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Official Newspaper of Coweta County. -Che f'fcvman JVews Official Newspaper of Coweta County. VOL. VI. NEWNAN, GA., FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 1. 1905. NO. 21 IF YOU SAW IT IN THE NEWS-TELL THE ADVERTISER YOU DID! EAST TO WEST AND BACK AGAIN Sights Seen in the Great West toy a Georgia Mem* ber of the National Editorial Ass’n. NUMBliK VI. Last week the reader was left at the western border of the great California desert. Admittedly it is an uninviting place to remain even for a week. But it takes all sorts of country to make up a glorious domain like that of the United States. And in the trip toward sunset the Nation al Editorial Association most as suredly surveyed every «kind of country and all sorts of • climate. For instance the thermometer was as high as 1 ‘20 degrees in the Death Valley, 354 feet below sea level, and a few days later, when Pike’s Peak was ascended, an altitude of .14,147 feet was reached, encoun tering a temperature of only 23 degrees al>ove zero, or 10 degrees below the freezing point, at 0:30 in the morning. But the purpose of this article, as per promise, is to describe briefly the garden regions of south ern California. An insight to these was beheld at Indio, as we passed out of the desiccating des ert, and the waving palms, gorge ous fruit trees and pretty vistas of orchard and field, made out of des ert by irrigation, were a sombre and satisfactory relief, after the long run with so little in sight save sand duiies, parched sage brush, giant cacti, or bare mountains— such a relief that many awake to view the scenes late hour, when at last tired na ture’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep, suffused us each and all to awake next morning in charming River side. Riverside has been well named the garden city of southern Cali fornia. The city proper covers twenty-live thousand acres of land, with some five or six thousand in- ’ habitants. But for twenty-five miles or more it reaches out into a lofty hill, whose uame we have now torgotten. It affords the best view to lie obtained of the city and the beautiful vicinity. Outlying for many miles are the beautiful orange groves and orchards, bear ing almost every conceivable fruit, the lower mountain sides covered with new-mown hay or waving fields of grain. We imagine the orange groves of lllyssus of which Bnlwer so often alluded, would pah* into insignificance before such a scene. And yet all around was formerly a desert. Money, irriga tion and climate have made it all. And such climate! It is never too hot to wear winter clothes if you desire and never eold enough to produce a killing frost. The trees are green the year round, and the flowers that bloom in the spring” have no time to rest, but scent the balmy and bracing air every day in the year. We picked flowers and fruits ad libitum, and not only at Riverside, but at nearly every stop the train made in Cali fornia and in Oregon the ladies were supplied with georgeons bou quets, while the gentlemen’s lapels were adorned with bouton neires of rare flowers pinned on by humls most fair, and each car was ever and anon packed with luscious fruits of many varieties. To Riverside belongs the honor of propogating the first navel orange planted in the state. Three of the trees were brought to Amer ica in 1874. One was planted in Florida and two in California; one of the latter died and from the one transplanted and growing in an nr tistic casement to preserve it from vandals or ’souvenir hunters in front of the famous and palatial remained | Hotel Gleuwood have been budded until a ! a»d grown many thousands of the trees which produce these delici ous and popular seedless oranges. And, loo, Riverside claims have the completest and most sci entific irrigation system in the world. The whole country is network of little canals, and wate is too precious to allow scarcely a drop of it to go to waste. In fact, irrigation is the key that unlocks the door of southern California. Its plenty and its beauty depend upon irrigation. . Ail its latent and More Money for Schools, But —. Supt. B. F. Plokett Writes of Need of New School Building. to shower of rain, and these little canals are to the thirsty orchards what the rain clouds are to the Georgia fields of cotton and corn. every direction a bower of attrac .... ... , , J .. , visible wealth would not buy a tive fruit culture and fanciful i ^ farming. Its climate is that of perpetual summer, and uo eye ever beheld, we dare say, a more beau tiful sight than this orchard city, . , . . . • .u • , . Every acre of ground is as clean as reclining in the midst of orange l , . , , . ! a floor, and they have no hedges of groves, its magnificent avenuesi ’ . & , ... e . , .... , , , ugliness or unsightly stubbles of lined with ornamental trees, h , ,, J ..... , . . • weeds and brush; they keep them among which the oriental palm is * . , s ., .... awav by failing to put water where most conspicuous, its artistic villa J 3 6 . , _ . . h \ they don’t want anything to grow , surrounded with; We have been repeatedly asked residences grounds in which the care of the Landscape gardener can be sedu, its fine business blocks of brick and stone, its handsome hotels, and its surrounding vineyards and orange groves and orchards making it a veritable dreamland and a visit to it a joyous memory forever. The city is girdled by lofty mountains, on some of which the snow never entirely melts, and the irrigation canals as well as the city’s water supply are garnered from streams which have their origin in the melting snow on the outlying mountain jpeaks. The county of which it is the capital is as large about the price of these lands. And that is a problem- Riverside orange lands, with water right, sell as follows: Unimproved, from $150 to $300 per acre; orange groves not yet in bearing, from $300 to $500 per acre; bearing groves, from $500 to $1,500 per acre. Many are supposed to be for sale, but it would be cheaper to buy a gold mine and raise a differ ent species of-yellow, stuff. From Riverside to Los Angeles, a distance of about sixty miles, a daytime trip proved one of pecul iar interest. The country abounds The gratifying statement is made by the Atlanta Constitution that with the increase in the liquor tax from $200 to $300, made at the re- cut session of the general assem bly, and added income from other sources of taxation, Georgia’s school fund this year will reach $2,000,000, if it does not. run over that figure, the largest in the his tory of the State. Going somewhat into details the Constitution says: “.lust half of this sum, $1,000,- 000, comes from direct taxation, while the balance will come from various sources prescribed by law rhe increase in the liquor tax bill makes the income from that source nearly $275,000, all of which goes to schools. Then there is half the rental of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, amounting to $210,000, which goes every year to the com mon school system. The poll taxes, all of which go to schools, aggre gate some $275,000, and the net convict hire comes to something over $200,000. Here then is a to tal of $1,960,000, which the fertil izer and oil inspection fees, the show tax and other minor sourcus of income given by law to public schools, will carry the total con siderably beyond the $2,000,000 mark. This will be equivalent to about $3 for every child of school age in the entire state, a larger pe capita appropriation for education than the State has ever before made.” All this looks good lo the friends of education and seems to mark an other step forward in the educa tional policy of our state, but there is still one thing lacking—provi sion by thfi legislature for the prompt payment of the teachers, Under the present system, in cluding a lot of red tape requiring that all the money shall be con centrated in Atlanta and then doled out to the county boards af ter itemized statements have been rendered to the State School Com missioner, the teachers do not get their money promptly, unless the county boards make arrangement to.borrow it, and. in this event in terest must be puid. The board of education of Dougherty county paid out about $300 for interest last year, in or der to keep the teachers paid up. Of course this had to come out of the school fund, and if the other counties of the state paid their teachers promptly they, too, ha<^ to borrow money, and the interest account cut a considerable hole in the school fund. It was hoped that the legislature at its recent session would provide for the prompt payment of the teachers of the state, , but it failed to do so.—Albany Herald. In view of the approaching bond election for the establishing of a branch of the public school system in south Newnan, there are some facts concerning the crowded con dition of the Temple Avenue school upon Which the public should be informed. To go back to the school year of 1898-’If, the school records show an enrollment during that year of 343 pupils in tile Temple Avenue school. The enrollment in the same school for the year 1904-’5 was 509, an increase of 48 percent, in seven years. The records of en rollment from year to year during this period reveal the fact that this increase has been very uniform, no year falling below 5 per cent., and none rising above 10 per cent. This is a fair index of the growth of Newnan during the same period. While this increase has been going on, there has not been the increase of a square foot in the floor space of this school, but from time to time more desks have lieen crowd ed into the rooms to seat the new pupils. Below are given the total enroll ment and average attendance of the first six grades of the Temple Avenue school for the year 1904-’5: UN KOI,’I) A. V’It’UK First Grade, 104 78 Second Grade. (Hi 60 Third Grade, 59 51 Fourth Grade, 58 50 Fifth Grade, 57 j 47 Sixth Grade, 51 , 50 Totals, 398 330 . ,, . .. Kllf in groves of oranges, lemons and as the state of Massachusetts, but; . . , ^ , , .,/ W .nn > olives, waving fields of grain, and has a popu ation of only 20,000, or; ’ B ... ’ , F 1 j ! extended areas of English walnuts 5,000 less than Coweta. River ! , • • , , . ’ , . . , ., . . . i and almonds, and occasional desert side also claims to be the richest , , . . . . spots. All productive land is lrri- citv per capita in the United” 1 ” ‘ . .. y 'gated—must be—for in southern States, and a tour o i seven ] Oalifornia there is no wealth where miles-long Magnolia «ve.,oe alone; fa |i0 ^ will lead one to conclude that the claim may be a true one. . I The party spent three days in With four other gentlemen, each ; k° s Angeles and vicinity, ihe hailin" from a different state, the | chief attractions of the stay was a left the service of the A. & W. writer tou red the Riverside region ascent to the summit of Mt. ; and has accepted the position of Is : After Viewintr : a, thirty-mile voyage on j ni(;ht operator at the Central Rail- t the Pacific to Changes at A. A W.P. Depot Changes in the personnel of the force at the A. & W.P. depot have placed new men in all positions except that of chief. Mr. G. B Barr, a fixture in this position, re mains in charge of the office. L. 8, Sewell, cashier, goes to Grant ville to engage in the mercantile business. He is succeeded by John Seay, of Montgomery, Ala. \V W. Breedlove, ticket agent, who resigned on account of his health, is succeeded by B. K. Pace, also from Montgomery. In the freight department, C. M. Hill is succeed ed by G. T. Shackleford... Mr Hill resigned to accept a position in the office of the new oil mil! company. Jack Conyers has also in an automobile. After viewing Pacific to the famous Santa the famous orange groves which <j a talina Islands. Next week we surround the palaces of wealth and shall write of these. * splendor, we returned by way of l P. T. McC. night operator way depot. Ehl Yes, we do job printing. Average attendance Is given for the information and satisfaction of those who are inclined to attach more importance to it than to the total enrollment. But it should be borne in mind that the usual at tendance is materially more than the average attendance. The. usu al attendance is the attendance under normal w e a t; h e r con- conditions and normal condi tions of health in the community; while the average attendance is computed from the attendance of the entire year, and is very much lessened by extraordinarily severe weather, such as a temperature of freezing, a sleet-covered ground, a great downpour of rain just at as sembling time, and by epidemics among the children. All these conditions prevailed at one time yr another during the year 1904-J5. This matter of average attendance is dwelt upon at some length here, because it may be said, as it was said in council when these figures were given to the council, that the average attendance shows that the school is not so badly crowded af ter all. It might as well Ik; said that a church should accommodate only the average yearly attendance. It is the concensus of opinion among schoolmen that no teacher should have more than forty pu pils,—that from thirty to thirty- five is the ideal number. At school conventions and in school periodi cals i have observed that the num ber forty has almost invariably been fixed upon as the maximum. I have just received the 1904-’5 re port of the superintendent of the Athens, Ga., public schools,—a system which, in my opinion, is the very best in Georgia in two or three essential.respects. Accord ing to this report the enrollment in the Athens public schools was 980 white children; the total white teaching force, 27; an average ofJ 30 enrolled pupils to the teacher. I Then, if 40 be considered as the | maximum, the Temple Avenue school had last year an excess above the maximum of J18 pupils. If there should lie an increase of 7 per cent, in the attendance this fall, the excess will tie 154 pupils. The consequences of such a condi tion are far-reaching. The teach ers cannot possibly do excellent work; the little ones of the pri mary grades, who should receive in dividual instruction, must instead lie taught; in mass; the scholarship of the whole school will deterio rate; the health of children, crowd ed together in masses of (10 and 70 in school rooms built for 10, will be seriously endangered. In this connection, 1 wish to say that the plan, which has beyn sug gested, that the first and second grades each lie divided into two sections, one being taught in tlio forenoon and the other in the af ternoon, is impracticable; and, if contemplated ns a permanent ar rangement, could not have been made by a friend of the public schools. This plan has been aban doned, and that quickly, wherever tried, so far as I know, except in the negro public schools of Atlunta. It seems from the above state ment of facts that everyone should bo convinced of the urgency of the need of new school rooms. As to the location, the board of educa tion, nine members lieing present and all voting affirmatively on a HiHiNii ballot, has decided that a branch of the public school system should be established in south Newnan at once. It is thought that the creation of a three-grade primary school, with two teachers, is as much as can be effected tin first year. It is true that the grounds sur rounding the Temple Avenue school house are large. An annex to that building could be built. But there are m»w more than four hundred pupils in daily atten dance at that school. At recess the children fairly swarm over the grounds. Largo boys and little ones are so crowded together on their playground .that it is impos sible to prevent accidents. In spite of the vigilance of the teach ers, small boys are occasionally seriously hurt, though usually un intentionally, by the larger Imys. But a better reason for building in south Newnan is that the Tem ple Avenue school is too far away for the little ones of south New nan in the winter time and in hot weather. If I were a resident of south Newnan, I could have no pa tience with a gentleman Vho would argue that because he walked two or three miles to school in his ls>y hood, therefore my two delicate little girls, one six, the other eight, Isith very susceptible to cold, could not be hurt by the daily (or twice daily) walk of a mile from south Newnan to Ten. pie avenue. City-bred child re. today are of a different fibei i their country-bred fathers an., grandfathers. This must be recog nized. And we have reason daily to thank God that, in many ways, life is not so hard for our children as for the children of the preceding generations, whose parents, how ever, got no joy from the Spar tan hardships and deprivations to which they hail to subject them. In conclusion, permit ini: to re fer again to the Athens system. With taxable property of $5,900,- 000; with a population of 12,000; with a white school population of 1,400 and an actual enrollment of 980 white children, Athens has four good public school houses for white pupils, in different sections of the city, thus bringing every child within reasonable walking distance of a school. In addition, she has in Lucy Cobb Institute and the Home School private in stitutions that do intermediate and high school work. B. F. PlOKKTT, Superintendent Schools. NEWNAN-GREENE- VILLE LINE SURE Central Railway Will Buiidi the Line Between This City and Greene- ville. Savannah, August 23.—The Central Railway is asking for bids on the widening of its narrow gunge line between Columbus and Greeneville, in Meriwether county, and the building of a line 24 miles in length from Greeneville to a point on the Cliuttanooga, Rome and Columbus line, 0 miles east of Newnan, to be known as Newnan Junction, The last of the rights of way were secured Saturday. It is the intention of the Central to have the line completed and ready for business a year hence It will make the distance between Atlanta and Columbus 119 miles. When the widening of the line has been completed it will remove the last narrow guage from the Centra) system. Seventy pound rails have al ready been bought for this track. The contract will be let within ten days. Columbus, August 28.—All in dicutions point to the broadening of the gauge of the Columbus und Rome branch of the Central of Georgia Railway and filling in the gap between Greenville and New nan at. an early date, thus giving Columbus a short line to Atlunta. The road is at present narrow gauge all the way from Columbus to Greenville. Several shipments of long cross ties have been made, up the road during the past few days to lie used in the broadening of the gauge. Ail repairs on this road in recent years have been with crossties of standard length and size. Engineers are at work on the problem of broadening the gauge over Pine mountain. The present grade is not too steep for a narrow- gauge road, but is said to be itn- praeticable for a road of standard gauge. Options for the right of way for the extension for practically the entire distance from Greenville to Newnan have been seertred. From Newnan the Central of Georgia trains will go into Atlanta over the Atlanta and West Point tracks. This route to Atlanta will lie con siderably shorter than either of the present railway routes from Co lumbus to Atlanta. It is understood from authorita ve sources that the work of Leadening the gauge and making mo extension will iiegin atari early date—probably within sixty days’ time. W. C. T. U. Officers. Read The News for the news. The members of the W. C. T. U. had a called meeting last Monday afternoon and elected officers for the ensuing year. The officers elected were: Mrs. E. O. Iteese, President; Mrs. It. A. Field, Vice President; Mrs. W. C. Black, Secretary; Mrs. J. E. Smith, Treasurer; Mrs. J. H. Suminers,Corresponding Secretary. Mrs. It. J. Barnett was appointed lady manager for the L. T. L. and Mrs. Clarence Hollis assistant manager. Let us try by faithful and earnest prayer to make 1905 the most prosperous year this grand old cause has ever had in Newnan. Let us pray and talk for the tem perance cause at all times and un der all circumstances. Mrs. E. O. iteese was appointed delegate and Mrs. Hollis alternate to the State Convention which will meet in Amei icus, embracing the 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 of September. Mrs. E, O. Reese, Pres.