body of those who remained on the farm, 61 per cent., belong in the class 

 which dropped out somewhere between the Fifth and Eighth Grades, 

 while only 30 per cent, of those who left fall in the same class. Thus the 

 best educated and the poorest educated tend to leave the farm, while 

 those with the average education remain. It would not be fair to say 

 that the boy who goes beyond the Eighth Grade is necessarily superior 

 to the boy who drops out before he reaches this grade, but the proba- 

 bilities are that among those who do best in their school work are 

 included the best minds and the most of those who dream dreams and 

 have high ideals and a large vision of the future. Thus the country 

 districts are losing their best and their poorest, and are retaining those 

 of mediocre ability. 



Defectives 



Out of 340 families the investigator was told of 8 consumptives, 3 

 feeble-minded, 5 insane, 1 epileptic, 1 deaf and dumb, 1 blind, 3 cripples, 

 7 toughs, 17 drinking men and 1 loose woman. 



The Negroes 



Gibson County has, indeed, no immigrant problem, but it has the 

 great problem of the South, the negro problem. It is not the special 

 purpose of this report to investigate the negro problem. The investi- 

 gator, born in the North, is no more than an observer of the negro. " It 

 is our problem," the Southerner says, and the solution of it obviously 

 must come through the Southern people themselves. However, an in- 

 vestigation of the social condition in this county which leaves the negro 

 out of account is no investigation at all. 



In all, the negroes constitute 28 per cent, of the population, or about 

 11,000 people. According to the school enumeration, the proportion of 

 negroes in the county is decreasing. Of the total number of children of 

 school age only 25 per cent, are negroes, as against the 28 per cent, for 

 the total population. 



There is said to be a general tendency among the negroes to move to 

 town. Sixty per cent., however, still live in the open country. For the 

 most part, both in town and country, they live in settlements of their 

 own. Some civil districts have no negroes at all. Map No. 4 shows the 

 distribution of the negro population within the county. 



The negroes work as farmers, as laborers in factory and shop, and at 

 odd jobs. Outside of the laboring classes there are 45 teachers, 10 

 ministers, 1 or 2 doctors, and perhaps a dozen storekeepers. Forty per 

 cent, of the negroes in neighborhoods studied are land owners, although 

 in many cases their farms are heavily mortgaged. As a laborer the 

 negro earns low wages, from 75 cents to $1.25 a day. This cheap negro 



20 



