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not shout and gesticulate be might be termed a good speaker but not a good 

 preacher. The early attitude towards the settlement workers was indi- 

 cated in a mountain sermon in which the congregation was told to "beware 

 of the fetched on women who come in here wearing gold watches, and 

 their shirt fronts starched so slick that a fly would slip off and bust out his 

 brains". But, a year later, the same mountaineer said that since these 

 women were administering to the needy under conditions so harsh that 

 even the mountain people would not venture out, "I allow as how they are 

 welcome to stay in the mountains as long as I live." One mountain 

 patriarch, who has given his farm and essentially his all in founding a set- 

 tlement school in the valley of his home, gives some of his reasons as fol- 

 lows : That there was much whiskey and wickedness in the community 

 where his grandchildren must be reared, was a serious thing for him to 

 study about. He heard two of his neighbors say that there is neither 

 heaven nor hell. One of them said that when a man is dead he is just the 

 same as a dumb beast. Another said that he could not rear his large fam- 

 ily of children to be as mean as he wished. The founder's idea was that a 

 good school "would help moralize the country." Formerly the Presbyterian 

 religion was most prevalent, but it gave way to the "Hardshell' Baptist 

 creed, since in the mountains the educational qualifications for the latter 

 were less severe than for the former. The disciples of this religion have in 

 turn given way before the "Missionary Baptists.*' Methodists are also 

 numerous. The most vivid disputes in the mountains were wont to be 

 about religion. But now there is a significant change toward toleration in 

 that preachers frequently exchange pulpits with pastors of other denomi- 

 nations, and that the use of a church is often tendered to another denomi- 

 nation which temporarily is without a place of worship. The following 

 can be interpreted as a groan of growth : "The church in eour holler, hits 

 about dade. Part ov the folks wants an eddicated preacher, an parts wants 

 an old-timer, an so they don't get nary one". The funeral preaching had 

 become the sole opportunity for social gathering until the recent advent of 

 "camp meeting week", and the coming of the extension school on wheels. 



Changing conditions have not yet affected greatly the political situa- 

 tion in the mountains. Since the Civil War so many of the inhabitants 

 have been Republicans that party arguments have been one-sided, and 

 the contests have been within the organization. Unity of feeling gives the 

 representatives considerable power in the State Legislature. Political 

 discussions are said to be confined in general to stump speeches con- 



