An Important Meeting by F. G.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 6, 1909

An Important Meeting

By F. G.

THE Conference for Education in the South held its twelfth annual meeting at Atlanta, Ga., April 14-16. At this meeting were leading educators of both the South and the North. The president of the conference is Mr. Robert C. Ogden, of New York. This movement was begun about twelve years ago by several philanthropically inclined men from the North. For eight or nine years Mr. Ogden, a retired business man of large wealth, has devoted himself to these interests.

The meeting was not merely one for the consideration of general educational matters in the South, but was the occasion also of the conference of Southern State superintendents, supervisors of Woman’s School Improvement Work, the Southern Association of College Women, and of the educational organizations of the Southern States under the direction of the commissioners of education of these various States.

Important addresses on the following subjects were given at the conference: “The American Spirit in Education,” by Dr. S. C. Mitchell, president University of South Carolina, Columbia, S. C.; “Educational Progress of the Year in the Southern States,” by Jere M. Pound, State school commissioner, Atlanta, Ga.; “Agricultural and Industrial Educational Movement in the South,” by G. B. Cook, State superintendent of education, Arkansas; “The National Program in Education,” by Elmer Ellsworth Brown, U. S. commissioner of education, Washington, D. C.; “The Educational Campaign in Texas,” by Clarence Ousley, editor of Fort Worth Record, Fort Worth, Tex.; “A School for Grown-Ups,” by P. P. Claxton, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.; “The Country Road and the Country School,” by C. S. Barrett, president Farmers’ Union, Union City, Ga.; “Economic Organization of Rural Life,” by Dr. John Lee Coulter, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.; “How the National Government May Co-operate with the States in Bettering Rural Conditions,” by Gifford Pinchot, the Forest Service, Washington, D. C.; “Women’s Club as a Factor in Education,” by Dr. Lillian W. Johnson, Memphis, Tenn.; “Educational Work of the Club Women of Georgia,” by Mrs. Robert Emory Park, chairman Education Department Georgia Federation, Atlanta, Ga.; “Higher Education of Women,” by Dean Lida Show King, Woman’s College, Brown University, Providence, R. I.; “Public Taxation and the Negro School,” by Supt. C. L. Coon, Wilson, N. C.; “Education and Economic Development,” by Dr. A. Caswell Ellis, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

The program, as appears from these notations, was one of considerable diversity, and offered speakers from all portions of the country east of the Rocky Mountains. It is to be observed also that no other feature was so greatly emphasized as that of the value of industrial education. While educational interests in the South are in many respects behind those of the North, yet the South in its efforts of development recognizes that agricultural education is of paramount value, and this seems to be appreciated more fully than in the North. Over and over again during the conference was it emphasized that the soil is the mainspring of the life and development of any people, and, further, that the only way to make this idea of practical value is so to teach the children that they shall receive an intelligent appreciation of the value of rural life.

Wonderful reports were given of the marvelous progress which has been made in these Southern States in educational matters during the last ten years. While the amount of money expended for educational interests in all the Southern States does not equal that which is expended in two of the Northern States, Pennsylvania and New York, yet there has been an increase of over four hundred per cent in expenditures by these Southern States in the last ten years. Some of the States at the present time are building at the rate of over two schoolhouses for each day of the year.

With but one or two exceptions, negro education was treated in a very broad and fair-minded manner, and it was granted that a great responsibility rests upon the white people of the South properly to educate the negro. But it was also emphatically emphasized that the most proper way for him to be educated is in industrial lines; that the courses of study which are given him should embrace agriculture as one of their main subjects; nor was the same course less advocated for white children. It was clearly shown that the education of the negro was not a burden upon the white taxpayer, as the negro owns and pays taxes on more than enough property to pay for the education he is receiving; nor is he likely ever to be a burden, for, as his education increases, his property will naturally correspondingly increase.

In many of the States there are no compulsory educational laws, but the conference made loud calls for them. One reason that such laws have not been enacted to a greater extent is that they would have to apply to the colored as well as to white children; and there has been a strong prejudice in many sections against the education of the negro. But this feeling is rapidly giving way, and it is safe to say that to-day the majority of thinking men and women of the South believe that the right sort of education for the negro will not only be conducive to his betterment, but to the general development of the country.

Altogether the conference was one of great enthusiasm, and it clearly revealed many opportunities for the advancement of the work of the third angel’s message in this portion of the United States.

F. G.