All of the agencies of government,—local, State, and national,—have cooperated to make the children’s clubs one of the leading agencies in developing that trained intelligence which is so great an asset in the prosperity of any community. Thanks to the tireless efforts of men like William H. Smith, the children’s clubs have become one of the most aggressive factors in educating rural communities to higher standards of efficiency. There are many kinds of clubs—corn clubs, potato clubs, tomato clubs, pig clubs. Anything which the children can raise is a legitimate object of club activity. The work in the South started with corn clubs.
The corn-club idea in Mississippi grew out of an educational experience of Professor William H. Smith.[24] For years Professor Smith had taught, in a mildly progressive way, the time-honored subjects which were included in the study-course of the rural school. Two of Professor Smith’s students, a boy of twenty and a girl of seventeen, left school; and they left, as the boy told Professor Smith very frankly, because the school taught them very little that would be of use later on in the work which they would be called upon to do. This boy expected to grow cotton; the girl expected to marry the boy, manage his domestic affairs and attend to the many duties which fall to the lot of women on a farm.
When he left school, the boy put it to Professor Smith in this way: “I am goin’ to be a farmer. I ain’t fitted to be nothing else, and book learnin’ ain’t helpin’ me none. It’s just a waste of time. I’ve got to clear land and work it into a farm. If I was goin’ to be a bookkeeper or an engineer, or somethin’, what you are teachin’ me here might help; but I can’t remember that I have ever learned a thing since I got the hang how to figure the interest on a mortgage, that will be of any account to me on a farm. Almost all the boys has got to be a farmer like me. You know, professor, it appears to me like these schools for the people ought to be teachin’ the children of the people how to make a livin’ on the farm—how to make life better and easier, instead of just makin’ us plum disgusted with ourselves.”
This experience, standing out among a multitude of similar experiences, led Professor Smith to an interest in some form of educational work that would help boys and girls in their lives on the farm. The outcome of his thinking and experimenting, combined with the thinking and experimenting of many another capable educational leader, is the club idea for boys and girls alike.
There was a real need for the corn club. For the year 1899 the total corn area in Alabama was 2,743,060 acres. On these acres the farmers secured an average of 12.7 bushels per acre. Ten years later, in 1909, the total acreage had decreased to 2,572,092, and the per acre yield had decreased to 11.9 bushels per acre. Here was a decrease of 170,968 acres in corn; of 4,367,310 bushels in the corn crop; and of .8 of a bushel in the average yield per acre. The boys’ corn club movement was started in Alabama in 1909. That year two hundred and sixty-five boys were enrolled. The average per acre yield of corn in the State was 11.9 bushels. The next year the enrollment of boys reached twenty-one hundred; the total yield increased more than sixty per cent.; and the average number of bushels per acre rose to eighteen. The figures for 1911 and 1912 show an increase, though less extensive, in the total acreage and the total yield of corn for each year.
Southern land will grow corn. Properly treated, it will better a yield of twelve bushels per acre, five, ten, and even fifteen-fold. The leaders of Southern agricultural education knew this. They knew, furthermore, that the betterment could never be brought about until the farmers were convinced that it was possible. How could they be shown? The Farmers’ Bulletin had a place; the experiment farm had a place; but if it were only possible to make every farm an experiment farm!
The way lay through the boys. They could be induced to organize miniature experiments in scores of farms in every county, and then the farmers would see!
Backed by a carefully worked out organization, the authorities set out with the deliberate purpose of educating the farmer through his son. If his corn yield was low, he would learn how to get a larger yield. If he raised no corn, he would learn of the spot-cash value of corn. Boys were organized into clubs; directions were given; prizes were offered, and the boys went to work with a will. For the most part they took one acre.
When compared to the yield on surrounding acres, the corn crops secured by the boys are little short of phenomenal. In Pike County, Alabama, where the number of boys engaging in corn club contests increased from one in 1910 to two hundred and seventy in 1912, the average number of bushels per acre grown by the boys rose from 50.5 to 85.3. In the entire State there were one hundred and thirty-seven boys who made over a hundred bushels per acre each in 1911. The average per acre for each of these boys was one hundred and twenty-seven bushels, and the total profit on their corn crop was $12,500.
Records made by individual boys through the Southern States run very high. Claude McDonald, of Hamer, S. C., raised 2104/7 bushels at a cost of 33.3¢ a bushel. Junius Hill, of Attalla, Ala., raised 2121/2 bushels. Ben Leath, of Kensington, Ga., raised 2145/7 bushels. John Bowen, of Grenada, Miss., raised 2211/5 bushels. Eber A. Kimbrough, Alexander City, Ala., raised 2243/4 bushels; and Bebbie Beeson, Monticello, Miss., raised 2271/16 bushels.[25] These boys were all State prize winners.