FOLK SCHOOL IN CAROLINA MOUNTAINS
Folk School in Carolina Mountains Mrs. Olive D. Campbell Starts Movement at Brasstown, N. C, to Carry Out the Successfully Tried Danish Educational Plan. By OLIVE D. CAMPBELL Olive D. Campbell...
...When our Community House is more than a hope, a foundation, and neatly stacked piles of framing, then we'll be able to open our doors to the whole countryside and they can come to us...
...Afternoons our attendance averaged about twenty...
...Campbell for singing Barbara Allen...
...The roads is a sight...
...Yet his family name, like the names of most of our citizens, was common in the census records of 1790...
...Bidstrup was asked to sing once more, and then Dr...
...You have to want to go, to go now...
...The last afternoon was given over to a Baby Conference, in which Dr...
...Interest in Singing ONE NIGHT, when the history lesson took the direction of folksong, which seems to be almost dead in this section, Mrs...
...won't you go our way...
...Penland, won't you go our way...
...The more you come, the more you come," commented one of the older men who missed only two sessions...
...Campbell selected Brasstown, a remote village in the North Carolina mountains, as the site for this educational pioneering...
...Among the poultry talks, Mr...
...This she developed internationally and nationally in several lectures, showing how health problems are common to all nations and ages, and ' what changes have taken place with increasing knowledge of preventative measures...
...With the help of Mr...
...Almost every one had heard of it, but none present could remember it...
...M;.ps, blackboards and pictures completed our equipment...
...As the days moved on we were obliged to ask those uncier sixteen not to come for we aardly had room enough for the older people, for whom the lectures 'were pai/icularly given...
...Bradley was begged for one more talk...
...I wish we could go on for a week, two weeks more...
...As she finished she said: "Think of my singing this to you...
...BRADLEY also gave a talk on the Indian reservation she had studied in North Dakota while under the Children's Bureau, a subject touching local experience because of our former Cherokee population driven out within the memory of the oldest inhabitants, and because of our nearby Cherokee reservation, a remnant of those who refused to leave and fled to the mountain fastnesses for refuge...
...I like your talks and thank you for them," said one young man who had just returned to his home after a number of years in another state...
...Oh, Mr...
...Problems of Health...
...Campbell was begged to sing "Barbara Allen," to which she had .made some reference...
...remarked one neighbor, and judging by the increasing attendance he was right...
...Deschamps gave one talk on the life of a tree, another on the sky and still another on Belgium...
...Every day Mrs...
...and Mrs...
...By using the eteps, straight chairs and low hickory-split stools, crowded up to the very hearth, over forty of us wedged in some evenings...
...She gave much geography indirectly but emphasized the human side of her experiences...
...This is like a revival...
...Unfortunately many parents did not dare to bring their babies on such a cold and rainy afternoon, but a number of fathers harnessed up the team and, rain or no, drove in the family...
...Bradley weighed and examined fifteen children and advised the mothers on the special care needed in each case...
...After a thorough study of the folk high schools in Denmark, held by many to be the root of the success of the co-operative movement in that country, and of the folk schools of other countries in Europe, Mrs...
...She, brought the discussion to local conditions and, in one particularly strong talk, emphasized the responsibility of fathers and mothers to produce good children and then to care for them as intelligently as they were learning to take care of their stock...
...We took up local names, traditions, etc., and tried to get an idea of the composition of our settlement...
...Farmhouse for School...
...As we formed the closing circle for Auld Lang Syne, Mr...
...Real Co-operative Spirit IF YOU could have seen us spinning the platter and paying our forfeits, playing Grunt-Piggy-Grunt and Musical Arms, you would not have guessed that many of our heads were gray and weighted with care...
...It is to be financed by voluntary contributions, and as Mrs...
...Bidstrup, "the finest singer you ever heard," we sang a number of songs from each land...
...which we adapted to the individual appearing, some one voluntarily acting as spy and announcing the name in a stage whisper...
...In all my rural work since 1913," she said, "I have never seen ,a community so co-operative in spirit as Brasstown...
...By OLIVE D. CAMPBELL Olive D. Campbell has spent many years studying the educational problem of the people in the southern mountains, and came to the conclusion that an adaptation of the famous Danish Folk School would best meet the need for adult education in that section of the country...
...There was no question but that those who were over twenty got infinitely more out of the whole occasion than those of sixteen and seventeen...
...She roused great amusement by pointing out how the county agents were stressing right here every day the importance of gocd breeding stock, of plenty of milk and greens for poultry, etc., but no one said anything about children needing just the same things...
...The Community House being still a hope instead of a reality, we thought it more homelike to meet at the Farmhouse rather than in the Baptist church, heated by one small stove...
...Our state poultry expert could not be present, but out county agents of Clay and Cherokee came to the rescue aided by several successful local farmers...
...We got quite adept in singing in every newcomer with an English chantey—"I met her in the morning...
...Folks have asked me lots of times who we were, but I could never tell...
...The latter concluded every night's meeting, the big ring standing with crossed and clasped hands, Scotch fashion...
...ON DAY, the 7th of February, marks the first session of the John C. Campbell Folk School—only a week of Community School but we feel an important one...
...Talks on History DR...
...if it had been pretty weather you couldn't have housed them...
...The weather throughout was raw, with frequent heavy showers...
...Miss Butler's three travel talks, in costume, came at night—Finland, Denmark and Norway and Sweden, illustrated by maps, many pictures and interesting objects picked up on our travels...
...While people straggled in from every direction we chatted sociably over the open fire, or practised songs...
...So much interest was aroused that we propose to have soon a ballad evening and see how many songs and singers caa be gathered together...
...Now you know if we had read that, it wouldn't have meant the same," said another...
...Jim told us nil about what she said," said one friend who had not been able to be pres-sent, "It is jusjfc what we need to know...
...The roads, bad at first, were unspeakable by Friday ami Saturday...
...The last night especially, when the heavy rain and mud kept all but the most determined away, and we thus had room to be a little more lively, the group of twenty-two, largely men, joined in an uproarious playing of Nuts in May, which ended in many lame arms and reminiscent chuckles...
...You do not realize yet what has come among you...
...Good evening all you Claytons...
...Two afternoons he took a group, of men out for practical forestry instruction, once to alpine wood and the other time to a hardwood area...
...FRANCES SAGE BRADLEY, formerly of the Children's Bureau, who came down from Berea for the week, led off with a review of the public health movement...
...This was the voice of many...
...One of the circle responded: "When this has come into our community and country, why folks have to hold together or we just wcva't travel...
...Fred O. Scroggs, the liberal-minded keeper of our local store, enlarged further during'the evening on the use-fullness of this co-operative enterprise and urged Brasstown citizens to support it by buying shares...
...I'd have walked ten miles to bear that...
...Also requests came for just such a course at Hayesville, the county seat of Clay, thirteen miles away, and at Elf, on Shooting Creek, ten miles beyond...
...Gampbcll suggests in the following story, the people themselves are "digging ditches," contributing materials and labor as they are able, for the buildings.— Editor's Note...
...No one had less than half a mile to come and most had a good mile or more...
...Names and subscriptions were taken at once...
...Law...
...We were scheduled to begin at 1:30, but we have three kinds of time in Brasstown—fast, slow, and sun-time...
...We cleared the living room of all furniture except the piano, old-fashioned corner cupboard, mountain-made black walnut chest which could and did serve as a bencn for three, and a Email table' for a lamp...
...Arrendale, of Clay County, devoted one to co-operative marketing of poultry and eggs, while the head of the newly-organized co-operative purchasing association, Mark Weaver, of Hayesville, explained the nature of the organization...
...We also learned America the Beautiful and Auld Lang Syne...
...won't you go my way...
...In spite of them some of our community walked three and even four miles back and forth twice a day through slippery mud...
...One father, on mule-back, brought his little girl in his arms, and a mother bringing in her three youngest pushed the Ford over an especially bad piece of the road while her husband officiated at the wheel...
...It is difficult to say what a help these gifts were, especially the piano, for we are not naturally a singing community...
...Campbell gave a history talk, relating the community to the whole pioneer movement across the mountains westward, tying it up to Europe, and_.showing the part the Appalachian range as a whole has played in the development of our country...
...It is too new and unusual, but in ten years if you hold together all the country will be looking to Brasstown...
...one listener replied, and a little ^,'ter, "It's worth ten dollars," and after a little further reflection, "I'm going to ditch a week for Mrs...
Vol. 19 • July 1927 • No. 7
