CHURCH AND SCHOOL 223 
little longer they would all invite 5 ou to go home 
with them. 
There is no truant officer in the mountains, and no 
need of one. The children love to go to school and 
go so long as there is a school day left, unless circum- 
stances in the form of -'curger brothers aryi sisters 
and the stern hand of parental control f^bid. Per- 
haps their devotion is partly accounted for in the 
length of the school year, wnich lasts fr^ . ai six weeks, 
to three or four months. You do not have time to 
get tired of going to a school that lasts only six -/eeks 
with forty-six weeks of vacation to look .'-^- p^ d to. 
The log school-house is fast vanishing from the 
North Carolina mountains where so many changes 
have been made within a few years. And while the 
schools hidden in the heart of the wilderness are un- 
doubtedly still primitive enough to compete with 
any of the noted log schools that nurtured ge.^ius in 
former days, genius is not nurtured in them here, for 
it can quickly find its way to the better schools of 
the villages that are becoming more and more ac- 
cessible. Indeed, educational opportunities are in- 
creasing on all sides at the same quick pace that 
characterizes the other "improvements" that are 
now transforming the wilderness into something 
else, though it must not be supposed that there is 
yet no room for improvement. 
There are schools for higher education, colleges 
and industrial schools, in the mountains themselves, 
as well as In the country just below the mountains, 
and now a law has been passed which retires the 
