68 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



and contented, who are every year making progress, who are 

 growing in intelligence, ambition and the knowledge of all those 

 things which make life worth living. 



From direct investigation I find that many valuable colored 

 laborers leave the farm for the reason that they seldom see or 

 handle cash. The Negro laborer likes to put his hands on real 

 money as often as possible. In the cit3 r , while he is not so well 

 off in the long run, as I have said, he is usually paid off in cash 

 every Saturday night. In the country he seldom gets cash 

 oftener than once a month, or once a year. Not a few of the 

 best colored laborers leave the farms because of the poor houses 

 furnished by the owners. The condition of some of the one- 

 room cabins is miserable almost beyond description. In the 

 towns and cities, while he may have a harder time in other re- 

 spects, the colored man can usually find a reasonably comfortable 

 house with two or three rooms. 



No matter how ignorant a colored man may be himself, he al- 

 most always wants his children to have education. A very large 

 number of colored laborers leave the farm because they can not 

 get an education for their children. In a large section of the 

 farming district of the South, Negro schools run only from two 

 to five months in the year. In many cases children have to 

 walk miles to reach these schools. The school houses are, in 

 most cases, wretched little hovels with no light or warmth or 

 comfort of any kind. The teacher receives perhaps not more 

 than $18 or $25 a month, and as every school superintendent 

 knows, poor pay means a poor teacher. 



In saying this, I do not overlook the fact that conditions are 

 changing for the better in all parts of the South. White people 

 are manifesting more interest each year in the training of col- 

 ored people, and what is equally important, colored people are 

 beginning to learn to use their education in sensible ways ; they 

 are learning that it is no disgrace for an educated person to 

 work on the farm. They are learning that education which does 

 not somehow touch life is not education at all. More and more 

 we are all learning that the school is not simply a place, where 

 boys and girls learn to read and cipher ; but a place where they 

 learn to live. We are all learning that education which does 

 not somehow or other improve the farm and the home, which 



