Rockefeller to the Rescue.

“Our Board,” he said, “was established and endowed, and has been at various intervals re-endowed, by Mr. Rockefeller.”

“To promote education in the South?”

“Not in the South alone, nor even primarily; but we had, of course, to study the special conditions prevailing in the South. We soon convinced ourselves that the deficiencies of Southern education—and they were enormous—were due to the sheer poverty of the country.[[25]] In the Southern towns there are good schools, and the accommodation is fairly adequate. But only 15 per cent. of the population of the South is a city population. The remaining 85 per cent. is rural and agricultural—not even, for the most part, gathered in villages of any size—so that the problem of bringing education to the doors of the people is an immensely difficult one.”

“I suppose compulsory education is not to be thought of?”

“It is thought of; it is mooted; it is coming; but not yet awhile. That is just what, as I say, we realized—that the South is too poor to pay for an adequate system of education, and that the problem is too huge a one for even the most lavish outside philanthropy to tackle. What was to be done, then? Manifestly to enrich the Southern agriculturalist, so as to enable him to pay for the schooling of his children. As it is, his average income is something like a third of the average income of a man of his class in (say) the State of Iowa, where the public-school system is adequate and satisfactory. Multiply his income by three, or even by two, and he also will be able to afford an adequate public-school system.”

“So your problem was nothing less than to double or treble the wealth of the fifteen or sixteen Southern States?”

The Boll-Weevil.

“Something like that; and it was right here that the boll-weevil came in. With ruin staring them in the face, the farmers of the affected districts took up eagerly the system of what are called Demonstration Farms, organized by Dr. S. A. Knapp, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That department, at its experimental stations and with the aid of its entomologists, had devised a method of combating the pest. Roughly speaking, it consisted of getting in ahead of the weevil—carefully preparing the ground and selecting the right varieties of seed, so that the main part of the crop could be harvested before the insect was ready to attack it. But it is one thing to devise a scientific method and another thing to persuade and teach farmers to carry it out. This difficulty Dr. Knapp got over by the following means: he organized a body of skilled agents, who went to the leading citizens—merchants, bankers, or what not—of a given district, and said, ‘Introduce us to the most intelligent and progressive farmer of your neighbourhood.’ Then to this farmer the agent would say, ‘If you will set apart a certain amount of land to be treated, under my supervision, exactly as I shall prescribe, I (that is to say, the Government) will provide you with the right seed for the purpose, and you will see what the result will be.’ Then meetings would be called of the neighbouring farmers, principles explained, and their attention directed to the experiment. Their life-and-death interest in the matter would make them watch the result closely; and as, in each case, the result would be a far larger crop per acre than they had been used to before the appearance of the weevil, you may imagine whether the methods of culture were eagerly adopted and the right sorts of seed eagerly applied for.

An Educational Campaign.