EVERYBODY "A Southerner in Europe" By CLARENCE H. POE 'A book not only of readable and interesting travel sketches, but even more notable as a vigorous and thought-provoking review of the needs and d opportunities of our Southern people as seen in the light of Old World conditions.' JUST OUT! Cloth, 75c.; Heavy Paper, 40c. CHIEF JUSTICE WALTER CLARK says: "The best travel letters I have ever seen from any European tourist." COLUMBIA STATE: "Delightful to every class of readers." EX-GOVERNOR CHARLES B. AYCOCK: "I read the last chapter the other night, having for the first time found an opportunity to look into it. Having read the last chapter I turned back and took the book up from the beginning and nearly completed it before laying it down. It is in every way most delightful and instructive." The entertain PRESBYTERIAN STANDARD: "There are no dull places. ment is pronounced throughout. If anybody, who would know more of the wide world, and love his country better, has never read this little book, let him sit down and order a copy at once." NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE: "The man who knows how to produce so sprightly a paper as is The Progressive Farmer, and whose contributions on Southern industrial conditions are welcomed by the best magazines, naturally knows what to look for in Europe and how to tell the story when he has seen it. He has made a capital little book." NORTH CAROLINA EDUCATION: "A beautiful and handy little volume of 140 glowing pages thought-provoking, stimulating, inspiring. What can these progressive countries of the Old World, with their centuries of struggle and achievement, teach me about the solution of our own New World problems in the South?'-this is the inquiry constantly in the mind of the author, and so easily and appropriately is profitable discussion interwoven with entertaining discourse that there is not a heavy line in the whole fourteen chapters." R. D. W. CONNOR: "I read it from cover to cover without stopping-a whole day of delightful reading." C. L. VAN NOPPEN: "Marvelously clear in presentation and really profound in philosophic and utilitarian outlook." GET IT AT YOUR BOOK STORE MUTUAL PUBLISHING CO. RALEIGH, N. C. The South Atlantic Quarterly. Working for the Common Good: Rural and City Improvement in the South BY WILLIAM H. GLASSON Professor of Economics in Trinity College One who is interested in the progress of North Carolina and the South must find much cause for encouragement in the many public-spirited movements which have been inaugurated in recent days. Perhaps the effort of first importance is that to accomplish an agricultural revolution. In his article on "Builders of an Agricultural Commonwealth," Mr. Clarence H. Poe told in the January number of the QUARTERLY an inspiring story of the progress that is being made in the application of improved methods to Southern agriculture. It is scarcely possible to overemphasize the importance of the agricultural revolution which Mr. Poe and his Progressive Farmer are striving so earnestly and effectively to bring about. The multiplication of our material resources through an increase of products won from the soil is fundamental. Increased efficiency in the cultivation of the land will mean greater prosperity to all classes. Closely related to agricultural progress is the building of good roads. Many North Carolina counties have already gone far in this direction. The legislature of 1909 passed one hundred and thirty-one acts relating in some way or other to public roads. Eighteen of these related to the issue of bonds by various counties and townships for the construction of better roads. Fifteen were concerned with the levying of special taxes for the purpose of road building. The bond issues proposed vary from $20,000 to $200,000. In some cases they have been authorized; in other cases campaigns are in progress to secure a favorable vote at special elections called to decide the question. The best citizens everywhere are interesting themselves in the subject. In connection with this good roads movement, public attention should be directed to a valuable act of a general nature passed by the North Carolina General Assembly at its recent session. This law made an appropriation of $5,000 for the purpose of enabling "the North Carolina Geological Board to advise with the township and county authorities in the building and improvement of the public roads, by sending to the township or county a competent road engineer, who will assist them in locating their improved roads, advise them as to the best road to build and how to build it, and also give advice relating to the best kind of bridge to be built in connection with the improvement of any road. The Geological Board, through the State Geologist, may make inquiries in regard to systems of road building and management throughout the United States and make investigations and experiments in regard to the best methods of roadmaking and the best kinds of road material, and shall disseminate such knowledge by lectures to be given in the different counties and by preparing, publishing, and distributing bulletins and reports on the subjects of road improvement, and shall also gather and tabulate information and statistics on road building in North Carolina and disseminate the same throughout the State." In a recent "Good Roads Circular" the State Geological Survey announces that it has employed under the terms of this act an expert road engineer who has had long experience in the service. of the United States Government. This expert will put engineering knowledge derived from the actual problems met with in many States at the disposal of townships and counties where roads are to be built. His service should be a most important aid to the localities in securing the adoption of the most appropriate type of road, in the selection of materials, in the location of the roads, and in the securing of economy of construction. Inexperience in road building may well prove to be very costly to a locality. This provision for system and intelligent planning gives promise of assuring to the localities the best possible results from their expenditures. Another line of progressive work is that for the care and upbuilding of the public health. By appropriating money for the maintenance of a special sanitarium, the State has entered the fight against the tuberculosis plague. Alert health officers and public-spirited physicians in some of our cities have inaugurated plans and institutions to combat this disease in their localities. Great interest is being manifested in the ravages of the so-called "hookworm disease" among large numbers of the poorer people in the rural South. Everybody should read the article in the May number of the World's Work descriptive of the discovery of this human parasite by Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles, and of the evils for which it is held responsible. Dr. Stiles's contention should be given the most serious consideration. If but a fraction of the damage, inefficiency, and suffering attributed to this intestinal parasite is conceded to be caused by it, the Southern States would display the wisest economy and the most humane regard for the welfare of their citizens by making generous appropriations for a systematic campaign against the evil. The subject is one which should commend itself to the intelligent and painstaking attention of the manufacturers of the South. The World's Work states that "as early as 1903 Dr. Stiles declared that, as a result of the most painstaking examinations, he had been unable to escape the conclusion that the dwarfed stature and anæmic condition of the cotton-mill children is due, not so much to the evils of mill work as to hookworm infection, contracted before going to the mill. Under present conditions, he says, mill labor, bad as it is, is distinctly preferable to farm work on polluted soil. He even goes so far as to assert that the condition of many of these children has improved after leaving the farm and going into the mill, and that the cottonmills are the best friends the poor whites have." If the above opinion is well founded, there must be many factory communities where both good business policy and common humanity would require the managers to have suspected operatives subjected to examination to detect the presence of the parasite. Fortunately, the malady is easily curable. "By the use, under prescription, of fifteen to seventy-five cents' worth of two of the cheapest and commonest drugs-Epsom salts and thymol-the worst cases can be disposed of absolutely and permanently in from one to ten weeks." While under treatment the operative need lose little or no time from his work. In any event, the knowledge that the transmission of this disease is due to the lack of sanitary conveniences and precautions should direct attention to a general improvement of rural, and even urban, conditions along these lines. A new emphasis is placed upon the need and value of cleanliness. And, in fact, cleanliness is becoming a watchword of the civic leagues and associations which are springing up in our Southern towns and cities. During the past spring successful "cleaning-up days" have been reported from Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, and other places. In some cases the municipal authorities have found it an embarrassing problem to dispose with any degree of promptness of the unexpected quantities of rubbish and refuse which have been brought from back yards and obscure crannies and corners into the streets by willing workers under the inspiration of the local civic associations. The growing activities of such associations constitute another valuable form of effort for the common good. A great impetus to their work has been given by the American Civic Association with which many of the city and town organizations are allied. Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, is one of the Southern cities which is awaking to its needs and possibilities. It has secured a report on the work necessary to enable proper advantage to be taken of the hundred-foot avenues provided in the original city plan, as well as to obtain needed parks and parkways. An admirable plan has also been prepared for the improvement of Greenville, South Carolina. Early in 1908 Mr. John Nolen, who contributed an article on "Public Open Spaces in American Towns and Cities" to the July, 1906, QUARTERLY, prepared a plan for the improvement and beautification of Roanoke, Virginia. To the July, 1908, QUARTERLY Mr. W. G. Cooper, Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of Atlanta, Georgia, contributed an article on "The Beautification of Cities." In this article he referred to plans for the improvement of Atlanta, and to the fact that the initiative had been taken by the Chamber of Commerce through its Committee on Civic Improvement. In that city the Federation of Women's Clubs is striving to introduce emulation among the wards of the city in the beautification of homes. Such work admirably supplements efforts for architectural, street, and park improvements under a general plan. Even debt-burdened New Orleans is joining in the movement with noteworthy results. North Carolina has in Biltmore the example of a village |