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Educational Nelvs and Progress
The Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity has estab
lished a chapter at the Georgia School of Technol
ogy. The new chapter is Lambda Alpha, and be
gins its life at Tech with seven members.
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The University of Georgia will be represented in
the debate with Washington and Lee University
by Robert S. Parker and Robert H. Jones. Mr.
Parker is an A. B. graduate of Emory College and
is at present a member of the senior law class at
the university. Mr. Jor.es is a member of the
junior law class of the university and is an A.B.
graduate of Princeton. The subject for discussion
is, “Resolved, That Immigration, Aided and Super
vised by the State, is the Best Source from which
to draw Labor for the South.” The affirmative
side of the question will be argued by the Uni
versity of Georgia speakers. The debate will oc
cur ait Lexington, Va., on April 22.
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The annual meeting of the county school officials
of Georgia will be held at Milledgeville, Georgia,
on April 23, 24 and 25. An interesting and in
structive program has been arranged and a large
attendance of the school officials is expected. An
annual address will be deliverd bv State School
Superintendent W. B. Merritt and school improve
ment work will be discussed by Mrs. Walter B.
Hill, Prof. M. L. Brittain and Prof. E. W. Childs.
There will be addresses on various features of
agricultural and school work by prominent educa
tors. Music will be furnished by students of the
Georgia Normal and Industrial College. Dr. Wyck
liffe Rose, Agent of the Peabody fund, Nashville,
will bo present and deliver an address.
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Dr. J. W. Lee, pastor of Trinity Methodist
Church of Atlanta, is the author of a number of
articles recently published advocating the estab
lishment of an industrial farm for the juvenile
negro boys of Fulton County. The sentiment he
has created and the interest aroused by his articles
crystallized last Monday at a meeting of the Meth
odist ministers of Atlanta, in a motion calling up
on the Board of County Commissioners of Fulton
County to immediately take steps to establish such
an institution. A suggestion was made at the
time of the ministers-' meeting referred to, by Dr.
11. L. Crumley that the Methodist ministers agitate
the proposition of having the State establish a
school for training feeble minded children. He stat
ed that after investigation of the subject he was
convinced that a great portion of the crime com
mitted in this country is traceable to the fact that
(Georgia makes no provision for the training of that
portion of her population which is feeble minded,
leaving them uncared for at a time when they
would be susceptible to good influences and proper
teaching.
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The World's Smallest Public School.
Wisconsin claims to be conducting the smallest
public school on the American continent. A single
family provides the pupils, six in number, and to
give these children an education the state pays a
teacher S4O a month. The family is that of John
F. Deitz, who has a national reputation as the
“Outlaw of Cameron Dam,” the man who is fight
ing an entire state, and its courts, and who is still
unsubdued after three years of defiance of the
authorities. G. F. Graham is the teacher of this
strange school, which is conducted in the Deitz
home, the only house for miles around Cameron
Dam, the spot in the woods of northern Wiscon
sin for whose possession the battle began which has
made Deitz an outlaw.
Deitz, who was formerly sheriff of Sawyer
County, whose officers he is now defying, claims to
have the light to collect from the Chippewa River
Lumber Company a fee for every log which passes
through the dam. To enforce his right he drew
all the water from the mill pond above the dam,
and left timber valued at $20,000 on the banks to
rot. The company refused to give in and sent men
to try to dislodge him. He beat off the company’s
The Golden Age for April 11, 1907.
men, then the courts were appealed to. A party
sent to attack him was fired upon and one man
slightly wounded. This stopped trouble for a time,
until a year ago when a new sheriff, the first having
resigned rather than make another raid, took a par
ty of six Milwaukee men into the wilderness, fifty
miles from the county seat. Clarence Deitz, son of
the homesteader, was wounded, and one of the raid
ing party was severely wounded. The others es
caped. Since then, however, Deitz has been unable
to get into a civilized community without danger
of arrest, so has remained in the wilderness. On
the other hand the officers have tried to starve him
out, but he remains steadfast, and during the win
ter a load of about 2,000 pounds of provisions, col
lected by admirers of his contest against a corpora
tion, was smuggled past the deputies to his home in
the woods.
But while a prisoner in the wilderness, Deitz can
still claim the right from the state to educate his
children, so Teacher Graham spends school hours
every day teaching various members of the family
of six children and the rest of the time is free to
wander about the woods, hunting and fishing. He
is almost in the forest primeval and wild game is
plentiful at the very door.
The United States in Education.
In an editorial on the above subject in a recent
number of that publication, The Washington Post
states that a correspondent has written asking,
“Does not the United States lead the world in ed
ucation in general and free schools in particular?”
Some information is given in response which may
prove of interest, although the correspondent’s
question is not answered in the affirmative.
“Our correspondent forgets that this country
of ours, as the home of civilized people, is ex
tremely young. Four lives of threescore and ten
each would about cover every day since the land
ing of the Pilgrims on Cape Cod or of the Cava
liers at Jamestown. Two such lives would more
than cover the period that has elapsed since the
Declaration of Independence. This nation is great
in development and power, but a youngster in
years. Forty years before the American Revolu
tion began, normal schools were established in Ger
many. The first of them was opened in Stettin,
Prussia, iin 1735. And the illustrious soldier and
statesman whose statue was presented to this coun
try by Emperor William of Germany and stands
on the grounds of the War College near the river
front in this city, founded the second one in Ber
lin in 1755. France had no normal schools until
1810, and the Netherlands was six years behind
France. The word normal comes from the Latin
“normal” meaning a carpenter’s square, hence
a model or pattern. In some countries these insitu
tions are called colleges for teachers, in others
training schools for teachers; in the United States
they have the name given them in Germany, nor
mal schools. The first one organized in this coun
try was located in Lexington, Mass., where it was
opened July 3, 1839, a private citizen, Mr. Edmund
Dwight, contributing half the fund of $20,000 re
quired for its establishment. Now all the states
in the Union have normal schools, and there
has been wonderful progress in education
throughout the country. But Germany is at the
head of the family of nations in regard to learn
ing.”
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The Progress of Simplified Spelling.
The Simplified Spelling Board has announced
a convention to be held in New York City in April
to formulate plans for an active campaign to se
cure more advancement in the reforms advocated.
The announcement is made that “the idea contin
ues to make friends” and the following statement
of progress is given:
“With an army of 15,000 supporters who have
signified their belief in the simplified spelling idea,
with 100 magazines and newspapers already using
the shorter forms, and with 130 other publications
ready to begin to spell in the space-saving way,
the Simplified Spelling Board is planning for this
year a very active campaign to secure the adoption
of its idea. In the first two months of this year
350 important business men have joined the move
ment. A campaign among college and university
professors in two months has added 600 names to
this class of supporters. As a result, simplified
spelling is now indorsed by 2,500 educators in the
institutions of higher education in this country.
Tire next campaign will be to interest the faculties
and pupils of the great normal schools. Already
there are 3,000 teachers who have signed the ad
hesion card, while simplified spelling is being taught
or authorized in the state normal schools of Colo
rado, Illinois, lowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wis
consin, and other states, and in the public schools
of Washington, D. C.; Dayton, Ohio; Columbus,
Ohio; Duluth, Minn.; Passaic, N. J., and many
other cities and towns.”
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Schools in Indian Territory.
In the issue of March 21 of The Golden Age
there was published an item stating that Congress
had appropriated three hundred thousand dollars
for the purpose of establishing new country schools
in Indian Territory for the benefit of the Indians.
We have a communication from Mr. B. F. Stamps,
of Hunton, Indian Territory, one of the editors
of the Missionary Baptist, published at Cordele,
Okla., in which he discusses the establishment of
schools in the Territory. His communication was
brought out by the item referred to above and we
take pleasure in giving it. He writes as follows:
“Editor The Golden Age:
“I clipped the following from your Educational
News and Progress of March 21. It is a fact that
Congress has appropriated three hundred thousand
dollars for schools in the Indian Territory, but not
one dollar of it for Indian children. The Indian
tribes of the Indian Territory have invested funds
sufficient to enable them not only to have a nine
months’ school every year for their children at
home, but to pay the board and tuition of all In
dian children that go to their own academies or to
schools of higher grade among the whites.
“Nor is this three hundred thousand used in the
incorporated towns and cities of Indian Territory
where whites own their homes and have their own
public schools by direct taxation. It is for the poor
people in the country and villages who are renting
Indian lands and have no school facilities, except
as they build school houses in almost every com
munity, and these will be utilized for the ‘five hun
dred new country schools.’ It is true that the
Indians own the land here, but it is worked by
whites to a large extent. There are not less than
seven hundred and fifty thousand white people in
Indian Territory, and about seventy thousand In
dians, about half of whom are full bloods. There
are perhaps thirty thousand negroes in Indian Ter
ritory. Oklahoma Territory has a good school sys
tem but there is no organized territorial govern
ment in Indian Territory. It is directly under
control of Congress like the District of Columbia.
Until such time as the laws of Oklahoma together
with its school privileges extend to Indian Terri
tory, as a result of Statehood, the Indian Territory
white people are dependent on Congress to provide
for schools.
“This is being done as indicated in the clip
ping. It will be another year before the whites in
Indian Territory can have their own jniblic schools
as a result of Statehood. The new Constitution
which is voted on next August provides for com
pulsory education of every child of school age for
at least four months in the year.
“The Indian Territory part of the new State
will be ‘dry’ and very dry for twenty-one years
till the last Indian become* of age. A separate
clause for the Okalahoma part will be voted on by
the whole State. We hope to have the whole State
dry.
“fraternally,
“Hunton, I. T F. Stamps.”
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