test scores as well as marks of school work actually done. Jackson, the county seat of Breathitt county, Kentucky, has a population of approximately 2500, is located on the railroad, and has an average Mountaineers economic development. There are 325 children in the grades and 60 in the high school. The mental tests of these students show a normal curve of distribution of scores, indicating a group of children of average mental ability. There are a few with intelligence quotients of 140 or so and some with an intelligence quotient of 50 or 60, with all, gradations between. This is the same as one finds in any school in the smaller cities in the Bluegrass on in Indiana or Ohio. The school population of the city of Jackson, then, is of average intellectual ability. Mental tests have also been given in some of the more isolated and underprivileged areas. A study of 1945 subjects ranging in age from 5 to 23, selected in three mountain counties in Eastern Kentucky, has recently been reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ,(January, 1927). These three areas are underprivileged economically and have no contact through railroads or improved dirt roads. Each of these areas, however, contains a settlement school of years standing, offering excellent educational facilities. But not all of the children tested in these three areas have had actual contact with the settlement school. These mental tests show an average intelligence quotient in the first, July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 11 second, third, and fourth grades of 75.9; in the fifth and sixth grades of 75.7 ; in grades seven and eight, 86 ; while in grades nine to twelve, the high school, the average was 94.7. The increase in the intelligence quotient in grades nine to -~welve was due, in the opinion of that investigator, to selection based on innate intelligence. The less capable intellectually had left school in the earlier grades before reaching the eighth grade level, hence the apparent increase in the average intelligence quotient for the upper grades. In another isolated and underprivileged county near those just mentioned, the average intelligence quotient of the county high school is 84.5. The children in this school have been tested each year for the past five years and are not "test-shy." The teachers in this graded school and high school system have come from outside the mountains for a period of almost thirty years, and a community center with a regular preacher has been active here for about the same length of time. In another part of the same county a graded school has also had contacts with a community center of ten years standing and has had outside teachers, mainly from Berea College, for the same period. This school has been tested regularly with both proficiency and intelligence tests for a period of four years, by the school' principal as well as the writer. The average intelligence quotient in this school for the grades from five to sight inclusive is 86. This intellectual level is very similar to that found in the study of the three isolated areas just mentioned. Contrasted to these more under privileged areas there is a rather open and productive valley in one county of the Kentucky mountains, nearer the foothills, which has a much higher standard of living than any of the areas just mentioned. Here the two-story home predominates, and cattle, cream, tobacco, and poultry products are the cash crops. A study of one of the three rural schools in this valley, taught by native teachers who were educated at Berea College, also has been made. Tests similar to those used in the counties just mentioned were used. The average in telligence quotient found here is 95 for grades seven and eight, compared with 85 and 86 found in the underprivileged areas. The conditions in this one school are duplicated in the other two schools in the area. It might be interesting at this point to add that practically every child in this school has at the present time, or has had recently, older brothers or sisters in attendance at Berea College, as were many of their parents previously. It would seem from these various studies, as indicated by the mental test scores of the school children, that the people in the more isolated and underprivileged areas have a lower intellectual level than those found in the more average rural conditions. The areas in the mountains with approximately the same agricultural conditions and corresponding economic levels contain people of much the same intellectual level. The lower intellectual levels in the more backward areas do not seem necessarily to be caused by the backwardness of the region, but rather by the selection that has taken place whereby the more intelligent, though perhaps illiterate or only slightly educated, have left the less productive areas and sought homes where a higher standard of living can be maintained. Thus it is biological selection and not the untoward conditions of the more isolated areas which seem to be be the determining factor in the matter of the intellectual, levels of the peoples in the more underprivileged areas. In general the more intelligent migrate, leaving the less intelligent. The relationship of this lower mental level to the work of the grade schools and the programs of the community organizations for economic and cultural betterment is indeed quite apparent, but this cannot be discussed here. The questions as to privileged and underprivileged, economic and cultural levels are not restricted to the mountain area of the southern states. Privileged and underprivileged sections, as found in the mountain areas, are often duplicated in the lowland parts of the same southern states. Chatham county in North Carolina, which is located very near the State University, is primarily agricultural. There are a number of areas in Page 12 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 this county that are very backward in living conditions and have paucity of social contacts because of poor roads, which are impassable in winter. These areas have a low agricultural production. The average schooling of the tenant farmer is about a fourth grade level. The farm value per acre of land and buildings in this whole county in 1925 was $25.11. Twenty-one mountain counties in North Carolina had a farm value exceeding this-only five were less. In Virginia there are as many people per thousand of the population paying federal income tax in the mountain area as there are in the lowland area if the two large cities in the eastern part of the commonwealth are excluded, Richmond and Norfolk. Many other similar comparisons between mountain and non-mountain parts of the same state could be made, all of which indicates that the non-mountain areas do not now necessarily exceed the mountain areas in natural or other resources, productivity, or opportunity. Only one further example will about 730 counties in the states which include the Seventy-five percent of counties have county farm agents. Sixty percent of the mountain counties have farm agents. This whole mountain region then is not so far behind with respect to advantages resulting from the activities of the county farm agent. Social and economic conditions in the Southern mountains are not now and never have been static. The urban centers have increased very much in population and commercial activity. Some rural sections have turned from agriculture to industry by developing natural resources, mainly mineral. Other sections have remained agricultural in type, but through improved roads and easier communication, standards of living have been raised greatly. The governmental agricultural census, the income tax return reports, and -other data show that many sections of the °mountains have average or above average ecohomic conditions, when the general state levels are used as standards. be cited. There are eight southern mountain area. the non-mountain The actual super-rural areas, i.e., the present isolated areas, have been decreasing fast the last few decades both in area and population. The total isolated area in the mountains has decreased because of the penetration of roads, telephone, the radio, newspapers, and the daily mail. Correspondingly the isolated population decreased, because of the smaller area now involved and the continuing emigration. The population of the urban areas together with that of the average and better than average rural sections undoubtedly now outnumbers that of the isuperrural areas. It is therefore questionable if the term "mountain," with all its connotation of isolation, underprivilege, etc., can properly be used any longer as descriptive of the greater part of the usually defined mountain area. Parallel with the differences in the social and economic levels in various mountain areas, there seem to be distinct differences in the intellectual levels. The mental tests of school children in several cities and larger towns, previously reported indicate an average population similar to cities of like size outside of the mountain area. The people living in rural areas with more or less average social and economic conditions show an average level of mental ability. The populations in the more isolated and underprivileged areas, where tests have been made, have a lower intelligence level. Thus the mental tests seem to indicate that in general the more intelligent people are found in the more privileged rural areas, and the less capable intellectually in the less privileged sections. This apparently is due to movement within the population in these rural areas, , a sorting and a biological selection, wherein the more active, physically and mentally, seek the places with more possibilities, forcing the less active into the less desirable spots. Migration from the super-rural areas seems to consist, in general, of the more intelligent and active ones. Thus the intellectual level of the population of these isolated and underprivileged areas tends to be lowered by this continuous sorting. The various problems confronting the July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 13 worker in the mountain area, such as land tenancy, poor transportation, poor educational facilities, lack of general cultural contacts, are not restricted to the mountains nor are they always more intense here than elsewhere. There are poor as well as good areas, economically considered, in the lowlands of these eight southern states in which the southern mountains are located. Some of these environmental factors, found both in the lowland and mountain sections of the southern states, are restricted because of the topography or other reasons to local areas. Some are state-wide because of legislative enactment or types of state administration, as length of school term, administration of criminal laws, care of dependent children, or the improved road programs. Other factors are sectional, as rainfall, temperature or soil conditions, and the like. All these contributing factors must be taken into consideration when analyzing a -iven community. It is difficult to measure accurately the cultural contacts in a small unit of population. One cannot easily gauge the amount of selfexpression in such an area as indicated by a casual survey of its activities. Nor is it easy for anyone to set a value on one type of person above another. Every person has his right to training and whatever place in the world he can attain, wherever it may be. One coming into the mountains from the outside brings with him his cultural and educational past and his definite behavior patterns which have been built up in an entirely different environment. The tendency too often is to superimpose these standards irrespective of local and contiguous conditions. This might be eliminated if the standards of a county or section or a state as a whole would be fixed as a goal. The cause or effect of any phenomena is often difficult to determine. The practical question for the student of sociology, and we are all such for this short time, is this: Is the lack of economic development and social intercourse of probably three quarters of a million ,eople in the Southern mountains the cause or effect? Is it that the natural inherent capacities of the inhabitants are undeveloped and unorganized because of the lack of training facilities, or have biological factors of selection taken out those with greater ability? Is it that those remaining are less trainable and inherently less capable of developing their communities to a higher level without continuous outside assistance and supervision? The data and viewpoints in this paper are presented to give a general picture of conditions in the mountains at the present time. No solution is offered to the various problems which have been enumerated in part. The writer does wish to present the thesis that there is no one mountain problem separate and distinct from the rest of the problems of the Southland. There are, however, in the mountain sections, as in the lowlands of the Southern States, certain problems such as isolation, poor roads, low educational standards, depopulation, and deterioration of human stocks. For a satisfactory solution in the mountains, these problems should be worked out on a state basis for the whole Southern United States. DISCUSSION INTELLIGENCE TESTS. In the discussion of intelligence tests, certain points were brought out: (1) Properly administered, intelligence tests are competent and accurate even for isolated sections. (2) In judging a group, one must always consider whether the group tested was a random sample population or a selected group. (3) Distinction must be made between (a) educational tests, which measure progress due to educational contacts, and (b) intelligence tests, which test a child's inherent ability, his "real innate undeveloped capacity." "I went into a classroom of secondgrade boys and asked them to spell rat. That was the informational test. Then I asked them to spell it backwards. One out of the class spelled it t-a-r. That was the intelligence test." USE OF TESTS. Another problem was how to use the findings of the intelligence tests, especially how to deal with plodding (Continued on Page 35) Page 14 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 THE CHANGING MOUNTAINS By CHARLES D. LEWIS, Dean, Those who would understand the Changing Mountains of the Southeastern United States must first understand the Changeless Mountains which in large measure have produced the human types and conditions of this region, and which must, inevitably, continue to exercise a most profound influence upon those who live within their environs. Much misunderstanding of the people of this region has resulted from a failure to comprehend the varied topographical and geological conditions which are found in what is roughly designated as the Southern Mountains. Before entering upon a discussion of the topic under consideration, therefore, it will be well to comment briefly upon the three general divisions of the section in question. These divisions maybe designated as the Plateau belt, the Younger Folded, and Older Folded regions. The first of these, the Plateau belt, lies along the western border of the Southern Highlands, stretching from the Ohio river to Alabama and bordered on the northwest by the Blue Grass regions of Kentucky and middle Tennessee. It is characterized by almost horizontal rock, chiefly sandstone and shale but with some limestone in certain sections. As a rule the soil is thin, and the topography varies from gently rolling land on the northwest, to the maturely dissected, rugged maze of deep valleys and high, sharp-crested ridges found on the southeast border. A considerable portion, perhaps 40 percent of this region, has very fine deposits of bituminous coal. The plateau country that does not have coal is less rugged, better fitted for agriculture, and may be transformed into a fairly prosperous farming region if aided by states in the construction of roads and the maintenance of efficient schools. The second belt, or Younger Folded region, Lincoln Memorial Institute lies to the east of the Plateau belt, and extends from western Virginia to northern Georgia and from the Pine Mountains in Kentucky to the Great Smokies on the North Carolina-Tennessee border. It is composed of sharply folded and faulted formations of sandstone, shale, and limestone. This folding has caused the softer formations, especially the limestones, to weather into long paralled valleys running from northeast to southwest, with high sandstone ridges between them. The valleys are good farming land, and in most cases are being reached by improved roads, but the sandstone and shale ridges have very thin soil and are so rough that good roads ar almost impossible. It is in these ridges than poverty, poor schools, and a population deprived of its intellectual leadership are found in the greatest abundance. The third belt, or Older Folded region,embraces the country from the foot of the Great Smokies and Unekas along the TennesseeNorth Carolina border to the Blue Ridge on the eastern edge of the highland region. Here the granite core of the mountain uplift is largely exposed, and the sandstones, shales and limestones have been almost wholly transformed into gneiss, schist, slate, and marble. There are many fertile valleys and much of the higher land is well adapted to fruit and grazing. The higher and more rugged parts, of course, are suited only for forest, and grip the population that has been crowded back into them in poverty and isolation. There is quite a considerable mineral wealth in the region, and an abundance of hard rock for road construction makes good highways much more easily built than in the Plateau belt. It is because of the varied economic conditions caused by these three quite distinct topographical rt gions that many are at a loss to know why July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 1-5 those familiar with the people of the Southern Highlands affirm that there is no "typical mountaineer." The well-to-do farmer of one of the broad limestone valleys in the second belt is a "mountaineer," though he owns hundreds of acres of fertile land and sends his children away to college. And so are the "Malungeons", living but a few miles distant in the high, poor sandstone ridges that separate his valley from the next parallel valley to the northwest, a degenerate people of uncertain racial identity who eke out a bare existence in poverty and densest ignorance. "The cream sinks and the skim milk rises in the sociological milk pan of the mountains," as one observer has expressed it. There is a constant movement of the best type down into the broader valleys and out into the life of the state and nation. As certainly does the population of lower mentality and less ambition tend to be crowded back upon the poor ridges and into the narrow valleys where there is no possibility for a sound economic basis of life. It is in such localities that we .ind our "contemporary ancestors," stranded humanity that has been isolated by the natural barriers until they are today living in a manner closely resembling life in more favored regions a number of generations ago. With this brief survey of the part that geological and physiographic formations have played in the affairs of the Southern Highlands, let us pass to the consideration of the changes-social, economic, industrial, cultural-that have taken place within this territory since the opening of the century. EDUCATIONAL CHANGES. There is probably no better index of progress in America than the amount and character of change that has taken place in the public educational facilities within a given area. During the past twenty years remarkable progress has been made educationally in the Southern mountains, especially when the limited wealth and natural difficulties are taken into consideration. In 1908 Kentucky established her first State Normal schools, and passed the first act to require at least one public four-year high school in each county. Today there are four white and one colored teacher-training institutions, representing an investment of about eight million dollars and receiving approximately $750,000 per year from the state for maintenance; and 361 public, accredited four-year high schools. Twenty years ago there were only 54 such schools. The progress of all of the other states that reach into the mountain territory is at least as rapid as that of Kentucky. The poorer counties of these states are not being neglected, either, as is shown by the following figures. Ten mountain counties of Kentucky lying adjacent to each other in the Plateau belt show 1. Increase in amount invested in public school from $190,000 to $980,000, or 476 percent. 2. Increase in annual expenditures for maintaining public elementary schools from $149,000 to $589,000, or 296 per, cent. 3. Increase in average daily attendance 60 percent. 4. Increase in teacher's salaries about 100 percent. 5. Decrease in log school houses from 184 to 0. Ten of the poorest mountain counties of Tennessee show the following progress during the two decades 1. Increase in total teacher's salaries from $83,000 to $349,000, or 296 percent. 2. Increase in high school enrollment from 408 to 1767, or 333 percent. 3. Length of school term increased from average of about 4 months to 8 months, equal to 100 percent. 4. The burden of school support has been largely shifted to the state by means of an equalizing fund. Other indications of progress are: (1) North Carolina spends $200,000 more now for equalizing purposes than was spent twenty years ago for all elementary education. (2) In ten poorest counties of Virginia, standard high school education is provided at public expense for 1831 students. (3) Tennessee spends $800,000 per year to equalize the edu• Page 16 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 cational opportunities for children living in poor counties. As measured by the increased training demanded for entering the teaching profession, there has been most gratifying progress. North Carolina now demands at least high school graduation for practically all elementary teachers, and is r a p i d 1 y advancing the standards to a training of two years beyond that point. Tennessee next year will issue no teachers licenses on credits for less than high school graduation plus twelve weeks of standard college training, and such a license must be renewed e a c h year by a like amount of training until one year of college work is done. A permanent license is not issued until 2 years of college work is completed, with a satisfactory minimum of professional credit. Licenses are still issued on examination, but the salary discrimination is so great that the number issued has fallen from 3,500 in 1922 to 350 in 1927. Other states extending into the southern mountain region are progressing along similar lines, so that the entire wealth of the states is being rapidly drawn upon to provide adequate elementary education for every child within this region where conditions have been so bad in the past. A brief summary of the Tennessee law of 1925 relating to the equalizing of educational opportunities within the state will be illuminating. An eight-month rural school has been made possible in every county of the state by a provision that any county levying a tax of as much as fifty cents on the hundred dollars of assessed property may draw upon the state for money necessary to pay teachers of whatever training and experience employed for a term of eight months and at a standard salary set by the state. This makes it possible for a poor county to secure a full, corps of well trained teachers for every school within its boundary and to draw from the state all money in excess of the sum secured by the minimum levy. It also receives from the state a sum equal to 15 percent of the amount expended for teachers, to meet the running expenses of the school. So in fact the tax levy devoted to payment of teachers is only thirty-five cents on the hundred dollars. To secure competent teachers for the more isolated districts, it is further provided that any teacher employed to teach a one-room school shall receive nve dollars per month more than would bE received by that' teacher if employed in a school having In addition to this provision, a bond issue has been approved and the funds are available for the current year to provide aid for building school houses. If a county levies a tax sufficient to produce a fund of one dollar per pupil for building purposes, the state will give an equal amount to be expended according to plans approved by the State Department of Education. Thus a good school is made possible for every district within the state, no matter how remote or how limited local or county resources. This law, of course, has not become immediately operative in every section, but last year only seven counties failed to meet the requirement for state aid in providing a school term of eight months with teachers paid according to the standard state schedule and meeting requirements as to training. Other mountain states. are progressing along similar lines, so that the entire wealth of these states is being drawn upon to provide adequate educational facilities for the children of this region. ROAD IMPROVEMENT IN THE MOUN Yesterday two or more teachers, July, 192$ MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 1? TAINS. Twenty years ago there were very few miles of improved road in the mountain ends of the Southern Appalachian states. Today every mountain county seat in North Carolina and Tennessee is reached, in most cases from two or more directions, by hard surfaced state-maintained highways. In Virginia only two or three counties are not so served; and while Kentucky is lagging behind somewhat, great improvement has been made in road construction. The ten poorest counties of Virginia have an aggregate of 310 miles of improved highway built and maintained by state and Federal aid, Tennessee's ten poorest counties have 225 miles of such road, while North Carolina, first to start in its road-building program, has constructed 500 miles in its ten poorest mountain counties. This total mileage of 1,035 miles represents a cost of at least twenty-five million dollars. This investment is bringing good interest by providing marketing facilities for farm and forest products, by affording work during construction and in maintenance, and, more than all, in attracting tourists into this beautiful region for summer vacations and weekend trips. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENTS. The coal deposits of the Plateau belt afford the greatest single source of mineral wealth at the present time. The railways that have penetrated this region in Kentucky along the valleys of the Cumberland, Kentucky and Big Sandy rivers, have brought large coal developments to eight of the mountain counties that a short time ago were held in poverty because of the fact that their wealth was of a type capable of development only by capital and complex producing and distributing organizations. Limited areas in weAofn Virginia and eastern Tennessee likewise pro duce coal. This region is also rich in fire clay, oil, and gas. The Newer Folded belt is rich in marbles and bauxite, with some zinc and copper, while the Older Folded belt has granite, mica, and other minerals. The forests of this region have always been a most important source of income, and should continue to be. Vast areas are unfit for anything else, and the sooner these areas are taken over by the state and Federal governments for forest reservations, the better for the entire region, economically and socially. Already considerable progress has been made in this line in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Two secondary results will follow this forest development of almost as great a value as the primary one of timber production. The first is as a means of floodcontrol and stabilization of power. The second is the removal of population from the regions where a satisfactory economic basis for life is impossible. The narrow valleys and higher slopes constitute the "slum regions" of the mountains, and government forests constitute about the only way of breaking them up and stopping their pernicious social influence. Already the development of these natural resources, together with the water power and timber of the rigion, has begun to make of the Southern mountains an industrial area of firsts importance. M i n i n g towns and villages have sprung up during the past two decades where the quiet, isolated, ultra rural life of the moun tain valleys had been the order for genera t i o n s. Manufacturing plants in great variety are coming into the valleys of eastern Tennessee and western Virginia and North Car olina. On the Holston r i v e r, at Kingsport Tennessee, an important branch of the Eastman Kodak Company, a great printing and Today and Tomorrow Page 18 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK duly, 1928 book-binding concern, knitting mills, and cement works are making a rural village of the early days of this century into a modern manufacturing community. In Happy Valley of the historic Wautauga River, German companies have started the development of an artificial fiber plant which will, when completed, represent an investment of fifty million dollars and furnish employment for fifteen thousand laborers. These are but 'examples of what is going on in the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, The Old Georgia, and Alabama. This new life is rushing into valleys and up mountain slopes, making this region a bewildering complex of primitive farm life and modern industrial communities and agricultural regions. AGRICULTURAL CHANGES. Until im proved roads and an industrial population came to the mountains, farming was very largely a matter of producing the foods, feeds, and raw materials that were necessary to supply the simple wants of the people. But with the development of roads, rural mail delivery, parcel post, and telephones, these conditions changed. No longer was it enough that the mountain farm provided food, shel ter, and clothing. Wants increased as outside contacts were made more numerous. The simple life of the pioneer no longer satisfied. Money must be obtained to buy the refinements and luxuries of life of the outside world. To secure these, cattle, sheep, and hogs were driven to market, timber was cut and rafted down the streams, men and boys went to the incoming railways, the opening mines, the saw mills that came further and further up the rivers, for work that would bring in cash to meet growing family needs. This brought about a neglect of the old type of farming and the deterioration of the farm. Markets were developing near-by, but the demands were for products widely different from the cash-crops the farms had been producing. Vegetables, small fruits, poultry and milk had been produced, but chiefly by the women; they were not "men's crops." So passed the old order, in many sections, without the coming of the new. Boys saw no chance on the farm, and as a result the most capable and ambitious left it. It is only the story of rural life everywhere, but much exaggerated by the poorer land, worse roads, and less efficient schools. These conditions were worse in the Plateau belt than elsewhere, for in the Folded region there were altering belts of better soil that kept a fair degree of prosperity among the farming people. On the whole, farm progress in the mountains has been less satisfactory than that of roads, schools, and industry. Certain sections have made fair progress in developing poultry production, dairy cattle are being introduced to considerable degree, vegetable and fruit production are making some headway; but in agriculture, more than in any other field, is there need for outside aid in adapting the minds and ideals of the farmers and their children to the new conditions which they face. THE RESULTS OF THE CHANGES. The changes set forth above in regard to certain of the more important factors affecting the life of the people of the Southern mountains, have brought about quite radical changes in them and in their problems. In the first place the present population of the region is marked by a far greater freedom of movement than was possible during past generations. Whereas it was "frozen", it has "thawed out" and is now fluid. And as a fluid population it pre July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 19 sents a very different series of problems from those of a generation ago. Industrially, economically, socially, educationally, spiritually, it is a changed region. Its need for outside aid is probably as great as ever, but the type of aid must be radically and quickly changed if the service most needed is to be rendered. Under the influences of the new conditions, farms have been sold to mining companies, railways, industrial plants, speculators: and the former owners have gone to better farming regions in the Blue Grass or the outer edge of the Plateau belt, to more remote agricultural sections, or to the towns and villages where living conditions, schools and business opportunities are better. In a railway and trading town of two thousand population adjacent to an important mining center, the writer recently to a class of eighth grade uates. Though there were many foreigners in the mining camps near-by, twenty-eight of the thirty names of the class were English, Scotch, and Irish, representing the old families that had been in the community for generations. Their fathers were business and professional men, contractors, clerks, carpenters, and high-grade laborers. An inspection of the tax books of the better farming counties of the state would have shown many of the same names among the landholders. On the other hand, hundreds of the poorer type of mountain people will be found in the worst sections of industrial towns in these and neighboring states. The lowest types of mountain population are also found skirting many mining camps, living in houses much inferior to those provided by the companies, and enjoying practically none of the advantages of their workers. These are the people who would have been in the heads of the hollows and on the steep, poor mountain sides, had not the new manner of life attracted them. The first two groups have ceased to be a social problem. The last two remain even more of a problem than when held within their spoke grad isolated valleys. The second marked change is in the quite adequate solution of the problem of elementary and secondary education by the joint efforts of local community, county, and state. There is no need for duplication of public effort by private agencies. There are still many things needed by the rural and village schools of the mountains, however, and cooperation between public and private forces will bring about splendid results if tactfully and intelligently carried out. The third problem arising from changed conditions is that of mining and industrial village that is growing up in this region because of the development of mining industries and manufacturing plants. The mountains have always been noted for their large families. These families are ideal picking ground The New for the employer of unskilled labor who is seeking an opportunity to exploit this type. Public schools may be provided in these towns, villages, and camps, but there is grave danger that many children will be worse off than they were in their mountain cabin life. This problem has received too little attention by social agencies, and it is time that we become fully awake to its importance. The fourth problem is that of agricultural adjustment. Tens of thousands of people are coming into this region to make homes, but not to produce food. The land of the region is not well adapted to any of the great money crops but it is admirably suited to production of vegetables, fruits, poultry, and dairy cattle. There is opportunity here for the retention of Page 20 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK duly, 1928 a large rural population, if the children are only trained to think in terms of new agriculture, and to follow the best practices in production and marketing. It will be a fine thing for the future of the region if the best blood of the old stock 'can be attracted to this manner of life. If they cannot be, it is only a question of time until foreign gardeners will see the opportunity and take it. WHAT OF THE FUTURE? Though great improvement has been made in most sections of the Southern mountains neither the people of the region nor the states involved are as yet ready to carry their own burdens. There must be outside aid, extended, but it must be wisely planned after careful study of conditions. Otherwise there will be a great waste of money, and serious mistakes. We must cease to think of "a mountain problem" and make careful studies of limited areas with the view of extending just that type of service which will meet the specific needs of the people affected. Money invested in such study will bring large returns in savings and service. Such a study will, in the opinion of the writer, reveal the need of changes in the program of mountain work along the following general lines 1. Educational efforts must shift, in large measure, from the field of formal elementary and secondary instruction to the broader field of general Social Welfare Work, together with supervisory assistance to public agencies, where welcomed and needed. A few years of privately supported education should develop a public sentiment that would take over the educational program of a community, aided by county and state funds. When this condition is reached, one of three things can and should be done. The private effort may be discontinued in order that the resources may be transferred to a new location; it may be changed to a different type of social service such as health and recreation, or supervisory work in co-operation with the public system; it may be changed to a type of educational work that public sentiment will not, or public funds cannot, provide. 2. There is great need, in many sections, for a broadly vocational type of training which will develop a high degree of industrial skill at the same time that thorough training is being given in the fundamental principles and practices of Christian citizenship. This type of education is expensive, and often beyond the ability of public agencies to provide. With the fine American ideals which the young people of this region socially inherit and acquire at at an early age, it will be most fortunate if the training for effective participation in industrial, economic, social, and civic life is not provided. 3. There is an urgent demand for private initative to awaken the public conscience, to the need for better educational and social conditions in the mining and industrial villages and towns of the Southern mountains. This is a field so far largely neglected. The larger towns and cities of the region are being cared for in this matter fairly well, but in smaller communities the need is often great. It is a problem quite different from similar situations in the North and East, for there the population is largely foreign, while in this region it is almost entirely native American stock that is involved. 4. There is great opportunity for service in the field of agricultural adjustment to the new conditions in the mountain region. There are large areas within the mountains which do not have mineral wealth, or available water power for manufacture, but which are capable of giving adequate support to a rural population if the proper type of agriculture is wisely practiced. But training for such successful farming is too difficult for the elementary schools, and rural high school that will give satisfactiory work of this kind are expensive. Private agencies could, with profit, provide schools of this kind in the regions inaccessible to public agricultural high schools. Such schools should do much to retain a capable, ambitious type of native population on the suitable land and make possible development of gardening, dairying, fruit raising, and poultry raising sufficient not only to meet the needs of the growing industrial population, but to produce a surplus for the territory beyond the mountains. (Continued on Page 31) July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 21 Unit of Organization For Rural Social Work By MARY CAMP SPRINKLE, Director, Bureau of County Organization, North Carolina State Board of Charities and Public Welfare American programs of social service are urban born. Hebrew tradition has it that the first city was founded by the first murderer, and so throughout history cities have had a reputation for being destroyers of good and for dragging down the race to physical and spiritual ruin. It is not strange, then, that we should have first discovered our social problems where tradition had convinced us that they would be found and that in consequence social work in America should have attained its primary growth in urban communities. It was in the cities that we first recognized disease, crime, family distegration, delinquency, and destitution as social problems. Naturally, therefore, our social service programs were designed primarily to meet urban needs. Later we began to realize that rural conditions were not always ideal, that pure milk, pure minds, and pure morals were not the omnipresent trinity we had supposed. We discovered that the rural communities were, to quote Dr. Odum of -the University of North Carolina, "the unequal places of American democracy." As a result of this discovery social workers and community leaders began asking themselves: How can we assist in making available in the unequal places the satisfactions of life which have been more fully developed for city populations? Constructive rural social work has as its aim to help rural people, first, to find themselves, then to set up for themselves higher standards of living. This means that any program designed to aid in developing a community consciousness must be variable and not standardized. We cannot expect to set up a stereotyped plan of organization for rural work applicable to all sections and groups. What we can do is, study actual conditions, then help the community come into a realization of its own problems, and finally, assist in working out a program that will as nearly as possible meet the existing needs. In spite of the fact that we hear so much about the deplorable conditions of the Southern mountaineers, I am convinced that rural problems are by no means confined to the mountains as a section. Although it is a recognized fact that as a result of topographical differences the rural social problems of the highlands vary somewhat from those we find in the piedmont sections and coastal plain, yet when we come to analyze them we find that they are fundamentally the same. Economic conditions, lack of education, low intellectual levels, and a failure on the part of the community as a whole to recognize its own problems, will be found at the sourer of most unhealthy rural conditions. The greatest danger I see in our rural social work today is that in our zeal to "uplift," or to raise the standards of living, we are unwilling to wait for the people themselves to come into a full realization of existing conditions, or in other words, we fail to help create a community consciousness, finding it easier to put over a program by the familiar process often made use of in administering medicine to an unappreciative patient. Such a method leaves no stable foundation for future work. In fact it is detrimental to the community life. The pioneering in the development of rural social work has been carried on, and is still being carried on in a large measure, by private agencies and organizations. The result of these experiments has been similar to that in the educational field in which the private agencies pioneered in the early days. The public eventually recognized the value of the educational program sponsored by these agencies and set about to establish schools supported by public funds to supplement the work of the private and parochial schools. Gradually this program was extended until today we have the great state educational systems in which the private and church schools share honors Page 22 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 with those supported by taxation. Thus it is with social and welfare work. The public has begun to realize the necessity for constructive social programs, and as a result of the demonstrations made by private agencies 65 percent of the states today have some form of statewide organization for social and welfare work. These public welfare programs are not designed to supplant the work of the private agencies but to act as a co-operative force calculated to intensify the work and to extend such services in an effort to reach the unequal places untouched by any social program. Whether the agency is under private or public auspices, the minimum organization for adequate work in dealing with rural problems is, I believe, a strong state organization with county-wide programs sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of both urban and rural communities. North Carolina in its public welfare program utilizes the county as the unit of organization because, first, the county is the unit of local self government, the only unit of government in which the majority of the rural folk take any part; second, it is the unit for taxation and for the administration of poor relief; and third, the public schools, which are so closely tied up with a public welfare program, operate as a county unit. There are, however, certain other specific advantages in utilizing the county as the unit of organization for rural social work. First, the population of rural counties is small enough to permit of effective organization and a correlated program covering a wide range of services. Second, a number of the correlative agencies, such as farm and home demonstration agents, the public health departments, and Red Cross have developed county programs in the rural fields. Third, it tends to bring the communities into closer contact, thus offering an opportunity for better understanding between urban and rural groups. Fifty-seven of the one hundred counties in North Carolina have organized departments of public welfare. The average rural county employs only one social worker, and sometimes an office assistant. This worker has an advisory board representative of the county, and, in most cases, welfare committees in every community or township. No stereotyped plan of organization has been followed by the county workers in their efforts to co-ordinate all existing forces and utilize every available agency, but each county has worked out its own program after a careful study of its resources and its social needs. We believe that this plan of co-operative effort on a county basis is the secret of what success the North Carolina system has attained since its inception ten years ago. As an illustration of how a rural county may organize its forces, utilizing all local agencies, let me give you a picture of a county in North Carolina which began its social program seven years ago. At that time the county had a population of twenty-three thousand, with only one town, the county seat, an overgrown village of five thousand. The social worker went on her job equipped with a liberal education, a versatile personality, the ability to understand rural problems, and a Ford. Other workers in the county were the superintendent of schools, the home demonstration agent, and a whole-time health officer. The social worker took up her manifold duties, which, according to the public welfare law of North Carolina, include the care and supervision of the poor and administration of poor relief, supervision of adults paroled from state institutions, oversight of dependent, neglected and delinquent children under sixteen years of age, enforcement of compulsory school attendance, supervision of county institutions, promotion of wholesome recreation, and any other community work pertaining to the welfare of the people. Before she undertook to outline a definite program for the county, the superintendent of welfare studied the field very carefully. She soon interested a small group of citizens who hitherto had accepted without question the old theory, "The poor ye have with ye always," and they began trying to find out why so much charity work was necessary, why such an enormous amount of poor relief, why the county home was cluttered up with refuse humanity, why delinquency was more pro July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 23 nounced in certain communities. Others throughout the county caught the spirit and soon small groups of citizens in every section were co-operating in a study of the county's social needs. The county officials naturally began to work in closer co-operation. The commissioners, the disbursing officers of the county, realized after a long time that the social worker did know what she was about and gave the work more financial support. The interest in community and county affairs spread out into the more isolated sections, and after a while groups of socially minded citizens in every community were acting as volunteer workers under the direction of the county superintendent and her advisory cial work. As a result of this co-operative effort, the people were not only recognizing their social problems but were beginning to find out why they existed. Unsanitary living conditions and poor health, they found, were at the root of most of the family case problems. Moreover, they discovered that the health problem vitally affected school attendance. So the health officer was encouraged to give all school children throughout the county physical examinations. The undernourished children were reported to the home demonstration agent, who with the cooperation of the local welfare committees provided special diet for them. Children with physical defects were reported to the superintendent of public welfare, who arranged to have the A Mountain View board. These workers investigated cases involving school attendance and poor relief, and raised funds in the local communities to meet emergency needs. The churches, civic clubs, social agencies, and other private organizations, also the county officials, co-operated with the superintendent and her rural welfare committees in the organization of a county council of social agencies. This council had as its aim the promotion of all phases of community and so orthopedic cases treated at the State Orthopedic Hospital. Tonsil and adenoids clinics were conducted, a state dentist was secured to give free dental service, mental clinics were held and a number of the mentally defective placed in the state school for the feebleminded. Needless to say, school attendance increased. Seven years ago that county took nineteenth place among the counties of the state in average daily attendance; now it ranks fifth both in attendance and in its rural Page 24 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 school work as a whole. Attention was next given to the adults. Poor living conditions, venereal disease, hookworm, and pellagra contributed to the low vitality of the adults who were increasing the case load of the worker. The county home, or poor house, consisted of a few unsightly wooden shacks with no modern conveniences or sanitary regulations. The county officials began to realize that it was poor policy to spend seven thousand dollars a year for the care of twenty aged derelicts, while the masses who could have been benefited by hospital treatment and sent back home to be selfsupporting went without proper care. As a result, a modern building took the place of the anti,quated home; gradually the chronic inmates were placed back in homes, where they were far happier. One section after another of the building was utilized for hospital purposes. An up-to-date operating room was installed, trained nurses employed, and the usual type of poor house superintendent with his family of eight children discharged. The county also became interested in the treatment of its prisoners; so a comfortable prison camp was built near the hospital and the prisoners were used as cooks, janitors, orderlies, dairymen, truck farmers, laundrymen, and for any other work about the place. During the first year that the institution operated as a hospital, 180 patients were treated, 58 operations performed, weekly clinics held, and 60 babies treated during a colitis epidemic. Imagine the county commissioners' reaction when they found that the annual cost of the hospital was two thousand dollars less than the amount they had been spending on the old county home with its 20 inmates. The hospital now operates under the Duke Foundation and receives one dollar per day for every free bed, thus lessening the cost of operation for the county. The physicians of the county give their services, so no resident physician is required. In fact they find a great many of the cases out in the rural districts, bring them in, and report to the county welfare worker. The midwives have been brought into this program and co-operate with the superintendent of welfare and county nurse in locating the maternity cases out in the isolated districts where they have no medical service. A maternity ward has been fitted up and now all such cases are brought to the hospital for proper treatment and care. The churches of the entire county co-operate in furnishing flowers, clothing, and recreation for the patients. In fact every agency contributes its share to this unified health program and there is no community that is not benefited by its services. Previously no provision had been made for the indigent tubercular patients. The council, realizing the need for adequate care for these sufferers, had been working on the problem for two years when one of the generous women became so strongly convinced of the need that she gave the funds for a building. Other individuals throughout the county furnished the equipment, and now just across from the county hospital stands one of the most up-to-date tuberculosis sanitoriums in the state. It too uses prison labor and operates under the Duke Foundation.. But the health work is not all that has been done by these county groups. Through their unified effort they have an eight months school in every rural district in the county and a standard high school in reach of every pupil. A permanent county camp has been established where the church groups, Sunday school classes, farm life clubs, and boy and girl scout troops go for recreation during vacation. The only permanent trustee on the board of directors of the camp is the county social worker. The council makes an effort to see that all the underprivileged children in the county get to camp every summer. The Juvenile court judge stated in his last report that juvenile delinquency had been reduced to a minimum due to the co-operative countywide program which includes every phase of child welfare. I do not claim that this county has cured all of its social ills, but its program is a clearcut demonstration of what may be accomplished by organization and leadership in a rural county. No longer is there duplication of effort in poor relief and family case work. July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 25 Through its adequate school system and provision for recreation it has gone far in its program of prevention, and its health facilities are sufficient to provide medical care for every indigent person in the county. The first social worker to go into another of the typical rural counties in the state, found a conservative Scotch people who looked on all outsiders with some degree of suspicion. That welfare and social work had very little meaning for them was shown by one of the clan leaders who said, "I wish I knew what that woman is supposed to do. Nobody seems to be able to find out. You don't suppose she is a revenue officer, do you?" It was a long, tedious process, but eventually the worker was able to interest a small number of local community leaders in a study of the county's social assets and deficits. A few Parent-Teachers Associations were organized and they too took up the study of community needs. The people were naturally clannish. Each community had a sort of imaginary wall built few dealings with tional lines were tightly of unfriendly rivalry wa out the county. But everywhere she found the folks interested in singing. Sings were held at the churches, in the school houses, and at the homes. One of the annual summer events was the old time singing school led by the singing master with his tuning fork. With the aid of the group of community leaders the social worker began to encourage sings. She made it a point to meet all of the more important leaders in the county; encouraged them to revive Scotch ballads, southern melodies, and folk songs; and when they were sufficiently interested, worked out with them plans for a county-wide song festival. To get away from sectarianism and to bring the communities into closer co-operation, the choruses were organized on a township basis. Every church choir and singing class in the township came together, "pooled" their best material, and sang together for months in preparation for the finals on Labor Day. This plan met with difficulties in a great s around it and had very the outside. Denomina drawn, and a spirit prevalent through many of the more isolated sections. In one township where arrangements had been made for the classes to come together for the first time, she found the Presbyterians assembled at their church and a messenger came to inform her that the Baptists were all at their church three miles beyond the river. She soon learned that the Methodist class was waiting nearby to find out where the singing was to be held. The Presbyterians began to sing and when they had caught the real spirit of song the social worker suggested that they all go over and hear the Baptists. They went, and one by one joined in the singing. Some of the visitors seemed actually astonished to find that their voices would blend. The Methodists were invited in and arrangements made to alternate the place of meeting. Each church purchased a piano for accompaniment, and that township furnished one of the best allround programs rendered. This County Song Festival became an annual event. The township choruses sang together twelve months in the year. They became so interested that a song specialist was employed each year to go from one township to another and assist the local song leaders. The banks of the county donated a loving cup which was presented each year to the winning chorus. The sings were held at the county seat in a huge warehouse fitted up with improvised seats and a stage. By sunrise wagons, carts, and trucks began bringing the people from every section of the county. More than eight thousand people, one fourth of the entire population of the county, attended the Song Festival every year. One old man came to the county Superintendent of welfare at seven o'clock the morning of the third annual sing with a request that he be given a seat in the warehouse near the stage. "Last year", he said, "I came late and couldn't get in. This year I started the day before." He was seventy-six years old and had walked from his home twenty-one miles away. What were some of the visible results of this program. The most conservative groups began to find out that they could work together. One township that had been holding on to all of its one-teacher schools voted for Page 26 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK duly, 1928 a consolidated school with provision for all high school pupils. The leader of the community who had blocked the program in the past said, "Well, if we can sing together, I guess we might as well go to school together". The community groups began to sponsor a county field day for all the boys and girls, stressing not individual athletics, but mass athletics. This is now an annual event held at the close of the school year. Boy Scout troops, also Girls Scouts, were organized throughout the county. Community dramatic clubs became a part of the program, and finally all of these groups came together in the production of a county-wide pageant typifying the history and progress of the county. The township choruses, schools, parent-teacher associations, farm life clubs, scouts, Sunday schools, Red Cross, health crusaders, dramatic clubs, and athletic associations all contributed their share to the program. The parentteacher groups in every school in the county spent weeks in making the twelve hundred costumes, which were donated by the Fair Association. The county board of education furnished transportation for all who participated in the pageant, and the State Board made a moving picture of the scenes. That day's program was a genuine demonstration of co-operative effort on a county-wide basis. Today social work is a permanent part of the program in that county. Volunteer workers and recreational leaders are to be found in every community. The people of the county believe that their recreational program is a mighty factor in the prevention of delinquency and in solving the leisure-time problem of the adults. The clan leader who had been so suspicious of the social worker when she first went into the county said recently at a mass meeting, "If we could afford but one officer in this county, I would vote for the welfare lady to stay, even if we had to give up the sheriff. In one of the most mountainous counties in the state, the social worker found it necessary to resort to such methods as helping with the farm work, promoting the building of bridges, getting mail routes established, organizing the farmers for co-operative market ing, sponsoring the organizations of American Legion Posts, and helping the county auditor with accounts, in order to win the confidence of the people and enlist their support in the promotion of a county welfare program. She organized the work by using existing community resources as a basis and made no effort to impose a standardized program. After a demonstration period of three years, the people of the county were so thoroughly convinced of the value of social and welfare work that the county officials voted to assume full financial, responsibility for the work in the future. There are other counties in North Carolina with diversified programs for social and welfare work, but these illustrations are sufficient to show you why we find the county to be the most practical unit of organization for rural work. Every county in the state has territory and population sufficient to justify the services of a full-time worker and the unit is small enough to co-ordinate all of its forces and correlate the work of every agency in an effort to build up a constructive social program that has as its major objective, helping the communities achieve for themselves a richer and fuller life. Since education is primarily a function of the state and not a function of the church, a church school should not stay and compete with county high schools when these are established. The church school should seek to meet some need that is not being met, such as maintaining a dormitory for girls in a mountain county where there is a high school but where boys and girls must live away from home to attend it. At one county seat high school girls were living in a hotel, without a matron, under social conditions dangerous for those girls. "We all know that when we turn over our private school work to the county officials that it is not done as well for a while. We have to expect to stand by and watch it less well done for a time, realizing that peoplE must learn by doing." July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 27 PRESENTING MOUNTAIN WORK TO THE PUBLIC By MARY SWAIN ROUTZIIAN of the Russell Sage Foundation, Your chairman remarked at this morning's session that many of us do not welcome facts. He was quite right. New facts have a disconcerting way of interfering with one's established routine. It is not only our own thinking and work that is upset. Perhaps the most disturbing element in the process of adapting ourselves to new ideas and situations is that after we have become convinced and even enthusiastic about putting into effect the changes that they demand, we are obliged to carry others along with us. Most of you have no doubt found this Conference most stimulating. You are ready to return to your work and try out many suggestions received here; but back of you is a director or a board of directors; back of them are the contributors who support the work; stretched out in an endless line behind the contributors is a general public from whose members new contributors must constantly be drawn. All of these have to be carried along at least part of the way in order that you may take a step forward. If there are new facts, then, and changing conditions in the mountains, the public or some part of the public needs to be made aware of them. Whether or not you are individually responsible for this task of interpretation, in one way or another public understanding or misunderstanding makes it easier or harder for you to carry out your plans. All of you are indirectly concerned with what the public knows or thinks about the problems of the Southern mountains. As a member of the public, I should like to submit for your criticism a picture of mountain life that I believe is more or less typical of the outsiders' point of view. If this picture needs changing in any particulars, our next consideration is how to get the public interested in conditions as they are rather than as they are imagined to be. The largest part of the public knows the mountains from reading stories and seeing plays about them. The mountain people as they are pictured in fiction are chiefly concerned with feuds and moonshine. They are engaged in fierce quarrels among themselves and thrilling escapes from the law. The Southern mountains offer the last stronghold of adventure, now that the Wild West is rapidly disappearing. No doubt novel readers and motion picture audiences are very reluctant to give up their belief in these mountaineers of the romantic tales. Still another section of the public, a more discriminating one perhaps, knows mountain life as it has been described by playwrights and novelists of exceptional ability. Their pictures include much charm, beauty and picturesqueness of both character and scenes. Here again, however, the emphasis is always on the differences of the mountain people from the rest of us, and on their isolation. What of that part of the public that has learned about mountain life from your own publicity? In the last few days I have been reading letters, booklets, and folders sent out by various schools. From these sources and from other material received in the past, the picture obtained is by all means a finer one than that of the story of the fiction writer. The emphasis is upon the courtesy, friendliness, and dignity of your mountain neighbors. Quaintness of speech seems an outstanding characteristic. Indeed, some of the picturesque phrases seem to me a real contribution to our language. We should all be sorry to see them dropped altogether. Many whose contact with the mountains comes through your schools have uppermost in their ,minds the coverlets; baskets, and rugs that are offered for sale. They associate Page 28 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK these vaguely with long cabins. Perhaps they are a little confused as to what part of the handwork is native art and what is introduced to the mountain people by the schools. You impress us with the passionate eagerness for "larnin' " on the part of the young people. We picture most of them as walking or riding their mules thirty or forty miles to reach your doors and begging to be taken in. The grandmothers seem particularly anxious that the children should be educated. I wish Dr. Estabrook, who gave us so many statistics on mountain stocks, would explain the curious survival of grandmothers as against parents. In the publicity literature we meet so many grandmothers and so comparatively few mothers. We see primitive tools. We get a vivid impression of the isolation of the people. We see barefooted girls and boys. These seem to me to be the outstanding characteristics of the picture you present. Does it need correcting, modifying, or explaininging in any particular? After hearing some of the discussions at this Conference, I rather think that it does. What does the public know of what the mountain schools are accomplishing? The literature describes boarding schools for children and young people of all grades and ages. One cannot help being impressed by the very reasonable price at which education can be obtained and by the opportunities afforded students to earn their way. Weaving, sewing, cooking, farming, are all clearly in the picture. The purposes of the schools are not always clear. The main object appears to be to train teachers and ministers. We wonder whether all these young people are to be educators or leaders. Do they go back to the mountains to make living there better for themselves and others? If so what have be the results in the many years during whicl^ the schools have been in existence? Your readers might be glad to know more about what the young people do with their opportunities. Do they stay in rural life or gradually drift to the cities? The publicity which describes the moun July, 1928 tain handicraft work might also be made more clear as to your purpose. Is the aim primarily to make something that will sell in order to provide funds for the schools or for the self-support of the workers? Is it to preserve an art that has been handed down to us? Is it for pleasure, comfort, and beauty in the homes themselves? The answers to these questions might carry with them some interpretation of the manner of living to which these objects are suited. These are surface and casual impressions of the mountain life and people and your work there. They are built on the kind of hurried reading that is typical of many of the persons to whom your publicity is sent. No doubt the publications issued by some of the schools have told much that is not included in this picture. However, one remembers most easily what is most interestingly told and most often repeated. The picture I have presented is fairly representative of what the average member of the public knows. So much for what the public believes about your work. We might face about the other way and consider next what those who prepare publicity about mountain work know about the public. What traits in human nature affect the responsiveness of readers to what they are told? Some of the schools have a limited public made up of the members of a particular denomination which has been interested in the work for many years. These have the advantage of long acquaintance, if not with individual supporters, at least with organizations to which they belong. Some, I believe, try to interest a wider public. In both cases, there is a similar problem of gaining attention for needs and work that are far away and never encountered at first hand. Some of the characteristics of your public are evidently well understood by those who prepared the material that I have examined. For example, the literature, or much of it, takes account of the preference many people have for stories of individuals rather than of large numbers and for details rather than broad general statements. Readers are introduced to Aunt Lydia or Jane or John. The July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 29 form of publicity most used by the schools is the news letter, sometimes printed, sometimes typewritten, but always informal and intimate in its account of what is going on. These bulletins are real letters addressed to friends. This personal form seems to help the writers to tell the news naturally and interestingly. You evidently know also that people like pictures and you use them freely. You have an exceptional opportunity to do this because of the charm of the mountain scenery and the fact that poverty, which is ugly in cities, is picturesque when it takes the form of a log cabin against the hills or beside a stream. Perhaps sometimes you overlook the fact that the impression made by a picture is stronger and more likely to be remembered than words. The picture which shows an extreme condition may leave the reader with an impression that such conditions are common. Some of those who prepare booklets and reports fail to realize that posed groups are not especially interesting to the average person. Group pictures are enjoyed by those who recognize their friends or acquaintances in the group. Otherwise a single individual or small group is more effective. Almost all of us like to see pictures of children and of animals. Pictures that tell a story and pictures with action are also popular. A striking characteristic of the literature of the mountain schools is the preference for small print. Some of you must be overoptimistic about the willingness of your supporters to read- under difficulties. Economy is, no doubt, the reason for this, plus the fact that you have so much more to say than can be crowded onto the page. The use of small type slows up reading and therefore discourages it. Many persons who ought to be told about your work are not so eager to learn that they will make the required effort. Space between the lines and wide margins are also important elements in deciding whether or not a page will be read. A trait in human nature of special significance in this discussion is the general dislike for having one's beliefs disturbed. It is much easier to win a sympathetic response to a familiar story than to one that presents unfamiliar needs. Perhaps in real life Lizzie Ann is no longer barefooted, but if we show a picture of Lizzie Ann wearing shoes and stockings, it is doubtful whether she will appeal so greatly to the hearts of those on whose gifts the work depends. But even granting this reluctance of people to change conceptions to which they have become accustomed, sooner or later a way must be found to carry over an interest that was originally aroused by dire need and primitive conditions, to present day needs which are less extreme, perhaps, but no less urgent. It seems reasonable to believe that, although a part of the public may still be years behind in its thinking, there must be a growing number of persons who wonder what are the effects of road building, industrial changes, and of the educational efforts of the last twenty years. They would like to know and have a right to know what changes have been brought about in the life of a community whose boys and girls have learned about good housekeeping, food values, modern methods of farming, and something of the world outside of the mountains. Perhaps after all the public is more ready to be told about the changing mountains than we realize. It occurs to me that something might be done toward interpreting these new situations through a joint effort, perhaps through a committee of this Conference. Working together, you could reach a larger public and tell of those changes that affect the mountain region as a whole rather than one particular section of it. Several excellent addresses that have been delivered here might have been welcomed by the press associations for distribution to the newspapers of the country. The fact that the Conference is being held gives news value to information that might not at other times have the chance to be so widely published. Although it is too late for news reports it would still be possible to use much of the material contained in these papers in articles prepared for magazines including church magazines and others of wider circulation. Joint efforts to use as a point of contact with the public, displays of mountain handi Page 30 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK crafts that can be made educational might also be worth considering. It occurs to me that possibly a small and inexpensive booklet of information about mountain life, attractively written and illustrated, might be prepared for distribution in connection with displays of handicraft work at hotels, shops, and elsewhere. I believe that by jointly getting into circulation through newspapers and magazines and in connection with exhibits, some of the ideas and facts that affect mountain work as a whole, an understanding may be built up that will help the schools individually to increase the support for their work. Such publicity is suggested only as a background for separate efforts to reach the constituents of each school. The news letters, talks, and reports about the individual institution will always be of first importance, because those who contribute to maintain work are usually interested primarily in a particular school. Each school also would need to make the application of the broader picture of changing mountain life to its own situation. The most difficult problem, whether we are thinking of a joint effort or an individual one, is the confusion about policies and aims which always arises in a period of rapid change. What aims are more important, to make life better in the mountain country, or to take away from the mountains the best ability that can be found there? Or is it something quite different from either of these? If the purposes of the mountain work are to be pictured so vividly and interestingly that public support will be given to new types of service, it is essential that the aims themselves should be clear and definite in the minds of those who present the message. DISCUSSION Miss Butler asked, "Is it right to send literature to the outside unless we are willing for our own local community to see it?" Dean Lewis replied, "As one who was raised in the mountains and has worked in them practically all his life, I would like to answer the question Miss Butler has just asked. I would say, "No, never". I believe July, 1928 that our advertising will succeed better if it it not only fact but truth. There is a tremendous amount of difference. The camera does not lie, but if our pictures present only a onesided view, if the facts do not give the whole picture, I believe we are sewing seed that will bring a bad crop. I believe we should show not only the mean type of mountain home, but also the new type of home. The thinking public is going to ask, "What is the use of giving all this money if conditions after all these years are the same?" There are many good farms with well-painted, two-story houses, some with Delco lights and good livestock. This proves that a change has taken place. Our advertising should present truth as well as facts. The people outside ought to know of the cabin, but also of the good home sheltering many children where people live well, but where there is a scant supply of cash for the higher education. I think the more true to the situation we are, the better is going to be the result." DISCUSSION Several points were brought out in the discussion following Mrs. Sprinkle's paper: (1) Counties can afford welfare superintendents, because such officers can save the county the amount of their salaries and more thru proper administration of poor relief. (2) The difficult problem is to make the people of the county realize the need, and the creation of interest must usually be left to people in the county. (3) The co-operation of private institutions with the welfare workers is one cause of the success of the work. (4) The qualifications for a welfare worker are common sense, technical training, personality, experience, and a first-hand knowledge of rural problems. "About the only advantage I had when I started to talk to a farmer about his children was that I could talk to him about his cotton crop, or other things of interest to him, because I had done all those things right out on a small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains." In discussion of the question, should w school have a community program, Mr. Hunt suggested the necessity of a school amalgamating its program with that of the community. "A school should have a community July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 31 program, but not the community program. Paternalism is sometimes permissible at the outset, but paternalism should be lessened as the child develops the ability to stand and walk alone." In addition to studying the community and organizing something one step ahead of what it had already, said he, "I would study my own relationship to that situation in a way to tell me when to let loose and turn the work over to someone else." The question, what is the most obvious problem in your community, met this response: "Working out a community program to bring the people together in the community and get them interested in themselves and get their interest unified is one of the hardest problems that we have." Mr. Patton, of the Epworth Seminary (Epworth, Georgia) told of their experience in conducting a night school for farmers. In the winter of 1927, twenty-three men and seven women were enrolled in a six weeks course, with classes meeting twice a week, and a banquet to close the session. This past year the farmers themselves took the initiative and asked for a night school session to study poultry raising. "More than sixty enrolled and attended for twelve nights. Forty-three enrolled for poultry projects and are buying standardized chicks." Again a banquet served by the Seminary's home economics class closed the session. "About eighty were served at tables and many more in plates," but by the farmers contributing chickens, eggs, vegetables, etc., "the cash outlay of the banquet was less than five dollars." "All expressed their appreciation for the night school; but beneath, there was the feeling that, valuable as the knowledge on poultry raising was, the most important lesson was in co-operation. There is, now, a real community spirit." IS THERE A MOUNTAIN PROBLEM? (Continued from Page 20) Not only would such schools be a great economic asset to the region, but by retaining a large native rural population, they would provide a surplus population and the overflow would strengthen the other parts of our coun try to which they might go. I would not make such a statement, did I not feel confident that the native stock of the mountains of the southern United States is of a kind that will add much-needed characteristics to the blood of our nation. 5. Workers in the Southern mountains need to be very sensitive to the conditions and needs of the field in which they labor, and ready to withdraw or change to new types of service whenever the public supported schools or social institutions can safely be left to "walk in the right direction and alone." It might seem unnecessary to introduce this caution, but the writer knew of a private school run under the auspices of strong and consecrated denominational Board which held to a work in a manner that hampered an excellent public school development for years, and caused very unpleasant factional feelings in the community. It often demands the finest kind of impersonal judgment to see when another can really take over and do a work in which we are deeply interested, in a better manner than we are doing it. It is most essential that we keep in that attitude of mind which will enable us to say, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Are we educating folks away from their locality? This question, and a plea to send them back to their home communities, was answered two different ways. (1) There isn't room back on the farm for all the children; some communities are overpopulated now. (2) How many of us are working where we were born? Is it our purpose to keep people where they are, or to give them a chance to go and be themselves? "My viewpoint has been completely changed during this conference, and I am thankful indeed that I did not allow anything to prevent my coming." "It was personal contact that helped to do it." "The more religion we can mix with our politics, the better it is going to be." Page 32 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 RURAL ORGANIZATION Outline by Mr. Hunt Introduction: Community organization is not an organization in a community; it is rather an organization of the community. It means the co-ordination, cooperation and integration of local agencies and interested individuals in a united effort along the lines of general community well-being. I. PROBLEMS OF RURAL ORGANIZATION 1. Individualism of rural people 2. Local friction and prejudices 3. Isolation 4. Lack of leadership 5. Lack of consciousness of need 6. Difficulty of securing well trained per sonnel to work in rural field 7. Lack of financial means II. PURPOSE OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 1. To meet existing needs as found by a study or an analysis of the community III. TYPE OF RURAL ORGANIZATION 1. County council 2. Community council 3. Community forum, with necessary sub sidiary committees under each type IV. UNITS OF RURAL COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 1. Neighborhood 2. School district 3. Village, town or trade center 4. County SOME AGENCIES INVOLVED IN RURAL OR GANIZATION 1. Schools 2. Churches 3. Doctors and local hospitals 4. Clubs a. Men b. Women c. Boys and girls, such as HHHH clubs Community-wide agencies such as a. Red Cross chapter b. Y.M. and Y.W.C.A. c. Boys and girls Scouts County agencies such as a. Health officer b. County relief machinery c. Fiscal court d. County Commissioners or county su 5. 6, pervisors e. School boards f. Farm agents g. Home demonstration agents VI. GENERAL, NEEDS FOR RURAL ORGANIZA TION USUALLY FALL ALONG THE LINES OF 1. Education 2. Health 3. Social life and recreation 4. Need for social adjustments a. Delinquency b. Broken homes c. Physically handicapped d. Mentally handicapped e. Poverty VII. COMMUNITY PROGRAM TO MEET NEEDS LISTED ABOVE 1. Improvement of health a. By securing active health officer b. By securing public health nurse c. By providing health instruction such as given under Red Cross chapter Providing for recreation and organized social life, through a. Organized games and playgrounds b. Home and community social gatherings, picnics, etc. c. Providing reading material d. Study clubs 3. Meeting individual and family abnor malities a. By securing services of trained social worker, or b. Selecting well chosen committee to whom all cases of need may be referred; inducing churches, other organizations and interested individuals to work through this committee in order to eliminate overlapping and dividing resources, as well as to insure an adequate covering of the field. 2. "We must get the facts and know what is going on in our legislature." "The worst health conditions in rural sections are found not in the mountains, but in the low swampy areas along large rivers." July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 33 ROUND TABLES AGRICULTURE and RURAL ORGANIZATION (meeting together) L. R. Neel, Editor, the "Southern Agriculturist," Chairzzzan. Mr. Neel distinguished between (1) the inadequate agriculture of the narrow mountain tops, steep and rough slopes, and tiny fields at heads of coves, and (2) the adequate agriculture conducted on mountain "benches", on less steep and smoother slopes, and in the valleys. The first has created the great problems, because it cannot support life. Probably much of the land should be abandoned and allowed to revert to forest. Except as the federal government and possibly state governments in some cases have brought up these unprofitable farming lands along with larger forested areas, abandonment has been by private initiative and has been accompanied in many cases by pathetic struggles to make these inhospitale acres produce an adequate living for the family." Life is possible on some of the best of these areas. The land will produce most of the food, but not the cash income, which must come from timber, labor away from home, etc. "And such a life may be worthwhile where there is intellecutal, moral, and spiritual ambition. There are things that money will not buy and there are worthwhile compensations for the harder life that must be lived in order to maintain the home in the shadow of the mountains." In the farming sections-those that will support an adequate agriculture-better methods, more livestock, etc., will improve present conditions. Mrs. Campbell told of the value and need of co-operation and organization among the farmers. "I cannot help feeling that the hope of mountain agriculture lies in organization. It is hard for the individual farmer to do much alone, even with good methods. Take our farm, for example. We have state model chicken houses, a fine strain of White Leghorns which we look after carefully, yet we cannot get for our large regularly collected white eggs more than the local price for any kind of eggs, sixteen to forty cents per dozen. We can never make our labor pay adequately until there are enough people in the community raising the same brand and taking the same care so that we can ship together with assured quality. Last fall at a large community meeting we worked out our average annual family income, on the basis of the usual corn crop. It was $86.50-cash income out of which must come taxes, clothes, doctor's bills, and all seed, fertilizer, etc. In order to get more income the farmers must be able to get a start somehow. So we feel our credit union or Brasstown Savings and Loan Association is a fundamental institution. It has now, 74 senior and junior members and a capital in shares and deposits of some $800. Through small loans it has already brought into the community pure bred cattle, chickens, and pigs; paid for fertilizer, poultry houses, etc. It is growing steadily and soundly. But to increase our income we must not only produce more but produce it at less cost and at a better market price. We have a Farmers' Purchasing Association just beginning to function and this spring we are trying to make a success of a community co-operative hatchery, which with twenty members owns a large incubator We have already had two hatches of six hundred chicks. Our neighbors are now talking about three other co-operative ventures,-a lime crusher, a sweet potato house, and a community mill which will buy up grain as it is ready, grind and mix poultry feed, and sell back to its members. They see that this would Page 34 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 be better than to sell at a loss in the county seat and buy back at a higher rate than they can realize themselves. How fast these things can be worked out I do not know, but they seem to us logical lines of development." Dr. Lewis expressed his belief that farmers were not utilizing fully the markets furnished by mining communities within trucking distance. "I am convinced that it is largely a matter of lack of organization." In the matter of reforestation or letting land revert to forest, the first move, said Mr. Neel, "Is to make it so that a man can afford to let his land lie in timber. The land ought to be free of taxation until he sells his trees." The need of rural organization and community co-operation was brought out again and again. HEALTH Mrs. Evart G. Routzahn, Chairman Following are some of the practical suggestions brought out in the discussion Get close to the individual instead of trying to start with a group of adults. At fairs demonstrate the good points of a child immediately after the good points of a heifer or shoat have been demonstrated. Men will appreciate the need and value of a studying diet and balanced ration for the "human animal." At community fairs, make cooking exhibits the entering edge to diet study. Build on work with pre-natal mothers. And health workers must not expect to get across in one visit what they have learned over a period of years. Use local newspapers for health education, both articles and pictures or cartoons, e.g. Cow: How did those germs get in my milk when I didn't put them there. WHAT IS BEING DONE? North Carolina is stressing diet and nutrition: a knowledge of food values, balanced ration, variation in diet, having fresh fruits and vegetables every day in the year. Health departments have been organized in five or six mountain counties. In Virginia, the basis of health campaign in schools is the five-point child weight, vision, teeth, hearing, and throat. The state is sending out health speakers and conducting clinics of various kinds. Tennessee is stressing birth registration, full-time health units, traveling clinics, and tuberculosis clinics. West Virginia is getting literature into the homes and schools. Sources Of Help And Inforwation State departments of health. Be specific in asking for helps. Health Posters-Hygeia, 535 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 1 Madison Ave., New York City. (Get catalogue for list of aids.) National Tuberculosis Association. Child Welfare Magazine, 5517 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. The Children's Bureau, Department of Playgrounds, Washington, D. C. Publications regarding pre-school children; also motion pictures, slides, exhibits to loan. Public Health Service, Department of Interior, Washington, D. C. Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. Helps and dramatics for health teaching. REPORT OF BUSINESS MEETING AT 1928 CONFERENCE At the business meeting plans were discussed whereby Miss Helen Dingman of Berea could be secured as permenent part-time executive secretary of the Conference in place of the retiring secretary, Mrs. Campbell. Mrs. Campbell stated last year an appeal had been made to the Russell Sage Foundation to supplement the amount needed to make this change, but as yet the Sage Foundation had reached no decision. Following is Mrs. Campbell's report of the financial situation: "A budget of at least $1500 will be necessary to insure the expenses of running the Conference, the supplementing of Miss Dingman's salary at Berea, together with a minimum of stenographic and traveling expenses, divided on the following basis July, 1928 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK Page 35 Conference expenses ...... Salary ................... Stenographic help p ....... Traveling expenses ....... $350.00 750.00 250.00 150.00 In the past, ten different Church Boards have .contributed at various times, but at present only six are making regular annual contributions, as are six independent schools, making an annual income of $415. The Russell Sage Foundation has given varying amounts from year to year. This year it is taking care of the stenographic expenses. Owing to a number of circumstances not likely to be repeated the Conference has on hand an unusually large balance (part of which was contributed by individuals from the floor at last year's Conference) Balance on hand for 1928 Con ference $800.00 Registration fees for 1928 Con ference 107.00 Regular contributions for 1928 Conference 415.00 $1322.00 "Thus to secure the necessary minimum of $1500, $178 must be secured before we can send word to Miss Dingman that we are expecting her as executive-secretary _next year. This financial provision is, of course, very cramped, and no provision is made for "Mountain Life and Work," but it may be that the Sage Foundation will consider our application favorably." Pledges were at once made from the floor and the deficit covered. A rising vote expressed the desire of the meeting that a letter be written to Miss Dingman now in Finland welcoming her to her new pc.1ition. The old executive committee wvas re-elected to serve next year. Tribute was paid the retiring Chairman, Mr. Messler, and the retiring Secretary, Mrs. Campbell, who have "carried on" the work of the Conference in these respective positions Since the passing of Mr. Campbell nine years ago. THE CHANGING MOUNTAINS Continued from page 15 older students of lower I. Q. "I don't think there is a more pathetic sight in the mountains or elsewhere than to see an institution trying to make something where the material is lacking. We are doing a person an injustice to make him think he can do more than he is actually capable of doing." Rather than keeping a pupil in school (so he will be under Christian influence) by advancing him in work he cannot do, one should help him find and do the work he is capable of doing, in the shop, on the farm, or wherever it may be. "If you try to push him, there will remain a mental conflict on his part . . . If we as institutions take a person and keep him under our care continually and supply to him that guidance which he should be trained to develop, I doubt whether sooner or later he will not make a problem in mental hygiene. We have got to think of his mental hygiene; and as the mountains become more complex, we are going to find mental hygiene more complex." RACIAL SUPERIORITY. A question about the Nordic blood of the mountain people brought this reply, "I have no thesis for Nordic superiority, I don't know how we can speak of any section of the mountains as pure racial, ly. Original stocks were quite a miscellaneous group. I don't think we can take any Southern or Northern European people and classify that race as No. 1. I did not speak particularly of undiluted stocks because I don't think that means anything, and I think it is of the least value in the solution of your problemhow to better the lives of the people in this mountain area." SCHOOL PROGRAMS. On the question, "Should a mountain school adapt its program to sectional conditions, or base it on generally accepted educational standards," there seemed to be considerable difference of opinion. Some felt that their schools must meet the state requirements in order that the schools might be accredited. Dr. Estabrook's answer was, "It seems to me you should first acquaint yourself Page 36 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND WORK July, 1928 with the excuse for your being where you are. Every school or organization, or whatever it is, should first look over the material at hand. It seems to me the functions of the institution are to find out what persons ought to have. It is an individual matter." Mrs. Campbell suggested that we should not do a thing "just because the state does it. Why not concentrate on the group the state cannot at present take care of. I should be exceedingly sorry if any one in the conference went away with the idea that we as independent workers have got to do anything but the thing that seems best when we have thought it through to the best of our ability." Dr. Estabrook was asked just what he would do if he were the head of an independent school. His reply was, "First, I would study and become acquainted with the obvious problems in my community. Then I would organize something, depending of course on the problems, which would be a step ahead of what the community had already." Would it not be possible and profitable for mountain schools to co-operate in marketing their handwork products? Nineteenth Century Ideas NEED NO LONGER CONTROL PEOPLE'S THINKING ABOUT CONDITIONS IN OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS. Nor need any one's knowledge be limited to those stories, facts and fiction, which circulated so widely during the first and second decades of the twentieth century. One can now learn of the Changes that Have Cone in the last seven years, the last three years, the last year. And one can GET THE INFORMATION from a source, which, if not disinterested, is at least not solicitous for any particular organization, institution, or project. Mountain Life and Work OFFICIALLY ENDORSED BY THE CONFERENCE OF SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN WORKERS Published Quarterly $1.00 per year Address Mountain Life and Work, Berea, Kentucky Subscribe Now

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