A 1929 Profile of Madison College

A close-up look at Madison College in 1929

Through a letter from Lida Funk Scott

to philanthropist George Foster Peabody

and his reply

Written as part of a fund raising campaign to upgrade Madison to senior college status

Taken from correspondence between Lida Scott and Percy T. Magan in the Percy T. Magan Collection #229, Center for Adventist Research, James White Library, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan

December 16, 1929

Mr. George Foster Peabody

New York City, N.Y.

My dear Mr. Peabody:

Since I have not had the pleasure of meeting you who have so materially helped the cause of education in the South, I count it a privilege to introduce myself. I am the daughter of the late Isaac K. Funk, founder of the publishing house, Funk & Wagnalls, and formerly Editor-in-chief of the Standard Dictionary, and am sister to the firm’s president, Wilfred J. Funk.

My apology for soliciting your consideration of an enterprise that is very near my heart is that Dr. P.P. Claxton, who accompanied us on a part of our motor trip to New York, advised me that you would give a hearing to an educational work of the character I represent and that your counsel and experience would be invaluable in a campaign for funds that are now needed. I trust the remainder of my letter will justify your attention.

It was after the death of my daughter in 1914 that I came to Madison, Tennessee, to investigate the merits of the Nashville Agricultural Normal Institute, a school I had heard of, hoping to satisfy my interest in young people by enabling less fortunate but equally promising sons and daughters to get a training for life’s responsibilities.

I was much depleted in health and as the school was operating a rural sanitarium as one of its departments, I became its patient. Although I owe my recovery to the good diet, simple treatments, out-of-door life, efficient care of the student nurse, and the undeniable logic and patience of a very sensible physician, I also perhaps equally appreciate the opportunity I had for three years to observe quietly during my convalescence the effect that supervised industries on a large farm have on the manhood and womanhood of students engaged in self-support. The student is living a normal life, receiving daily the discipline of life’s realities while getting his theoretical training. He has and needs no coddling.

Here was developing a very unique educational experiment. The faculty composes the board of Operators and are joint proprietors. The teachers are moved by a philanthropic urge to help young people to obtain an education for usefulness. The faculty has freedom to carry on a very practical educational program. They also maintain a debt-free policy.

I liked the idea and decided to give all the encouragement and practical help I could, and have ever since taken an active part in its development and am now a member of the Board of Operators and Board of Owners.

Regarding this policy of student self-support and freedom from debt, it is interesting to note in this connection that P.P. Claxton, who in 1914 was United States Commissioner of Education, was watching the working out of these principles with deep interest. He visited the school himself, and he sent Mr. Fought, then Commissioner of Rural Schools of America, to visit us. Mr. Fought, had tried an experiment where students could earn their way, but to his keen disappointment his pet plan was wrecked because of lack of freedom to develop ways and means for carrying out his educational plan. He recognized the great advantage of the work at Madison and with tears in his eyes congratulated our faculty on their freedom to carry out the high educational ideals held by the school.

From my own means I enlarged and improved the industrial departments giving to each better facilities and succeeded in increasing the earning capacity. When we consider that practically 100 percent of our 234 students in high school and junior college are working their entire way, that there are 24 degreed teachers and 32 heads of industrial departments operated by teachers and students, besides 30 children in the demonstration school being supported from the profits of the industrial departments, it is evident that these departments must be on a paying basis, and must be conducted by artisans of no ordinary ability and devotion. We feel that we have met this necessity.

The securing of teachers of the trades on the same basis as to salary as other teachers is a problem that is bothering some of our foremost educational leaders. Permit me to call your attention to the situation in Washington, D.C. where the Board of Education is right now struggling with the financial problem of obtaining teachers of trades for the children in the trade schools. When artisans are receiving from $14 to $15 a day, it is difficult to get them to work for salaries paid the other teachers. Some leaders have wrestled with this problem for the last 20 years or more. This is not, however, our problem, for we already have good teachers of the trades, who are as interested as the rest of us in developing the industries to where they will not only take care of the salaries of all our teachers but will give employment to an increasing student body. I feel that a very happy solution to this nagging problem has been found and is one of our outstanding assets.

From the following incomplete list of industries a variety of projects may be worked out by the students. In the industrial departments are included:

1. Agriculture, horticulture, bees, dairying, gardening, forestry, poultry, stock raising, landscape gardening, road making.

2. Mechanical arts including plumbing, electricity, blacksmithing, auto-mechanics, mill work, building, and painting, printing, machine work, cabinet work.

3. Food work: bakery, food factory, canning, local and city cafeteria, gristmill, sales department.

4. Laundry

5. Dressmaking, tailoring, weaving, basketry

6. Sanitarium and hospital of 100 beds. Nursing education, treatment rooms, local and city.

7. Business

8. Household economics.

In all there are approximately 40 distinct lines of activity in which students earn their way. I will mention by way of illustration the project of one of our students and the use to which he put his knowledge gained. Referring to the accompanying photograph, one of our students with other student helpers did all the stucco work on the Administration Building and on the remodeling of the Sanitarium and the inside plastering of all the walls. This is good workmanship and was done under the supervision of our construction superintendent during the time the student was getting his premedical education.

You may like to have included the experiences of a few of our students illustrating the use to which they put their training after leaving school. One, a young man formerly too poor to get his education without the means of support provided, after graduating developed a school of his own. He is now president of the Fountain Head Industrial School and Rural Health Retreat in a rural community in Sumner County. The local press gives this school credit of being a leading factor in the development of their agricultural and educational principles and improving the health habits of the children. When their sanitarium and hospital, the only medical institution in the counties adjoining, burned down, the neighbors rose in mass with petitions and practical assistance to rebuild. The Chamber of Commerce at the county seat of Gallatin called a special meeting and urged the business men to give liberally and assured the Fountain Head Industrial School and Sanitarium that they were a welcome and essential factor in the development and growth of their community.

Another student found his wife at Madison where they worked their way. He is now president of the Asheville Agricultural School and Mountain Sanitarium which is situated on a beautiful 500-acre farm, 25 miles from Asheville, N.C. The school is following the Madison plan of management and ownership. About 60 children from the mountains and coves surrounding them are receiving the educational advantages of its industrial and literary program, including an opportunity for a nurses’ training in their attractive Mountain Sanitarium of 40 beds. The physician of the sanitarium and his wife were former Madison students, the doctor taking his premedical work with us. After receiving an A grade medical training and scoring next to highest in the National Board, he demonstrated his loyalty by returning to the little sanitarium in the Blue Ridge Mountains to become its medical superintendent, and the physician and friend of the mountaineer whom he loves.

This type of work appears to be in harmony with the recent statement in the annual report of Commissioner Mead of the United States Bureau of Reclamation in which he said, “The South needs planned and organized rural communities, which will be little worlds in themselves cooperating not only to make the best use of their own farms, but to broaden their markets and effect economies in sales by combined efforts and resources. There are many sections which should be hopeful and prosperous which have a declining and decadent rural life. This is wholly due to economic and human conditions which can and should be improved.”

It is these conditions which we are urging our students to enlist their sympathies and cooperation to improve. Rural communities are losing their leadership, and should it be the business of agricultural schools to endeavor to provide this leadership?

A boy was in my home last evening, a nice, clean young man of 20 with the glow of health in his cheeks and a light in his eyes. He is a native of the mountains near McMinnville. He first came to our sanitarium three or four years ago suffering from nervous exhaustion. He learned to care for his body, has now hemoglobin of 100 and is eager to resume his school work but must earn every cent of his way. He plans premedical work and has no other thought than to return to his native hills a practicing physician. He has even the spot picked out where he wants to locate. He understands the problems of the mountaineer.

Students come from nearly every state in the Union, from Mexico, China, Japan and the Philippine Islands, but chiefly from the states of the South. The governments both of Mexico and China have sent delegations to Madison to study the feasibility of adaptation of its principles to their own conditions. The Mexican government sent a request that we organize and conduct such a school within their borders.

In Japan, in the province of Omi-Hachiman is a school and hospital cooperating and located on a farm with industries to provide further self-support which is highly appreciated and successful. After the earthquake when the government was seriously considering the banishment of all missionaries from their country, it made an exception of this school because of its practical nature, it being thought too valuable an asset for the nation to lose.

We are already operating a Junior college having met the requirements of the Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Junior Colleges. It is now necessary for us to advance to a senior college. There are some outstanding reasons for this. One of these affects the premedical student. We have received warning that after 1931 certain medical schools will not receive students except those who have taken their premedical work in a Senior College. The American Medical Association is contemplating this action for all medical schools. This means we either must give up our premedical students or meet the advanced requirements. Our premedical students must get their training in a senior college and have opportunity to earn their way and to have ideals of rural leadership kept before them during their college course.

Other groups of students requiring two years senior college education are Normal students, who have aptitude to develop as heads of industrial departments, and agricultural leaders. The majority of these students have worked their way through Junior College. Students who have needed to earn their way while acquiring their literary credits in Junior College still need this opportunity while taking Senior College work.

If we do not meet the advanced educational requirements, it will greatly hinder the usefulness of the school because educational conditions have so changed that in order to train teachers and medical workers, etc. it is necessary for the school to have a senior college rating.

In order to meet the standard of a senior college, we are seeking financial assistance. Our requirements are a library of 10,000 volumes, an Agricultural and Home Economics Building, Science Building, Liberal Arts Building, and a Normal Building with some additional student cottages. It will cost in the neighborhood of $100,000 for these buildings, and it will require another $100,000 to equip the buildings and provide additional necessary facilities. This is a very modest sum, but by erecting these buildings with student labor, we can make one dollar go as far as three dollars would go if we had to pay the regular mechanics wage. The erecting of these buildings by teachers and students will not only save us a large amount of money, but will give a very practical training to young men in the mechanical course. I recognize that this amount of money may seem altogether inadequate to raise a school to the rank of a senior college, and I am aware that a much larger sum could easily be asked for, but we have been building slowly but substantially an institution that has adequate heating facilities, a fine water plant, electric lights, sewage and liberal provision for housing and feeding of students with the larger farm orchards and garden. When you consider that all these are already provided, it will be understood how we can push the school forward two years more.

The institution realizes so keenly the situation that the alumni and present student body have pledged themselves to raise sufficient funds to equip the library. The Faculty has pledged money for the Agricultural and Home Economics Building, and I have agreed to build the Normal and Demonstration School Building.

You will notice that we are asking only for buildings and equipment. We will manage our own operating expenses and replacements from the profits of our industrial departments. It has been the policy of the institution to look to friends of the institution and of practical education to furnish the necessary equipment with the understanding that the faculty will provide sufficient funds from the various activities to care for the operating. To me this was a most unique and wonderful plan. I have observed the working of this plan for 10 years, and I can most emphatically say that it does work. For this reason it has encouraged me to use my means in helping the school because $1 spent in equipping such an institution helps the institution to help itself. It does not mean that when I have put a dollar in that I have to put another dollar in to save the dollar that has been given to it.

I am enclosing several letters from representative southern educators, professional and business men. These letters state the opinion of the writers as to the necessity of advancing to a Senior College. I am sending the original letters. I will need these for future reference, so will you kindly return them.

I have gone as far as I can with my means, and I know you have given royally of yours, but I believe there is much that you can do for us in the way of sympathetic counsel. In order to facilitate the handling of my own means and the gifts of others, I have had The Layman Foundation incorporated as an eleemosary institution. The Foundation will take the responsibility of handling funds raised to enable us to meet the requirements for a Senior College.

I am stopping at my brother’s where you can reach me at 16 Erwin Park Road, Montclair, New Jersey, or telephone my brother Mr. Wilfred Funk, Montclair 1805.

Very sincerely yours,

LFS/h

December 27, 1929

My dear Mrs. Scott:

Thank you very much for your so kind writing me respecting “The Layman Foundation” and the Normal Institute. I have read your letter with the greatest interest and, of course, with very deep sympathy. I am sorry that the mass of mail at this season of the year—I have over 100 cards not yet opened—made it necessary for me to delay reading the letter you were kind enough to send to me.

I am returning, as requested, the very interesting original letters, the most of them from friends whom I know well and whose testimony is of real value—there were no copies—and of course as I am not connected with any Foundation having funds, I have no occasion for copies as the matter of these I now have in my mind. I am also returning the very interesting photographs which show the attractive character of the place and the manifest wisdom and economy shown in the building operations.

I am familiar with many of the numberless educational enterprises in the South but had no knowledge in detail of this unique and most worthwhile effort, before. I should be glad to avail of any opportunities, that may come in my only occasional visits to the City, and to speak with these who might be interested in this effort.

As a man of Southern birth, it is my conclusion on general principles that efforts to improve the conditions of the alas too, too many needy White people in the South, should be mainly confined to the prosperous White men and women of the South. This for two particular reasons—they need to be educated in the art of human obligation of giving aid; but mainly they need to have continually dented upon their consciences the obligation of government to provide educational facilities, especially in the matters concerning health. I have the feeling that for general aid from the North to Southern education, the unprivileged Negro one third of the population of the South has the first claim. The South is still poor generally as we know, and therefore, cannot supply the need for Negroes in the same measure as for the Whites, conditions being as they are.

I have, therefore, felt it on my conscience to devote the most of my time and effort to aiding the education, particularly of teachers for Negro schools, because that is the great desideratum, not that the Whites are so much better off but that an efficient Negro teacher in a small community has a reaction upon the dominant White elements of the community which provokes action and more general support. Therefore, one dollar for Negro education is apt to mean three dollars for White and Negro together, whereas one dollar given from the North for White education has but a slight influence, but at long range as well, upon furthering education for the Negro in the small community.

I venture, my dear Lady, to go into this detail because it is for no lack of sympathy that I have to say to you that my own energies as to time and strength are so largely mortgaged by the desperate needs of the so many Negro schools with which I have responsibilities. I am, also, obligated as a Trustee of the University of Georgia and in other connections to White education in the South, but I do not feel justified in giving more than a fraction of my energies in that direction.

My sympathy, however, is most keen with the work you are doing and I think my knowledge enables me to rate it very highly, not only for its service but because of its strategic importance in the great campaign for education in the South, with which I have been so closely connected for 30 years. I am therefore eager to render any aid that may be possible for me to give to further your effort at this time.

Your letters are so strong . . . of understanding that I should assume they would immediately impress those in direction of the great educational funds. Your letter to me would seem to imply that you had not approached any of these. If the case has not been presented to the General Education Board, I should think Mr. Arnett, the President, ought to be made aware of the basis of your plan. The general tenor your letter to me would lead me to think he had not been advised. I may say to you that it is the case that the Carnegie Corporation and the Commonwealth Fund are often found to be sympathetic with the aid that the General Education Board has given in the South. Therefore, I rate 61 Broadway as the first place to present such a case as you have on your heart. I do not at all make analysis of the unique status of your enterprise with an ownership feature, which they would at once want to go into thoroughly, because I am not myself free to give the time or energy to follow it up.

My own thought and feeling, after living for these few hours with your problem, is that the man who should be most keenly interested and understanding of your situation is Mr. Kingsbury of the Milbank Foundation. His office is at 49 Wall Street, New York City, and his most active Trustee is a member of the Firm of Hasten & Nichols who are counsel for Spencer Track & Company. Mr. Bacon might well ask Mr. Milbank to request Mr. Kingsbury to make an appointment to talk with joy of the work you have so deeply on your heart and which would, I am sure, appeal to Mr. Kingsbury. I should be glad, if there should be occasion for it, to myself write a letter to Mr. Kingsbury but it would perhaps be more effective to have him approached in the matter by Mr. Milbank. Special reasons for your proposed expansion are in the line of the efforts which the Milbank Foundation has been lately pressing in the State of Tennessee as well as others south and north of it. He can give you, I am sure, better counsel at the moment than any other man.

If your own investigations in the East have led you to learn of anyone whom Mrs. Bacon may think I am in touch with, I shall be very glad to do whatever I may in helping you to a hearing.

I am, very truly yours,

George Foster Peabody