The Summer School at Graysville, Tenn
By J. E. Tenney
CONDUCTING a summer school for teachers in the Southern field is accompanied with much greater difficulties than in other union conferences. In the first place, there are comparatively few to attend such a school, and they are widely separated. They teach for low wages, in no sense sufficient to admit of their traveling many miles, and defraying the expenses of board, books, etc. Yet in weak conferences there is, if possible, greater need of skilful teachers, who, by institutes and other advantages, have been better prepared to meet the difficulties incident to pioneer work. At the meeting of the union conference committee in January, 1905, it was voted to hold a short summer term for teachers at Graysville, Tenn., during the month of June. State conferences agreed to pay their pro rata of the traveling expenses of those attending the school, and about one third of the teachers in the South responded. Professor and Mrs. Washburn, Miss Bessie DeGraw, Mrs. F. R. Rogers, and the writer gave instruction along practical lines, and Elder G. C. Tenney, Dr. J. E. Caldwell, and Prof. P. T. Magan gave instructive and entertaining lectures. While we would have been pleased to have had at the school all of the sixty-five or more teachers in the Southern Union Conference, we feel that the occasion was a profitable one for those who attended, and that the results will be seen in the increased excellence of those schools taught by them.