past fifty, whose education is limited to making her signature, finally began the school. Not only the regular factions which one finds in almost any ordinary Southern community, but the teacher himself, opposed the idea of a new school. In order not to fan the flames, Mary Johnson after some years managed to have the teacher transferred. Then she organized a Five-Cent Club among the community children. She was ingenious enough to know that the children could make the parents put aside questions of creed. The little folks elected a treasurer and started to save. Never having had any experience in building anything, Mrs. Johnson and her people thought that when they had accumulated $45 they were ready to put up and dedicate their building. Thus resolved, they sent the treasurer, a young man, to the bank to get the money.

"Lawd, he don' went on by de bank, and we ain't seed him since," said Mary Johnson.

Not a whit discouraged, this woman next organized the women and began to make and sell sweet-potato custards, each woman furnishing a portion of the ingredients for cooking. She stood on street corners and in lanes and sold and begged from early in the morning till late at night. Again they started to build. This time they bought the lumber and put it on the spot. The old quarrel over the location of the school revived, the hauling of the lumber caused dispute, the planting of excuses for "slackers." Before they knew it six years had passed. The lumber had rotted.

crops

community-she was in her eighties-arose, leaning on her walking-stick. "Y'all know," she murmured, "I got nothing. Can't hardly git 'nough to keep soul and body together. But ef dare is somebody willin' to gib half, I'll gib a dollar towards raisin' our haf.” The next day she got hold of ingredients somewhere, baked cakes, and, with her basket on her arm, hobbled forth to peddle cakes to raise her dollar. In her rounds she encountered the banker of the town, who, overcome by the spectacle of this old woman's endeavor, left his work and sought out the agent.

"Look here," said he, "if that old woman can give a dollar in that way, what ought the rest of us do?" It took but a few months to put up the Akron school.

Three hundred Negro communities are now enjoying new schools as the result of Mr. Rosenwald's offer. Each village had its struggle, its problems to solve, before it could even proceed to raise funds for the building. But each community is brighter and happier because of the struggle.

THE TRANSFORMATION AT BETHEL GROVE

the

But the courage of Mary Johnson was not so easily put by. One Monday afternoon when the cold winds were howling without she sat down and began to rock and sigh.

"What's to matter with you, ma ?" asked her daughter. “Honey, I thinking 'bout dose pore chillun up yonder in dat ole school. No floor in dat house, and it full of cracks. Dey'll ketch dey death sho."

"Why don't you ask Tuskegee to help you?" asked her daughter. This she did. Happily, the plans for giving aid from the Rosenwald Fund had just been completed. Again she had to raise funds. She herself acted in several so-called “plays,' supervised others, begged, coaxed, scolded. She gave her hus band no rest. At length the building was begun. To make sure of success this time, she would go where they were building the school nearly every day and hand the workmen lumber, toss shingles, move rubbish. So unflagging was her enthusiasm that it attracted the principal of the Notasulga white school, who came several times to her entertainments, bringing his pupils and his friends. By the aid of the Rosenwald Fund she built the school, and, to use her own words, "“Honey, I'm ready to die any time now."

SMITH STATION

Of no less interest is the struggle at Smith Station, a country district in the county adjoining the one in which Tuskegee is located. The school at Smith Station was a two-story building, with cracks in the sides and in the roof. The children recited downstairs and studied upstairs. The stovepipe from downstairs came out through the side of the building on the first floor. The smoke went into the upper story through the cracks, filling the pupils' eyes and lungs, creating a Bedlam of coughing, sneezing, red-eyed children-a scene thoroughly laughable were it not so tragic. Community faction, unwillingness to comply with the State laws, held these children in this worse than prison. The Rosenwald agent sent out by Dr. Washingtonhis son, Booker Washington, Jr., by the way, who is helping in this important work-allayed their mistrust of the State and settled the factional difficulties. A handsome two-room building with sanitary outhouses now stands in the old one's stead.

One of the first to qualify for repairs was the school at Bethel Grove, Macon County, Alabama. This was a one-room structure. Through the influence and the inspiration of the Rosenwald Fund it is now a five-room building. It has two big classrooms, which can be turned into one assembly room for community meetings, and into industrial rooms where children are taught to make erasers, bookcases, desks, shuck mats, pine-needle baskets-indeed, all things useful in rural communities, fulfilling the vision of Dr. Washington. The teacher lives in the schoolhouse. The teacher's kitchen is the classroom for teaching cooking; her dining-room is the classroom for teaching the serving of meals; her bedroom is a classroom for teaching the care of the home.

Moreover, the school at Bethel Grove has introduced into its curriculum the care of children. Whenever a mother wants to leave home she understands that her babe or child may be sent to the school and cared for. If school is in session, and there is no little sister or brother to look after the little fellow, the children in school take turns in caring for it. If school is not in session, the teacher herself becomes responsible for its protection. Most often the older sister or brother sets the baby in a soap-box, ties a cord to the box, and draws the baby up, sled fashion, to the school. Here he stays and is well cared for until the mother's return from the field or from town. Thus we have in this Rosenwald school probably the first rural school day nursery in the South.

MACEDONIA

For ten years or more there stood about six miles from the town of Tuskegee two rival buildings—a church and a lodge tabernacle; each structure vied with the other in decay-to see which would topple down first. They also rivaled each other in keeping the people divided, in keeping money away from the school. Even the Rosenwald offer to give money for repairs begged admission here two years begged admission here two years before peace was declared. Then it was all really beautiful. The church gave over its help to the school, surrendering its claim for the time. The lodge withdrew its claim on the building and land. The old two-story lodge tabernacle is now a schoolhouse downstairs and a teacher's home upstairs.

The whole school story here bristles with interest. The teacher has been here twenty-five years. She is said to have been the first person to register in Booker T. Washington's school. She has taught here in sheds, in shacks, in deserted buildings. It was she who might have perverted the saying, "Trust in God and keep your powder dry" to "Trust in God and keep your fire-bucket full," for many times a day in one or two of the old structures she and her pupils had to rush out to put out the flames, the roof having caught fire from flying sparks.

Akron, Smith Station, Notasulga, Bethel Grove, Macedoniathese are all types of what has happened wherever a Rosenwald

school building has made its way, either as a new structure or by repairs.

NEW BUILDING-NEW LIFE

Stories of struggle and of conquest are interesting; but, what is the real significance of the schools to the communities? First of all, what are these doing as schools? Do they merely stand as monuments to peace out of conflict? One is at a loss to select a testimony or two from the scores upon scores that have come in. One teacher in Hale County writes: "Our school building is already offering a splendid meeting-place for social gatherings. It has done much to improve the sanitary conditions of our community."

Another, from Strudwick, Alabama, says: "We have had less trouble in disciplining the one hundred and fifty pupils that we have had this year [1916] than the eighty which were formerly enrolled. The opportunity afforded for doing industrial work has so stimulated our pupils that their class standing has far surpassed any previous year.

"Many of the young men and women who had stopped school have re-entered, and are doing excellent work. We have also conducted a night class for the older people."

A Jeanes Fund supervisor, supported by the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation for Negro rural schools, writes:

"Night schools and schools for adults have been made possible [through the Rosenwald Fund], as the teachers live in these homes at the schools and do not have to walk one, two, and three miles after teaching eighty-five or one hundred children.

“I have heard many parent-scholars remark: 'I have never known what the teacher had to undergo until I started to school. ... I sho' can sympathize with our teacher now. . . . I am going to do more to help the school.''

White county superintendents are almost as greatly moved by the Rosenwald Fund as are the colored people. They write: "These school buildings in my county are serving as an impetus to the white people to put up better school buildings. Every community, white or colored, wants just such a building. Since the Negroes are exerting themselves to meet the conditions upon which this money is given, the white people are becoming more sympathetic and are beginning to admire and appreciate their efforts more for better education.

66

(Signed) Jas. L. Sibley, Alabama State Rural School Agent." Without the Rosenwald Fund very few districts seek State aid. They have to raise too much money to build the kind of school the State demands. Valuable in itself, the Fund is even of greater service in that it puts large sums of money in circulation. Now it so happened that when Mr. Rosenwald's offer was made there were in the Alabama State treasury several thousand dollars for the building of schools. This money was to be distributed among the counties, which might use it if they put up schools according to State plans. Of course the State's money would put up a very small school. The community had therefore to supplement it. This gave the black man's dollar a

T

Thus, up to May 27, 1918, Mr. Rosenwald had given for Negro rural school building promotion and repair $96,651.47. In responding to this the colored people had raised $152,969.93, the white people had given $22,039, and the State of Alabama had given $82,430, making the total called forth by the Rosenwald Fund $257,438.93. Set this over against the total $96,651.47 given by Mr. Rosenwald, and you have the Fund really gaining on investment a little more than 266 per cent. That is, $96,651.47 given by Mr. Rosenwald put into circulation $257,438.93.

At the outset Mr. Rosenwald had given $30,000 to Dr. Washington to make the experiment. Pleased with his investment, he authorized in November, 1916, the building of two hundred more rural schools, permitting Tuskegee now to experiment in other counties in Alabama and outside the State. At present there is a Rosenwald school in nearly every State in the South. By the end of May final payment was made on the first three hundred schools built as a result of Mr. Rosenwald's offer.

Just what percentage of good has been done in school discipline, teaching, and making colored people happy cannot be set down in words. In one town a poor white man gave five dollars. In another, the white children and the colored children got together and began to compare notes on what they were studying at school. The Negro children had industrial work, the white children did not. In a few days the white parents were protesting for handicrafts and the like for their children. At another Rosenwald school the children cooked and served a dinner to State officers, who went away thoroughly converted to Negro education. In another county the white farmers well-nigh blacklisted a neighbor for putting up a Rosenwald school on his plantation. Now each farmer is clamoring for a schoolhouse on his "place.'

In the midst of the great migration of the black man to the North Southern people are beginning to ask, Why? They themselves have answered in their big dailies. In brief, the want of better treatment for the Negro and for his children. Of the rural black people who choose to remain in the South, many will tell you that they are content because they have a good school for their children to attend, a friendlier understanding with their white neighbors, and a brighter outlook on life because of the Rosenwald rural school.

as I am concerned, this is entirely unfounded. May I add that I was very much astonished on seeing Mr. G. Mason's assertion. I should be very grateful for a publication of this correction of the facts. Believe me, Mr. Editor,

Yours sincerely, (signed) I. MOTONO. The article by our staff correspondent, Mr. Gregory Mason, referred to in this letter was published in The Outlook of May 1. The article was entitled "Japan, Germany, Russia, and the Allies: An Authorized Interview with Count Masataka Terauchi, Premier of Japan." At the time when this interview was held by Mr. Mason with Count Terauchi, Viscount Motono

moral plane which is above the moral plane of civilian life at home.

I have found soldiers who are a disgrace to the uniform; there are individual cases and there are groups of cases that give me keen regret. I wish that the Army had a "Botany Bay"-that those who insist upon practicing the indecencies could be segregated. However few these men are-and they are, indeed, the small minority-they constitute a menace to morale and exert a demoralizing influence upon those with whom they are associated. Then, too, there are a few officers who represent the old idea that the soldier is necessarily a victim of his passions and must be allowed, even encouraged, to gratify them. But such officers are in a decreasing ratio to the whole, and privates who bring an unfavorable judgment upon their country are the exceptions that assist in proving the rule.

On one occasion two hundred men from just-arrived transports began their self-appointed task of painting a certain French city a livelier hue. Very quickly they discovered that "decorators" of their class were not in demand. The Naval Patrol sent them back to the ships with battered heads and wiser minds. Two hundred men out of more than fifteen hun dred tried to be naughty and failed! I can imagine a lurid headline, "Recently Arrived Soldiers Paint City Red." Such a headline would have been unfair and untrue. That story of a thousand men from the rural community of northeastern America is absolutely false. I have investigated it in every French port where American troops land and in every other place where any considerable number of our men have been quartered. My inquiries have followed three lines: the military, the Y. M. C. A., and civilians. While conditions were worse at the beginning, before our military authorities had their own police programme operating, nothing at all approaching this condition ever existed.

Our leaders in France have not conquered the vices society has battled against from the first organized beginnings of civilization; but if the American Expeditionary Force is not setting an example in moral idealism to American civilian life, then I have walked through France with my eyes closed and my ears stopped.

When you see one soldier under the influence of liquor, do not conclude that the Army is drunk. It is at least suggestive that in three months spent in England and France, associated with tens of thousands of soldiers, I did not see a single soldier, officer or private, under the influence of liquor on the street, in a public conveyance, or in a public building.

When you hear of one syphilitic, or a hundred, do not traduce en masse the flower of American manhood now transported to the richly watered fields of France. An investigation made by a prominent jurist of the United States, who is also a leading layman of the Methodist Church, revealed the following conditions in a certain port of landing. This city has long borne the reputation of being among the most immoral of Europe. The survey covered both white and black troops, and was made in areas personally inspected by the writer.

The record for venereal diseases for four months preceding my visit were:

Month.

First

Second

Third Fourth.

Colored Troops.

Men in each Thousand.

White Troops.

Men in each
Thousand.

Many of these men were found to be infected when they reached France. Army discipline, it will be seen, soon produced results. The rate of venereal disease for white men when I left that city was less than one-fourth of one per cent, and for colored soldiers just about one per cent!

Let us think of our Army division in terms of a modern American city-a city of men, women, and children. But here are cities of men only-men between twenty-one and thirty-one. Yes, men between seventeen and thirty-one. Red-blooded, far from home, young men, inhabit these war cities. From these clues women are gone and in these the voice of a child is not heard. Put such a city into your moral test tube. Is it not inspiring beyond words that these cities, by the wecords of the

Surgeon-General and from the reports of General Pershing show a venereal rate far below that of civilian life, and a decreas ing rate; that they show little drunkenness? And every state ment of the War Department concerning these vital matters has been substantiated by my own investigations.

We shall be helped greatly in our efforts to appreciate the facts if we remember that every soldier before he is a soldier is a man; that the American soldiers in France are our own brothers and our own sons; that we have taken the cream from our colleges, our churches, our offices, our homes, our factories. and our farms, to feed the God of War who stalks across the fields of Europe. These men have not laid off their American idealism; they have not abandoned their American training, and the moral and spiritual instructions absorbed by American firesides and in American churches and schools. We indiet our selves when we believe wholesale charges of evil living brought against the finest fruit of our tree of democratic culture.

The psychology of such charges is demoralizing. Men falsely accused are inclined to argue, “Well, I have the name; the mark is on me; I'll take the game!" On the other hand, confidence begets confidence. Men are made strong by the knowledge that other men and that women and children believe in them. Our brothers and sons in France have won the right not only to our love but to our esteem and faith as well.

There is no room to-day for the quick-spoken, casually informed and misinformed destructive critic. The constructive critic in the Army and out of it, in France and in civilian life at home, will have increasingly much to do; not one iota of service for the soldier and sailor can we afford to abate. He is always in the danger zone.

I found the American in uniform building up about himself a wall of protection in the very attitude he is assuming toward the moral excesses practiced by the few. He is resenting the indulgence that causes his country's civilization to be misjudged; he is disciplining his comrade who by taking improper and forbidden liberties endangers the freedom of others; he shows a dis tinct pride in the fact that American physical and moral standards are high. I believe that for every man in the army that is morally destroyed, at least five men are morally born again. We have spent much time in discussing the vast task of keeping our men fit to return to us when the war is over, and it is time well spent. But there is another matter quite as important -America must be made and kept fit for these men to return to. This is a report on conditions as they exist in the American Army, and does not deal directly with circumstances surrounding vice and liquor in England and in France. As to these conditions in England and France they differ widely. Vice conditions in such cities as London and Liverpool are particularly menac ing; strong drink is everywhere a distressing problem. In both of these vital matters the English problem presents difficulties in excess of those confronting the investigator in France. Through diplomatic representations and with the utmost regard for the customs and feelings of our heroic allies, certainly the same regulations should be applied to our soldiers overseas that now apply at home.

The results that have been thus far accomplished have been accomplished without conflict with the drinking customs of our allies. In proportion as it has been found practical for our mil itary authorities to have absolute police control over territory occupied by American soldiers, has it been possible to deal effectively with liquor and vice from the standpoint of administering regulations and laws.

What is the attitude of the military authorities in France toward drink and vice? I find the authorities in France ag gressively and successfully promoting the most comprehensive programme ever attempted by a nation at war to keep her soldiers physically competent and morally fit. An official of the British Government, a man of many distinctions and high in political life, told me that the eyes of all the nations of Europe were upon the well-nigh revolutionary policies of General Pershing and his staff.

1. The programme of the military authorities provides, first, for prohibition and total abstinence; and, second, when in indi vidual cases prohibition has failed, for the saving of the indi vidual from disease. Vice is not condoned. Segregated districts are not recognized or protected, and the orders against heavy