Oak Street JNCLASSIFIED NEW SILKIES JANUARY, 1913 Vol.1. No. 2 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN George Peabody College for Teachers Seaman A. Knapp School of Country Life. Education in General Hygiene and Sanitation, PUBLISHED BY GEORGE PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS JANUARY, APRIL, JUNE, SEPTEMBER NASHVILLE, TENN. Entered as Second • Class Matter at the Postoffice at Nashville, Tennessee The Seaman A. Knapp School and Farm. Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, the founder of the Farm Demon- stration Work in the South, of the Boys' Corn Clubs and of the Girls' Canning Clubs, died April 1, 1911. His work has grown until there are now in the South one thousand agents demonstrating better methods of farming and homemaking to fully a hundred thousand farmers, seventy-five thousand boys, and twenty-five thousand girls. Immediately following Dr. Knapp's death numerous sugges- tions arose throughout the South in regard to a memorial in his honor. It was argued that we are prompt to build monu- ments and pay tribute to the heroes of war, and why not to a hero in the arts of peace? Dr. Knapp's work and teachings made it well nigh impossible to erect a monument of cold marble or dead bronze. It was felt that there must be a liv- ing memorial. A Knapp Memorial Committee was organized with representatives from every Southern state. After careful deliberation it was decided to place this memorial at Nashville in connection with George Peabody College for Teachers as a part of the Seaman A. Knapp School of Country Life, which had just been endowed with $250,000 by the General Education Board, in May, 1912. The Knapp Memorial Committee decided that the most fitting and effective memorial they could create would result from this union of effort. It was determined, accordingly, to erect the Knapp Building on the campus of George Peabody College for Teach- ers and to purchase and equip the Knapp Farm within a suit- able distance of Nashville. The Committee has undertaken to raise $150,000 throughout the South for the building and for the farm. The following influential Southern citizens make up the Knapp Memorial Committee: David C. Barrow, President, Athens, Ga. Clarence Poe, Secretary, Raleigh, N. C. 0. B. Martin, Treasurer, Washington, D. C. 1. O. Schaub, Assistant Secretary, West Raleigh, N. C. Thos. A. Early, Financial Agent, 729 Southern Building, Washington, D. C. STATE CHAIRMEN. S. P. Brooks, Waco, Texas. G. W. Donaghey, Little Rock, Ark. J. E. Ransdell, Lake Providence, La. '2 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. John Fields, Oklahoma City, Okla. W. H. Smith, Jackson, Miss. J. F. Duggab, Auburn, Ala. W. M. Holloway, Tallahassee, Fla. Fred Mutchler, Bowling Green, Ky. Lem Banks, Memphis, Tenn. C. S. Barrett, Union City, Ga. A. F. Lever, Lexington, S. C. Clarence Poe, Raleigh, N. C. Wm. H. Mann, Richmond, Va. O. B. Martin, Washington, D. C. The Seaman A. Knapp School of Country Life will be the distinctive title for that group of courses with special pro- fessors and students which will be organized by George Pea- body College for Teachers to promote the various activities for the betterment of rural life conditions. This feature of Pea- body College will insure an intensiveness of investigation from which will result some solutions for the insistent demands of country life. Besides the courses offered on the campus in the Knapp Memorial Building for the study of agriculture and rural con- ditions, it is intended to have a farm in some typical rural section within ten or twelve miles of Nashville. Here will be exemplified the best practical forms of effort, both for leading backward communities into better ways and for proving to prosperous communities new roads to still greater prosperity. In this environment of model barns, fences, implements, and of high-bred farm animals and farm plants, will be developed a model rural school as a community center. This farm will work out its results with reference to varying Southern condi- tions and will become a suitable rallying point for demonstra- tions and conferences of rural workers. Thus through the country will the entire South be assisted in its economic and social betterment. The rehabilitation of country life is the most insistent problem of the present day. Something like 85 per cent of the citizenship of the South live in the country. The exodus from the country to the cities and the danger of the deterioration of country life brings a corresponding duty. The right kind of rural school is the most potent agency through which sane ideas may be realized for the improvement of country life, so that it shall become more interesting, more convenient, more profitable. George Peabody College for Teachers has a great opportunity to be of service in this movement. It will aid in THE SEAMAN A. KNAPP SCHOOL AND FARM. 3 the search for the school best suited to country communities. It will study and suggest means by which there shall come enrichment of country life through the agency of country schools and teachers. Here is a vital fact : Farm life in the South must become more productive and economically profitable as well as more attractive and humanly interesting. At the bottom of every sort of trouble, and every so-called problem in the South, is the money question. The power to increase the profits of one's toil is an indis- pensable means to the great end of happy and righteous living. It requires money to insure healthful and wholesome sur- roundings, to train the cook or to educate the housewife. It costs more to have washing done in a clean place than a dirty place. It takes money to save the babies and the children from improper food, and from the germs of typhoid or pneu- monia carried to them from poorly equipped kitchens and unsanitary cooking. It costs pains and money to safeguard the water and milk supply. And it requires money to put healthful schoolhouses in place of the too frequent death traps now in use. Over- crowded schoolrooms are cheaper than roomy, well lighted, well ventilated ones. Better teachers and better teaching are our constant clamor, but they, too, cost more money. The courses of study in the country schools are too theoretical, abstract, and remote from the needs of country life. The schools that count must not only have highly trained and well paid teachers, but they must have the equipment of labora- tories, school gardens, cooking and sewing rooms, tools for manual and industrial training. All of these things are demanded for efficient training, and cannot be had without money. Money becomes, therefore, in the providence of God, a sacred thing with which to minister to the physical and spiritual wants of the human race. The Seaman A. Knapp Farm and School should deliber- ately set for itself the task of helping the present and future dwellers in the country to make more money, to become more efficient producers, more economic citizens. It should teach the farmer by theory, by experiment, by demonstration, or by any other possible way, how to avail himself of all the most practicable and profitable forms of the world's knowledge for the sake of happier and more useful living. 4: PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. Its studies in rural credit systems, whereby the farmers as well as other business men may obtain resources with which to develop their business, will avail much. Typical associa- tions for cooperative industries, such as local creameries and farm insurance companies, will be studied and applied. Here will be demonstrated better plans for sorting, grading, and marketing farm products. Farm accounting will be taught to the boys and girls, and among them Boys' Corn Clubs and Girl's Canning Clubs will be inaugurated, while extension courses and correspondence courses for farmers, their wives, their sons, and their daughters will not be the least of the help- ful influences which will flow from such a school of country life and demonstration farm. We must also endeavor to increase the earning capacity of women through practical dairying, poultry raising, bee cul- ture, canning, dressmaking, laundering, perhaps truck garden- ing or other possible undertakings. The money-spender as well as the money-maker must be taught in this School of Country Life. Many times the wife is the spender of the money, and she needs to learn how to employ economically and scientifically the funds she expends for food and clothing. But aside from its economic aspect, living in the country must be made more convenient and interesting before men and women, boys and girls, will be content to remain on the farm. The Knapp School, by promoting health and sanitation in the country, by teaching improved methods of road building, by promoting cooperation in providing highways and modern facilities for transportation, will contribute toward the desired end. If it can build at moderate cost a well equipped coun- try home with water supply and home conveniences, and if it can show how such may be procured at small cost in any home, this will be one of its services to home life in the South. An important work will be the testing of ideas for the improved country school. Through such country schools clubs, lecture courses, libraries, the whole social life of the community may be organized and promoted. And the rural high school is a specially choice agency through which the next generation will learn to improve all the conditions of country life. There are' three classes of workers in the South who will count much in bringing about such conditions and in spread- ing the knowledge which will accomplish such results. These are the farm demonstrators, both men and women, and the teachers, both men and women, and the country preachers. THE SEAMAN A. KNAPP SCHOOL AND FARM. O These stand out conspicuous, for they are perennially thinking and working at this problem. There is yet no single center where they may be brought together for the exchange of expe- riences or for the acquirement of more progressive ideals and methods. The Knapp School and Farm should become such a center. For instance, what a great service would be rendered if the following could be accomplished: The farm demon- strator of Virginia demonstrates to the farm demonstrator of South Carolina how to make hay. The South Carolinian shows (not tells) the Virginian how to increase his yield of corn. The Georgian teaches the Arkansan the art of peach growing, while the women from Louisiana exhibit for the benefit of all the proper method of canning vegetables. An expert chemist contributes such a portion of his science as each may require. The trucker from the tidewater district illustrates his plan of gardening and marketing; the dairy- man from the bluegrass region explains the feeding and breed- ing of dairy cattle, while his wife demonstrates a better way of handling cream and butter. And the teachers and preach- ers, sympathetically understanding these operations, will show how the intellectual, literary, and spiritual life of the country can be built up into the finest product of this wealth and woven into every portion of this fabric. This School of Country Life will become a clearing house for the rural communities of the South, a center for the exchange of valuable ideas and information practically tested. Many farm demonstrators will live upon the farm for several weeks in the summer. The faculty of Peabody College will work out their ideas here for the twelve months of the year. The teachers of the South who come to George Peabody Col- lege for Teachers for training will cooperate in studying and in meeting the needs of an ideal country community. They will carry back home no theory which they have not first worked out and tested in practical life. The country preach- ers will be invited to meet here at stated times and for special conferences at which they can find practical inspiration for their important leadership. Thus those who teach the adult farmers and their wives will come to understand those who teach the children, the prospective farmers and prospective housewives. The teach- ers and the farmers will work together. This School and Farm will, in other words, be a storehouse of tested knowl- edge to which the practical farmer and his wife will come for 6 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. safe appliances and helpful devices. It will at the same time be preeminently a practice school to which the makers of citi- zens, the teachers, and also the farm demonstrators, will come to try out their theories before attempting to apply them. Dem- onstration agents, rural school supervisors, state and county superintendents of education, and other rural workers of every description will make this farm a rallying point, in order to carry back to their states the benefits of the work done here. Corn club boys and canning club girls will also make occa- sional trips to this agricultural Mecca for inspiration and instruction. The scope and character of the courses to be offered by George Peabody College for Teachers in this School of Coun- try Life will also include agricultural pedagogy for the teach- ing of general agriculture and the correlation of agricultural matter with other school subjects; rural life elements, such as cooperation in buying and selling, farm management, sanita- tion and water supply, transportation, village and country churches and libraries, etc.; extension work by the faculty to carry these suggestions direct to the people in their homes; special applications of manual training, cooking, sewing, laun- dering, and home management; equipment of teachers and supervisors for every kind of agricultural and industrial sub- jects; the training of workers to aid in the task of unifying all rural activities in a great cooperative scheme. Such a pro- gram will prove of the greatest value now, because so many schools are establishing garden plots and almost every county high school will soon be provided with a demonstration farm. Eight guidance under these conditions will be indispensable to the boys and girls and to their parents, and such activities will bring wonderful changes in the country schools and their environing communities during the next decade. This is to be a Demonstration Farm and a Demostration School. Nothing like the Seaman A. Knapp School of Coun- try Life has ever been worked out anywhere. In the ways mentioned above, and through many other avenues which will become apparent as the work grows, this school and farm will serve the entire South and perpetuate the memory of a great benefactor. Here is a fine opportunity for a distinctive work and a great service. The memorial building to be located on the campus of George Peabody College for Teachers will contain a life-sized statue of Dr. Knapp, so that his mas- terful and benevolent personality will always be an inspira- THE SEAMAN A. KNAPP SCHOOL AND FARM. i tion to the thousands who come and go. The farm, within ten or twelve miles of Nashville, to contain from 200 to 400 acres, will be conducted in accordance with modern demon- stration methods. It is not to be an experiment farm, in the usual and technical sense, for discovering the scientific prin- ciples of farming, but rather to apply these principles and get them widely disseminated among the growing generation. It is intended primarily to conduct experiments in agricultural pedagogy and in the organization of the social units and forces which are to build up country life. While due regard will be had for the development of pure-bred seed and animals, for illustrating the best devices and implements to be used in farming, for working out crop rotations for different South- ern conditions, the main emphasis will be placed upon discov- ering, testing, and applying those principles which will teach the dwellers in the country how to improve themselves and their modes of living even to a greater extent than they im- prove their crops. Bigger crops, larger income, increased wealth, will be regarded as the necessary means toward pro- ducing more efficient men, women more interested and happy, children blessed with their proper birthright. A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. SEAMAN A. KNAPP. (Extracts from a sketch by Hon. O. B. Martin.) Dr. Seaman Asahel Knapp was born December 16, 1833, in Essex County, New York, and died in Washington, D. C, April 1, 1911. Spent bis boyhood on his father's farm. Entered Troy Conference Seminary as a youth. Graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York, with dis- tinguished honors, at tbe age of twenty-three. Married Maria E. Hotchkiss in August of the same year. Soon became Professor and Associate President of Troy Conference Seminary, and later President of Ripley College in Vermont. Moved to Vinton, Iowa, at thirty-two and settled on a farm. Served five years as President of Iowa School for Blind. Organized and edited the "Western Stock Journal and Farmer." In 1879 elected Professor of Agriculture at the Iowa State College. Became President of this College in 1884. At the age of fifty-three Dr. Knapp resigned the presidency of the college and moved to Lake Charles, La. Developed rice industry in Louisiana and Texas. Conducted demonstrations in rice growing and diversified farming for benefit of native farmers and immigrants. In 1898 was authorized by Secretary Wilson, of the U. S. Depart- ment of Agriculture, to visit China, Japan and the Philippines to make rice investigations. 8 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. Made second trip to the Orient and to Europe in 1901. Sent next to Porto Rico to report on agricultural resources and possibilities. In 1903 inaugurated Demonstration Work to fight the Mexican cotton boll weevil. From 1903 to 1911 extended Demonstration Work throughout the whole South. Seaman A. Knapp showed such aptitude and ambition as a small boy that his boyhood indicated what his manhood might be. At ten years of age he read Addison, Macaulay and Irving, and repeated what he had read to his mother and sister, in order to acquire a good vocabu- lary, clearness of style and the mastery of pure English. He said that even at that age he looked forward to the time when he might, through the spoken and written word, influence and lead mankind. He took advantage of such schools as were available in that early day in the country districts of New York, but he attributed a large measure of his success to the training and influence of his mother and an older sister. In the first part of the nineteenth century small boys in the country districts of New York State did not have many opportunities for recrea- tion in the way of games and sports. The boy, Seaman A. Knapp, got most of his recreation by change of work. He was fond of cattle, horses and other animals on the farm. It was great sport for him to go on his favorite horse to the country store, for the purpose of securing some needed articles for his mother and for the home. There was not much money in circulation in that country either, so it was a matter of barter. Doubtless, he drove many a good bargain and had impressed upon his youthful mind the importance of thrift and economy. A high school boy and a high school girl made the acquaintance of each other at the Troy Conference Seminary in 1852. They became sweethearts. They were married four years later, just after both had graduated, and they continued as sweethearts and boon companions for fifty-four years. Mrs. Knapp took a personal interest and aided greatly in all of the work which Dr. Knapp did. As a young man he had an ambition to found a great college. He was having much success as a teacher and school administrator, with Mrs. Knapp as his best assistant. A wrenched knee and failing health caused him to give up school work and take the advice of Horace Greeley, namely, "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." On the farm in Iowa he bred Shorthorn cattle and Berkshire hogs. He brought heavy draft horses to his community and helped organize the first live stock association in that state. Improved implements and labor saving devices were used on that farm, and he developed the best seed and used improved methods of cultivation. With it all he regained his health and vigor. At this time he met a leading farmer of Iowa named James Wilson, and together they worked for agricultural reform in their adopted state. This co-worker succeeded Dr. Knapp later as professor in the Iowa State College, and when farmer Wilson became Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, Dr. Knapp became one of his most trusted and valued assistants. During the sojourn in Iowa Dr. Knapp was called to manage several lines of work, all of which were good training for the greater work yet to be done, For five years he had charge of the State School for the Blind. When his church at Vinton had no pastor, he preached and taught the gospel for two years. THE SEAMAN A. KNAPP SCHOOL AND FARM. 9 He established a farm paper. There were few such papers in the country at that time. He, with others, conducted an agricultural campaign. The first course in agriculture in the Iowa College was organized and the graduation of the first class took place during his incumbency as pro- fessor and president. Another crisis in Dr. Knapp's life came about this time. His health gave way under a severe attack of rheumatism. A board of physicians said he must give up college work, and that he had only a few months to live. His reply was that he would accept their advice in regard to giving up the college work, but not in the matter of giving up his life. Turning his face to the sunny South, he organized a great development company, bought a million acres of land in southwest Louisiana, and sent invitations all over the northwest, "Come South, young men, and grow up with the country." Several thousand came. For many years he had believed that the South was destined for a wonderful future. He said. "Here is a people of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, energetic but conservative, without much admixture of foreign blood. These people should be the conservators of the best American traditions. Here is a productive soil, delightful climate and long growing seasons." In con- versation with Chancellor Barrow, of the University of Georgia, once, these points were being stressed. Chancellor Barrow was impressed with the earnestnes and optimism of the speaker, but remembering the difficulties and struggles of the Southern people, he could not quite see how the South was to become the garden spot of the world, so he asked Dr. Knapp for a reason for the faith that was in him. Dr. Knapp's reply was, "Because the germinating power of the South is five times as great as that of any other part of the country." Chancellor Barrow says that he has thought about this reply a hundred times over, and that it is one of the most complete and satisfying answers he ever heard. He said that Dr. Knapp had absolutely gone to the bottom of the question. The Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work was started in a small way in 1903. Dr. Knapp visited one small farm near Terrell, Texas, about twice a month and directed the operations there. Neighbor- ing farmers met him in field meetings. At the close of the year he had proved that cotton could be grown in the face of the boll weevil, and was urged to extend his teachings and his methods throughout the whole country devastated by the pest. The next year, with funds furnished by Congress and by local business men, he appointed a few agents and began to organize different counties in Texas. The work soon attracted the attention of the country. Congress enlarged its appropriation, local aid was increased, and the work was extended to Louisiana and Mis- sissippi. About this time the General Education Board of New York asked to be allowed to appropriate money for similar work in other cotton states. In a few short years this great work had covered the entire South, had a force of a thousand agents, an enrollment of one hundred thousand farmers, seventy-five thousand boys in the Corn Clubs, and twenty-five thousand girls in the Canning Clubs. Every state in the South began to show an increase in the average corn pro- duction per acre, as well as other crops, and Southern Corn Club boys attracted the attention of the world by producing more than two hun- dred bushels of corn to the acre at low cost. Girls, too, demonstrated practical, scientific work in garden and home. During the year of his 10 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. death, Russia, Brazil, England, South Africa and Argentina sent repre- sentatives to this country to study the Demonstration Work. Sir Horace Plunkett, the great Irish reformer, came for the same purpose, and at the request of the King of Siam, Dr. Knapp sent one of his agents to take charge of agricultural matters in that country. Mrs. Knapp expressed the belief that all of her husband's career had been providentially guided as a preparation for the great work that he did in his closing years. Dr. Buttrick summed it up by saying, "Seventy years of preparation for seven years of work." A leading Southerner spoke of him as "Teacher, farmer, philosopher and states- man." Dr. Walter H. Page said of the Demonstration Work, that "It is the greatest single piece of constructive educational work in this age or any age." Forrest Crissey called him "The missionary bishop of American agriculture." It is fitting that the memorial in his honor shall be unique. The service was distinctive. Such a service merits, and will receive, the appreciation of a grateful and generous people. It brought the resources of the South to the attention of the world in a new light ; but better still, it brought comfort and joy to thousands where poverty and gloom had prevailed. It made the education of children possible where ignorance must otherwise have held sway. It brought better instruction and re- newed hope to men and women whose training had been neglected. A leading thinker has said that his plan constitutes one of the greatest systems of adult training ever devised. Dr. Knapp loved the South and was a citizen thereof for a quarter of a century. It was his chosen home in his mature years. He had admired its people for the chivalry, courtesy, and high sense of honor prevailing among them. He had sympathized with them during their hardships and struggles. Dr. Knapp was a benefactor to mankind and his works do follow him. SOME KNAPP EPIGRAMS : QUOTATIONS FROM WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF DR. S. A. KNAPP. "The greatest of all acquisitions is common sense." "A prosperous, intelligent, and contented rural population is, there- fore, essential to our national perpetuity." "A patent to land is a title to nobility, a right to sovereignty." "A great nation is not the outgrowth of a few men of genius, but the superlative worth of a great common people." "It is impossible to impress upon any one that there is dignity in residing upon a farm with impoverished soil, dilapidated buildings, and an environment of ignorance." "The income of the farm can be increased from three to five-fold by the use of improved methods." "Double the crop to the acre and halve the cost." "More power and less hand-work." "Training is the great item which fashions a race." "The world's most important school is the home and small farm." "The public school teacher's mission is to make a great common people, and thus readjust the map of the world." "You can cause the soil to become more responsive to the touch of industry and the harvest more abundant to meet the measure of a larger hope." EDUCATION IN GENERAL HYGIENE AND SANITATION. 11 "Let it be the high privilege of this great and free people to es- tablish a republic where rural pride is equal to civic pride, where men of the most refined taste and culture select the rural villa, and where the wealth that comes from the soil finds its greatest return in develop- ing and perfecting the great domain of nature which God has given to us as an everlasting estate." "Any race betterment to be of permanent value must be a better- ment of the masses." "The greatest failure as a world force is the man who knows so much that he lives in universal doubt, injecting a modifying clause into every assertion and ending the problems of life with an interrogation point." "This learning agriculture (which is a compound of the following ingredients — one-eighth science, three-eighths art, and one-half business methods) out of a book is like reading up on the handsaw and jackplane and hiring out for a carpenter." "We are now prepared for the accomplishment of what we have so earnestly sought, the placing of rural life upon a plane of profit, of honor, and of power." "The least worthy monument to a man is a granite block or a marble shaft. They represent the dead man's money and the kindness of friends. The true monument is what the man has accomplished in life. It may be a better gate, or house, or farm, or factory ; put his name on it and let it stand for him." "The power which transformed the humble fishermen of Galilee into mighty apostles of truth is ever present and can be used as effect- ively today in any good cause as when the Son of God turned His footsteps from Judea's capital and spoke to the wayside children of poverty." Education in General Hygiene and Sanitation. It is estimated that 25,000 adults die each year in our country from typhoid fever, and that at least 250,000 sicken with this tedious and dangerous disease. The mere economic losses thus sustained make a startling total, perhaps 100 millions of dollars annually. This waste and danger and death are the penalties we pay for ignorance and carelessness. Impure water, dirty milk, unsanitary toilets, the "typhoid fly," and unclean personal habits are the main causes. Typhoid fever is not a providential dispensation; it comes from filth and will quickly disappear with cleanliness. Europe, with fewer natural advantages, with much greater congestion and much more poverty among its people, has less than one-fourth 12 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. as high a death rate from typhoid fever per 100,000 population as we have. Typhoid attacks more men than women. This fact emphasizes its economic seriousness. The dreadful scourge of tuberculosis is estimated to carry off 250,000 persons in the United States every year, and those best informed about the money cost calculate that "it means 1500,000,000 of expense annually to the rest of us," more than to maintain all the common schools in our land. But it is belittling human life and happiness to measure the terrors of this disease in dollars. The suffering, the sorrow, the dread and cruelty of it hangs over millions of families. These are its most appalling features. What can be done to check it and finally to stamp it out? The late Dr. Arthur T. Cabot, in an article published since his death, urges that all tuberculous children attending public schools be segregated, taught as much as possible in the open air, and furnished with nourishing food. This is sane advice; but it will be of infinitely greater service to the children and to their families, if we can teach all of them to sleep in the open air or in well ventilated bedrooms, and to eat at home the kind of food they need. All children should sleep more than a third of the time, while most of them are in school less than a tenth of their time. The great insurance companies of the country are joining with the medical associations in health campaigns. They are spending large sums to persuade their policyholders to build open-air bedrooms, even in the colder Northern states. Tuber- culosis is contagious and every infected person becomes a center of contagion. If such persons could be completely segregated, the disease could be stamped out in a generation. But this is beyond human endeavor. The only way is that of sanitary and hygienic precautions against it. The education of all the people in these matters becomes imperative. The teachers and the schools must bear the chief burden of this work, for they touch each generation in its formative period. Hookworm disease encircles the earth and is more or less prevalent in all warm or mild climates. It is doubtless one of the greatest burdens warm climates have to carry. The eradication of hookworm disease in our country is well under way. Many thousands of young and old have been transformed from thin, spiritless persons into active, energetic workers, by the simple treatment given. The economic gain to the Southern States has been and will be of incalculable EDUCATION IN GENERAL HYGIENE AND SANITATION. 13 advantage. But we must prevent infection as well as treat those infected. Polluted soil will surely reinfect the cured as well as those uninfected. Unsanitary privies in the coun- try or towns will continue the fearful ravages of hookworm disease. It is safe to say a hookworm victim is, on the aver- age, worth half as much per day as one who is not infected. If the total losses in doctors' bills, patent medicines, decreased efficiency, low earning power, and dulled ambition were com- puted, the sum would be astonishing. But happiness and comfort, progress and initiative are worth more to a nation than all its money. What is primarily desired is a healthful, vigorous people. All the blessings of life are then in sight. The Panama Canal will soon bring the South into intimate relations with a new world. With the blessings of trade will also come bubonic plague, which for centuries has radiated from the Oriental countries. Now is the time to teach the people that where there are no rodents, especially rats and mice, this horrible and deadly disease is not found. We cannot begin too soon to preach this doctrine. The recent experience of San Francisco has demonstrated beyond doubt that delay is dangerous. Plague is a rat disease and is transmitted to man through the fleas that infect the rats. A flea which has bitten an infected rat and later bites a man infects him. Then there is the great problem of sex hygiene, with all the prudery and false modesty of society to overcome. Insane hospitals are overcrowded and many of the inmates are there because of their ignorance of the dreadful effects of secret dis- eases. It has been determined that paresis, a form of incur- able insanity, is almost always traceable to syphilis, though comparatively few people know this. These diseases break up many homes, blind thousands of innocent children, and destroy the moral fiber of nations. A general crusade for purity and sex hygiene has begun, but the task is stupendous. At the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held at Washington, D. C, in September, 1912, the most exten- sive and by far the most educational exhibit offered was that on sex hygiene. It attracted more attention and caused more discussion than any other exhibit. People had not known the awfulness of these diseases and the terrible rav- ages they are making in our country. Nothing but the facts will deter and fortify society. Every school in the land should help to devise ways and means for safe and sane teaching of sex hygiene. It must be done 14 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. decently, but scientifically. We have, as yet, given so little attention to this subject that we do not know how to teach it. But some acceptable way must be found, and will be found ; for the need is urgent. These few diseases are conspicuous examples illustrating the great need for hygienic education. All contagious and infectious diseases are preventable and would disappear in a decade, if all the people knew what to do and were willing to obey at once the plain laws of health and sanitation discovered in recent years. George Peabody College for Teachers is anxious to do its full duty in teaching and preaching the gospel of good health throughout the South. It sincerely believes that this is vital to the economic and spiritual uplift of this favored section. Accordingly it is planning to equip a department devoted to questions of general home and public hygiene, in order that it may give to all its students a careful and practical training in the fundamental laws of health promotion and health con- servation. We feel that the best way to reach all of the people is through the teachers of all the schools and that it is the legiti- mate business and duty of each teacher to teach these things in a plain, simple, but practical way. The work of this department will be divided into the fol- lowing subdivisions : 1. Personal Hygiene. 2. Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 3. School Hygiene and School Sanitation. 4. General Public Hygiene. It is discouraging to realize how little the average teacher knows of the simplest questions of personal health. For example, it has been found by actual investigation that not one in ten knows how to use in an effective way an ordinary tooth brush; in fact, an astonishingly large per cent of them never use a tooth brush. As a result of this general neglect, fully 75 per cent of the school children all over our country are suffering from diseased and decayed teeth, and are thus crippled for life. Little thought has been given to home sanitation by public school teachers and hence they cannot be so directly useful to the communities in which they work. EDUCATION IN GENERAL HYGIENE AND SANITATION. 15 Teachers too often give their pupils a great mass of facts with very little bearing on the real lives of the children and fail to lay proper emphasis upon those weightier matters which they need every day to make home life better, more prosperous, and happier. If, for example, country children could be taught the dangers of impure water and how to get a safe water sup- ply at their homes; the dangers of sleeping in unventilated bedrooms; the simple facts of bacteriology, and how to guard against germ-carrying insects, the schools would have more vital contact with real needs and be of more service. If we are to make the home life of the people easier, safer, and more satisfying, the problems of home sanitation must be studied and taught directly, persistently, and with enthusiasm. In matters of school hygiene most teachers and school offi- cials are still vaguely conscious of their duties and opportuni- ties. As a result, thousands of poorly planned school build- ings are erected each year, thousands of unsanitary buildings are not remedied; children are compelled to breathe foul air, sit in bad light and work at improperly constructed desks, drink contaminated water, and put up with scores of other atrocities. It is high time that these things should cease. All teachers, therefore, should have special courses in school hygiene and school sanitation in order that they may not only manage their schools according to the laws of physical and mental health, but also that they may advise boards of trustees, architects, and school authorities in general how to plan and equip school buildings. There is a large field for useful service in this division of the subject, for it not only includes the care of health, but the development of health. Many children with wise guidance and proper care at the right time will develop strong, vigorous bodies; but if neglected, will be weaklings throughout life. Physical education and development demand far more atten- tion in our schools than we have given thus far. The rural sections of the South are especially in need of better health conditions. "We are in sight of the solution of many of the problems of municipal sanitation," says Dr. Freeman, of the State Board of Health of Virginia, "but no such conditions exist in the country districts. The contri- butions of modern science are lost to the country population through lack of organization and education. The isolation of the country makes it difficult to educate the country people regarding health measures." 16 PEABODY COLLEGE BULLETIN. The South, however, must learn that one of its chief blessings lies in the fact that so large a percentage of its people live in the country, and that it has few overgrown cities. But if virile people continue to live in the country, life there must be made more joyous, prosperous and healthful, else they will move to town and conditions there will be worse for both city and country. The polluted well or spring, the dirty, ill-kept barnyard, and the lack of convenient, sanitary toilets on the farm are the immediate causes of more illness than people have ever suspected. Because bacteria are invisible without the use of a microscope, it is difficult for the average farmer to believe in their existence. This adds greatly to the difficulty of teach- ing some of the fundamentals of sanitation. The appeal will have to be made with stereopticon, motion pictures, and simple but plain demonstrations. All this can be done in college classes easily and without great expense. But the facts must be taught in a simple, untechnical way to the people as a whole, and this is a difficult task. Peabody College, true to its purpose and character, wishes to help the cause of education in a large public way. It intends to go to the people and to do what it can to make life better and more significant. Its business will be to serve where its service will do the most good, and not simply give advice in quiet college halls. It is poor economy to use expen- sive equipment in laboratory or class room and not seek to multiply its usefulness and test its educational efficiency out among the people under actual life conditions. We believe that it is a real tragedy to direct or permit young people to neglect or impair their health for the sake of learning. There can be little doubt in the minds of all who strive to foresee the significance of present-day movements, that we are entering upon a new era in the salvation of the world. If we are to succeed in saving men's souls, we must save their bodies from the degradation of disease and the vices which go along with physical weaknesses. The conservation of the natural resources of the world includes physical health and moral health, for these are the greatest assets of any nation. The physical uplift of any people always prepares for spiritual awakening; while physical degeneration has ever foretold degradation and decadence. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 3 0112 111958903 THE TRUSTEES OP GEORGE PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS PRESIDENT JUDGE EDWARD T. SANFORD, Knoxville, Tenn. VICE-PRESIDENT HON. J. B. ASWELL, Natchitoches, La. SECRETARY-TREASURER E. A. LINDSEY, Esq., Nashville, Tenn. CHAIRMAN OP EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE JUDGE J. C. BRADFORD, Nashville, Tenn. Dr. B. J.Baldwin, Montgomery, Ala. Prof. Hugh S. Bird, Fredericksburg, Va. W. A. Blair, Esq., Winston-Salem, N. C. Stuart H. Bowman, Esq., Huntington, W. Va. James E. Caldwell, Esq., Nashville, Tenn. Hon. J. M. Dickinson, Nashville, Tenn. Thos. B. Franklin, Esq., Columbus, Miss. Joseph K. Orr, Esq., Atlanta, Ga. A. H. Robinson, Esq., Nashville, Tenn. Bolton Smith, Esq., Memphis, Tenn. Prof. W. K. Tate, Columbia, S. C. Gov. Ben W. Hooper, Ex-Officio, Nashville, Tenn. "Education, a debt due from present to future generations."— George Peabody.