PS 3513 .1295 11 Copy 1 Alt Apprmattnn yy^.^ ^^y^^^^^^^^^^r BIG THINGS DONE BY ONE LITTLE WOMAN Inscribed to Mrs. Martha S. Gielow, the Founder of the Southern Industrial Educational Association, RESTING IN PANAMA. BORNE from the drifting winter snow, To where fragrant tropic flowers blow, Where blue isles wait for morn And silver isles for night, Where orchids blue begem'd with dew Like Venus* slippers, peeping through Pale drifts of roses, lying still, While smiling sunbeams go at will ; I see her: dreaming dreams of rest. Born of beauty and love's behest. As if the "Silent Helpers" drew From rainbow-halls above, and flew To help her weary soul enwreathe Immortal things; and leave Its crown of thorns afloat on sunset sea — Till lost as a star grown radiantly, It shines o'er all, the golden even For glory 'tween earth and heaven. By trap-sf 9r The 'White House. Ah, yes, she dreams the Dream of Life, Which won the martjnr-armed noble strife, — That work, and love, shall rise above All else conceived Or yet believed. Of man for God — for human kind. . . . Too weary now: — ^tho' fain she'd find What bird, what waves and lily-bell May to human hearts yet tell ; As they live to greet, with music sweet All soul, and sense; while perfect rest In fragrant peace o'er brow and breast Wafts Southern incense day and night, And gives her world a soul of light. Lillian Rozell Messenger. March, 19th, 1914. Hammond Court, Washington, D. C. OA^iy^id^^ ^ Martha Sawyer Gielow Author of "The Light on the Hill," Etc. A brief resume of her achievements as author, dramatic reader, and founder of the Southern Industrial Educational Association. By LILLIAN ROZELL MESSENGER E C E N T times, 'tis no unus- ual thing for philanthropic men or women, in large al- truistic movements, to donate means to colleges, churches, schools, public highways, associations, and to combine large interests for public service. An or- ganized effort is often made to further some great work, through measures of Congress and State Legisla- tures. But it is an unusual record that tells of one little woman through whose vision and love of hu- man kind, a systematic effort to help the uplift of an entire people was initiated and brought to frui- tion. The Appalachian Mountain Range, extending from Pennsylvania, through Virginia, Carolina, 'V'' Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama,-^some- times alluded to as "Appalachia America," — is peo- pled with the only unadulterated Americans we have. These Saxon-Americans, for generations, have been cut off from all participation in the progress of American life, by a Chinese wall of mountain isola- tion and poverty, literally an arrested civilization. To change their fate and help those pioneers al- ready in the field, to give these people a chance for life, liberty and development, has been the work of the founder of the Southern Industrial Educa- tional Association— Martha S. Gielow. To read of her indefatigable efforts and achievements, is not only inspiring, but worthy the profound interest and study of thinkers and humanitarians. Therefore, it is not only a loving tribute to her, but I feel it my duty to the whole world to send forth this "Appre- ciation." In England and elsewhere, in the best environ- ment in the United States of America, Mrs. Gielow has realized what opportunity and education mean in the development of mind, character and use- fulness. The experience which came from the neces- sity of caring for her own two children seemed di- rected by a Supreme Power, to fit her for the leadership of the work she has so nobly accom- plished. Martha Sawyer Gielow is a native of Alabama. Her birthplace, "Hazelwood," one of the old plan- tation homes of that State, is in Hale County, near Greensboro. Her father was Mr. Enoch Sawyer (North Carolinian), a Southern planter, a gentle- man of the old school, Mexican veteran and veteran of the Southern Confederacy. Her mother was Miss Sophie E. Barkley, daughter of Mr. Charles Bark- ley, of the Barkleys of England, banker, of Pensa- cola, Fla., and of Clara Louise Garnier, of France. The Sawyers, also originally English, are traced unbrokenly from the days of the Conqueror, as men of bravery and distinction. Mrs. Gielow's great- grandmother Sawyer was the daughter of General Gregory of Revolutionary fame. Mrs. Gielow is the twin sister of Mrs. Mary Pickens of Greens- boro, Ala., well known in the State for her splendid educational work while State Director of the Chil- dren of the Confederacy of Alabama. In the days when the South was still in the ashes of desolation ; when it was not respectable to he rich; when the old black mammy, though free and inde- pendent, was still a factor in the Southern home; when advantages that had made the mothers and fathers of the previous generation the most cultured men and women of the land were impossible to the sons and daughters; when sorrow or illness of one home was the concern of every home in those proud communities where each estate had lately been a principality, in its own right; when the spirit of past days faintly echoed in the "tournament barbe- cue" and undying hospitality; and under the strict teachings and environment of the Episcopal Church, to which the Sawyer family drove nine miles to on Sunday; — in such times and under such influences Martha Sawyer grew to womanhood. After a brief married life, Martha Sawyer Gie- low stood alone in the world, in the City of New York, without father, brother or male relative, with two children her only asset, to begin a career that must ever be an inspiration to womankind. Frail, timid and unprepared to battle for existence, her trust in a Supreme Power alone sustained her. With the high standard of womanhood and motherhood she represented to give her courage, and the devo- tion of her friends to comfort her, with proud deter- mination tc "do or die," she rallied her energies, and, with almost superhuman efforts, this courageous little mother entered the arena, fought and won a battle, heroic and grand. The inspiration to take up historical readings for children developed into finished programs of songs and stories of the Southland from her origi- nal writings, which brought her fame at home and abroad. With unaffected naturalness, coupled with a voice unsurpassed in tone and resonance, a perfect understanding of the old South, its customs and tra- ditions, she presented with vividness and dramatic skill the folk-lore of the plantation, with an origi- nality unique. Her monologues and stories compiled in her books. Mammy's Reminiscences and Old Plan- tation Days (now considered classics), were enthu- siastically received by the public, and favorably criticized by the press, which placed her, as an author of folk-lore, by the side of Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, and Ruth McEni*y Stuart. Henry Gaines Hawn, President of the Hawn School of the Speech Arts, Carnegie Hall, New York, who prepared Mrs. Gielow for the platform, and to whom she says she owes the success of her dramatic career, calls her a genius, and says "she is without a peer in her line of work." The late Henry Austin Clapp, Shakespearian reader and dramatic critic, wrote of her, in a long, analytical criticism in the Boston Herald: "There were never such lullabies as these, as they are interpreted by Mrs. Gielow's honeyed voice. No Venetian barcarole has such a swing, no classic cradle-song involves so tender a caress." While in London, Mrs. Gielow gave recitals on three occasions at Lady Northcote's, before differ- ent members of the Royal Family. She was the honored guest, as well as the "entertainer" of Lady Henry Somerset, Lady Jeune, Lady Aberdeen, Duchess of Bedford, Duchess of Sutherland, Bar- oness Rothschild, Sir Gilbert Parker, Mrs. Bowen, of Cowan Court, and many others. At Bagshot, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, Mrs. Gielow recited for the benefit of the Royal Church Bazaar, by the special request of Princess Christian, in the presence of the entire Royal Family, including Her Majesty Queen Vic- toria, receiving an ovation of appreciation and thanks from these Royal hosts. On her return to the States, Mrs. Gielow found herself indeed famous. The recognition of Royalty heralded unprecedented success. The clubwomen of her own State, Alabama, invited her to tour the State in company with Mrs. Johnston, wife of General R. D. Johnston, and one of the great women of the South, for the benefit of the Industrial School for Boys, near Birmingham, founded by Mrs. John- ston. Readings for Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. Pullman, Mrs. Joseph Bowen, and other notable women of Chicago, were followed by numerous engagements in exclusive homes of New York, Morristown, Phila- delphia, Washington, and other important cities. Chautauqua managers booked her from the Atlantic to the Pacific; the Bureau of Education of New York City engaged her for numerous lectures in the schools. With recognition and fame on two continents, this, then, was the woman, whose efforts for her own children being no longer necessary, when lucra- tive offers made it possible for her to have pro- vided for herself in later years, at the zenith of her power, took up the cause of the neglected chil- dren of the Southern mountains, which had been burning in her heart since girlhood, and founded the Southern Industrial Educational Association. Then began a crusade against illiteracy in the Appala- chians. The late General Stuart L. Woodford, ex- Minister to Spain, declared this to be "greater than the crusade of Joan of Arc, and the greatest mis- sionary movement of the century." It is worth while to record, in this age, when "funds for admin- istration" are the first provision of any movement, when "philanthropy" is conducted on scientific lines by well-paid trained workers, that one little woman. without a dollar to begin her enterprise, went forth, undismayed, as leader of this great movement. Mrs. Gielow, being a novice in the ways of organization work, did not realize the struggle ahead. Listening only to the cry in her heart for these children of the hills, she did not stop to reason or to rest. A woman of impulse, with no thought of self, with only a small saving, which was later lost in an investment, Martha Gielow began the second great adventure of her life. Believing that she need only to tell the needs for education and give the statistics of illiteracy, for money to pour into the mountains, she was not prepared for the first indif- ference and lack of interest in a matter which to her and her coworkers seemed so vital. The thou- sands that welcomed her "recitations" and "lulla- bies" with joy, who gave $100 a night for value re- ceived in folk-lore, did not care to hear talks on philanthropy, and had no money to advance on the education of the so-called "poor white trash." But Martha Gielow is a genius, as Professor Hawn says, and it was soon found out that the vernacular of the mountains could be as cofnpelling as the dialect of the plantation, and her stories of the children of the hills as thrilling as her monologues of the old mammies of the Southern nursery. There were workers in the mountains, but they were then unknown to Martha Gielow. Her plat- form was from the standpoint of what was needed, not from what was being done, for all that was then being done was as a drop in the bucket and is still. Again there were workers from the mountains ap- pealing for aid, but they then appealed mostly behind closed doors, and their stories of conditions were kept sacredly from the press, it being necessary so as not to prejicdice their return to the field. But here was a champion whose fearless clarion call for aid was to stir the nation. To understand and realize how little the world at large cared for these children entombed in the dark mountain fast- nesses, one has only to search the publications prior to 1905 to see how few appeals, if any, can be found in their behalf. Berea was struggling with the problem, so were Dr. Guerrant, Bishop Mclvor, Bishop Horner, and others. But the 'publicity work that has brought this particular cause into the lime- light and aroused the nation, was done by Martha S. Gielow. Educators interested in the betterment of Southern colleges, high schools and universities, and negroes, did not include the primary and industrial training of the rural and isolated mountain districts. The census for 1900 reveals a shameful neglect of what should be the most important work of the nation. It was the startling statements in these sta- tistics, and the cry for light from those dark cor- ners, that was tugging at the heartstrings of Martha Gielow. She had spent the year before her marriage in the East Tennessee mountains. Here she met these kindly mountain people and loved them. In the mountains of North Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia she also saw, pondered and determined. An article from her pen, written in 1885, in be- half of the uplift of these people, is still extant. In 1903, while filling engagements in the Thou- sand Island Park Chautauqua, Mrs. Gielow was in- vited to take part in a missionary meeting. With the exception of herself, all of the speakers were from the foreign field. Coming last on the program, she poured out an impassioned appeal for home mis- sions, telling the needs of those cut off from educa- tion, progress, and civilization in the mountains of our own land. The audience was electrified; men climbed to the platform over the footlights to shake her hand, and she was given a rousing demonstra- tion. Rev. Dr. Phelps, President of the University of Syracuse, chairman of the meeting, said to her: "Sister, do you not see the finger of God pointing you to your work?" In 1905, when, as I have stated, in the zenith of her fame, when lucrative opportunities in her dra- matic work were still pressing upon her, Martha Gielow decided that the time had come for her to do the mission work she had long contemplated. She went first to a wealthy woman in New York City, for whom she had given folk-lore readings. This lady was a philanthropist and noted for having or- ganized many charities; but she declined to help organize a movement for the "poor whites of the South." "Go to your own people," she advised, "and organize, then come North and seek aid." Greatly disappointed, realizing her own inexperience in or- ganization work, trusting only in the pure, unselfish motive that urged her on, Martha Gielow left New York and went to Washington, where she deter- mined to make her future headquarters, and start her work. In Washington, Mrs. Gielow was of- fered the President-Generalship of a little organiza- tion purported to be for this mountain cause. After much delay in considering it, she declined the propo- sition and proceeded to carry out her original idea, and, with a few devoted followers, organized her own association and secured her own charter, with eight charter members, on December 27th, 1905. Mrs. Gielow returned to New York in February, 1906, to carry her message to the good people of that city, and to form a New York branch of the association. The first to respond to her appeal was Mrs. Algernon Sydney Sullivan, whose wonder- ful work for the Children's Hospital of New York is an inspiration to all others. After several meetings in her parlors, to hear Mrs. Gielow present the cause, Mrs. Sullivan organized the New York Auxil- iary and was made its President. This Auxiliary, with its splendid board of fifty women, is the most important branch of the Association. It has many distinguished honorary members and has brought in much money for the cause. Mrs. Gielow is an Hon- orary President of this branch. The first leaflet, A Message, sent out in 1905 to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was writ- ten by Martha Gielow, and was followed by the second leaflet from her pen. An Appeal to the Nation for the Nation's Children, giving statistics furnished her by Mr. Harris, then Commissioner of Educa- tion. Many editions of this Appeal, added to and revised, were scattered broadcast. Articles from her pen regarding the organization she had founded and was so ably promoting were requested by the Trotwood-Taylor Magazine, The Southerner, The American Educational Review, and by numerous newspapers. These articles were will- ingly contributed for no other consideration than the publicity of the Association and its altruistic purpose. Much enthusiasm greeted Martha Gielow in her native State, Alabama, where she secured hundreds of members. She was made a member for life of the State Federation of Clubs and a delegate at large for life. In Baltimore she organized the Maryland Auxiliary, a most valuable branch; also a Philadelphia Auxiliary on December 2, 1913. This youngest branch is doing great work. The Cali- fornia Auxiliary also renders splendid aid. Notwithstanding her varied arduous duties, Mar- tha Gielow spent many weeks of her summers in the mountains, riding hundreds of miles up the beds of creeks, to visit schools and mountain cabins, miles and miles away from any railroad, seeing the people and securing facts and material for her lectures. But to educate the public and win its sympathy and aid to a new and unpopular cause is about the hardest undertaking known; especially, when thou- sands of other philanthropies and organized char- ities are calling for aid in every direction. Money and friends are gathered in by hard effort. The great "Mountain Foundation" for primary and in- dustrial education, which Martha Gielow and her coworkers dreamed of, failed to materialize. Yet no other organized effort had sent hundreds of scholarships to poor mountain girls and boys that otherwise would have had no chance, and no other organization created for the purpose was helping to place teachers in carpentry, furniture making, weav- ing, domestic science, etc., in the remote struggling mission schools, unable to furnish these most vital departments. No other organization held mass meetings, just for this work, and sent out literature, and had an inspired leader in the field appealing for a chance for these neglected children of the nation, remote from opportunities ! This enthusiastic little woman was heard at many Chautauqua educational conventions, at Pinehurst, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Birmingham, and Mobile, etc., where she fearlessly gave the tragic per cent, of native-born white illiter- acy of the shut-in English Americans, urging the advocates of higher education to give attention to the important foundation work, in these rural and mountain districts. Thousands of people in churches, schools, clubs and D. A. R. Chapters listened to her appeals, while the distant mountain workers wrote her words of encouragement for bringing an organization to their rescue. Many mountain schools aided by the Asso- ciation blessed her name. The American Educational Review, commenting on her stirring addresses before educational bodies, called her "The Little Mother of the Appalachians," and published in full, with a forceful foreword, her little story. Old Andy the Moonshiner, her gift to the Association to use as campaign literature. More than two thousand dollars has this little story added to the revenue of the organization; while the story itself, founded on fact, has carried its message to thousands and brought great interest to the cause. It is worthy of note that this little story, which has been of such wonderful assistance in the work, was written by the author, when lying helpless with a broken knee. The accident happened to her on her return from a dramatic reading, given for the benefit of the Association in Washington. Martha Gielow was inconsolable at this enforced inactivity. The New York Auxiliary had arranged a great mass meeting at the Hotel Plaza, where the Four Hundred were to hear her report on the work and tell of her trips of investigation to the mountain schools. Those present at that meeting will not forget the impres- sive moment when Bishop Horner, Missionary Bishop of North Carolina, asked the audience to rise and stand in silence while he invoked a blessing "on the little woman lying ill, whose place on the pro- gram no one could fill, and but for whom there would he no Southern Industrial Educational Association, and that great meeting would not then be gathered," It is also interesting to note that, while still hors de combat, this valiant little leader, while on crutches, organized the California Auxiliary in San Francisco, where she was taken when able to travel, to be cared for by her daughter, wife of a young naval officer then stationed on the coast. While there, Martha Gielow also addressed most of the important clubs of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles. She sent back hun- dreds of dollars to the Board at Washington. (This Board meets once a month to hear reports and disburse the funds.) This remarkable woman, whose leadership had achieved so much at large, found it necessary in 1911 to establish the work upon a firm basis, at headquarters. Taking hold, she began a campaign in the Capitol, the details of which can never be adequately told, except in her own personal rem- iniscences. To infuse enthusiasm, to secure an office, to start the exchange of mountain products (her original idea), where weavings and baskets and all fireside industries of the shut-in cabin peo- ple could be sold; not only to help the work, but to be a means of attracting people to the head- quarters, where they could see and buy and learn of the cause, was the work of a master mind. With a genius and energy that I have never known ex- ceeded, Martha Gielow planned and constructed and manoeuvered, until almost every woman of impor- tance in the city was in personal touch with her work. The exhibit of mountain products, which was given space in the Exhibition Hall of the Southern Commercial Congress Exhibit in the South- ern Building, was owing entirely to her inspiration. Mountain State days were inaugurated, when the delegations from Alabama, Georgia, North Car- olina, Kentucky, and Virginia were especially re- ceived at headquarters to view the crafts. Moun- tain Day was celebrated by a letter she suggested and sent out, with the approval of the Board, to hundreds of clergymen, asking them to give part of a certain Sunday to the discourse of the moun- tain problem. Editors of the most important papers received copies with the request to print in their columns. A mountain play, from her pen, giving the story of the mountain people in a wonderful pageant of historic tableaux and symbolic figures, was pre- sented by both the Bristol School of Washington and Washington College, for the benefit of the work; giving, as stated by the press, "a most edu- cational and beautiful presentation of the mountain cause imaginable." By degrees, interest in the Capitol began to dawn. Successful card-parties by members and by chapters of the D. A. R. were given. Special appeals were made personally and by personal letters. Martha Gielow reminded me of a general, and, in fact, she was nothing less. I have never wit- nessed greater executive ability, greater ingenuity and determined effort. Articles continued from her pen. Educational Foundations, written by request for a special edi- tion of the National Daily, went out to thousands of readers, as did Industrial Settlement Schools, writ- ten by request for the Farmer's Wife, which maga- zine also printed her address. The Region of For- gotten Men, brought out in leaflet form by the New York Auxiliary. This article was reprinted in the California Woman, also her articles on Mother- hood in the Mountains, and Children of Hope, cop- ied from the Association Quarterly Magazine. These went out to thousands of new readers, giving a knowledge of the Association and its endeavors. Every word she spoke, every word she wrote, had some bearing on the work so dear to her heart. Her story, Uncle Sam, a most charming little book, is helping to carry the message far and near, A complimentary copy of this book, sent to Mrs. Rus- sell Sage by the author, brought a check of five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars also came to the Association from one reader of her story, Old Andy, tne Moonshiner. I know of no othen books that have brought back such substantial evi- dences of their worth to the mountain cause. Her new book — The Light on the Hill — soon to be issued, is destined to complete her service to the nation and the nation's own. In securing the late Mistress of the White House, Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, for Honorary Pres- ident of the Southern Industrial Educational Asso- ciation, and, through her, five thousand dollars a year for three years for a field secretary and his as- sistants, for coordinating and federating the schools, Martha Gielow gave the crowning stroke to her work of genius. The interest of this gra- cious first lady of the land brought national recog- nition to the organization, and her patronage of the mountain industries — by furnishing the Presi- dent's room in the White House with weavings from the Association office — has given an impetus to the sales of those products, and brought success that otherwise would have been impossible. Thus, by unswerving perseverance, under most trying difficulties, Mrs. Gielow has an organization launched, and its cause before the public. But the proud satisfaction she must feel at having accom- plished her purpose, has been secured at a serious sacrifice. The long strain of anxious effort has done its work, and Martha Gielow has broken down. The loss of her constructive leadership is irrepar- able; she was the inspiration, the soul, of the move- ment, and no one can take her place. We who have been members and coworkers with her feel that she justly merits the honor she receives, which is a small return — in fact, no return at all — for her heroic service. I know of no other woman who has so com- pletely forgotten her own interest in the interest of others, nor who, under such odds, has won grander achievements than Martha Sawyer Gielow of Alabama. Her name will go down in history, deservedly, among those who have done things worth while, and will be ever synonymous with the work of the organization she created, for the cause of the neglected mountain child. EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS OF "THE LIGHT ON THE HILL" Published by Fleming H. Revell Co.. 158 Fifth Avenue. N. Y. Rome, Ga., Tribune-Herald, Oct. 12, 1915 : The setting of the story is as beautiful, the love as strong, the principles as lofty and the sentiment as lasting as the eternal hills from which it is drawn. Washington Star, April 18, 1915 : Mrs. Gielow scores twice in The Light on the Hill, a very distinctive thing for any writer to do. This is not only a good story, but it is also an ef- fective propaganda. The romance springs from the love of a young mountain girl for a youth from the outside world. That which begins in an idyllic vein ends in the peculiar depth of suffering of which women alone know. After many years the daughter of these two becomes the "light on the hill," the means by which the mountain folks begin to come into touch with the busy and productive life of the plains below them. It is here that the author, in a pleasing story way, presses her religion of industrial education for the mountaineers to the front of one's interest and enjoyment. As fiction this is a vivid picture of the life and character of these people. As education it is forceful and appealing. Professor Henry Mixter Penniman, Berea College, Kentucky : Having spent twenty years, more or less, among the mountain people, I feel it almost a duty to call attention to this addition to American literature. The story is an interpretation of heartache and joy. The insight comes from intimate acquaintance with the pathos and potency of our Saxon log-cabin kin, dwelling in the Southern Appalachians. Life experi- ence comes to view at every turn. The moonshiner's side is pictured truthfully and with insight. Human values are revealed. Possibilities of mountain people appear in new light. Heartfelt sympathy of the author penetrates every page. The story-loving world will enjoy this interweaving of rustic and urban loves, hopes and ambitions. The Bookman, June, 1915: Old Andy the Moonshiner has a place in this new story by Mrs. Gielow, whose work among the Southern whites is so well worthy of commenda- tion, and whose books about "her people" are very vivid and real pictures of those strange souls who grow in the heart of the mountains and emerge from the squalor of poverty and the ravishments of disease, true and loyal American citizens, men and women of character and heart and latent physical strength. This tale is very touching. But it typifies the sort of thing that happens in a community where people have "no chance." Mrs. Gielow writes with the purpose of interesting the great American pub- lic in these unfortunate sisters and brothers, and certainly she makes a forceful play for sympathy when she comes to us with Old Andy, Uncle Sam and The Light on the Hill. The Lookout, Chattanooga, May, 1915 : Apart from its merit and charm as fictional writing, Mrs. Gielow's work possesses real educa- tional value and importance. It brings the log- cabin folk of the Southern Appalachians into the lifelight with startling distinctness; and from it those who desire — which should be 'most everybody — can learn a very great deal concerning those of whom they now know next to nothing — of men and women who live and love, who suffer and die, away from the beaten tracks and busy haunts of men. Western Recorder, July, 1915 : We do not know just when we have read with such pleasure and profit a modern novel. This story is well worth anybody's reading, so full of helpful- ness is it. If you would like to spend a few hours in helpful reading, you will not regret getting this book. standard, May 15, 1915: We are just coming to realize that among the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee we have the purest Anglo-Saxon blood to be found in America. This story of the mountains and their people is a strong presentation of the latent resources to be found among these hills. There is pathos and trag- edy, but it is true to life. No stronger plea for schools and Christian influences for a people who have been caught in an eddy of the great Western movement could be made than is presented in this story. Christian Messenger. May 6, 1915 : The authoress has made such a complete study of the whole circle of this primitive people, that noth- ing seems to be omitted in order to convey to the reader the situation. There are pages that read more like history than story. It is only a pity that such a beautiful piece of writing, introducing such a pictorial civilization, should likely be overlooked in the huge pile of rubbish that seems to be the punish- ment of a generation that lacks ideals which would demand a Scott, a Dickens, or a Thackeray. The Continent, May 13, 1915: The author calls attention to the need of educa- tion and religion in the lives of the poor whites of the Appalachian Mountains. The book's didactic purpose is carried by a romantic plot. For enlight- ening the reader as to the conditions and manners of the mountain people, the story is excellent and its purpose realized. Christian Advocate, Sept. 16, 1915 : The book has to do with conditions — social, moral, physical, religious, political — among the "mountain whites" of the South. Mrs. Gielow knows the situation from the inside and she is rightly called "the Little Mother of the Appalachians." She is not revealing the condition among these people just to arouse and satisfy the curiosity of other folks, but to enlist the practical cooperation of these other people in solving one of our most difficult problems. There are some benighted folks who look upon these mountain people as "poor white trash," but this is leagues away from the fact. That degeneracy of a sort has ensued there can be no denial, but many of these mountain people have an ancestry of the most worthy type and under proper conditions of living they will bring honor to that ancestry. They have lacked the opportunity, but the doors are open- ing to them and they are entering in. Mrs. Gielow, who writes this romance of the Southern mountains, is the founder of the Southern Industrial Educa- tional Association and has been unwearying in her labors in this great cause of race redemption. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 015 897 180 P