Rich Children Not Admitted — The Story of a Woman... and a School

The governor of the State of Georgia went one day to visit the 'Mount Berry' school; and after he had seen the classes, talked with the boys on the farm and in the workshops, and watched the girls weaving, cooking, and sewing clothes, he said that he would enroll his son, when he grew up, in the Berry schools. But the answer to that was: We are sorry, Your Honor the Governor — we accept only those children whose means do not permit them to go to any other school.

Such is the rule laid down by Martha Berry, founder of the schools known by her name, in 1902, after she saw that the boys and girls of the mountain villages were growing up in ignorance and poverty, and were a burden upon themselves and upon society. From that time on she devoted herself, her time, and her money, for forty years, to the service and education of those children, until her appointed hour overtook her. Miss Berry, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, inherited from him at his death the land on which the Berry schools now stand; her inheritance grew with the passing years, until today the Berry schools rise upon a tract of thirty thousand acres of farm and forest land, threaded with silvery lakes, where huge oaks grow and towering pines — and where there still stand, too, the wooden cabins that were the nucleus of this school.

Martha Berry was still a young girl when, as she was playing a hymn in her house, she caught sight of some of the village children in their ragged clothes hovering about the window and listening to her lovely song. She did not hesitate to invite them inside, and she asked them whether they went to school; but not one of them knew what a school was. So she sat down to tell them stories and sing them religious hymns; and on the following Sunday they came back bringing some of their friends — not one of whom had ever seen a book or touched a pen. Her class quickly grew, and she moved it to a country church nearby.

Martha decided after this that the Sunday school was not enough, and that to book learning religious instruction must be joined; so she set up a small school across the road facing the homestead. On the first day ten boys sat on the benches, while another group gathered in the passage, shy and afraid, ready to give their legs to the wind at any moment. Martha pretended to take no notice of them, and before long their fears melted away, and they walked haltingly inside, barefoot.

Not much time passed before Martha realized that day schools would not solve the problem, since on some days the children were obliged to stay at home to help their parents pick the cotton and feed the cattle. She decided that the only solution to the problem was to found a boarding school, where the pupils could work enough to cover their expenses. One day Martha went to the town nearest her village and settled her property in trust upon a school for the daughters and sons of the mountain villages. Her lawyer tried to turn her from her resolve, but she silenced him, saying: 'I shall reap a better harvest than what the land yields.'

In the winter of 1902 the 'Mount Berry' school for boys was opened, and the number of pupils was five. She placed the tuition fees within the reach of every hand, and some paid them in kind out of the crop — a bull, or a pig, or a sack of corn.

The school grew steadily until it overflowed Miss Berry's material means; so she traveled to New York City and set about promoting her project. From a group of worshippers in one of the churches she obtained a sum of money; then she called on one of the men of finance, who furnished her with a quantity of money and the names of some persons who could assist her. And at the White House President Theodore Roosevelt listened to her story and gave a banquet in her honor, and there she repeated her story in the hearing of the guests — and the men brought out their checkbooks and gave money.

In 1909 the boys built with their own arms a new school for their sisters, who came from the neighboring mountains. Today the school comprises, within its hundred buildings, separate secondary schools for boys and for girls, and a university college. The boys go to their classes four days a week and work two days to earn the cost of their food and instruction. The schools hire no laborers: the boys and girls make everything with their own hands under the supervision of their teachers, who work with them side by side.

The girls, for their part, prepare the food and serve it; they run the school laundry and the canning plant; they work in the libraries and as secretaries in the college offices; they oversee a nursing center for the families of the teachers living on the school grounds; and they train in practical teaching in the elementary classes.

And though Martha Berry died in 1942, her schools still keep to the course she laid down for them, and the visitor still hears the ring of laughter over the school grounds, side by side with work and diligence!..