HoUinga: Corp. pH8.5 79 [ Whole Number 206 U. S. BUREAU OF EDUCATION. KEFKINT OF CHAPTER XXIV OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION FOR 1890-91 EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN \lGli 1890-91 W(0 A, / By REV. a: D. MAYO, M. A. WASHmGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 1894. r \ ■^-' 14575 CHAPTER XXIY. EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTEEX VIRGINIA. By Kov. A. i>. Mayu, m. a. In the year 1734, Orang-e County of the colony of Virginia in theory included the whole of the present United States of America west of the Blue Kidge Mountains. In 1738 th.e new counties of Augusta and Frederick covered the vast area of the present States of West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wiscousin, and the major part of what is now the New Dominion. In 1703, by treaty with France, Virginia was reduced to the territory east of the Mississi])pi Eiver and north of the present boundary of Tennessee. Later, in the early days of the new Republic, the release other ancient claim upon the original Northwest curtailed her boundary to the still noble dimensions of the conunon- wealth of 1860. The secession of '• the Mother of Presidents" from the Union her great statesmen had done so much to create, in 1801, was the signal for an important section of her own territory to follow her example, and the present State of West Virginia is now a prosperous and worthy member of the splendid group of seven northwestern com- monwealths between the Alleghanies and the Mississi])i)i. The Vir- ginia of to-day consists of the one hundred counties between the sea and the high mountain ranges which divide its southwestern realm from West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. What may be called soutliwestern Virginia, for the i)urpose of this essay, with no attem])t at strict accuracy in the division, is contained in the; twenty-live counties between the city of Iloanoke and the western border of the State. The names of these counties are Roanoke, Craig, Alleghany, Bath, Higldand, Giles, Bland, Buchanan, Dickinson, Wise, Lee, Scott, Russell, Washington, Tazewell, Smyth, G' ay son, Wythe, Pulaski, Mont- gomery, Floyd, Carroll, Patrick, Henry, Franklin. In the year 1805, at the close of the great civil conflict, the Old Dominion, east of Augusta County, presented one of the most melan- choly specimens of the ruin wrought by war in modern tinies. For four years it had been the most desperate battle ground for the jjreservation of the Union. As the mighty struggle neared its conclu- sion the grand armies of the Republic and tlie Confederacy, led by their most eminent commanders, all turned their faces toward east Virginia. Here was seen the closing act of the drama, in the fall of the Confederate capital and the surrender of the army that from the first had been the most stubborn and successful defender of "the lost cause." Through the entire realm between the Alleghany Mountains and the sea, old Virginia had been ravaged by the surging to and fro of the contending hosts of the rival powers, batthng for the State of Washington and Jefi'erson. Almost every square mile had its woeful 881 882 EDUCATION REPORT, 1890-91. record of bloody encounter. Its cities were in ruins, its plantations ravaged, and its whole industrial order overthrown. So complete was the destruction that entire regions of this older part of the State, after twenty-five years, are only beginning to recuperate. Indeed, imfyortant sections of the Virginia of the Eevolution are now virtually abandoned territory, biding the time of the heroic investment of capital and labor necessary for reclaiming lands hallowed by the most sacred historical memories of the olden days. In the year 1861, at the opening of the war, Virginia, east of the Alleghany range, led the entire tilteen States of the South in the ar- rangements for the secondary and higlier education. The State Uni- versity, founded by Jefferson in 1820, in Albemarle County, had the undisputed leadership of the colleges in all the Southern and Southwest- ern States. Eandolph-Macon, Hampden-Sidney, William and Mary, still existing, and Washington College, at Lexington, were known and lield in high esteem. In the southwest, Emory and Henry, nestling in its lovely valley, gathered a large body of students from many distant States. Hollins Institute, in Botetourt County, was the best-known and probably the most efltective seminary for girls in the South, draw- i]ig large numbers of her students Irom distant communities. The original plan of Thomas Jefi'erson for a college in every county, tribu- tary to the State University, had never been realized; but a good num- ber of academical foundations, organized on the i^lan of the famous l)ublic schools of England, made a strong point of the classics and mathematics and held up the standard of old-time liberal culture. The superior graduates of these institutions became the leading presi- dents and professors of the collegiate and academical establishments through the South, especially in the Southwest; even contributing lib- erally to the same class of teachers in the States north of the Ohio. Tliere was a good deal of vigorous private and family schooling and tutoring among the wealthy families, and a habit of sending to the best Northern and European schools. The one weak point was tlie crude and meager arrangements for the common schooling of the masses of white people, even in this portion of the State a numerous class, and in the western country beyond the range of slave cultivation including a large proportion of the entire poj^ulation. There are no reliable statis- tics of popular education in Virginia during these 250 years, but enough is known to make painfully evident the neglect of this, the only dura- ble foundation on which to build a republican State. A few of these leading schools held on in a half-hearted way during the stormy years of the war. Among them was Hollins Institute, the foremost institute for girls. It is a striking indication of the confi- dence of even the leading educational men of the State in the ultimate success of the cause, that at the last conimeiicement season of this institu- tion before the fall of Richmond, while Grant was closing in on Peters- burg and Sherman fighting his way to Atlanta, the management of this institution responded to the ablest plea for the normal training ot teachers ever made in the South by Prof. Edward Joynes, and voted to reorganize this academy as a normal school for the instruction of the young women who would be called to serve in the new educational system of the Confederacy. The majority of the older seats of learning were suspended during this year, many of their buildings destroyed or greatly injured by use for hospital and other military jmrposes. The State owes to Gen. Philij) Sheridan the preservation of the quaint buildings of the university, at Charlottesville, and, after unaccounta- ble delays, the Congress of the United States has at last reimbursed EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 883 William and Mary College for the unauthorized huruing- of its build- ings in the peninsular campaign. iu southwestern Virginia the material ruin of the war was less evi- dent. There had been" crivate aft'iiirs, was ha]>py even to save the upl)er^tory of his great temple for thetrainijig of his beloved Virginia. It was indeed like the spire of a cathedral, poised in the air high above the earth, with no building underneath, propped by such stays and sup- ports as the unorganized school scheme of i)ri\"ate and church institu- tions could afford. As conceived in the imagination of its creator, the new University of Virginia was the broadest and most democratic ar- rangement for the higher education that had appeared on the new con- tinent. It had broken loose from the ecclesiastical control that still held all American colleges in bonds. It had inaugurated the elective system of study, which is now the acce])ted method of all leading colleges and universities in the country. As conceived in the mind of the sage, in his study over at Monticello, the idea of a comnninity of young gentle- men, i)ut upon their sense of personal responsibility and honor for good behavioV, was a new de])arture that struck down below the roots of the l)revailing notions of the discii)Uiie of youth for the obligations and Ijerils of life. His curriculum was almost the rival of Milton's noble conceiition of the education fit for an English gentleman, and included not only military tactics, but the industrial drill now coming to the front in the most progressive institutions of learning. So great were these and other lesser merits that, with all the draw- backs of its a(;tual organization, the University of Virginia has been one of the most influential of American seats of learning, setting the ]utch for the entire organizati(ni of*the higher education in every State south of Virginia, and repeating itself, with the additions of Jefferson's entire scheme, in the State universities of every Northwestern and Pacific Commonwealth. Of course, under the conditions, it could not tViil to become a university of the dominant class, and, with the grow- ing tendency of that leading aristocracy, a citadel of the political and social ideas that drove the South into revolt from the National Govern- ment and wrought the dismemberment of the Old Dominion herself. But it has graduated a noble company of eminent men. Its standard of scholarship has been high, exacting severe labor from all who claim its Giploma. It has sent forth a gTeat crowd of accomplished teachers to thesecondary and higher schoolsof the Southwest,and largely modified ' the coUegiatelifc of the older Northwest and, today, perhaps, no other edu- cational institution in these sixteen States has a better outlook for a new EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 889 life alonj;- tlie lines of the new university departure. If the favorite notion of Dr. Euftner, that here should be established an annex for the higher education of young women, could be realized, a new departure of incalculable ini])i)rtance would be made in the quarter most demanded by the rising- ambition of thousands of the daiigliters of the State. But while the provision for the superior schooling of the more favored youth of Virginia was steadily increasing in quantity and qunlity through the torty years between 1820 and 18()0, the leading class of her people seem never to have recognized the dream of Jefi'erson for the common schooling of the common people. From time to time conven- tions were held. Intluential educational and public men like Henry A. Wise and numerous others uttered their warning and ])ersnadiiig plea for the bread of life, and more than one aborti\e attempt was made to establish in esi)ecial localities something that should take the i)laee of a commou school. But neither the lean and hungry arrangement for the schooling of the poor by the Literary Fund, nor the attempt at a county arrangement based on public taxation, made any gi-eat headway. Doubtless many of the children even of the poorer sort'of families were assisted by private charity and several generous public gifts to rise above the level of their companions. Tliere was an occasional ming- ling of all sorts and conditions in the great number of family, private, and Old-Field schools; and the academies for boys and girls were now and then invaded by ambitious youths, who, at all hazards, fought their way along the steep and rugged road that the American education was to the American boy and girl of half a century ago. But the condition of the educational destitution in which the State found itself in ISii."), in the hour of its dire extremity, was the logical result of the narrow Eng- lish i)olicy it had pursued in this as in other diiections; and, in 1670, the cry went up, from the sea sands to the most distant recesses of the western mountains, for the establishment of the American people's common school. In nothing has the really superior class of Virginia more notably declared its souTidness, persistence, and capacity to holdfast to a great idea than in the way in which it stood by the educational ideas of Jef- fei son through the one hundred turbulent years from the outbreak of the war of the Kevolution to the inauguration of the people's connnon school in 1870. Every now and then a desperate effort was made to break out of the fatal circle of the old-time family and church notion of the school. Kepeated conventions were held and some of the most brilliant and comprehensive pleas for universal education ever made were the e#orts of this agitation. Among them, the famous addi'essof the Hon. Henry A. Wise to his constituents in Accomack County on retiiing from his Congressional career, was conspicuous for its almost prophetic outlook into the future. His nephew is now the able super- intendent of common schools in the city of Baltimore. At last, the^ close of the civil war, in 18G5, first opened the way to the realization of the truly American scheme of the author of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and to-day, under modern forms and metliods, the essential ideas of this great educational statesnuin are imi^lanted in the consti- tution and laws and steadily becoming accepted facts in the new Do- minion. In sight of the old Hampton Beach, where the first slave ship dis- gorged its freight of black savages, on their way out of African bar- barism toward the lofty goal of American citizenship, now rises the- beautiful village called The Hampton Normal and Industrial Insti- tute. Established immediately after the advent of peace, by Gen. S. 890 EDUCA'lION RFJ'ORT, 1890-91. C. Armstrong, the son of a missionary, a graduate of Williams Col- lege, Massachusetts, a young Union soldier and commander of colored troops, a remarkable blending of the statesman and scholar, it lias fully taken up Jefferson's plan of industrial training for the emanci- pated race and wrought it out with all the added experience of a hun- dred fruitful years. Not only has it profoundly interested the attention of tlie great wealthy Northeast, but it has become a part of the educa- tional system of the Stateof Virginia, which ])ays annuallyinto its treas- ury a portion of the income from the fund for the agricultural and me- chanical education of the people. And, as in further recollection of the old days, it now includes the training of one hundred youth of the Indian race, first met by the original settlers on this historic ground. An- other valuable school for the training of colored teachers now over- looks, from the towers of its stately buildings, the scene of the final conflict of the war of the sections, at Petersburg; while the State au- thorities every year are concerned in the management of the Sumner Institute of instruction for the same class of teachers. Sixty-eight thousand colored children are now receiving educational training, largely at the expense of the white people, in the common schools of the State. The college founded by Washington in Augusta County, beyond the mountains, received Gen. Robert E. Lee as president at the close of the war. In the reorganization of this venerable institution of learn- ing and its adjustment to the educational needs of the time. Gen. Lee displayed the same ability and vitality that made him the foremost military leader of the Confederacy. To day Washington and Lee, gen- erously endowed from both sections of the country, is one of the most substantial of the Southern colleges. The sou of one of the old presidents of Washington College, Dr. j Euffner, himself, before 1860, known all over the Union from a bold and powerful article on the institution of slavery, was wisely sele(;ted by the new State government to organize the system of common schools de- manded by the new constitution of the Commonwealth, and for twelve years Dr. W. H. Euffner administered the great office of first State commissioner of schools in Virginia in a way that made him the Horace j\Iann of the new South. The schoolman from abroad, who to-day sees how obstinately the old caste and sectarian spirit still resists tlie fit development of common schools established "• for the people and by the people,"' has but a faint impression of the prodigious task that con- fronted Dr. Euflher in 1870. Everywhere the old-time political, eccle- siastical, and social combination that had defeated Jefferson and kept the hated common school of the North out of the State for a. hundred years, rallied in the last ditch for a final trial of strength. That in the brief space of twelve years of official service this accomplished and courageous leader had so conducted the educational campaign that his displacement from offuje in 1882 left the system so firmly established in the hearts of the people of Virginia that neither the relentless opposi- tion of the defeated combination of its enemies, the fierce agitations of a new political administration, and, most dangerous of all, the fearful inadeipiacy of the schools themselves to do their proposed work, were able to discourage the educational public of the State, is conclusive l^roof of the success of this momentous achievement, for in this experi- ment was involved not only the establishment of the American common- school system in Virginia, but virtually in all the States of the South. Even to-day the State of Jefferson leads the educational column south of the Potomac and the Ohio, as in the years before the Hood. The final service of Dr. Euflher as first piesident of the first normal school EDUCATION IN SOUTHWEbTEKN VIRGINIA. 891 for wliite youth in the State was a fit conchision of his illustrious career. It may not be too much to demand tliat, in his later years, he shall publish a complete collection of his valuable olficial reports and his numerous writings in defense of the system of popular education which involved him iu controversy with some of the most eminent men ot the Connuon wealth. As a vital department of the new system he incorporated Jeffer- son's idea of the college in the form of the modern high school. He fully recognized the value of the industrial feature of educational life that now is so hapi)ily illustrated for white youth in the Miller Manual Labor School of Albemarle County, and in the Hamptou Agricultural and iNTormal Institute for the colored ])eople at Hamp- ton. His wise and politic organization of the common-school insti- tute in the summer of 1880, in the buildings and with the hearty cooperation of the faculty of the University of Virginia, was the linal victory which ended the long-time conflict of the upper side of the Old Dominion against the education of the masses at the expense and- under the supervision of the State. To-day the University of Virginia has not only at last assumed its legitimate position as the crown of the public-school system, but it now has a special provision for the instruction of teachers as a prominent feature of its revised curriculum. Old William and Mary College has arisen from its deca- dence and, with the normal training of young men as its most prominent feature, now numbers a larger body of students than in its most palmy days. Dr. Euftner was permitted to remain in office until he could say that a larger number of youth were attending schools of the second- ary and higher education in Virginia than at any former period of her history. In one respect it was given to this leader of the great educational movement in Virginia to surpass the ideal of Jefferson. A hundred years ago it was a social impossibility to urge the equal educational rights of the sexes anywhere in the American colonies. And nowhere was the old Euro])('an prejudice against the serious higher culture of young women held with greater tenacity than in the Old Dominion. The family tutor or governess, with the occasional accompaniment of a neigliborlutod private. school for girls only slowly evolved into the girls' academy, of which there were several well known institutions in the State before 1800; Hollins Institute for girls iu Botetourt County by far the best known and most effective. J>ut even with the increase of this feature of the educational outfit of the State, as late as 1885 Dr. Rutiner gave utterance, almost out of the bitterness of a hope long deferred, to words that bore testimony to tile strange neglect of public provision for the higher education of the daughters of a Commonwealth of all others most profuse in oratory and the devotion of the old-time habit of chivalry in behalf of woman. Said Dr. Kuffner, speaking of the Farmville Normal School for girls: "My vision is not confined to this school, or to any school. It is turned with anxious longing upon the entire body of Virginia Avomen. How strangely have they been neglected by the ruling sex. They are mixed through and through our social life; we love them as we love notliing else upon earth; they have an immeasurable power over us, they dictate our personal habits, they raise our children, they refine our tastes, they conserve our morals, they keep burning the fires of religion— everywhere in our daily life is found the skillful hand, ready mind, the quenchless heart of woman. And yet where has there ever been any public recognition of her inestimable claims upon society"? Sd2 EDUCATION EEPOET, 1890-91. Men make provision for their boys out of public funds and for them- 1 selves too — duly conserving every interest they have; but how wretch- j edly small has been the share doled out to her who deserves every- ' thing. This is an injustice that will make our children ashamed of their fathers. But it is not only an injustice, it is an infatuation — an infatuation similar to that which kej»t down popular education generally in Virginia until a few years ago. The power residing in woman, if util- ized and directed, would give to society a life, a grace, a purity, a skill, a progre-ssiveness peculiarly its own, and the coming generation would receive a training in the homes, in the schools, in the social circles, in all the quiet but immeasurably potent centers and lines of inliuence such as 'can come from nowhere else. Behold what woman does now in a "state of neglect and try to imagisie what she could and would do if allowed the privilej^es which men have so liberally provided for them- selves. Do justice to the women of Virginia and every good thing- will be developed in the State." In an elaborate report devoted to the higher education of Virginia girls. Dr. Eutfner outlined the plan of an annex to the University of Virginia for young women, on the style of Girton and ifewman at Oxford, England. The only step yet taken in this direction is the opening of the free high school to girls and the establisliment of the excellent State TsTormal School at Farniville; both secured under the administration of its first State suijerintendeut of instruction. As a logical outcome of this great awakening of the educational spirit in Virginia, under the lead of Dr. Kuftner, there has been a remarkable time of refreshing for the higher education of the State. It has been a wise policy that has aided in the establishment of these rival colleges and concentrated the attention of the people on the rehabilitation and endowment of the half-dozen on the ground. Of these, the University of Virginia, Washington and Lee, William and Mary, Hampden-Sidney, and Randolph Macon have been largely rein- forced by benefactions from beyond the limits of Virginia; in sonui cases, as in the gifts of McOormick, Austin, Brooks, Fayerweathei-, and Corcoran, to the university, and the generous contributions to Washington and Lee from the great cities of the Northeast, and the. more moderate donations to the remaining institutions, as the interest taken in Nf w England in one of the smallest of them, Roanoke College, the gift of money has seemed all the more precious as a testimonial of the pride and affection of the old Northeast and the new Northwest fur the mother of Presidents. There has been a remarkable development of academies for both sexes since 1805. Several of the most valuable fitting schools for the colleges and universities are of comparatively recent date. Staunton has a notable cluster of academies for girls, and everywhere, from Norfolk in the east to Bristol in the far west, this class of schools for the secondary training of young women is growing in numbers and in value. The State still waits ibr the establishment of a great school of technology in the mining region of the Shenandoah Valley and southwest. But within the present year the State Agricultural and Mechanical College at Blacksburg, on the summit level of the Common- wealth, has been reorganized in a fashion that promises a new career of enlarged useluliiess to this most imi)ortant feature in the higher education of a State so dependent on an energetic and progressive system of farming, mining, and manufactures. No State has more reason to regret the final defeat of the original movement for national aid to education, in 18*J0, than Viiginia. Out EDUCATION m SOUTHWESTERN VIEGINIA. 893 of her magnificent bequest of public domain came the first great possi- bilities of the splendid policy of endowment of education by the gift of public lands that has given to the new Northw^est the prodigious im- petus in educational provision for its whole people. It was indeed an unaccountable thing that the bill was finally defeated by the votes of Senators of States whose schools are to-day munificently endowed by the bounty of their impoverished mother. It can not be that the coun- try will be forever unmindful of the claims of the old colonial division of the Eepublic that surrendered its vast western domain to the States beyond the Alleghanies, for aid in the prewsent home eflbrt to perform their duty to the coming generation. Especially do States like Mary- land, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, from which these great dona- tions of an imperial territory have taken place, deserve consideration. It will come when our partisan politicians rise to the comprehension of the fact that only what makes for the uplift of the younger third of the people can be relied upon to solve the great problems of finance, suffrage, race, even the perplexities of the involved labor and social re- forms. We may decide eacli and all these matters connected with the material, political, and social welfare of the Kepublic again and again, in our heated political campaigns, only to find them confronting us at the end of every session of Congress. But only as we educate the youth who are to receive the perilous heritage of constitutional govern- ment into a more intelligent, righteous, patriotic, and skilled executive way of living, will there be a reasonable hope of the final solution of problems so far above the capacity of the average politician of the day. Said Jeflerson, "Let us educate the children. Then the coming gen- eration Avill be wiser than we and many things impossible to us will be easy to them." Among the eminent records of Virginia statesmanship none is more significant than the twenty-first annual reportof the superintendent of public instruction of the Commonwealth of Virginia, with the accom- panyingdocuments, for the school year closing January 31, 1891. Fourth of the superintendents of public instruction since the inanguration of the American system of common schools in 1870, the Hon. Jno. E. Mas- sey may well feel an honest satisfaction in presenting to the country and to Christendom such a record of great achievement as the educational history of the New Dominion daring this brief generation. The most notable fact in this recoid is that, with the exception of three institutions for the higher education of boys, the medical school, and the institutions for the deaf, dumb, and blind, all partially depend- ent on State support and somewhat under State su])ervision, this entire group of edncational agencies is the growth of the past twenty-five years since the close of the civil war. The University of Virginia, the Virginia Military Institute, and the College of William and Mary, all, to-day, contain a larger number of students, with superior facilities for pr()])er collegiate work and more abunortant lines of railroads, which are stretching out their arms of isteol into every cor- ner of its territory; not inferior in picture>qne beanty and grandeur of alternating mountain range, valley, hill, ancl fertile "cove," to any por- tion of the coniitry east of the Mississipi^i; here is an outtit of nature and a favorable condition of human affairs that ex])lains the fact that to-day the eye of the capitalist at home and abroad is concentrated on this favored land as upon no other portion of the Kepublic. And here is found, in connection with all the sul)stantial advantages of a new country, the historical background, the lack of which is a real disadvantage in the vast unoccupied wilderness beyond the mountains. For a hundred years this 14,000 s(piare miles of the Old Dominion has been slowly prei)ared for the great day of its appearance on the stage of the new American era of improvement. From the first, the vast majority of these iieople have been farmers, in moderate circumstances, living according to tiie slow, obscure ways of the rural American of half a century ago. The few great plantations of the valleys absorbed the slave interest and, outside of an inevitable leadership iu public and social life, this class did not essentially affect the life of the plain people. The more restless spirits were drawn off" by the settlement of the new southwest. The country beyond the mountains, now known as West Virgiuia, remained for many years rather a portion of the new northwest than of the old Virginia of the seaboard. Between these rival interests that finally divided the State, this important region remained, biding its time for development. Already, by the enterprising ])o]icy of its great railroad and land com- panies, it is being better sup])!ied with good iiotel accomniodations than any portion of the South. The great southwest is drifting thither as the most attractive summer home, and every week sees a large excur- sion train, filled with the restless pleasure seekers of the luxurious eastern cities, seeknjg "fresh fields and pastures new" for the stimu- lants of an appetite for novelty, satiated and gorged by European travel and the laborious vacation life of the seashore and huge centers of met- ropolitan resort. The poi)ulation left on the soil, after the steady drain of the past twenty-five years to the far West and Southwest and the eastern cities, is perhai)s in the best condition for the developing forces of the new American civilization through all their various agencies of popular stimulation and culture. In public affairs it can hardly be called a vital part of the " Solid South " orofa rival consolidated North, being conspicuous for a political independence which has more than once given it a decisive voice in the affairs of the State; though in accord with the Confederacy during the Civil war, its territory was largely exempt from the ravages of the great conflict; especially was it saved from the terrible strife of divided tactions which has inflicted on the entire border land, from Virginia to Kansas, a chronic habit of local exasperation and political bitterness that only a coming genera- tion can outlive. Nowhere in the South is there to-day a people more truly patriotic and nowhere in the Commonwealth of Virginia are the noble historic traditions of the Old Dominion in behalf of liberty and union more firmly and obstinately cherished. It is Just this condition of affairs that makes the recent great invest- ment of capital from the North and from Europe so important to the future of this region. Southwest Virginia is not an Eldorado whose 898 EDUCATION REPORT, 1890-91. '' booming" attractions invite ttie fierce, reckless, and unreliable adven- turer from all parts of tlie eai tb. It is not a country that is to be over- flowed by any rapid immigration from borne or abroad. Its present I)opulation is of the substantial quality that, when once fully awakened to the importance of what is going on in its midst, will straightway prepare the coming generation to join hands with the new life, and in due time come into possession of all the substantial opportunities and successes of a new era. And herein is a great advantage, not always appreciated, especially by the people of the North, in the social, political, religi(ms, and educational development of the New fc>outh. The enthusiastic expectations of the early days of reconstruction that the South was to be made over by a vast camiiaign of education into an annex of the vic- torious North, has long since become the " baseless fabric of a vision, leaving not a wrack behind." No American State, county, or neighbor- hood can or ought to be overrun by the superiority of a neighboring people, or its characteristics stamped out, even by missionary zeal for higher things. Oidy by the gradual, irresistible progress of universal education of the American type, the slow and sure training of the heart, the head, and the hand of the younger generation, by the hearty cooi)eration and sympathy of all corresponding States and sections, can a reliable growth into the higher American citizenship be secured. Whatever is otherwise attem])ted, with prospects however brilliant, inevitably comes to a fatal collision with an awakened and exasperated 'local sentiment, leaving " the last state worse than the first." Here is just the happy adjustment of social forces needed to make the new Virginia of the Southwest an object lesson in the true readjustment of American society in the South. The great investment of capital that is now opening the mines, building newtowns, carrying newrailroads like si)ider webs of steel and iron ail over this wonderland, is not a hostile influence working for the dispossession of the home proprietor. The inevitable collapse of the real estate boom with which the country is now somewhat depressed is only the reaction of an overexcited move- ment, and will be a healthy warning rather than a permanent backset to the country. Within twenty years, probably sooner, southwestern Virginia, with anything like a judicious management of its industrial opportunities, will offer to its ambitious and active young men and women such chances of industrial success as have never been known in any portion of the South from the beginning. In the mine, on the farm, in the development of all varieties of manufoctures, in the count- ing room, at the teacher's desk, in the call for a superior clergy and a higher type of commercial and political talent — in all the characteris- tic American avenues of occupation, there will be a call tliat will bring the home people into the most intimate connection with the leaders of these great enterprises. Eighty per cent of the men worth $100,000 to-day in the United States were the poor American boys of a genera- tion ago, and more than 80 per cent of the women who are the true "first 400" of every community are recruits from the same great Ameri- can hive. There is no good reason why in half a century the descend- ants of the southwestern Virginia people of this decade should not become the virtual possessors of the plant now being made on the soil and come into most intimate connection with the substantial people coming to this promised land. Certain it is that, whatever may be the theories of any party of reaction, the Virginia of the year of our Lord 1S92 is "lifting its eyes unto the hills" of its oMm southwest with a mighty faith that in '-God's country" beyond the Blue liidge, the EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 899 splendi^l valley of the Slienaiidoah, and the New Southwest, will be found its strength for the coniiiit going as constantly as the country doctor by the demands of a parish work that includes miles of a wide country side. The most effective method of dealing with this youthful crowd is by a good school established in every locality, rnral and vi lage, taught by a worthy, intelligent^man or woman, who will be mor than the oidinary pedagogue, the "guide, philosopher, and friei.d" c the little people; at once training the head, the heart, ami tbe banc and holding up before these young Americans the knowledge of th great opportunity that in a near future lies just outside the schoo house door. But here is, just now, the most critical feature of the situation. W found scarcely a village in this entire district where the educationa arrangements were in any reasonable way adequate to the emergency. Ij several important places the public school hardly existed, or was in a con dition so nearly useless that it was painfully unfit for even the elenientar; schooling of the small nund)er who were found in ii. We doubt if ii any place visited two-thirds of the children between 6 and 12 were ii regular attendance in any school of any value. The boys on Avhon these communities nmst rely for their male citizenship are drifting on of school at the age of 12, seldom better occupied outside than insid* even the poor arrangement for education on tlie ground. While sev eral of these villages were getting new and improved school buildings I found but one where the people seemed to recognize the necessity for a well-organized graded school system under competent superiu tendency, in the hands of fit teachers sufficient for the growing popu lation during a session long enough to be of real service. In the open country I could not hear of any especial ])rogress adequate to the great need of the people. Schoolhouses too often unfit for occu- pation; teachers working at from $20 to §30 per month for what is called a term of five months in the year; county superintendents paid so little that it is almost impossible to entice an expert into the work, and, added to these disabilities, the interference of local and State politics, often sectarian, religious, and social jealousies. We found the people whose influence and cooperation is necessary to hold up an effective sys- tem of popular education generally incredulous, almost despairing of the possibilities of sustaining a school system adequate to the advancing needs of the population. I n the present con dition of affairs the superior iamilies in the country districts are anxiously lookiiig about for some way to educate their children, leaving the farms for the vdlages, send- ing off their boys and girls at a tender age to distant schools, too often not able to avail themselves of the opportunities of the academical institutions which are scattered up and down the region. In almost every village the establishment of new colleges or private schools for instruction of the better-off pu]>ils leaves this ir.fluential portion of the community antagonistic or inditiereut to the fate of the common school, EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 909 ^vliore two thirds of the children must be ednenfed, if at all. In short, all the difticiiltics against whicii Ur. Kuffiier and the early superintend- ents of education so bravely struggled are iiere, still on the ground, somewhat overcome by the experieiu-e of the past twenty years, but still a niiglity obstacle. And the important fact is that while the industrial life of this great realm has shot ahead so marvelously during the past ten years, and the promise of a new future is brightening: the sky, the educational public outside a few institutions and localities does not seem to have really sensed the situation, but is going on at the gradual pace that wc-uld have been helpful in the days that are past, but which is altogether behind, the imperious demands of the X)rescnt time. Of course, the suggestions of a stranger are never quite welcome, even if he is able to see the point of dilticulty. But, iu this essay, I do not offer theories, or make comparisons, or endeavor to place the responsibility for i")ast or present conditions. I sim])ly put on paper what is the talk of every superior school man or woman, eveiy wise clergyman, every thoughtful public man, every man of affairs who sees what is coming to this favored region; especially of every good woman who, from the home and social mount of observation, is prospecting the status of her neighborhood in the swift coming years. If there is anything of value in the suggestions of this essay, the writer only claims the merit and assumes the responsibility of putting on pai)er in reasonable shape what is the common reporli of the superior educa- tional public which is still expected to i)ut on the ground these great agencies of civilization. And the encouragement of the work is that, in every community, there are decided indications that the present con- dition is a state of transition, and this important portion of the coun- try is not now and will be less and less content with the present oppor- tunities as the years go on. In contrast with a new State like Texas, an old commonwealth like Virginia, with an influential cultured class, chiefly trained by the edu- cational methods of a generation ago, encounters serious diiiiculties in putting on the ground an effective system of schools for the masses. The people who need it most are often least awake to its necessities. The educated portion of the community, always the minority, finding the progress so slow and deeply anxious for the schooling of their own children, can not await the tardy development of the common schools, but look to established institutions or extemporized i^rivate arrange- ments to do the imperative work. Until 1870, southwest Virginia, with what is now West Virginia, seemed reasonably content with tJie old-time Southern system — essen- tially the British system of half a century ago — a scheme of colleges and academies for such as could afford their expense and aspire to their training, and the field school or poor school of the past, with a wide- spread illiteracy that was never rej^orted in statistical tables and only known to the class of progressive educators on the^round. The result is that there are now, in .southwestern Virginia, a supply of colleges and academies with college names more than sufficient for all the rea- sonable demands of the genuine secondary and higher educational train- ing of the country for the next twenty years. The old drift of students to the Virginia schools from thefar Southwest is becoming sensil)ly less every year, because these States no longer are obliged to go northward, but find their new school systems every year more satisfactory. There is no educational reason why Louisiana should send her superior boys and girls beyond Tulane University and its annex, the Sophie jS^ewcomb 910 EDUCATION REPORT, 1890-91. College, it being in all matters of organization, present efficiency, and a rational expectation for the future, the equal of any institution for the best discipline and instruction of a Southwestern student. Texas is becoming a land of good graded village, improving academical, excel- lent normal, and promising State university schooling. The nearer States are alive with the development of this class of institutions. It would therefore seem useless to build up collegiate or academical seats of learning beyond the present immediate necessities of the home pop- ulation, especially in this portion of Virginia, where the demand is for the popular schooling of the masses and a broader education of the secondary and higher departments. There are now in this portion of Virginia three collegiate foundationfc for boys, which, yjroperly supported, generouvsly endowed, and handled in the spirit of the advancing college and university life of the time, will be ample for the home schooling of these twenty-five counties for years to come — the State Agricultural and Mechanical College at Blacksburg; Eoanoke College, at Salem, and Emory and Henry Col- lege, at Emory. Each of these is now in excellent condition, as far as a comjjetent faculty, adequate curriculum, and arrangements for the thorough schooling of its students are concerned, to do a great work, adaiJied especially to the needs of the district. With extensive knowl- edge of similar institutions in every Southern State, I am sure that under its present management, no one of them is ready to do better than the State Agricultural and Mechaincal College at Blacksburg. If the farmers of the most attractive agricultural country awaiting a broader development in the Union will heartily stand by this institu- tion and the railroad and manufacturing interests will cooperate with the State in giving to it the lielping hand and aid in the organization of a thorough system of industrial training through the entire coun- try, there will be no educational opportunity more to be envied than is open to this in a future near at hand. IJoanoke College, at Salem, through the activity of its enthusiastic and far-sighted young presi- dent, is already known in some of the great centers of educational activ- ity in the North. Boston could do nothing better than supply it with the endowment to educate hundreds of tlie sort of vigorous and am- bitious young men that are now under instruction. Emory and Henry, in situation and sufticiency of buildings, is ready to welcome 500 stu- dents and renew its youth. Its crying need, like the majority of South- ern colleges, is money to enable it to work its machinery and hold on to the class of capable young professors that can be had for the proper support in all these States. All these institutions liaA^e adopted the elective curriculum and are in esvsential respects in vital sympathy with the best tendency of the uni- versity and college life of tiie day. It would be a gracious thing, and no less just than generous, if the men of wealth who have gone out from southwestern Virginia during the past twenty-five years and now are found among^the crowd of millionaires in several of the northern and western cities, would " remember the rock out of which they were hewn" and repeat the work so splendidly done by a similar class of prosperous men in the New England and Northein States, whereby almost every worthy college from Boston to San Francisco has been generously endowed and magnificent new foundations laid since the close of the civil war. Here, as in northern Ahibama and other por- tions of the South, we are glad to take note of the far-sighted gen- erosity of some of the railroad, land, and maiuifacturing companies recently established, in giving sites for schooihouses and churches; con- EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 911 tributiug, sometimes generously, and in some cases actually building schoolhouses and supporting free schools for operatives and workmen. A great deal more of this sort of work could be done in southwestern Virginia by these great wealthy corporations which to-day almost hold this splendid country in the hollow of their hands; done, not only to their own pecuniary advantage, but, what is of far more importance, to tlie uplifting of the masses of the people, on which all the highest success of their own investment will depend. There is an admirable foundation already laid through the great service of President Cocke, of Hollius Institute, in a near suburb of the new city of lioanoke, for a woman's college of the type of Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, in a beautiful and healthful region, with amjile buildings for a great beginning, at the headquarters of the new development of southwest- ern Virg-inia. An investment of a million would place here a great school of the higher type and perpetuate the well-earned reputation of this well known institute, for the past forty years one of the most nota- ble of Southern schools. Of the secondary schools for girls the same can be said as concerning the colleges for boys. There are more than enough in number to su])- ply the actual need of this region for a generation to come. Under the varicms titles. College, Institute, Seminary, they all, with the usual variations of good, indifferent, and poor, are of the same sort; all schools for the secondary education, compelled by circumstances to assume, on the one hand, something of the higher and, oftener, of the elementary training of their pupils. The radical infirmity of the Southern educational situation is the weak- ness of its elementary department. In the vast open country and in the majority of little hamlets that hardly rank as villages, both the public and private schools for children under the age of 15 are oftener tlian otherwise of the sort that nobody is satisfied with save their teachers and their " kinfolk and acquaintance." The result is that when the girl whose parents are able to meet the cost, and, more and more, even the daughter of the humbler family, assisted by some friend or church or the kindness of her teachers, reaches the verge of American young ladyhood, she is filled with the desire for a better education and goes with the increasing throng that crowds the ijrivate secondary school to repletion, sometimes even to the peril of health. The school, even of average worth, generally has one or more superior teachers and often is able to give a thorough training in its curriculum, including music and boarding-school art. But here comes in the drawback. The majority of these pupils are neither by habits of study, mode of life, or elemen- tary knowledge, in any fit condition to enter upon a genuine course of the secondary education. Time is flying; young womanhood, with all the bewitchment of the genial social life of the southland and the be- wildering mirage of early marriage, is waiting outside the schoolhouse door. To go back to the proper work of childhood and learn honestly and well the few things indispensible to scholarship, culture, and true refinenient seems a moral impossibility. To launch forth on the untried ocean of the higher branches, music and art, has at least the attraction of novelty. The latter is the ordinary conclusion. Spite of the mis- givings of their teachers, the situation is A^hat it is and the crowded curriculum, includingLatin, is adventured upon and buff etted with like a strong or faii^t swimmer fighting an Atlantic surf. A portion of the managers of these schools are seriously trying to shorten the course, leave out superfluities, and give these pupils a moderate task, with the hope of better results. But here come in the ignorance and ambition of 13441 3 912 EDUCATION REPORT, 1890-91. ])arents, wlio insist ou lia"ving the worth of their money in all the lux- uries of the great modern feast of knowledge. The intense rivalry be- tween the denominational seminaries, in which the spirit of an ardent sectarian i)ropagandism blends with the natural desire for success, and the absolute necessity of numbers to the existence of the institution, make it very difficult to introduce any reform in the direction of thor- oughness and limitation of studies. The few superior girls whose health is adequate to the tremendous toil imposed by such an undertaking, often amid an environment so unfavorable, come out with honor and frequently complete their studies at schools of higher grade in better condition to do valuable work. The larger crowd of social, faint-hearted, or frivolous girls get on in their own way and graduate into the class of women who perpetuate the defects of this tyi)e of seminary by enthusiastically pushing their own daughters into the same condition of affairs. It can not be truly said that the teachers of the institutions are chiefly resi)onsible for this state of affairs. Indeed the quality of their teachers is steadily improving and no school of any mark is wanting in one or several Avho come from the highest seminaries with well de- served commendation. But the one thing that no teacher can do is to reconstruct, in one or two years, the disheveled mind of a girl, until 15 " fussed with " in the regulation private village or in the ordinary common country school. The problem is, OJi the one hand, to build from the foundation the scholarly mind, or at least to form soine honest and effective habits of study and, on the other, to feed to this pupil as much of the rich food of the abundant bill of fare as can be digested. Nobody so well knows the difficulties of the situation as the superior instructors of this class of female colleges, and our sketch of their trials will be recognized with painful assent. A way out of this everglade of female education of the secondary sort, from which no part of our country is exempt, is already being found on more than one side. One excellent reform is inaugurated by the courageous body of teachers who resolutely set their faces against the old British fetich of everlasting Latin. No competent educator questions the great value of classical education, when it is both classi- cal and educp^tional. But the carricature of classicism that the ordi- nary grind of boarding-school Latin for boys and girls becomes de- serves all the disparagement visited upon it even by the anti-classic advocates of exclusively scientific and industrial instruction. Tliat a girl of 15, for whom there are only two or three years of remaining school life, with no reliable habits of study, unable to spell or cipher or write a page of respectable English, at sea in the history of her own coun- try, with no information of natural science and no acquaintance with the wiiters of her own land, to say nothing of English literature, enthused with the desire to take the extras of nuisic and painting, should be shut le grounds which, with proper repairs and ornamentation, would be sufticieut for the public use for a generation, leaving the people to apply the scliool funds to the proper work of instruction. This has been done largely in New England, and is so common in the South that we often feel impatient at seeing the educational business of the smaller towns in a deadlock, from the obstinacy of boards of trustees, or some- times of only individual owners of these properties, which were often con- tributed by the people for general education in the earlier days. With this clearing of the ground many a town could aiford the establishment of a good high school department, on the shoulders of the graded school of the better sort, enabliug the people to keep their children at home until the final necessity for their going abroad. Then the great schools now being founded through this region, includ- ing those of established reputation, could have some reasonable hope of fit endowment and, with increasing numbers, could rise to a fair com- parison with similar institutions in other i)arts of the country. There are hiilf.a, dozen of these schools of the superior sort, so good and under an administration so wise and progressive, that we long to see them recognized and put in a condition where the hand-to-mouth support on which they now live will be overcom'e and their managers be able to inaugurate the reforms nearest their hearts. The idea of a free high school in each county, supplementing the country district school, is destined to materialize in some localities in the not distant future. Until the Southern peoiDle, far more than at present, live in cities or large villages, tliis would be an admirable and practicable provision for the schooling of many who can not afford even the moderate expense of the academies now on the ground. Such a school might combine instruction in the liigher branches with normal and imlustrial training for both sexes and, if coeducational, would go far to convert the Southern people to this feature of modern educational progress. At present, the average private school for boys, in this sec- tion, suffers a i^rodigious drawback in the frequent lack of discipline, good order, neatness, and all the higher conditions of school life, not oidy from its obstinate isolation of sex, but often from the i)eculiarities of an old-time habit of general shiftlessness that makes school life itself a demoralizing occupation. The s<;hools of the academical sort for boys in southwestern Virginia are few in number and, generally, of inferior quality to the seminaries for girls. This is j^robably due to the fact that the number of girls in secondary schools is already much larger than of the boys, and the disparity is yearly increasing. The Southern boy generally concludes to go to college or to leave school before the age of 14. In the former case he goes to a college with a preparatory school department, leaving the ordinary intermediate schools. Outside these, we find a few seminaries for boys of high grade, for special prepa- ration for the universities ; although sometimes these are of the old-time tyj)e, out of elbow touch with the best in the education of the coumiu- nities in which they abide. The coeducational graded iniblic school is now the most vital element in the educational life of the South, when it is properly organized, placed above the reach of ijolifcical, sectarian, or social interference, and i)ut into the hands of a competent superin- tendent "with power to act." EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 915 But the root of the matter must be found iu a great revival of the commou school interest in city, viHage, and open country. Here is the original clearing of the forest of illiteracy in the draining of the slongh of ignorance, superstition, sliiftlessness, vulgarity, and vice, without which the secondary and higher education in a country like oiu'S can only result in an occasional success; even a majority of its own students fatally handicapjDed by a neglect of the foundations in early childhood and youth. It is not necessary to empliasize the unsatisfactory condi- tion, in this region, ev'Cnof the village schools for the people, much less to insist on the failure of the average country scliool to give the neces- sary training for the American citizenship of the present day. Our people, everywhere, must shake oft' the pleasing delusion that things are now as they were half a century ago, when there were no great cities, even in the most i)opu]ous States, and the rude boys came up to town in various conditions of ignorance of letters, wi^hno special train- ing, from the remote rural districts, and by a sharp fight for success, in half a lifetime secured wealth and consideration in communities made up of i^eople of the same sort as themselves. But to-day a young man, with a corresponding lack of x)reparation, finds himself in Roanoke, Bristol, Radford, face to face with half a dozen bright fellows, trained in the best schools for any and every service for commerce, manufac- tures, or mechanics; and straightway "moves on" to a crude cultiva- tion out on some borderland, or becomes discouraged and " gives him- self away" to the crowd of worthless and reckless youth that haunt these places and make life hideou's to every well-intentioned man. The only condition of meeting the lequirements even of a progressive agri- culture is the solid foundation of the education in the elements that could ]je well given in a good country district school, properly housed, with a competent teacher and moderate library and session of six or eight months in the year. There could the foundations of a fair school training be laid, a taste for reading and a habit of study formed, with a valuable training in " good morals and gentle manners "and, abov^e all, a hunger and thirst after knowledge and an elevated idea of American citizenship be matured which would lead on like a guiding star, high in the heaven of youthful aspiration, to any possible achievement. We are often enough reminded that the Southern common school, especially for the negro, has been a failure, at best sending forth its graduates unfit for the life they must lead and with no fitness for that to which they blindly aspire; Wt, pray, what can be expected of such a life as can be seen by a traveler in thousands of these common schools — the schoolhouse cheerless, unwholesome, and repugnant to all ideas of decency; an ignorant, conceited, often vulgar and sometimes vicious teacher, working on a salary below that of the waiters in the hotels of the neighboring villages; a mob of children, studying out loud, demor- alized by the disorder and violence that invariably attend such a gath- ering; a third of the pupils only in occasional, and not half in what is called " daily attendance;" working against the disgust or absolute neglect of the better sort, and worried by the miserable jealousies and local feuds of the lower order of its patrons ? Just what we do get! A failure that is imputed to the system itself and gives new occasion to ventilate the old " wise saw" that the lower strata of humanity are better off in ignorance, as they are only pushed by education out of their sphere. Every community that tolerates an educational abortion of this sort is certain to meet retribution, pressed down and overflow- ing, in the increased barbarism of its humbler and the steady desertion of its better population. 916 EDUCATION REPOET, 1890-91. We are not insensible to the difficulties that beset many of these communities in the effort to maintain a comx)etent system of schooling which shall at once educate the lower and at the same time reasonably satisfy the higher elements of its people. The financial obstacle, how- ever, is real or imaginary according to the spirit of the population. There is no district of southwestern Virginia which does not spend on things unnecessary, even harmful and pernicious, twice the money needed to establish a satisfactory system of education. There is no county where the ])eox)le do not waste, in hauntiug the courts and fee- ing the local lawyers, enough time and cash to build a good schoolhouse in every district. People have what their hearts are set upon. Tlie bottom necessity is a revival of the educational spirit tlirough the length and breadth of this beautiful country, until, instead of brooding down among the hollows, the peoi)le shall lift their eyes to the uplands of a noble iiride in State, country, and humanity, which will be content with nothing less than their full share of the great American heritage for every boy and girl in every s])here of life. Tliis once awakened, the same si)irit tluit drove the young men from their homes a generation ago to light in a cause they held to be just and true, with a bravery and endurance that won the admiration of the world, will marshal their sons and daughters to-day in a grander war against the illiteracy which is the one American peril to all the true patriot and Christian holds dear. This done, ways and means will be found to build and furnish the schoolhouse; to find the good teacher, even if hunted for with a lighted pine knot; to watch the going on of the school with more jealous care than the political campaign; to make it the fundamental business and the most exhilarating recreation of every neighborhood to encour- age the little ones in their wrestling with the daily trials, humiliations, aiul sorrows of life in the country district school. But where shall be found the " evangelist " to wake up the people and hold them at the concert pitch of obstinate determination to se(;ure for the children and youth this precious boon of education"? Certainly not largely in the present system of county supervision, which by common consent has become one of the chief obstacles to the success of the common schools. There would seem to be no reasonable expectation that the State or the county can at present ofi'er the salary to entice an educational expert to this work, or even to obtain from a competent man anything but the most perfunctory service. Eeal supervision is the backbone of every educational system. The best college or second- ary school depends upon it, in the president or principal chosen espe- cially for this business. What would become of any superior school if the teacher of each class and room was left to carry on his work at his own sweet will, like the only teacher in the average common school? We are not unmindful of the self-sacrificing service of a noble band of these superintendents, whose works praise them in the valleys and on the hillsides of more than one region blessed by their missionary zeal. But millionaires and martyrs do not march in regiments, even in such notable centers of moral and religious life as some of these towns are declared to be by their enthusiastic secular "boomers." The ordinary public man rarely does more than he is i)aid to do, whatever the people who " pay the shDt " expect of him. The work in the ordiimry office of superin tendency of schools is largely the performance of a clerk, a per- functory examination of candidates for teachers' certificates, a semi- occasional hasty visit to the schoolhouse of his beat, a bland com- pliance with the humors of influential peo[)le, and an eloquent laudation of the educational state of the county on the stump or in the report to EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 917 headquarters in the othce of liis chief. All this when the election or appointment of this class of ofticials is carried on with the best inten- tions. Bnt when this choice is bnrdened with the whims of a personal or political interest, or entangled in any one of the score of methods that are the di'y rot of pnblic life, the resnlt is wliat we see, in the de- feat of all the advantages real supervision is believed to offer. We believe that, in place of this fooling with a good thing, a system of district superintendence by experts chosen in the best way to assure the best results, paid enough to secure the entire success of trained officials, could be sustained with })rotit. When the bishop of a religions body comes around, tlie peoi)le crowd the churcli, the clergy hang upon his presence and take heart from his words of hope, caution, and good cheer; the women come out in theirbest, the children rejoice, and the day becomes a festival remembered for a year. A tit man or woman, recognized as fit, will do more to wake up a community even by a letter, like an epistle ■ of St. Paul, than a common man drifting in and out every day of the year. Tiie peojjle recognize' their genuine rulers and do not fail to give honor where honor is due. The State of Massachusetts, which does most for education according to its population of any State, and which from the first "has done more for education than any American com- monwealth and is not behind the i)resent in its care for the children, supervises its schools by a secretary of the board of education and a corps of half a dozen trained assistants. But the superintendent is not a politician ^' on the make '' for a higher place, and each gentleman of the board is a man of national reputation, always on his beat, droj)- ping into the humblest little country school, encouraging and instruct- ing the teacher, stirring up the country people, gatheriug the school • committees of the towns into associations, conducting institutes, "work- ing like a horse " all the year round. What is to himler a State of less population than Massachusetts from concentrating her insufficient little salaries of county superintendents into a State fund to keep in the field a coriis of trained experts of the best men and women of the Com- monwealth, to visit the cities and revive the towns, break up the fallow ground anil plant trees of life by the side of every stream and great forests on every mountain side"? Nothing but the obstinate prejudice that always keeps on the ground any dead-alive system of " how not to do it," with the little teasing ambition of people to hold a little useless office, that is the curse of our American civilization. A great man will j^et , be found — he may be even now on his way — who will waken the people ' of this fair coiuitry of the Southwest so they will send up to the capi- tal a body of llepresentatives that will demand a reconstruction of the present inefficient method of haiuUing the schools of the country — handling and manipulating until the children seem to have only the ' ^erumbs that tall under the tables, that the dogs do eat. The enterpris- ing State of Texas has found a way to success in the bringing forward ' of the ablest women for the most important office of supervision of ; Schools. The great West found out years ago that the male sex is not : an indispensable condition of fitness for superior school work in all de- ; partments of educational activity. Virginia has "noble women not a ..few" who are fully competent for this work of supervision, and who, if ; sent forth on this message of love to the children, would bring forth the 1 response that always comes from a true Southern community to any- ' thing brave and efficient done by the humblest girl. Afew years ago, at a convention of the teachers of the State of ISTew ^.Yoi-k, a resolution was passed, urging that, at least, one address on tthe subject of popular education should be given in every school 918 EDUCATION REPORT, 1890-91. district of the State during the coming year. Whether 12,000 orators responded we are not informed, but certainly nothing would better relieve the deadness and torxDor of the southern winter on these great hills and in the broad valleys like a widespread organization of com- mon school associations, holding frequent meetings in the churches and schoolhouses of every district, in behalf of the children and youth. The clergy would be foremost in this good work; as the ministers of New England, in the old time, were the guardians and strong friends of the little country schools and lyceums, out of which grew the public library, tlie lecture system, and the reading and thinking habits of the people. We are told that eloquence is on the decline. Perhaps it is true that the people are coming to demand facts and x>ractical instruc- tion in place of clerical highflying and supernatural vaticination in the pulpit, and are so worn out with the thunder of stump speaking that they prefer the fireside or the shade tree, with a respectable news- jiapei-, to the great speech of the regulation campaign orator. But surelj" if there be a cause in w^hich the dumb could speak, the silent fathers and mothers grow eloquent, the aspiring young man be lifted to enthusiasm and the maidens break forth into song, it would seem to be the uplift of 50,000 children and youth to welcome the coming dawn of such a destiny as will change tbe fate of the Old Dominion. For here it is not the rising up of another group of famous men to catch the eye of the imtions; but the drill of a generation of American boys and girls for the labors and discipline of a citizenshij) which nuikes every man a sovereign and every woman " the x^ower behind the throne." Such a revival would result in the awakening of the x)eople to the fact that only by local taxation and local supervision of schools can there be any permanent success. Thirty years ago, great armies in the southland fought to the death to testify to the rights of the State as oxiposed to the concentration of x^ower in the central govern- ment. What were the use of all this blood and sacrifice of men if, in her most vital interest, she must fall l)ack ux^on a halting and capri- cious legislature to originate every movement for the betterment of our schools? Eather should every city or district be emx)owered, under fit conditions and in suitable localities, to tax itself to the uttermost for the bottom interests of the State. The cry of the average x)oliticiau is still the old chestnut, that "taxation is tyranny," whereas taxation, wisely and vigorously imx^osed, is the lifeblood of republican civiliza- tion; taking out of one x^ocket to x^ut into another the money that brings to the children the precious instruction and discix^line without which democracy becomes a byword and a government of the x^eople and by the x)tJople only means anarchy and down-rushing destruction. We are glad to see that in several of these new villages, where the bulk of the negro poxuilation of this part of Virginia is fbuml, a fair arrangement is made for the children of this race. There is a sx)ecial call for this, as for another great crowd of children who flock to these towns that are sx)ringing n-p like a gourd in the night. If nothing else is done, this class of the x^ox^ulation must be taken in hand and lifted, by the combined eftbrt of school, church, and the awakened interest in social reform, to a sense of their x^osition and duty in a civilized coun- try. Eveiyone of these new mining towns or cities, with a people gathered from the ends of the earth, is a. magazine of untried barbar- ous foices which, unless controlled es])ecially by the fit education of the rising generation, will make it a citadel x^lanted against the x^eace and honor of the Commonwealth. We believe that one more great school for the training of colored EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 919 youtli, like the Hampton Institute, could well be established at Bris- tol, already becoming a commanding center of educational interest. Here could be trained the teachers and clergy especially lit for the peculiar service among these people, as we see them in these villages and mining camps, and here could be organized the forces that would lilt up the race to good American citizenship and Christian brother- hood. It goes without saying that industrial education is bound to become a vital element in the school system of this [)ortion of Virginia. At present the vast majority of the people of southwestern Virginia are workers in the ordinary methods of farming, inured to hardship, de- pending on daily toil to support life. To the southwestern farmer it is not a sermon on the dignity of labor or a pitchfork behind his waist- band to propel him to his work, that is the crying need of the time. It is rather the better education of his boys and girls, the awakening and direction of vital force and a new ambition that will devise improved ways of tilling the earth, rotating and diversifying crops; opening the mind to that scientific agriculture which makes the land " a laboratory rather than a mine," making this fair realm blossom like the rose; and the exaltation of the family by the training in a style of home-making which demands the best culture and honors the most refined woman- hood. This can possibly be best achieved through the organization of farmers' associations, where the men and women of the country may come together at stated times', discuss methods and exhibit results, and make common stock of the superior ways of doing common work. We urge again thecheerful support of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College, under its present organization, as the center of the movement lor an improved agriculture. The crowning advantage of southwest- ern Virginia, as of Pennsylvania and Ohio, is, that under fit cultiva- tion the country can produce all that the largest population drawn to it by the development of mining and manufactures could demand for its sui)port. If the tarmers' sous and daughters will take heed to this and prepare themselves for the coming demand, there will be little need of seeking the northland of the cyclone and blizzard, or the southland of the flood and malaria, for the most complete success in the primal inofession of the tilling of the soil. There will be a great call for a trained class of mechanics and skilled oi)eratives, of all sorts required in a mining and manufacturing region, within a few years, in southwestern Virginia. The depression of the collapse of the real estate speculation will pass away and the people, here as elsewhere, will learn, that it is not by selling your old farm to your neighbor, taking pay in his own broad acres, with absurd overes- timated value, that budds up the material prosperity of a State. This portion of Virginia, like all others, must depend for its jjrosperity upon the value and enterprise of the greatindustrial establishments that are now making their homes in its valleys and penetrating its hillsides, A great school of technology at Roanoke would seem to be a necessity. Working in connection with the State, it might be an outlying annex of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, planted where the object lesson of a new manufacturing and railroad city would always be avail- able to the students. There Avould seem to be no reason why the great suc(;ess of the Tulane University at New Orleans should not here be repeated; the organization of a broad educational course of study, supplementing the classical and literary training, which would do much for the refresiiing of the regulation higher and secondary education. Many of these academies for girls could with great profit introduce a 920 EDUCATION REPORT, 1890-91. department of skilled housekeeping]^, whicli would send the pupils home with a kuowletlge of eulighteued and refined housework, over- coming- the silly pride of laziness and elevating home-making to the place it deserves; the finest of all the fine arts and the most ]>ractical end of religion. A general shaking up of the old-time crude literary curriculum, flanked by a course of music and art, even at the i-isk of flying in tlie face of tradition, would be a helpful experiment. Now that the University of Virginia has called a graduate of the JMiller Manual Labor School to a position in connection with its board of In- struction and the Agricultural and Mechanical College has received several excellent young professors from this admirable school, it would seem that this portion of Virginia, beyond all others, could profit by su(;h a revival of industrial education. If a dozen great millionaires could be visited on their beds at night by the ghost of Father Miller, and good Dr. Vawter could enforce the solemn warning by a flank movement, like that of his old commander, Stonewall Jackson, on this vast mountain region, a dozen great schools, like this superb university of all work, might link together this glorious laud of mountain and valley by a chain of industrial Edens, waking up its 2,0(H>,0()0 people to their true destiny as members of a republic whose crown of glory is the exaltation of the jwor and lowly to the uplands of an intelligent, moral. Industrious and ])atriotic citizenshi]). But ail these good tilings, seen in vision by the hojieful educator, may fail in the realizaticni that gives them a foundation on the solid earth. Yet it is as true to-day in southwest Virginia as in Palestine, "Where there is no vision the peojde perish." And equally true is it that we are now living in the full light of the prophetic day when " the young men shall see visions." For, after all, even in the most progressive American Conuuon wealth it is upon the young men and women that we must rely for the agitation which wakes up the jjeople to a great spiritual need and the courage and persistence that insists that "Old things shall pass away and all things shall become new." And here is tlie new dominion of Virginia especially the favored land, even among the proudest of its sisterhood of States, in its coming gen- eration of young women. While the boys are thronging the great cit- ies of the i^ortheast and the new West, pushing towards the front wherever there is good work to be done, the girls are left behind. As in New England half a century ago in every town and village was found a crowd of aspiring young women, studying in the best schools, getting into communication with the great centers of culture and re- fined society and skilled industry, until the present year sees their daughters in possession of 350 ways of getting a respectable living, scattered all along from "away down East" to Alaska, up to every good American word and work; so do we behold the same inspiring' spectacle in the State of Mary and Martha W^ashington. In our edu- cational visitations up and down the State we are always in sight of a group of splendid girls, not a whit behind any former generation in all that has made the young Virginia woman the toast of a dozen genera- tions, but with a new inspiration and mighty hope overlooking and out- reaching longing for a life beyond the uttermost possibilities of the older time. It is no lack of loyalty to the past, no scorning of the sacred memories of the mothers and grandmothers, that is making; the name and opportunities of the new American womanhood so precious to many of these gracious daughters of the old Commonwealth. Their reverent love for the life that has forever past is the best assurance that the rising admiration -for fflie new life that beckons from the hori- Education in southwestern Virginia. 921 Hon will be faithful and true ; implacable as the roots of their moun- tains; tender as the blue grass that drapes their slopes and nestles in their shy and shadowed coves. To them, more than to all others, is given the inauguration of the era of resurrection for this southwest Virginia that, even to the stranger tirst coming within her gates, ap- pears like what the old knights of the Golden Horseshoe named it — God's country — awaiting the providential call to rise up and become the promised land of the new dominion. First let the women of Vir- ginia demand the establishment of a genuine woman's university where the daughters, by the aid of the State, can share in the opi)ortuulty enjoyed by her sons for the j)ast seventy years. This aclneved, all good things will follow in their turn. Prophecies are delayed and dreams are forgotten, but predictions inspired by what may be seen by him who hath eyes to see and heard by him who hath ears to hear in the south- west Virginia of to-day are only the pledges of Providence to be re- deemed in God's own good time. \ LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 019 885 690 3 \