Children Must Learn, The (1940)

[Music] m [Music] m [Music] [Music] 100 years ago the Pioneers pushed West but here in these mountains some of them stayed to farm the fertile land to live well by Axe and gun and plow now the land is no longer Rich the crop is smaller every year but the people remain hemmed in by the mountains cut off from the changing World Outside The Men Who first broke the land planted corn today corn is still the only crop the forests are gone now the cornfields dot the hillsides where once there were Hickory and chestnuts men who logged off the forests are dead they Graves on the crest of the hill but the land remains and the sons of the sons of The Men Who cleared it still plant the corn from the same old seeds the round of the years finds them lost in old ways their lives set in Old patterns in worn out grooves new ideas are not easy to come by when learning passes from mouth to mouth from father to son [Music] and to me how you maintain your family your children who are small how you m your family and how you bring them through and nothing but lab to maintain them at [Music] [Music] all [Music] for your breast oh will my dear what do you want for your breakfast oh my dear I don't want mother F my bed soon I'm sick at my heart I want to lie [Music] down what do you want for your breakfast oh will tell me what do you want for your breakfast tell me I don't want mother fix my bed I'm sick at my heart I want to lie [Music] down [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] y corn and pork corn pone and pork sausage and pork gravy the hog slaughtered in the fall must last the winter the hog provides the shortening for the cornbread the meat for the sausage and the grease for the gravy often there isn't enough to eat never the right things to eat no green vegetables and milk no calcium for teeth and bones no vitamins to prevent rickets and scurvy weak Bones from poor food poor food from poor land kids growing up to the same years of hunger babies being born without a chance of strong bodies these are good people proud people Sons and Daughters of pioneers cousins of the people who built [Music] America [Music] [Music] m [Music] [Music] [Music] la [Music] this is the school 24 children go to the school some of them live a long way off in the spring there is mud in the winter there is snow here in this room the children learn to read to write and to figure they use the same books that all the other children in the state use the same books as the children use in mining towns in M towns and in great industrial centers some of them are good books but they talk about another kind of world the books do not tell of how to ro rotate crops and what makes balanced farming they do not name the way lessons can be applied to the mountain people the children learn to call the words in what makes 17 this is not enough the mountain people live close to the Earth in the sky they know the call of every wild bird and where the best herbs grow they know the name of every tree and where the Hornets have their nests they do not know what to do about their own lack of food and clothing building and [Music] [Music] shelter [Music] [Music] there's no doubt of it said Mr Curtis one day that one of the great greatest factors in the test is for a young fellow to learn the thrift thrift and learn it in his early days no matter how little I save my five and 10 cents at at a time take a young fellow take a young man who follows his policy of saving he gets a little Nest EG in the bank he gets a chance to buy some good andest M or a share in the business in which he is engaged as an employee there is the nest egg in the bank which he can fall back upon suppose he wants to buy his first home and has not enough money there again come to BU you a bank account in the in that he can go to Banker show him what he has said demonstrating demonstrating that he is th Thrifty Thrift next year the children will study materials prepared in their own communities to teach them facts of soil and food along with reading and [Music] [Music] writing somehow some way the old folks managed to get along but the children must learn a new way the land is tired of corn but small plots of it could be enriched for raising [Music] vegetables the children must learn to raise goats for [Music] milk they must learn to reforest the Hills it's too late now for the old ones the children must learn