nal awakening.

Every sincere effort among the hill whites meets with instant response.
For the most part, they deprive themselves of the necessaries of life in
order that they may send their children to school. Boys skimp and save;
girls walk for miles along mountain trails and paths; communities give
of the scanty means of their effort for the building and maintenance of
schools. Everywhere the spirit of the new education is permeating the
Southern upland communities.

VIII George Washington, Junior

One teacher, whose years of effort in the Piedmont have brought her the
confidence and co-operation of the community, tells of the success of
one of her earliest ventures with a boy of thirteen.

The boy's father was bad; his mother slovenly and indifferent. The boy
himself was bright and active.

When the time came for him to enter the cotton mill, the teacher
protested to his family, but without success. Still there was something
that she could do for him, still she saw an opportunity of serving him,
and she asked him to come to her home with a number of other boys, for a
couple of nights a week, when they sat together, reading, or playing
games.

The boy had appeared sullen at first, but toward the end of his school
term he showed an active interest. It became apparent that he was
particularly clever at languages. None of his lessons troubled him, and,
with the assistance of the teacher, he learned Italian readily, and
during the evenings, when the other boys played games or talked, he
worked over his Italian sentences with vital interest.

Just before Christmas, during the first year that this boy had spent in
the mill, a friend visited his teacher, became interested in her work,
and asked if there was any way in which she could help.

"You may," said the teacher. "You may buy Andy an outfit."

The friend went to the city with the order in her pocket,--a hat, a
suit, and a complete outfit, new, as a Christmas present for Andy.

On Christmas eve, Andy alone came to the teacher's house. She had not
asked the other boys,--partly because most of them preferred to stay at
home, partly because she had no such fine present for them as she had
for Andy.

"Never in my life," the teacher said, "had I seen Andy clean. I made up
my mind that for once he should have a clean body as well as clean
clothes."

When Andy came that Christmas eve, the teacher took him into a room
where there were towels, soap, a basin, a