Ford, Rosenwald, Carnegie

News came last week of one school, of schools for a race, of an institution for schooling the nation:

Berry School. Busy Henry Ford found time to make a special trip to Rome, Ga., on visit to Rooseveltian Martha Berry and her school. Less than 25 years ago Miss Berry, Southern gentlewoman, taught Sunday School to "po' whites" of the mountain district in northwest Georgia. From this grew Berry school, unique, appealing. In the mountains of the South were 4,000,000 impoverished, illiterate descendants of sturdy English-Scotch stock. Their ancestors, not wealthy enough to own slaves, did well as farmers while the original fertility of soil remained. Ignorant of modern refertilization, they grew so poor as to be ignorant of everything else. Miss Berry now mothers 700 of them a year, 500 boys, 200 girls, who build their own buildings, study soil, crops, many another practical subject. Mr. Ford, reported as "intending to assist Berry with a foundation at the proper time," gave forth no interview at Rome. At Cincinnati, he said: "These young folks make very intelligent factory workers, .and are very trustworthy, I understand."

Rosenwald Fund. In 1914, Julius Rosenwald, most notable of Chicago philanthropists, established a co-operative fund for helping southern Negroes to education. By report last week 3,400 school buildings have since been erected. Public school authorities have contributed $8,402,580 to the total cost of the scheme, white citizens $694,142, Negro citizens $3,110,410 and the Rosenwald Fund $2,621,814. Alfred K. Stern, executive director of the Fund, commenting on this report, stated in The Survey: "The most outstanding feature to my mind is the fact that the Negroes have contributed about as much as Mr. Rosenwald and the whites combined. Of course it must be borne in mind that the Negroes' contribution is not entirely in cash, but computed also on the basis of labor and material put into the schoolhouses, and often Negroes who are good collectors obtain some of the funds from whites in the neighborhood."

Carnegie Fund. The Carnegie Corporation, by report just out, made grants of $6,000,000 its last fiscal year. To Libraries, $4,500,000 was given; to Fine Arts, $600,000; to research, $375,000; for adult education, $300,000. Million dollar grants by educational foundations are reported to be rarer. There are still 50,000,000 U. S. and Canadian people without access to local public libraries.