Education in the South

The Conference for Education in the South held its session last week in Bir mingham, Alabama, and was very largely attended by representative Southern teachers and public men as well as a considerable number of leaders of opinion in the North. The reception of the Conference by the citizens of Birmingham was characteristically Southern in its generosity and cordiality. Everything was done after the good Southern fashion to make the visitors feel at home, and every evidence of widespread local and general interest in the meetings of the Conference and its objects was manifested by the great audiences which crowded the Jefferson Theater at the successive sessions. On the opening night it was said by those who knew the community that the assemblage which listened to Mr. Ogden's annual address was the largest and most intelligent ever gathered in the theater. The work of the Southern Board has ceased to need explanation, although here or there a Southern or Northern journal either misrepresents it or makes the unintelligent blunder of misinterpreting it. It is a work largely in Southern hands and under Southern direction; it is not in any sense an interference with Southern affairs; it is not an attempt to take negro education out of the hands of the South. It is an organization largely planned and directed by the most openminded Southern men, and generously aided by open-minded Northern men who recognize the tremendous burdens under which the South is struggling, and who are eager as a matter of National duty to aid the great renaissance of educational interest and enthusiasm which is now the most significant movement in the South. Mr. Ogden in his annual address declared that the aristocracy of education has passed, that this is the age of social and economic forces, that higher education and business have come into fellowship, and that education in a large sense is the necessity of the time among every people who desire either material or spiritual prosperity. Bishop Galloway, of Mississippi, in an eloquent address on "The Negro and the South" called attention to the grow

ing unrest and discontent among negroes in that section, to their feeling of helplessness and friendlessness, to the widening gulf of separation between the younger generations of both races, to the serious blunders of those men who went South after the war and who, as the political leaders of the negro, represented themselves as the only friends of that race and the former slave-owners as the born enemies of the race-a teaching which poisoned the spirit of one race and aroused the fierce antagonism of the other, and planted hate where seeds of love should have been sown. Bishop Galloway said that the South must guarantee equal protection of the law to both races, that the racial line must have no place in courts of justice, that punishment should always be inflicted by due course of law and that there is never an occasion when lynch law can be justified, that it is a necessity to give the negro the opportunity of practical education, that ignorance is a cure for nothing. Reports from the friends of education in the Southern States and from the Southern field in general indicate steady and rapid advancement in educational facilities, standards, and methods, and register another year of striking progress in this most hopeful movement in the Southern section of the country.

Education

No more promising and praisein Virginia Worthy undertaking for the promotion of education has recently been made than in the formation of the Co-operative Education Commission of Virginia. It is the result of a conference held at Richmond a month ago, in response to the call of the Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Its Chairman is Dr. S. C. Mitchell, Professor in Richmond College, and its membership includes representatives of all classes of schools. Regarding the common school as the heart of the educational system, its main object is to make this thoroughly efficient. In view of the fact that only one-half of the children of school age are enrolled, and only one-third in daily attendance for an average period of five and a half months of the year, the new

Commission meets an urgent need with a desirable programme. This proposes a nine months' school year, a high school within reasonable distance of every child, trained teachers and superintendents, agricultural and industrial trainingschools for the defective and dependent, the correlation of public libraries and public schools. A most important feature of the plan is the organization of a citizens' education association in every county. This movement cannot fail to appeal strongly to all patriotic Virginians. It is thoroughly in line with the ideal and the hopes of Thomas Jefferson. Three weeks after the organization of the Commission, President Mitchell's address on " Virginia Day," at the anniversary exercises of Hampton Institute, exhibited the broad view with which this forward movement begins. He declared that an education would be useless that did not tend to promote harmony between the two races in the South. Governor Montague affirmed that universal suffrage means universal education, and that the justice of man to man is the polar star for advancement to better and higher standards of life. President Hyde, of Bowdoin College, said that if the South desires National aid for education, it should be given as a matter of justice to a people who have nobly done their duty for educational progress. The course of legislation in Virginia during the past two years has been distinctly in the interest of better schools.

Sharing

The constantly increasing Prost and Loss number of employers and employing corporations to adopt in some form the idea of sharing profits with employees is an encouraging sign of industrial peace. We have been particularly interested in facts lately brought to our attention regarding the plan adopted by the A. W. Burritt Company, a concern manufacturing and dealing in builders' materials in Bridgeport, Connecticut. There are several points of special interest in the relation existing between employer and employee in this instance. Perhaps the most striking is that the employees, under their contract, agree to share losses as well as profits. It

has often been pointed out that if there were to be thorough combination, losssharing ought logically to be included. This concern had already with great success adopted the plan of requiring all the superintendents and leading men in the business to be owners of stock, and was led to the conclusion that it would be desirable that the working mechanic also should receive a share in the net earnings of the company, over and above his daily wage, in return for his labor, and that he would feel such an additional interest in the affairs of the concern that the result would be profitable to the employers. The contract has now been in successful working over four years, and under it the highest market wages have been paid, as well as a share of the profits. An arrangement is provided for under which onetenth of the wages of the workmen is withheld as a reserve, to be used for proportionate payment of losses, and if at the close of the year there has been no loss, this reserve, together with the profit due, is paid to each workman. In actual practice it has never been necessary to touch this reserve, but the mere fact that it exists is a token of the principle of actual partnership involved. The contract provides for payment of six per cent. interest on the capital, and, after all proper deductions are made for running expenses and depreciation, the net profit is divided between employer and employees, in the proportion that the actual capital invested bears to the total wages of the workmen. An admission to the ranks of the profit-sharers is held out as a reward and incentive to ambition to new employees. These employers found their relations with the men so amicable that when, under two general strikes, their union employees were obliged to go out, they absolutely refused to leave town for other employment, and almost without exception waited until it was possible to obtain their old places. The mill has been run on the open shop principle; union and non-union men work side by side; and the union men have been loyal both to their union and their employers. The same employers have taken part in organizing a protective association of

builders in Westchester County, New York, and in Connecticut, which has dealt with organized labor, not by ignoring it, but by dealing with employees collectively. These employers stand for co-operation in the building business, believing it to be for mutual advantage, and that such a course will eventually lead to some form of profit-sharing.

Casualties on American Railroads

The Outlook has commented from time to time on the great loss of life of employees of every description and of travelers on American railroads as compared with the loss of life on foreign roads. The value of such comparisons depends on the completeness with which all the elements are taken into account; and, while it remains true that the loss of life is altogether too great on American railroads, hasty compari sons of casualties on this side the ocean with those on the other are very mislead ing. Mr. Slason Thompson, of Chicago, has recently made a study of casualties on both sides of the sea. He has taken eleven railroads running out of Chicago, with a mileage of about the same as all the roads in the United Kingdom. On these roads, during the twelve months ending last June, there were no passengers killed by train accidents, and only about fifteen by accidents of another nature. During the year 1901 the British roads reported no deaths by train accidents, but 135 deaths of passengers by other accidents, and the deaths of 200 more employees than were lost on the lines going out of Chicago. In 1900 there were in Europe 176,068 miles of track, and in the United States in 1893 there were 176,461. In all Europe in the year 1900, 527 passengers and 2,356 employees were killed; in this country, on the other hand, according to the report of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, 299 passengers and 2,727 employees were killed. These figures, which appear to have been secured by intelligent comparison embracing all the elements on either side of the ocean, make a much better impression than most Americans have had of the relative danger of railroad travel here and abroad.

Much remains to be done, however, since only about ten per cent. of the American railroads have adopted the block signal system. Higher speed is attained here on an average than is secured abroad; the average of comfort and convenience on the trains is also much higher, and, as a rule, the average of conformity to time-tables is very much greater in this country than abroad; so that, on the whole, the American system of railroading may be fairly claimed to be distinctly superior at all important points.

Harvard University

and Scientific Charity

The establishment

It

by a great university of a new department for the training of workers in a distinct profession is an event of extremely rare occurrence. Harvard, after two hundred and sixty-eight years of growth, has seven such departments. Harvard's founding, therefore, of a new "School for Social Workers," practically co-ordinate with the Law School and the Medical School, has a large significance. acknowledges, in the most striking way, that in the complexity of modern life the old personal relation between the giver and receiver of alms has disappeared, and that the broken bond must be replaced by a body of trained workers. It is the formal recognition of organized charity as a science and of charity work as a profession. Moreover, it marks a long step forward in the application to mental activities of the principle of the division of labor. The purpose of the new school is officially stated to be "to increase the number of available and efficient persons, paid or volunteer, who, in facing problems of need, shall stand for the best efforts for cure and prevention, and seek to find the best methods from the lessons of experience and from thoughtful practice." More concretely, the aim will be to supply trained workers for reformatories, prisons, asylums, public and private charity organizations, the institutional work of churches, college settlements, and the like. For the present, the course will cover one year's work, and students will be required, according to the official announcement, "to attend lectures and conferences three