Greensboro, Aug. 10—Even in this day of educational progress, of Aladdin-like changes, there are some log school houses in North Carolina, or were when last reports were compiled by the state department of education, 55 such structures. Nearly all of those were for negroes but white children were instructed in four such buildings.
But the log school house was marked for razing as far back as 1900. That year there were 1,090 log buildings in use. By the end of the next 10 years the number had been reduced to 263. In 1914 the number was 164. Five years there were 124 and the next year saw only 94. The figures were compiled by the state department of education.
The little red school house has long been lauded in song and story, specially if of logs. Presidents were supposed to come from log houses but the actual facts are different. Education did not progress so well when logs were the basis, little one-teacher schools with terms of two or three months, and leaders in educational work had little trouble in convincing the citizenry of North Carolina that the more money placed in schools the better would be the brand of education. Sentiment in one thing and educational facts another.
In 1900, when the one-room school house could be seen all over the state, the average value of each building—and that included the more pretentious structures in the cities—was a mere $158. That would not buy equipment for a rural school gymnasium now. In 10 years the average value climbed to $770. In 1914 it passed the $1,000 mark, and in 1920 the average was $3,000. In 1924 the value swept to $8,000.
The elimination of the one-teacher school goes steadily on. In 1900 there were 5,047 such schools in the state and in 1924 the number had been reduced to 1,633. With the elimination of the one-teacher school went the steadily lengthening of the school term from 73.3 days in 1900 to 146.4 in 1924.
The little school house, the short term and pool salaries for teacher went together. Where one was found there were the other two. White teachers back in 1900 received an average salary of $24.70. In 1924 the average was $110.06.
Some people, chronic kickers, must have bewailed the “extravagance” in education back in 1900 when all of $1,062,303 was spent on public school education in the state. That was the total expenditure. But in 1923-24 there was spent a total of $29,747,075. Some of that was current expenses, some capital outlay, but was all spent for education.
It is the cities, naturally, that pay most, run longer and put more capital in their schools, but that cannot be held against the rural regions. The cities have more taxable and are able to pay more. They get the highest paid teachers, paying them an average of $137.71 monthly in their elementary schools and $174.28 in their high schools. Those figures are for 1924, for the 24 largest cities in the state. In the rural sections the average salary in 1924 was $85.12 for elementary teachers and $147.26 to high school teachers. As the figures how, the high school teachers have a comfortable advantage over the elementary teacher in the matter of salary.
One fact that might give those who object to the lengthening of the school term in the rural sections some worry is that the negro schools in the cities actually average a longer school term than the white rural schools In the cities the average for negroes was 174 days; in the country for white children, 125 days.
Moreover, in the cities the percentage of negro school-going children rolled was less by half, 46 percent. The figures are for schools having 160-day, or eight months terms. The negro is taking all the advantage he can of educational facilities, running their terms as long as they can and sending their children to school all they can.
An army of men and women, the great majority woman, are instructing the youth of the state. At the close of the 1924 session the number totaled 16,397 white teachers, of whom 12,415 were in the rural schools and 3,982 in city or charger schools. Negro teachers totaled 4,037, of which 3,986 were in the rural schools; 1,141 in the city systems. The figures indicate that the majority of the pupils are in the rural schools. In 1924 there was enrolled in all the public schools of the state 793,046 pupils, which was ?6 percent of the school population. In 1900 the enrollment was only 51 percent of the school population.
The increase in the number of high schools is striking. In 1900 there was a total of 30 high schools, about ?,000 pupils. By the end of 1924 the number of high schools had grown to 738 and in them was a total of 63,875 pupils. The number of graduates in 1924 totaled 6,900. The comment of the department of education is that “it is a small wonder but the colleges have found it impressive to enlarge the plants in order to meet the enormous increasing demands made upon them by high school graduates.”
From page 3 of the North Wilkesboro Hustler, Aug. 19, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92072938/1925-08-19/ed-3/
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