Kemper County Agricultural High School - Yearbook (Scooba, MS)

Page 9 text:

H: . HIGH SCHOOL, SCOOBA, MISS. , 9 a levy sufficient for the proper maintenance of the school when located. The State, on its part, agrees to appropriate from 351,500 to 352,500 a year to each school meeting re- quirements. 1 Taking advantage of this offer of the State, and realiz- ing the need of better school advantages in the county, the Kemper County School Board established the school in 1911, too late to open the school before the next year. They located the school at Scooba, that town having offered build- ings, land and cash aggregating in value S15,385.00, suiii- cient to meet all legal requirements for the location of the school. ' The property offered by the Town of Scooba comprized one hundred and fifteen acres of agricultural land, valued at 825.00 an acre, buildings, furnishings and campus of Scooba High School, valued at S5,500, and cash subscription notes to the sum of 37,010 for the- building of a dormitory to fill legal requirements. These were turned over to the trustees by the Town of Scooba. Varying from the original plan, in order to provide for future growth, the trustees, with the funds placed at their disposal by County and State, remodeled the old school building for a girls' dormitory, erected an 38,000 academic building, purchased a seventeen-acre farm situated in the midst of the school property, and especially valuable to the school to furnish cleared land and a house to supplement dormitory facilitiesg bored a 1,300-foot well to furnish an abundance of pure water, furnished these buildings as needed, rented additional rooms, and operated the school nine months the first session. Through the generosity of the people of Kemper County, these accommodations have been increased. There was thrown open at the beginning of the session of 1914-1915 a commodious, three-story, brick building, neat, modern and well-fitted for its purposes. Owing to the lack of funds, the third story is not completed, but with the thirty-two rooms that are finished we are able to care for sixty-four boys,

Page 8 text:

8 KEMPER COUNTY AGRICULTURAL an opportunity of a high school education at a minimum cost, and to return them to you with an ambition to be and do something in life--to be producers of wealth and not par- asites on society. We beg you to remember that the school' is yours, supported by you, and that in maintaining your Agricultural High School you offer to your children an equal opportunity in life with others and arouse a hope in the heart of the poor boy and girl that never existed before. History and Present Status of School For the last twenty years the progressive educators have known that our system of education has been too tradi- tional-that our education appealed chiefly to professional life and the practical side of life was neglected. They de- plored the fact that Southern youth could not do with his hands-that he rather looked down on manual labor as menial, and that the ambition of the country youth led to the professions or to those callings which lured him from coun- try life. They knew that if the resources of Mississippi were conserved and developed by her sons, if rural life-the hope of the nation-was preserved, there must be injected into our school system an agricultural and home-making spirit. The result was the enactment of the law establish- ing the County Agricultural High School-a school that oifers to the country boy and girl an equal opportunity and equipment for life which his more favored urban cousins enjoy: a school that dignifies labor, and recognizes that the man in overalls can be as intelligent and as worthy of re- spect as the merchant, banker, professional man or anybody else-a school that gives to the state a citizenship educated in this true sense, having heads to think with, hands to do with, hearts to purpose with, and souls to adore God and Nature. The Kemper County Agricultural High School was estab- lished under an Act of the Legislature of 1910, which au- thorizes the School Board of any County to locate such a school, and requires the Supervisors of the County to make

Page 10 text:

7-2- -W - '--e-Mv-- 10 KEMPER COUNTY AGRICULTURAL which we think will suffice till the people can adjust them- selves to the bell weevil conditions. Then we hope that there will be a great awakening on educational lines and the people of the county may see what the Agricultural High School is doing for the country boy and girl and give the school what- it so much needs to render the people the best returns for their investment in their County Agricultural High School. We need to 'complete the third story of our boys' dormitory, steam heat, better farm equipment, a small dairy barn and equipment, a domestic science cottage, a manual training equipment and a sewerage sys- tem,'- furnishing abundant water in all the rooms. We need these that our boys may be taught what constitutes pleasant and profitable farming, that our girls may be taught the beauties and sacredness of woman's true mission, and that all may experience the convenience of an ideal home. i When these equipments have been provided, and these conditions brought about, then your County Agricultural High School will be filling its mission, your sons and daughters will catch a vision of true life and the future manhood and womanhood of Kemper' County will call you blessed. 1 ' Purpose The Agricultural I-Iigh,School is the State's solution of the problem of high school education for country boys and girls. Since it is impossible to maintain, a good high school in every community, the State plans to provide-one ini each county at which tuition and room rent shall be free to all residents of the county and board furnished at the lowest iigure at which it is possible to furnish a suiiiciency of Whole- some food. , . ' The State schools-the Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege, the Industrial Institute and College, and the Univer- sity?-are overcrowded with students who are not fully pre- pared for college or university work. The Agricultural High School is meant to fill the gap between the public