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AU Shh in, e Pathetic Plea of Georgia Mountain Children to the Berry Schools. , Founder of These Unique - Institutions, Has Just Been Awarded the Pictorial Review Prize for Out- By MARY FIELD PARTON "Back Beyond" in an Ontario "for gotten section"--Haliburton, parts of Muskoka 'sections of Victoria, Hast- Ings and Renfrew counties, we had a very similar condition to that told in the story of the Georgia "Poor White Trash." The Department of Educa- tion, the Red Cross and several mis-| slonary ministers have improved the sad conditions in these backward parts of our fair province. The work is not yet completed--much is yet to! be done. Possibly the story in the New York Tribune of Martha Berry and her work may be an Inspiration to our Government to apply the same principles for the betterment of our own under-privileged children. Twenty-six years ago, on a Sunday afternoon, a star must have hung low and luminous over a little log cabin in the mountains of Georgia. Here, in obscurity, a dream was born to a gentle Southern girl. Few were wise enough to foresee the significance of her vision in the lives of thousands of poor and lowly folk. To-day, however, that dream has be- come the brick and stone reality of a great training scfiool for the boys and girls of the Appalachian Mountains; a nebulous dream has become the Berry 'Schools for the "poor whites" who live their starved, proud lives on Tre: -mote upland farms in ignorance and poverty. Moreover, to-day, Martha Berry, the founder of the schools, is the recipient of the annual achievement award of $5,000 given by "The Pictorial Re- view" to that American woman who within the last ten years has made the most distinguished contribution to our national life in letters, art, science or social welfare. standing Achievement came mountain boys, walking barefoot up and down the stony trails. Their number grew. "Larn us, Miss Berry," they sald. "Larn us what you-all know." Old As Well As Young But for each child who came, hun- dreds there were who could not make the long journey or whose parents thought "larnin'" a waste of time or whose labor was needed on the farm. Martha Berry discovered hundreds of such children when she rode on horse- back through the highways and by- ways of the mountains, coming upon weather-beaten shacks filled to the door and window sills with ragged children. Everywhere on these journeys she found dirt, illiteracy, illness. Every- where she found weary, worked-out men unintelligently endeavoring to wrest a bare existence out of the poor soll of the mountain side with the most primitive tools; everywhere tired women, bent over wash barrels or cracking corn betwéen flat stones or doing the work of the beasts of the fleld. And everywhere, too, she found tall, gaunt, blue-eyed men and women of her own proud Nordic stock who flercely rejected even the "larnin'" they craved because they were too poor to pay for it. "Thy people shall be my péople," sald Martha Berry as she consecrated her young life to the "poor whites" of the mountains. The Project Started Her next step was to open at her own expense schools nearer to the remote settlements of the people, but it was not long before she realized that her efforts on behalf of the chil dren were defeated by the home en- ¥ During these many years lanky boys | vironment. Of what use to talk about and girls in ever-increasing numbers cleanliness and godliness to children lands, trudging weary miles, hungry, soap and combs? It wasn't Sunday for "larnin'." Ragged, dirty, barefoot. | schools, it wasn't week-day schools ed they come, all, all they possess on | that these children needed. It was a their backs and in a shoulder bundle. | boarding school, a complete change "l come to git me larnin' hyar," of environment that was essential. they say simply, dropping their bir the school, whose wide gates swing the Berry Schools, a dormitory which open onto the paved-elm-arched "Road she bullt with her own money. From So Martha Berry deeded her share | den at the entrance to the grounds of Of her father's estate to the first of | of Opportunity." "We-uns has come, ma'am. Larn us, they say with the' dignity of old little children, a tragic dignity which offsets their rags, their untutored speech. Martha Berry, the founder of the unique Berry Schools at Rome, Georgia, was born to far more cul tured associations than those of the simple mountain folk of her country. | For her was planned a more romantic future than that which she elected. Behind her lay all the gracious South. | ern traditions of story and picture: a: great plantation, a white pillared house with broad balconies and overhanging wistaria; servants to fetch and carry; | the polished education given to the the inception of the school it was de- cided that in return for an education, for food and lodging, the boys could work. They were too poor to pay; too proud to accept charity. A dozen boys came. "You alm to larn us?" they asked. "Yes, I aim to." "Well, we-uns has come, ma-afm." So -in-return- for the opportunity to learn there was wood to cut, land to clear, a cow to milk, crops to sow and harvest. Gradually the plan and type of school most needed for the moun-, tain children took form in the mind of Martha Berry; education, she decided, must be like the mystic Trinity, three-' fold yet one; of the hand, of the mind and of the heart. Education must a film of the battle in 1852, she turn to outsiders for help, did she (Bo beyond the disapproving circle of 'her friends with the story of the mountain boys begging for an educa- | tion, willing to work long hours with plow and axe and scythe that they might know something of the world of books, might learn how to live more intelligently. Money Secured Money began coming in from her . and ever more children kept com- ing, making more and more money necessary. From all over the country tiny streams of contributions began flowing over .the Appalachians into Georgia to the Berry Schools. Yet never, never sufficient, never commen- surate with the need of the children of the uplands. An unending file of boys kept trickling down the moun- tain. trails, their packs on their backs, their overcoats patched, their hats battered. Footsore, shy, they stood gazing through the open grates down the "Road of Opportunity." Gradually the story of the Berry Schools and the sublime devotion of its founder spread beyond the state of Georgia. Men like Andrew Car- negie heard and heeded the story and started an endowment which assured a small annual sum, Women's clubs heard. Churches heard. Theodore Roosevelt exclaimed: real thing!" when he listened to Martha Berry tell the story-ef her! school. "There should be a schooler | girls, too," he announced. | Through his influence it became! girls of wealthy families. Her days i teach these raw minds and untrained | possible to build the first girls' dormi- back into. th were to be those of the aristocratic hands to think, to do and to feel.| tory, "Sunshine Shanty," With the © earth, how Southern belle . . . a laughing, joyous Essentially it must be agricultural, opening of this dormitory, slim, sun- girlhood; a brilliant marriage; an as- fitting lads to return to the soil from browned girls in sunbonnets, calico sured social poisti~n, Then came the Sunday adventure and out of it a dream which cut athwart social con- ventions. It is an old story now in the moun- tains, worn old as a folk tale by twen- ty-six years of telling and retelling-- the story of the humble beginnings of the Berry Schools. . . . A summer Sunday afternoon when Martha Berry, | a young girl just home from finishing which they sprang. 'With the coming of spring, six more boys came, one of them walking forty miles, driving a yoke of oxen. "Tis the fee for larnin' me, ma'am," he sald proudly. "They're broke ter plowin"." From a distant valley, leading his "fee" by a rope, came a lad with a sow, starved and dirty as the lad him- self. Others came, bringing chickens, [aprons tied about their waists in the ! manner of little old grandmothers, walked down the trails their brothers | had walked to enter the Berry School, { to work with their hands for the privi- lege of an education. "We-uns has come," they sald. "Wimmin-folks wants larnin' same's men-folks." So the school grew and grew; grew from its dozen Into the hundreds. school, told Bible stories in the cabin ducks to exchange for an education.|from its dozen into the hundreds. on her father's estate to three dusty mountaii lads she chanced upon as More often they brought nothing but strong, willing hands, Tall, lanky | | Buildings multiplied. More teachers came. More acres were cultivated. she drove home from church: Perch-|boys -came who, at the age of fifteen, There were additions to herds and ed on a soap box, with the children | squatting on shuck mats at her feet listening breathlessly, Martha Berry realized the poignant hunger of these starved children for knowledge. "Pa ez got him a Bible, on'y he cain't read it," sighed a lad. The next Sunday--""There's white trash chil'uns waitin' to see you," an- nounced the old family cook. "We brang us some sisters," said the boys. Cleanliness and Godliness Martha Berry looked at their hands and faces, caked with grime and soil; at their matted, unkept hair; at the rags they wore. She saw with quick sympathy that their neglected bodies needed training and care as well as their darkened little souls. To the telling of Bible stories were added lessons in washing. Every Sunday that summer brought more children, walking miles to hear the wonderful things the "Sunday Lady" told them; stories about Adam and Eve, about germs, about George 'Washington. But it was not until fall that Martha Berry discovered that she had begun a life work, started a career that she could not stop; that she had lighted the candle of hope in darken. -ed lives around whose flickering flame she must cup soft, white hands lest it out. Parents began to dome or sixteen, could not read or write but who in three years showed as' great progress as the average senior in a northern college. So the school grew. Martha Berry's resources were exhausted. Still, not until she had literally sold or deeded all that she had given to the poor did (flocks. And with the growth of the school its undaunted founder faced continually the problem of money for its maintenance, for equipment, for teachers. It is now twenty-six years since the three little dusty boys listened 'to Martha Berry tell magic stories in a "A Hunting We Will Go" INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH RODE The charge of the Light Brigade at "begging tours," as &he called. them ' have been coming dQwn from the up-| Whose parents were too poor to buy |. Spe-- THE GALLANT 8IX HUNDRED the battle of Balaclava, re-enacted by British cavalrymen at Aldershot for | tiny shack. They are grown men |crusaders to thelr kinfolk, eager to now. And Martha Berry, white-halr- battle against jgnorance and poverty. ed, gentle, with eyes both brilllant| There are no servants at ' Berry. and tender, looks down from the |All must work, All want to. It was "House O' Dreams," which the boys a mew and difficult idea to spread in and girls themselves built for her on the m tains t hand labor is the summit of Lavendar Mountain, | dignified a, and Martha upon the spreading realization of her Berry ught lads that lesson, work-/ Liz a pryfound psychologic change in oint éf view ' Many other girlhood's dream. . Nearly all the buildings have beefi the male tte foreign Bir Austen s | cally impossible, be taditerent fh ir weet edi t he loo for the don Several ' trom thelr more detached Positions, to ota. the. ther nay moony be ready with their counsel and ad- cable despatches. vice. He designated the British Bm- po 4 00 pire as a constant puzzle to the rest Lineq four or of the world, but as a puszle that was Although & wi being solved with amazing success, gain' hunter, she "guarding peace among ourselves and marry a man Yorkin for peace throughout the .... ... world." ; W. L. Mackenzie King, Prime Min {ster of Canada, spoke of Sir Austen as being as distinguished as his great father, Sir Joseph; having 4, filled nearly al} the portfolios in the Cabinet, and of being the "Locarno peace pact itself." mier 0 A guest as the expon sane idealism, ang even than during "I'm going to change my doctor, 1 constructed by the boys themselves. |subtle thinge are taught---an apprect: In the warm meadows beyond the ation for the beauty that lies" all | 'campus sturdy boys in the uniform about them, of the power of character. | of "thie scrool=-overalls=--are plowing. Martha Berry counts 2,500 boys" who Girls in blue dresses and pink sun- have gone out from her school skill- bonnets bend, like flowers themsel- ed farmers. 371 who have become ves, over flower gardens and vege- teacfers end principals In rural table rows. "Blue ribbon" cattle Schools, 307 housewives, 25 nurses graze in the meadows. Fruit ripens and 6 preachers. Others fill secre- in the orchard. tarial and 'office jobs. She sees her school and it methods copied by The. Harvest 'other backward sections. The bar From the verg first the Berry vest is in. | {Schools were esse lly agricultural. | 2 The five courses are given--! | agriculture, home| onomics, me- a) chanics, literature ence and a ; | normal .course--t, and girls for a praciig y ay, whe % 1 | from Bg 6 ¢ ti ol | academi 3 pA i flefent {Ing by of hy "This {5 the | py. of od vation and © put nitrogenous seed, how to rotate crops, fcarry on the: ally routing: an ddairy Beneration him from his father; TH years separate him from@his father's | understanding. When a girl leaves Berry she is an efficient homemaker, a good mate for her farmer husband. She can cook | and preserve and sew: She inh 3 pL A Mystic By deep self-probing he find e key to knowledge in his deep mind; , nerve-racked and with tor house, barnyard and dairy tidily : 8 cam 'weave and spin--anciopid oF She. can work out a family bud2dWM\ ® mented soul, and a balanced dlet as well as an He lost his mind when he had neared algebra problem. She is prepared} thie goal: a for wifehoed and motherhood, for the | --Stanton A. Coblentz in the New physica] eare of herself and those de- York Sun. . pendent upon her. eee. - Little Gifl (to her playmate): She is but a generation separated from her - mother. Two hundred] 'When I was born I was so s'prised years separate ber from her mother's | I couldn't speak for a whole year and understanding of life. She may be-|& half!" come a teacher to little mountain oe Thay re children, but in all events; both boys November is the month of the axe. and girls leave Berry to become turkey. Firat the politfetin gets Is, then the! | passengers, it has since been - rs 'woke_up- with a splitting 'eadache the 3 | other morning and when 'e came iI told "im 'T was at death's door, 'e L ead 'e'd pull me through", > C . . Not "I'm go sorry I spoke sharply to gach that boy. I must have cut him to the Bam 'Oh, it's all right; he has ne- "7 ERY i ro quick?" "No, he's The Lady 9% Marie Feodorovna "Tady of tears," \the, ure among the @ Yi even the Em, k cle of misery ed Both were 4 the world 4 but to queen? CH tr | row. } | Denm CzareV fate stol (his dea] {weeks Hf | rage. espondents--Yes, The letter "H" tant in the alphabet req 0 nding of Smith.--American Ty . . . "S-the Invitation of three 8 hotel to make a It was fourth at brid (A's partner) does sald, not bid, D goes Sever No Trumps. called The stakes are £5 a hundred. What sace, should A bid? Answer--A should bid them good night as quickly as pos sible. he age A #ccd g was the strangers a ito be CZ8) t Hague Of 3\, Statesmeid: World WF by m§ ror | feeble C: hag offdered them to 18 . 9 - frain. "28 he vio with his whole! Two loud knocks heralded the arri- family, wak murgg in that hor-'val of the rent-collector, A little girl rible cellar "at 5 But angwered the door, and said, blush not In her belief. "Hac end she ingly, "Please, sir; mother's out." "Is 'fersuaded that he 1h n hid- she?" queried the collector, peering ing. Before her collapsed the Whole down the passage. "Then tell mother great Russlan fabric, the great em- the next time she goes out to take her pire built of blood and tears and hu- shadow with her." misery that the Romanovs might . . rule and the aristocrats play in the splendor of their riches created by by the backs of the mujlks. Only | pj t, my man" Vagrant--* Denmark was left to her, and Map| oot, hi than an res Feodorovna returned to her ances-: telligent man like you has not beem tral home, If not to her ancestral! made ef of poli faith, but not until the war had end- ade Pics eng sev, he ed and the revoluation had plainly come to stay. And there she died.-- The Nation, New York. Dome Lights Restrain "Petters" 3 Japan's Cars 0 i Police Inspector--"I say, this is not a very comfortable place to pass the '| ferent electric batterfes, among one named the Daniel cell. Jock's "ply: was---"About Daniel's "cell 11 m Seattle.--Automobile makers in Am- erica have been advised of the "anti-| necking lamp' law" in Japan, one of the most peculiar of many governing the operation of motor ¥ehicles in the empire. The recent statute requires that all motor cars must be equipped hii 3ome lights which must be light. Mich iy 'od when driving after dark. While chael, ha the law was designated to protect at the fa tae reat ¢ the "anti-necking lamp lav." Unless %i he cars are so lighted at night the | anese police ouReeat, them. It Was a DRS More than once household had had old Joan for her e to bersip her d ! "| been sal¥ Wag at. d