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The Campus Mirror
Miss Mabel Carney
On November 25-20, Spelman was favored
with a visit from Miss Mabel Carney, of tlie
department of Rural Education at Teacher’s
College, Columbia University. Miss Carney
is doing extensive work among Negro rural
schools and her present trip south is for
the purpose of gathering first hand informa
tion to make her study more complete.
In her talk to the Spelman faculty, Miss
Carney made a plea for these forgotten rural
children. The following are the; most signifi
cant facts which she presented: Approxi
mately /4 per cent of the Negro children in
t lie Southern States are rural. Approxi
mately 80 per cent of Negro teachers in the
South teach in some type of rural school.
There are more than 22,000 rural schools in
the South for Negroes and 2,000 of these
are found in Georgia.
These are the problems which confront
this college generation as future teachers in
these areas: first, solicit the co-operation of
white school officials. Second, recognize the
rural problem as it is. Third, recognize teach
ing as a profession.
Several social affairs were given in honor
of Miss Carney, including a tea given by
Mrs. John Hope on Saturday, November 2b,
from 5 :()0 to 7 :00 o’clock.
Miss Ruth G. Lockman
A charming young lady in the person of
Miss Ruth G. Lockman, of the Inter-Collegi
ate Prohibition Association, spoke fluently
on the good of prohibition and the prohibi
tion movement. She said that people in days
past were concerned with getting a man out
of the gutter, but today, we are concerned
with keeping him out of the gutter. Among
some of the statistics she quoted were: 85,000
persons were employed in the process of
making liquor; there were 22.8 gallons of
liquor distilled per person before the Vol
stead Act.
Dr. Ambrose Caliver
Mr. Ambrose Caliver, Senior Specialist in
Negro Education of the United States Bu
reau of Education in Washington, 1). C.,
addressed the Spelman audience Monday
morning, December 5th. Among his many
services, Doctor Caliver checks upon people
who drop out of college and finds out what
happens, after a period of time, to those who
do finish college. “Education is a process
by which we try to do something to ourselves
and to others,” said Doctor Caliver. “A ma
jority of the educated people today are
drunk with the idea of having possessions—
material goods. We have lost sight of the
true meaning of education. Unless the young
people educate themselves, they fall far short
of the mark.”
.lust here Mr. Caliver enumerated a few
statistics, illustrating the deplorable condi
tions of 40,000 pupils in elementary rural
schools. Two-thirds of the pupils are re
tarded. There are 14,000 in the first grade.
Forty-eight per cent of these pupils are
(Continued on Page 7)
Dr. Kenyon Butterfield
E. Lucilb Pearson, ’35
Students and friends of Atlanta Univer
sity and of Morehouse and Spelman colleges
heaid Dr. Kenyon Butterfield, author of
The /■'(inner and the New I/ay, foremost
world authority on country life, the editor
of the magazine “Country Life” and at one
time president of Massachusetts Agricultural
College, at another, of Rhode Island State
College, and, at another, of Michigan State
College, who spoke on Rural Life as a Chal-
lenge to the World in Ilowe Memorial Hall,
Friday, December 2, 1932.
Dr. Butterfield presented the Farm Relief
problem as it exists throughout the world.
His travels through India, China, Japan,
East Africa and Europe enable him to do
this with an understanding which brought to
his audience a realization that the farmers
of the United States are not the only suffer
ers in the present financial depression. In
stead of farm relief being little more than
a political issue in the United States, as it
is thought by many of us to be, it turns out
to be a world situation of depression in the
values of the products of the soil.
Dr. Butterfield brought to us the position
of the American farmer in his review of the
farmer’s place in America from the time the
settlements were made along the Atlantic
seaboard down to the present. He began with
the peaceful life of nearly 200 years on the
small farms along the seaboard, included
the great westward movement led mostly by
farmers, who conquered nature, carrying
with them the little red school, the country
church and the frontier type of civilization,
while furnishing the cities with food. When
the Pacific ocean was reached the tide of the
westward movement broke back on itself and
the farmer found himself confronted by the
problem of scientific methods and equip
ment. This stirring motion picture became a
still picture and we stared at a farmer per
plexed as he was by the scientific methods
of planting and harvesting and the inven
tions of farm equipment, both of which
brought disaster, because fewer hands could
produce what was needed. Dr. Butterfield
considered the economic position of the farm
er significant, first because the larger cities
and indust' ies aie dependent upon farmers
for food, supplies, and materials; second, be
cause the fanners are conservers of wealth,
the maintainers of the fertility of the soil.
From Doctor Butterfield’s lecture, the con
clusion is reached that “the lives of the rural
billion” are of more importance now than
ever before in the world’s history. The posi
tion of these people is a challenge to our at
tempt to build a civilization. It has been the
tendency of the privileged group, surrounded
as it is by its personal decisions, its group
consciousness, its religion, and its work, to
forget the under-privileged. When the under
privileged have been given the chance to think
with the privileged in solving the problems of
advancing civilization, Doctor Butterfield’s
conviction will have come true—the rural
billion will no longer be the dispossessed
and under-privileged, while it feeds the
human race from the soil.
Dr. William Vrufant Foster
On November 21st, at 4:30 o’clock, Dr.
William Trufant Foster, of Newton, Mass.,
former president of Reed College in Portland,
Ore., Director of Poliak Foundation for Eco
nomic Research, author and lecturer on cur
rent problems, lectured to the students of the
three institutions on “Managed Money and
Unmanaged Men”. While the present de
pression stares us in the face, we ask our
selves the question, “What caused it and
what can be done about it?” The depression
has not been caused by the business cycle,
by the recent war, by foreign debts, nor by
extravagance, for people saved more than
they consumed from 1923 to 1929.
The real cause of the depression is the fail
ure to handle what America has. In other
words, we must handle the situation of the
“too muchness of it all”. To talk of reduc
ing output with millions standing in the
bread line, reveals a fallacy in our economic
system. Adjustments must be made and not
reduction.
In comparison with the extent of pros
perity, which was 52 per cent above normal
in 1929, we are now in a state of depression
54 per cent below normal and mismanage
ment of the bank resources by the banker is
perhaps the chief cause.
As a remedy for the present situation, we
need collective action on a large scale.
Heavier taxation should be placed on the
able class. Public works should be planned
at long range. It is possible to set up a
financial organization in society without gov
ernment ownership for the control of income
and the management of money.
There should be managed money and un
managed men; this is the suggestion w’hich
was left with us.
Dr. Foster spoke at the Vesper Service on
Sunday on “What hast thou in the House?”
On Monday morning, in Chapel, he spoke
on “Should Students Study?” and on Tues
day morning, on some of his experiences in
France during the World War and pointed
out that in every great emergency and in
every big moment in life we feel the need of
an abiding consciousness of a Power working
for righteousness in the universe.
Monday afternoon, preceding his address
at Spelman, Dr. Foster spoke down town at
the quarterly meeting of the teachers of the
Atlanta public schools on “Retrenchment in
Education”, and in the evening he addressed
a dinner meeting of a men’s club. On Tues-
daj r afternoon, Dr. Foster met with a group
of seniors at President Read’s and in the
evening he spoke before the Economics semi
nar. At this meeting he discussed a plan for
stabilizing employment and purchasing
power, enabling the consumer to buy goods
and thus maintaining a steady flow of the
products of industry into consumers’ hands.
Dr. Foster gave his addresses under the
auspices of Atlanta University. He left
Wednesday morning for Fort Worth, Texas,
where he was to speak at the State Teachers
Convention.