General statements: In 1922 the Board of Trustees of the University of Tennessee acting on the suggestion of President Morgan, authorized the establishment of a Department of Rural Education in the University, whose functions should be: first, to study intensively rural school conditions in Tennessee; second, to train teachers for the rural schools; and, third, to cooperate with the State school authorities in every way possible to make the work of the rural schools more nearly meet the needs of the rural communities.
Following the approval and promise of co-operation of the State Department of Education, it was decided to make a series of surveys or rural communities for the purpose of determining conditions in the different counties and of offering suggestions for their improvement. The first of the series was that of Union County, made in the fall of 1922. Following this were surveys of Lewis, Crockett, Pickett, Monroe, Bledsoe, and Jackson counties.
At the request of the County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools for a study of the economic, social, and educational conditions in Blount county, this survey was conducted. The purpose of the survey was to ascertain existing conditions in the county and with the aid of the University, to devise some plans for improving these conditions.
The information to be presented in this survey has been taken from reports of fifty-one of the sixty-one rural school communities. Although not mathematically correct in every detail, it is believed that the data included in this survey are fairly representative of conditions in the county
