I doubt if any part of the United States has undergone as many social and economic changes as the coastal plain of South Carolina. Its history goes back to 1562 when the French Huguenots established a colony near Beaufort. Another was planted at Saint Augustine in 1565, but Spain controlled the seas then and these settlements did not survive. Only after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 were the English successful in planting a permanent colony at Jamestown in 1607. But the Spaniards were in Florida and they kept an eye on these coasts and the English and Spanish ships were always on the alert for each other, and the pirates and buccaneers as well as men of war roved up and down.

When the settlements at Charleston and at other points were made along this coast in the 17th century, Charleston rapidly forged ahead. Colonists had come directly from England but many by way of Barbados and Bermuda. There was also a fine group of French Huguenots, refugees from France. Hinton R. Helper tells that at one time merchants of Philadelphia advertised that they had just had a ship from Charleston

There were among these planters men of the world. Educated in England or France, acquainted in Europe or in the West Indies, they kept in touch with all the currents of the times. They introduced three plants that were destined to play a great part in the settlement and later in the economic life of the lower South. The first was indigo. It was extensively grown on this coast and to a less extent in Louisiana and in other areas. The second was rice, and the third and most important of all was cotton. Little indigo was produced after the Revolution. Synthetic dyes have put an end to the cultivation of indigo on the commercial scale. One of my friends who lived in Georgetown used to tell me of the old records of the "Winyah Indigo Club", a sort of social, business, and political organization of the planters there. One thinks of what the effect of synthetic rubber will be upon the rubber producing countries. They will probably take a leaf out of South Carolina's experience and grow something else.

The culture of rice was also successful. The broad swampy lowlands along the coast and the lower courses of the streams made it possible to dyke and drain great areas that could be alternately flooded and drained as the crop might require. These ditches and embankments may still be seen on many of the old plantations, mute evidence of the toil of black men who built and kept them up. Rice was profitable and its cultivation continued within the memory of many persons in this room. A great figure in southern agriculture, a statesman in the field, Dr. Seaman A. Knapp introduced rice upon the prairie lands of western Louisiana and east Texas where it was possible to use machinery on the firm soil and thus lower the cost of production. This turned out to be another major blow to the coastal region of South Carolina. The planters here could not or did not meet the competition of these new areas and the commercial production of rice has all but disappeared from the land that introduced it into the country and built great plantations on the basis of its cultivation.

The third plant which the coast of South Carolina introduced and cultivated successfully held within it the destinies of the lower South, good and ill, for many decades. The world market, the invention of the cotton gin, the expansion of the cotton plantation, especially to the new and fertile soils of the Black Belt of Alabama and the alluvial soils of the lower Mississippi Valley, set the patterns of southern agriculture and of the social and economic life of the people.

It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if these things had not taken place. Would the movement to liberate the slaves, which came almost to a tie vote in the General Assembly of Virginia in the early 1830's, have prevailed? Would we have been spared the war between the States and Reconstruction? And would race relations now be on the same basis as in South America? These are interesting but idle speculations. Cotton swept the South. The cotton plantation and the folkways that cluster about it set the pattern of southern life. Two streams of migration set in-one of the planter class with their slaves to the newer and better lands of the South; the other of the landless, middle class whites to settle the West and Middle West. Conflicts and cleavages deepened and the war was fought. It left this area and many others in a state of paralysis.

There are some people who are at their best in time of trouble. That is particularly true of the Quakers. Somehow they have a way of showing up with ministrations of healing, relief, and rehabilitation in every great disaster. Taking no part in war, they devote their efforts to healing and alleviating its effects, especially upon children and men and women in civilian life. The Quakers have been a minority and they were misunderstood and mistreated both in England and in the United States. The Virginia Colony as early as 1660 passed measures "against a turbulent people called Quakers". I have often thought of that adjective "Turbulent" applied to the most peaceful of all religious groups.

The Quakers followed the Union Army with schools for the freedmen. They pioneered in this field and their example was followed by nearly all religious groups which recognized a great need and rendered the people of the South an incalculable service through the schools they set up and maintained for the colored people. They supplied teachers, ministers, and leaders in all walks of life; they showed the need of skill and character in work on the farm and in the home. The content of the school program was usually academic, but the colored people got a valuable education merely in association with these noble and unselfish men and women.

It seemed appropriate to call this school, opened in 1862, the Penn School. Whittier, the Quaker poet, was stirred by this effort and wrote the school song. Also he was impressed by the accounts of the work

These early and idealistic efforts met with varying success. The school was an academic New England school transplanted to the sea islands. It had a very real influence, but the people were caught in a stream of economic forces with which they were ill equipped to cope. Hampton Institute had been singularly successful in developing a type of practical education, combining the ideal with the real, using the experiences of the home, the shop and the farm as the materials of education, and sending out young people fired with zeal and practical knowledge as missionaries working for a better rural life. It was a turning point in the history of the Penn School when Dr. H. B. Frissell, the principal of Hampton, became a trustee of the school. He at once sent two of the best teachers from the Hampton staff-Miss Butler and Miss Colley. Hardly had they started with the reorganization of the school when Miss Butler was stricken with malaria. It was a fatal illness. Nothing daunted, Miss Rossa B. Cooley, joined by Miss Grace B. House, undertook to carry on. They would make the Penn School a community school with health as one of the main purposes. They have made the Penn School the economic, health, and cultural center for the Island. Every small farmer has looked here-and not in vain-for guidance and light on his problems. The teaching of the school has been soundly based on home and community life

One more economic disaster was to befall the Carolina Coast. The long growing season and the character and qualities of the soil made this the land par excellence of the long staple cotton. From this cotton all the finest cotton goods were manufactured and its fibre commanded the highest price in the markets of the world. It was the cash crop and the center of the economic life of the people. The appearance of the boll weevil doomed this industry. The growers of upland cotton had developed early maturing varieties so that they could make a crop before the weevils appeared in sufficient numbers to destroy it; but the long staple cotton required a long growing season and by the time of maturity there would

Dr. Knapp, whose work on rice in the southwest had put the South Carolina rice growers out of business, had already sent one of the first Negro farm demonstration agents to work from the Penn School-Mr. J. E. Blanton, now the principal of the Voorhees School. His efforts helped to turn defeat into success and he is remembered gratefully and affectionately by the people of St. Helena Island. The farm program has continued in able hands and is today the best guarantee that the people will in these topsy- turvy times meet their difficulties with intelligent understanding and in a spirit of mutual aid.

The historical, economic, and social background is a twice- told tale to many of you no doubt, but without this background it is impossible to get a true focus upon the remarkable activities and the remarkable spirit of this school and the wonderful influence it has exerted and continues to exert.

There is a peculiar quality inherent in the life of the low country of South Carolina. Many of the great plantation homes of these masterful people have gone, but there remains a tradition of their pioneering in

They tell many stories of Charleston, but I like the one I heard recently of a colored woman who had just returned after a brief sojourn in a northern city. Her friend expressed surprise to see her and said she thought she had gone to stay. "Yes, but I didn't like it up there. Charleston suits me better. It seems like Charleston just keeps every other place from seeming natural." What better description of home and of loyalty to it can you ask?

Miss Cooley and Miss House, from a cultural background of a different but comparable character, have instinctively recognized and respected the fine qualities of the low country civilization and for many years they have not only lived here but have belonged here and they number the people of South Carolina of both races among their fast friends.

The simplicity, the sincerity, and the sturdy persistence of the Quakers runs like a golden thread of idealism through the history and the work of this school. This tradition combined with the Hampton influence has enabled the Penn School to develop an unusually effective program in terms of the practical interests of the child, the home, the farm and the community. The school has given a broad cultural and spiritual meaning

Dr. Frissell was responsible for my first visit to the Penn School. I had been with him at Jacksonville at the Conference for Education in the South. He said I must see the Penn School, and he wrote Miss Cooley to meet me as I stopped off. I arrived before his letter. It was Saturday night and I got into a crowded ferry boat in which I was the only white person. The speech of the Island people on my unaccustomed ears made me think I might be in some foreign country. We reached Ladies Island and there was no one to meet me; but while I was about to go back on the return ferry, Mr. Thompson, a neighbor and friend of Miss Cooley, came to my rescue and took me in his car to the gate, and all was well. I owe much to that visit as to my earlier visits to Hampton. I said to Dr. Frissell that the half had not been told.

Mere words of mine are inadequate to convey the sense of gratitude and appreciation that we all feel for Miss Cooley and Miss House and for

As Miss Cooley and Miss House relinquish the administration to Mr. and Mrs. Kester, we first think of it as a great change; but if any place is used to change it is the Penn School. What institution has faced more social and economic changes than this coastal plan and the sea islands of South Carolina? The Charleston earthquake and a few hurricanes may be thrown in for good measure. The school will go on finding its program in the life, needs, and opportunities of the people; and it will go on serving them, always helping them to adapt themselves to changed conditions. Mr. and Mrs. Kester will find new resources, new encouragement and new opportunities in the advancing program of the State of South Carolina. Already the teacher training program which the State College maintains in cooperation with the Penn School is one of the important aspects of the State program. Moreover, there is a nation-wide movement towards the community centered school.

I am confident that the friends who have stood by in the past will wish to help it now make its best contribution to these movements. In

When we think of all the good and evil associated with the plantation system as it grew up and spread through the Old South, and of the recurring cycles of prosperity and ruin, it is refreshing to recall the successful experience of hundreds of small farmers on St. Helena Island. They and their families, through education, thrift, and mutual aid have achieved home ownership, economic independence, a satisfying social life and responsible community relationships. The Penn School has been at the heart of it all, giving stability and coherence to the people in their efforts to help themselves.