The Anglo-Saropis of the Kentucky Motuntains



  The district school of the Kentucky mountains is, in general, a
rough log-cabin more or less crudely equipped according to the
sparsity or density of the surrounding population. Some are entirely
without desks, rude, uncomfortable benches of rough mountain
manufacture taking their places. We saw no maps, and instead of
blackboards, the unplaned planks of the inside of the walls had
been stained a dark color for a space of 12 feet. In some of the
back districts, where hardware is at a premium, the children are
summoned from recess by a big wooden rattle. If the physical
equipment of the school is primitive, the mental is almost as crude.
The standard of education for the teachers is not high. Some of
them have not progressed farther than the multiplication table in
arithmetic, and all use ungrammatical English. Their preparation
for teaching in general consists of the course of instruction at the
district school and a few months' training at the so-called normal
school of the county-seat. At a recent meeting of the Teachers'
Institute in one of the mountain counties, when the subject up for
discussion was "Devotional exercises in schools," it transpired that,
of the fifty-six public school teachers present, only one in eight
knew the Lord's prayer, a majority did not know what it was or
where it came from, a majority did not own a Testament, and only
two or three were the proud possessors of a Bible. Such ignorance
is pitiable, but pitiable chiefly because it means lack of opportunity.
Many of such teachers are half-grown boys and girls, who are in
this way trying to earn the money, always so scarce in the moun-
tains, "to go down to the settlements" and get an education. When
their desire for knowledge is once aroused, they are strong, per-
sistent, and ready to face any obstacle to get an education. Their
vigorous minds, unjaded nerves, and hardened bodies combine to
make them victors in the struggle. One boy of fourteen started
out from his hillside home with his little bundle of clothes siting
over his shoulder and 75 cents in his pocket, and tramped 25 miles
over rough mountain trails to Berea, where the nearest school and
college were. While taking the course there, he supported himself
by regular jobs of various kinds, and maintained an excellent stand-
ing in his classes. When a mountain lad comes down to the State
University at Lexington, it is a foregone conclusion that he is going
to carry off the honors. We find at work in him the same forces
that give success to the youth from the Swiss Alps and the glens of
the Scotch Highlands, when these too come down into the plains to
enter the fierce struggle for existence there. For the Kentucky



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