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Show I THE LADY OF POS3UM TROT AND HER LOG CABIN SCHOOL 1 I MISS MARTHA BERRY'S Work for Poor Bays and Girls Upon Which Georgia H cflg Has Modelled Eleven Industrial Institutions A M l , i i H Miss Berry's Cabin Home. (The Heart pf M the School) Hi i M ' CoDTriclir. IPU b7 llic New Vorl."noraia Co. All riht xcTroil.) v B All teaching cclucntlon to wear ovcraHs,". sulci H J Miss Martha Berry, her fine eyes lighting up HL with enthusiasm. H "I a in investing In the llvt.s of boys' nutl girls H instead of bonds, and am" trying to persuade my H friends to do the same. For ?G0 I can keep n boy rt't mj HI H school for a year and send him buck to his mountain H home to be n leaven In (lie lives of the whole commu- H nity. Our public schools fit boys only for the life of H the town When I opened mine I determined that It H should leach boys to be prosperous and happy on the 1 fann. Hl "And I must have succeeded, for the State of Geor- H gla has opened eleven Industrial .choohs modelled H upon mine Vet they do not have my opportuni Bl ties, for they must take all who come, while I ran H choose the pour boys who cannot go elsowhcre. They Hj make the most enthusiastic pupils the kind It Is a M satisfaction to work for." H And yet Miss Berry Is a daughter of the old South. M where American blood runs very blue Indeed. Like H any gently bred Southern girl, she grew ujpon her own H ancestral ncres outside the quaint little village of H, Possom Troty near Rome, Go., without any idea of H earning her own living, much less teaching others to H earn theirs. She was occupied with her social world H and her friends. The change that made her a con- H structlvc educator, with a school which teaches i&O M boys and girls to make the most of their mountain M 'homes, was wrought not by the time honored slump H! in stocks but by a pair of brown eyes peering through H & crack. H "One Sunday afternoon I tat reading in a little log H ' summer house," she says, "when suddenly I saw tbree H pairs of eyes peering at me through three cracks at H different heights. . I love children, so I lured them In H . with promises of stories. They came, half wild and H tattered, and I found that they didn't know a bingle H story, even from the Bible. They had never so much H ! as heard of Samson or Goliath or the Tower of Babel. H I 'Wert Sunday they came back and brought others, H i and after a while somebody gave us an old melodeon. H I We had only one hymn book, but It didn't matter, for H they couldn't read. I 'lined out' the hymns, and the H children sang tbcm to the squeaky music. They M called me the 'Sunday lady,' and more and mo're came H ' mrtU there were forty. Bitting on soap boxes and M blocks of wood and even the floor. H ' "But I couldn't bear to think of those children H . growing up without knowing how to read and write, H i bo I trallt a cabin schoolhouse. The county furnished' H a schoolmaster for five months, bat when the time was H ap I had grown so absorbed in tho children that I paid H his salary and kept him the rest of the year." Hj ' "The children were so eager to learn, they came M I unbellevablo distances down from their 'mountings' H I over the wretched roads to go to that school. Finally M wme of the people In PoBSum Trot begged me to start H a school there and I opened It in a leaky cabin. The M eecond day we were nearly drowned out, but within M a wccJc wo had a new roof put on by the Interested H ' fathers. H "And under all the slovenliness and poverty I found H the most horning desire to learn. But what was the H use of teaching a little girl to read when she hardly H ( knew how to comb her hair? And so I built a larger Hj school, where I could teach them some practical H things. A friend, Miss Elizabeth Brewster, a grad- thai 1 1... i. . u nrti-. aching. They helped one another tub and rinse"the clothes and hang them out, and from that day to this there has uever been a murmur about the work at the school. "They do every bit of it: cooking, washing -cruh-bhig. and all among them, for theie Isn't a darky or a servant of any kind on the place. Each boy works two hours a dnj" ar?some task besides his regular trade work and glad enough they are to get the opportunity. op-portunity. Even wilh tbrir labor it costs us $100 a year for each boy, and as they pay only $G0 the rest must come from somewhere, and we have a waiting list of two hundred- We have accommodations now, nine years after the school was started, for two hundred hun-dred boys.. During tile last two 3 oars we have also had thirty-five lrls. ' A third of them come from Alabama. Ala-bama. We take none from our own nelghboihood now, for It has good schools of its own. Trained in Trades. "From the beginning the boys have been trained In trades They are tuught how lo build houses, aud they have done every bit of work on the school buildings, build-ings, rolling the logs, running them through our own sawmill, and putting up the extra buildings as we get the money for them. ' "Instiuctors were added giadually. as we could afford af-ford them, and now theie are twenty-six, who touch the boys the carpentry, blacksmithlng, care of stock and farming that th'ey need to know Every teacher receives a salary now except myself, and I am icpald In the eagerness and the gratitude of the boys and girls. ''Sometimes they hardly realize how grateful they aie uutll they get back home. A young girl taken out of a mountain cabin, where there are eight or nine brothers and sisters, is dazed by the change. All her life she has eaten only fried bait pork and 'pone.' with a choice between 'long swcelenlii' ' of molasses, or rs.hort wectcifln" ' of sugar. She has slept on a pallet on the Uoor and worn a dress spun and woveu. as well as made, at home. At the school she Is taught Urst of all to sit at a table and to use a napkin and a knife and fork. Teachers and pupils, eat at the same tables, aud example woiks u'ouders. "Then she begins to notice the way tha't the other girls wear their hair and the way they wash their faces. She is converted by the gospel of soup and wuter. Within six mouths she is transformed from a gypsy to a beautiful young woman, for our mountain boys and girls are nearly always good looking. And their natural courtesy quickly finds expression In conventional con-ventional good manners. "Meanwhile the girl has been learning not only how to rend and write, but to make the best butter, which will do to send North, Instead of selling In the South sit llftceu cents a pouud, and the very highest grade of cheese. She learnt to eat and to cook vegetables, and haw to ralse them In the garden. She is taught to bake Might bread, the white bread of the North, which she bus never known, and to roust and stew meat, to cheat the deadly frying pau. She Is taught simple diessmuking and millinery, and she takes a course In nursing that will make her a better wife and mother. These girls marry at fifteen or sixteen and their families fam-ilies seldom number less I'mn a dozen children, and often more. We are teaching them things whh-h will make their hnrd. Isolated l(es eacr and pleUantcr. In the little dormitory room which she shales with .another girl each one leamy how attractive a, home may be made. One of our girls who went back for her summer vacation after four mouths In the school told her family that she and another girl hud hud a room all to themselves. They dldu't believe her! She spent the summer teaching her old grandfather to read out of a. Bible that had been In the family for two hundred years. Between lessous she planted a kitchen gaiden and taught her mother how to cure for J 1 III Hl.ll)Li mi 1 ,.'-"" ' JV"P and cook the vegetables. But after Bhe hod returned to school the family prepared a surprise for her. They built a 'lean-to' thnt was all her own, and when she I came back It was ready for her. It wns all they could do, but they did 'It. I "And yel these boys and girls are not being edn- I cated out of their environment. They are eager to get back home. The boy who has scrubbed floors all (-winter at the school Is perfectly willing to do it for his mother. People come from miles around, dressed i In their homespun best, the wompn riding on pillions behind the men. to see what John has learned. And 1 he i as willing to talk about scrubbing as about pew ways of Improving the soil. The old nre as eager to hear and profit bj new experiences as the young. But , they have been shut up In their mountain fastnesses while the world progressed. "I very much regret that mj' boys should be confused con-fused with the 'po whites.' These 'highbinders' have a splendid heritage of health, morsillty and industry, indus-try, as well they may have, for they are of purest American stock. When the local chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution first came out to visit the' school they found that nearly every boy in It had a Revolutionary grandfather or two and was proudly cousclous of the fact. 'Hero tales live long in the community where there are no books, and every mountain crossroads has Its Homer. "But after I hod educnted a few boys and sent them back to the mountains I began to realise that 1 would have to I rain some girls If I expected to keep tlu'in there. It was a hard struggle to get the first bui dine, smd that overllowed almost befoie it wa.s il 11 Is lied Last term we reared a little four room dwelling houe near the school and named It Bide a-Wee cottage. In the hope of a new dormitory, and seven girls and n teacher lived there. This summer we are hoping to build a dormitory, a long home to hold twenty glrld. WBp'M Berry School, Rome, Ga. Carpenter Work and Cement Work All Done by A. Type oflhe Mountain Boy uate of Stanford University, offered me her services and for four years we worked together. "But we were unable to help the mountain boys who most needed help. The fourteen per cent of Illiteracy Illit-eracy lu this country is chargeable lo these people, but their cabins are so scattered and the roads so bad that It would take a prohibitive number of teachers to reach them all. We could not keep our boys even In bad weather, and we could do little In the way of Industrial In-dustrial training. So I decided to open a boarding school where they could receive that training, and 1 built a two story log structure, with a dormitory. Then I set about finding my pupils. "Up in the mountnlus I found two boys paving their board in order to study with an old schoolmaster who took snuff. They weie working hard aud going without sufficient food and clothing to. learn Gieekl With these two boys I went back, aud three more came, sent by my old pupils. So with these five we made our start That was in 1002. "Tho new building had cost $3.000, and that hud been a severe struln on my resources.. There was no money left for service. So when wash day came around I got the water ready in the tubs on the back-veranda back-veranda and suggested to the boys that they attack the pile of clothes. "But they h'eld back. Washing was 'wlmmin's work." 'Very well,' 1 said, and I rolled up my sleeves and went to work myself. Finally one of thqm touched me on the arm. That's no work for you-all,' he said, and so 1 gave him my place very willingly, for by Original Cabin, Birth-y Birth-y place of the Berry School The boy& can build It during their summer vacation, using our own timber, and can so earn enough to put themselves through school next winter. , Sometimes that ?.i0 is fearfully hard to gel. "One of the most beautiful girls we have lnd um'.ed two year hoeiug corn and picking cotton to keep her brother lu the school. By the time our girls' department depart-ment opened he was leaching a country school, and he used his salary to send her here. She had the loveliest love-liest clear blue eyes and the most terribly calloused hands I ever saw. Winning Over Her Father. "Another girl who had no mother worked two years to come to the school ner father was willing, since she left a sister at home to keep house, but while she was gone he married again, a woman with a huge family of small children, and the new mother wanted the stepdaughter's help. So she went home to do what she thought was her duty. But conditions there were so bad that she run away, bringing her younger sister, and begged us to take them both In. Wo could not resist her appeal, but presently the father appeared, ap-peared, threatening to 'do for' the whole school. "it wns Just at dinner time, and I persuaded him to sit down with the pupils and teachers and have1! dinner Then I took him all about the school, ending with tho room that the two sisters were sharing. lie look one look at Its freshness and the two little white beds. " 'Well, marm, the Lord be 'praised that my little gals has found a place like tills. The old woman '11 have to do her own cookln'," he said. And they3 are still with us. "We do not lose track of the pupils evcu when they go away, for they are expected to write to me at least twice a year and let me know how they are getting on The motto of the school Is 'Lift, not Lean,' and most of them have been a blessing to the communities to which they have gone. One young man Is teaching teach-ing u country school and preaching In three- Baptist chapels, long distances apart "But the way to win a Southerner's respect Is to beat his cotton ciop, and It Is by puttiug to practical use the agricultural Iijstiuctlon they have received at the school that tho boys are really helping matters. Each of them Is taught from the moment he comes to the s'chool that he Is only an apostle sent buck to the ones we could not reach. And they nre glad to learn fi all he knows, especially about scientific farming. . M "Our library work Is an Important port of tho SB school, for we not only Introduce these boys and glrln, , OE most of whom huve never seen any book but the Bible, W& to the world of books, but distribute through the inoun- ' MR tain districts such mnzuglnes as come our way. g? "A stray magazine brought one boy to the school i HM from his home at the foot of Lookout Mountain, forty Wm miles away. lie had walked all that distance, driving " fl a yoko of oxen, the only thing the family had lhat wos W worth money, to learn to read. He his been with us ' Hj two years, and we have taught him not only to read ' H and write, hut how to make that farm raise some- ffijj thing worth selling. Ijj "It was hard to tako those oxen, and yet without igl them we should have hnd to send him back. Tlif S&J school ha.s no endowment nnd only a few schol ir 0, ships, and there are more than two hundred waltlns lii to get In. I have worked as hard as I can for twe'u- Jf years without a vacation, but I cau take so few! jn "One of our urgent needs is a hospital, for last year a)? we hud an epidemic of measles, with nearly a hun lS dred cases, nnd no place to keep them but the regular Pj dormitories, which are always crowded. ( fo1, ''But one thing we arc to have, and that is a gym j K nasluui. The boys huve so longed for one thsit bit by f bit among themselves, the alumni and the faculty. ni' they have managed to scrape up $300. It Is not murlj If but thev can put up the building and muLe the ap, 1 ,S rams themseh c. Ijfe "This year we are also to have an addition to 'Sup ' jfc shluo Shanty the original log cabin where the Sim 4 Kf day school started. Ai r room has been addul. ' fS and the classes for girls have been meeting the-e 1 It t But next year, when we hope to be nblc to take sl'w ' K girls, there will have to bo more room. We oxui t ' H also to be able to use this addition for chapel servli. , ft for the religious teaching, though undenominational t 11? a very Important part of the work of the school j k " 'We get .ir equipment ns we can. People , j us. boxes of sheels and pillowcases and kitchen n , ' fc.il- from time to time. Severnl Northern board ., .schools have sent Christmas boxes of clothing j V gifts for our girls, for they are. of course, very tmu, ( piolded even with the necessaries, and a bit of 1 1 Jr bou Is a treasure. ! i "And so our buildings have grown up, one by one ! leg rablns like those from which the pupils came. fj rather, like those which we hope they will build - themselves. We hae always tnken pains to have u ij simple furniture which the boys can make In ti- I carpenter shop as artistic as possible. We burn oil C lumps, just as they will have to do, nnd we tench them ' I how beautiful a thing a 'spotless lamp which give a I clear light may be. 11 "Over the outside of the cabins we have trained Ij. vines, and now lu the spring the campus Is a bower , K of dogwood blossoms and green leaves. Boys In Ij; overalls uro raking the paths and sprinkling the grass R and girls In calico dresses are tending the tlowers nnd R the pink azalea trees. Beauty atones even for drudg . 1 cry, and our sturdy young people spend no Idle mo- pi ments j fi "They have organized among themselves a Country , 5 Life Club, which pays particular attention to this j P Idea of beautifying the farm house. Last winter the jf club discussed also the co-operation of farmers for S the slo ot their products, the organizing of young people of the rural communities ior social, Intel- . lectual aud religious purposes, model farm houses. and modern conveniences on the farm. The members '' of this club mean to organize u similar club whereer 1 they go throughout the mountains. Many of them te.u h In country schools until they have accumulated ' $1 little money, nnd then they buy farms of their own. I j 1 Visited by Mr. Roosevelt. I, f "We aie fortunate In being nenr enough to the main 1, 1 lines of travel to get good lectures, and people have ' s been very kind about coming out to talk to us. The h National Secretary of the Good Roads Association h spoke to the school In March. Soon after his return from Africa President Roosevelt visited us, and when m I asked him If he could suggest any Improvements lie i said: 'One a department for girls.' 1 had often , Ij longed for that, nnd now we have it. "No. I have not found that my Interest In the school I mnde any dlfferenco in my social life, except that I ' J have lacked time to go to places us 1 used to go. .My ' friends have ull been most Interested, and they have , helped mo In all the ways they could. j & "But 1 do not regret the pleasures I have given up, P for anything I have doue has been repaid to me a f thousandfold. There Is a blessedness In making people j ? I happy that surpasses anything else on earth, I lie- j! Ueve. And I am not at all sure that I have not learned as much as the boys and girls, in the first place It i has mode me a business woman. The necessity for jf making one penny do tho work of two hns developed ' k system aud business methods In me. Our system of J bookkeeping has beeu much praised and it Is cer- jj talnly strict 1 suppose our fare and our accommoda- I lions would seem very frugal and primitive to a real boarding school. But It Is heaven to our 'highland- ) ers,' and I would not change it If I could afford to do j ft so, for It teaches'the beauty of simplicity and the dig- I nity of labor. You see, I, toorhave learned. 11 "1 sometimes wish that 1 were rich enough not to N4 have to travel about and mnke speeches. I thought I B ne or could do that, but I have found that I could for R the duke of the school. When your soui Is in a thing j R juu cuu forget yourself. m "Always 1 wish 1 were two or three persons, und 1 15 then 1 could do all that must be done, and yet be with S my boys und girls all the time. I think sometime of ', J$ all a visit to New York used to meau to me when I f S wus a school girl myself, and smile. For now It Is only au Interval untjl 1 can get buck to where my heart is, t fe In the vine covered log cabins under the old trees." r |
