Euclid High School - Euclidian Yearbook (Euclid, OH)

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The Mountain Whites P in the mountains of western Virginia and Kentucky, cut off from the civilization and education of the rest ofthe world, lives a race of very intelligent people, called the Mountain Wliites. They were not the low whites that lived on the Southern low lands, but the sturdy Scotch- Irish who came from Pennsylvania. When Penn- sylvania became crowded and they were pushed out, they began to settle in the mountains. Some German people also settled there. The ground was not very fertile and it was so hilly that the crops did not thrive very well. They kept getting farther into the mountains until the mountains had them hemmed in from the rest of the world. Since they do not go out or visitors dot not.come to them, they are living in the eighteenth century and the days of Daniel Boone. Very little is known about them and they know very little about the Ollt- side world. The few reports that we get from them most always tell of battle. murder or sudden death. They for their part call anyone outside of the moun- tains a foreigner. Imagine a shipload of people cast OH: on some unknown island and left there for five or six generations. VVe would expect the customs and languages of their descendants to be the same as that of their forefathers. This is just what we find to be true about these mountain people. Very few heard anything about them, until the beginning of the Civil War, when they sent one hundred and eighty thousand riflemen into the Union Army. One reason why people do not crowd to these mountains, is that they have no good roads. Their only roads follow rock-strewn water courses. At times these are nearly dry in the morning and within an hour they are raging torrents. They have no buggies or carriages. There are no bridges. In many districts the only means of transportation is with saddle-bags on horse-back or with a tow sack afoot. in some places it is impossible to communicate with your neighbor. Such diiiiculties of inter-communication are enough to explain the backwardness of the mountaineer. Each is confined to his own locality and finds his little world within a radius of a few miles from his cabin. There are many men who have never seen a town, not even the small village which serves as their county seat. The women are rooted like trees. One woman who lived only ten miles from her old home had never been back to see her mother and father during the twelve years of her married life. Another, had never been to the postothce. four miles away, and another had never seen the ford of the Rockcastle river only two miles from her home, and marked by the country store of the district. There were women in the neighborhood, young and old. who had never seen a railroad or a t1'Zi1Il before. ' .These people have no chance to get an education. A woman. while stay- ing in these mountains one summer, made biscuits and other things for them. M They wanted to learn how to make them. She taught them many things. lhey were very eager to learn, and begged her to stay and teach them more. 27

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Foreign Born Children HE other day l noticed a group of 2nd and 3rd grade children playing Farmer in the Dell. At this time, as at all other times. it was only the better dressed children who really participated in being the Hfarmerf' nurse or child etc. The foreign children would stand in a tense and ex- pectant attitude. yet the expression of their faces expressed the desire which they felt. They really seem pitiable yet what can be done? There seems to be a great contrast between the two classes of children, which is most noticeable in the lower grades. The foreign born child doesn't have the mischievious, carefree, smiling twinkle in hiseyesg he feels oppressed by his American brother. None but the foreign child knows what heartaches are caused when names like hunky, Wop and dago are carelessly Hung at him. The names mentioned are only a few in the category of hurts with which he is inflicted. It is true that the average foreign child is not as neat as the American child. but he does not have an equal chance. His parents are uneducated, his father earns a meager salary as a day laborer, his mother is frequently a tired over- worked woman with a large family of children, housework to do, besides work in the garden, care of live stock Cif she lives in rural communitiesl etc. It is hard for her to keep the children spick and span and futhermore she does not know the hygienic importance of cleanliness. Let us give him a chance. Do not scorn him, do not call him names' The memory of the hurts, inflicted in childhood, last thru the school years and even in high school he labors to forget them. He feels suppressed and distrustful of the seeming arrogant bearing of his American brother. The two do not mingle. The foreign born child does not in turn join in the support of school spirit. He thinks what's the use. l'm not wanted. He feels no responsibilityg he will allow the wonderful democratic principles taught in American schools to pass over his head. He feels a contempt for the richer class of people. l think that this is partly the cause of any criminal offenses against them as he grows up, which is steadily developed into worse crimes. He has no respect for law and altho he is taught in American schools he will not make a staunch American unless he is given a chance. This is a question which must be considered broadmindedly from all sides. It is the grammar school child who is susceptible to these hurts. ln high school the danger passes as the foreign child's views become broadened and he is able to reason logically. C. Camine, ,22 26

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ln nineteen hundred and two, among other schools, the Settlement School was established in Hindman, Kentucky. The original property consisted of a frame school house of live rooms, rented COtt21gC, and four acres of ground. The men of the county paid seven hundred dollars for three acres of this land and gave it as an inducement to have the school at Hindman, because they were so anxious that their children should have a chance they never had had. Some of the children were very eager to go to school, and others had to be driven. Most of the parents made their children go. Two little boys, brothers, around the ages of nine and ten, walked forty miles to go to school. There was no room for them, so they were told to come hack the next year. They came back and were again turned away because there was no bed for them. They returned home and came back in a few days, bringing bed-clothes on their backs. They had decided to sleep on the lloor in order to gain an edu- cation. A father brought three little girls sixty miles over the mountains to stay at the school, because they had no mother. He wanted them to be brought up like ladies. Ihe school lands it hard to send away such as these. Some of the boys got so homesick, and could not stand it away from home so long. A young lady went to teach at this school. She lived in the little boys' house. It made it seem more like home to the boys, and they did I'lOt run away so often. The little boys were very fond of lighting together. Some of the boys came from families that did little else but light. They had never heard the real meaning of Christmas. It was customary for them to be drunk on Christmas Day. When the young lady told them about hanging up their stockings, they said that was only for ladies. At the school they soon lost some of their barbarism. The school now covers two hundred and twenty-live acres of land, in- cluding coal mines bought in 1918. It has twenty buildings, cottages, hos- pitals, power house, school buildings and barns. There are thirty teachers and workers. One hundred boys and girls live in the settlement. The school enrollment is two hundred and four. They are doing splendid work, but they still need more help. These people are good Americans and descendents ol our early pioneers. Wlhile we are helping people across the ocean, why not give a little more attention to these real Americans in our own country! Eleanor Harmon. Sophomore. .lan.21,1921. ZS