Early Journal Content on JSTOR, Free to Anyone in the World This article is one of nearly 500,000 scholarly works digitized and made freely available to everyone in the world by JSTOR. Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non-commercial purposes. Read more about Early Journal Content at http://about.istor.org/participate-istor/individuals/early- journal-content . JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL OUR EARLY GRADED SCHOOLS AND THEIR FOUNDERS I. ALEXANDER GRAHAM: TEAGHER, SGHOLAR GENTLEMAN, DIPLOMAT, AND FRIEND <^y M. C. S. NOBLE Dean of the Sdiool of Educatson, The University of North Gux>lina The growth and development of the public school system of North Carolina since the Civil War is the resultant of the untiring labors of educators who served their time as teachers in the school-room. The great forward movement began in the early eighties of the nineteenth century when Graham, Tomlinson, Moses, Alderman, Mclver, and D. Matt Thompson came into educational service as teachers in the classroom, as speakers in public meetings, and as lecturers at teachers' institutes throughout the state. None of these men were politicians but all of them were inspiring teachers; some of them were effective and irresistible in public speech, while all of them were enthusiastic, progressive, and successful as schoolmen, and the work they did soon won endorse- ment and support from tihe politicians, and good will and special taxes from the people. BIRTH, PARE:NTAGE, EDUCATION, AND EARLY EXPERI- ENCES AS TEACHER Alexander Graham, the first of the above mentioned teachers to take the public school question to the peo- ple in popular address, was born within four miles of Fayetteville, N. C, September 12th, 1844, and was the son of Archibald Graham and Anne McLean Graham. He prepared for college in the private schools of Fayetteville, entered the Sophomore class at the University of North Carolina in 1866, and was a prominent member of the Senior class when the institution suspended in 1868. Prior to entering the University, he taught school in Cumberland and Bladen counties, always with very great success and with an ever increasing love for the work of the teacher, although, all the while, it was his steady purpose to practice law as his profession. In 1864, he entered the Confederate Army and took part in the battle of Bentonville in 1865. In 1871, he was elected a teacher in the well-known Anthon Grammar School in New York which position be held for three years, teaching in the forenoon and attending the Columbia law school in the afternoon, from which institution he graduated in 1873 with the degree of LL. B. He received his law license in 1875 and practiced in Fayetteville until 1878. THE PEABODY FUND In the early years of its existence it was the policy of the trustees of the Peabody Fund to help any town in the State desirous of a good school with an annual appropriation for several years with the hope that its citizens would, as soon as they saw what a blessing a good school was, vote a special sdhool tax, and then let the Peabody appropriation go to another town and in like manner stimulate it to build up a school system for the education of its boys and girls. Fay- etteville was one of the North Carolina towns which was helped in this way by the Peabody Fund and Alexander Graham was the superintendent. The school was founded, however, upon the race pride of the white people of Fayetteville and began its career without the aid of one single cent of income from any special tax whatever. The following incident tells the story of the cause of the establishment of the public school in this historic town of the upper Cape Fear section and shows what I mean by saying, "founded upon the race pride of the white people of Fayetteville." FAYETTEVILLE GRADED SCHOOL ESTABLISHED Sometime during the summer of 1878, in Campbell- town, a section of Fayetteville, an alTray occurred be- tween two gentlemen. At the trial of the case in the old market house, six negro boys and five white boys were witnesses. The six negroes signed their names to their testimony but the five white boys, to the as- tonishment and humiliation of the great crowd of white people present, had to make their marks. The negro boys had attended a long term school supported by Northern philanthropy and the white boys had attended a forty- or fifty-day term with the result shown at the trial. The white people of the town then and there, in their humiliation and shame, determined to place a good school within reach of all the white children of the town. Subscriptions were solicited and about $3,000 con- tributed in sums varying from fifty cents to two hundred and fifty dollars, and thus the school was started. For superintendent they turned to Alexander Gra- ham, a man of successful experience as a teacher at home and abroad. This school at Fayetteville, supported by the small amount received from the public school fund, aided by an appropriation from the Peabody Fund, and abso- lutely dependent upon the large voluntary contribu- tions of the citizens o£ the town, was the first com- plete public graded and high school in the State ; and so well did Superintendent Graham administer its THE HICH SCHOOL JOURNAL affairs that he was frequently employed by the Pea- body trustees to canvass the State in behalf of better public schools, using the school in Fayetteville as an il- lustration of what a good school meant to a town. GRAHAM GOES TO CHARLOTTE In 1888 he was elected superintendent of the Char- lotte Public Schools and "held that position for a quarter of a century in spite of the envy, hatred, and ALEXANDER GRAHAM: TEACHER, SCHOLAR GENTLEMAN, DIPLOMAT, FRIEND malice, that so often nag and obstruct the leader of the educational interests of a community. In 1913 he failed of election as superintendent by a very small majority but was elected at once the assistant superin- tendent and teacher of history, a position he still fills with efficiency and inspiration to all with whom he comes in contact. His long service is a part of the history of Charlotte for t)he past thirty years and today he is Charlotte's best known citizen. Everybody in the town, white and black, knows him and loves him for his long ser- vice in the schools, his genuine worth as a man, and his lovable disposition. I never meet a citizen of Charlotte without asking him if he knows Professor Graham, and invariably the stranger's face lights up with a smile as he an- swers, "Know him? Yes, I do! And what's more, everybody else in Charlotte knows him and likes him too." FIT ONLY TO T^ACH SCHOOL Some years ago, at a station on the old C. F. & Y. V. Railroad,' I saw an engineer get down from his engine with his oil can in hand. I walked up to where he was oiling his engine, began to talk to him, and soon learned that he had once lived in Fayetteville. Of course I asked if he had ever known Alexander Gra- ham. He answered, "Yes, I knew Alec mighty well. We went to school together. He's a mighty good fel- low, always was a good fellow, even as a boy. He taught school in Fayetteville after he grew up, and after a while got himself another job teaching up in Charlotte. He appeared to be not much account and seemed to be fit for nothing else but to teadh school." A splendid tribute, thought not intended as such. That a good teacher "did not amount to much" be- cause he was "fit for nothing else but to teach school" used to be the belief of many a man besides this boy- hood friend of Alec Graham. But today, on the con- trary, the belief is that to be a sdhool teacher, a school superintendent, a leader in great educational move- ments, calls for talents and training of the highest degree, and the splendid work of such men as Alexan- der Graham has wrought this change in popular belief. TEACHER IN NORMAL SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTES His career as a teacher has been a long and suc- cessful one. He has taught in town and country schools both public and private. He 'has been rapidly promoted from teacher to principal, and then to super- intendent. He has taught in the old State Summer Normal Schools at- Washington, Wilson, Elizabeth City, Newton, and Franklin, in the University of North Carolina Summer School for Teachers, and in J:he Summer School for Teachers at Columbia, South Carolina, and he has conducted teachers' in- stitutes in forty North Carolina counties. And taday far to the front in the high regard of all who know of his service for public schools, still young in mind and body and yet rich in that experience which years alone can bring, this teacher and leader in educational prog- ress and achievement can look with becoming pride not only upon his record in Summer Sdhool and Normal School but also upon the two most excellent public school systems of Fayetteville and Charlotte and claim them as his own. As a student of North Carolina history he ranks 8 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL with the best and he is regarded as especially accurate and thorough in his knowledge of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, being ever ready to de- fend the authenticity of the Twentieth of May claim with sound argument and abundant documentary evi- dence. FROM WII.E:y to JOYNER His term of office as an educator began while Cal- vin H. Wiley, our first State Superintendent, was yet in office, and each of Wiley's successors to this day has found Alexander Graham in educational harness and always pulling bravely in the right direction. At all of the larger educational meetings in North Carolina he is always a delightful presence and a help- ful force and constantly the center of a group of teachers eager to hear him talk from his full store of practical experience as a teacher and his thrilling reminiscences of the schoolroom or some local tax campaign for a school tax, a bond issue for a new building, or some other phase of educational prog- ress. I wish that I had space enough to tell something of the bright and sunny side of his character where wit and humor sparkle and hold with equal charm both friends and strangers alike. But to write a full ac- count of only his labors as an educator would make this sketch too long. May he live long and be found for many years to come still laboring for the educa- tion of all the children of North Carolina. TANGIBLE REWARDS OF AN EDUCATION lina It is all very well for us as teachers to urge our pupils to remain in school that they may get the cul- ture and training which comes from having an educa- tion. We may "point with pride" to the products of our schools and try to make ashamed those who do not try to better their social standing by grasping the op- portunity offered them by the state. This is of course the worthy and high motive which should actuate all citizens in a democracy, and the attainment to a high degree of education and culture is a just motive for much sacrifice and struggle. However, there is a vast number of our citizens, young ones especially, who cannot yet see far enough down the path of life to visualize the blessings and benefits which accrue to the educated man and wo- man. The school boy and girl must see immediate re- turns on the investment in education ; they are day by day asking the very pertinent and the very human question, "Will it pay?'' Crass materialism it may be, typical of the twentieth century desire for quick returns it is. But as one of our famous political lead- ers once remarked, "It is a condition and not a theory which now confronts us." We cannot satisfy these questionings and we fail to meet the issue squarely unless we can tell the pupils in our schools whether or not education does pay, and pay in the very tangible form, of dollars and cents. Dr. A. Caswell Ellis, of the University of Texas, has done us a great and lasting favor, therefore, by preparing a bulletin on "The Money Value of Edu- cation," which appears as Bulletin, 1917, No. 22, from the United States Bureau of Education. It is an ex- ceedingly readable and definite study of facts about the tangible rewards of an education. Several inter- esting viewpoints are brought out in the study which are so very pertinent that we are taking the liberty of summarizing a few of them. On page 9 appears a graphic presentation of a re- buttal to the old argument that public education is a charity from the state. In 1899 Massachusetts spent $38.55 per pupil on education. That same year Ten- nessee spent $4.68 per pupil on education. During that year M.assachusetts citizens averaged to produce $144 each more than the citizens of Tennessee pro- duced. Taken in the aggregate, Massachusetts spent $12,000,000 more on schools than did Tennessee and her citizens produced $403,000,000 worth more than did the citizens of Tennessee. It is a mighty good in- vestment that will produce an income of 33 times as great as the capital invested. Statisticians will haggle over the fact that in the case just cited the citizens receiving the education provided by the money spent were not the citizens who produced the wealth; admitted, but both Massachu- setts and Tennessee had been pursuing a policy similar to the policy of 1899 for a number of years. How- ever, to satisfy the scientifically minded manipulator of facts and figures we will take the Massachusetts case of 799 workers who left school at either 14 or at 18 years of age and trace the actual average salaries received by them from year to year. "The boys who had remained four years longer in school in order to take a technical course soon caught up in salary with their brothers who stopped at 14, and went ahead of them so rapidly that by the time they were 22 years old the sum of the four years'