Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/33

 A RETARDED FRONTIER 17

It is perfectly obvious that these mountain folk must have only the most shadowy ideas about the world outside. We found middle-aged and old women who had never been outside the val- ley in which they lived, and had not so much as visited the little town at the lower end of it. One boy knew of Chicago only as the source of an arnica tooth soap which he highly prized and imported into his valley. A woman whom we met on the out- skirts of Jackson replied, to our eager inquiry for war news, that her old man had heard somebody say, who had read it in a paper, "that England and France were goin' to begin a war tomorrow morning." And she added, with apprehensive uncertainty : "There be a France, ain't there ? "

The young people, however, are clearly gaining in general information from attending the district schools established throughout the region, and the public schools and academies in the county seats. The district school is "kept" in the typical log-cabin schoolhouse, with rough benches, an open fireplace or a huge iron stove, and oftentimes with plain planks for a black- board. The eflficiency of the teachers has steadily improved, and although the schools are in session for only a short period, the character of the work has advanced in a marked way. It is through the school system and the young that con- nections between the national life and this partially isolated region are being more intimately established. The most influ- ential single agency which is attempting this task is the college at Berea, Ky. Here is the point of contact between the great social tradition of the wider world and the narrow life of the Kentucky uplands. The young mountaineers resort in increas- ing numbers to this college, where manual dexterity, intellectual training, aesthetic standards, ethical and religious ideals are com- municated by earnest and devoted teachers. The plans of Berea, so far as one may judge from its publications, are based upon a careful study of the peculiar conditions and needs of the region, and have already resulted in setting at work refining and elevating influences in many a mountain cabin.'

•The college has publi';hed a number of pamphlets and reports, which may be obtained upon application to President Frost, Berea, Ky. Several illustrations for this article have been furnished through the kindness of the Berea authorities.