EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 393
A movement comparable to the westward migration of the young and energetic has gone on in the South. The more pro- gressive element of the country has been drawn off by the towns, and this has tended to weaken the rural districts and leave them in a stagnant condition, lessening the demand by the people them- selves for good schools. The South speaks for itself concerning its rural schools : " All thinking southerners know that the public schools are a disgrace." 14 "The common school should be the very best school that we have, so far as it goes, instead of being the poorest, as it is today in most of the southern states." 15
But the South is rapidly being aroused to the fact that without a foundation in well-equipped public schools no system of educa- tion can accomplish lasting results for any people; and that such a system can only be maintained through ample financial support.
IV. INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
It is evident to every observer that since 1880 the South has passed through an industrial transformation. Up to that date it exported large quantities of raw material to be worked up by the mills and factories of the North or of England. Of its largest crop, cotton, the South kept and manufactured in its own territory only about 234,000 bales a slight fraction of what it produced. The iron ore that it mined was sent to be converted into machines and implements in the blast-furnaces of the North. Its coal and timber were still to a large extent unutilized natural resources.
For the production of these raw materials unskilled labor could be used to considerable advantage. The industrial and commercial change that has taken place within the last twenty years has centered largely around cotton. The southern states trebled the capacity of their cotton-mills in the last decade, but still use only 30 per cent, of the cotton crop. A large part of these mills are located near the cotton fields, mainly from Virginia to Alabama, along the " fall line." That is to say, since water power is used extensively, they are located at points where the
14 DR. CHARLES DABNEY", Proceedings of the Fourth Conference for Education, p. 42.
M J. W. ABERCROMBIE, State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Alabama.
