tutional amendment ratified in 1916 increased the minimum school term from four to six months. Teachers' salaries showed an upward tendency at the close of 1920, and steps were being taken to secure better equipped teachers. The most notable educational achieve- ment was the rapid growth of a state high-school system. In the case of the state institutions of higher learning, appropriations for maintenance and permanent physical improvements increased largely, and their growth was steady. The sectarian schools and colleges were also more adequately supported and showed a similar growth. The state support of its benevolent and charitable insti- tutions became increasingly generous and several new ones were established in the decade, including the Caswell Training School at Kinston for the mentally defective, an institution for fallen women at Samarcand, a tuberculosis sanitorium at Sanitorium, a Confed- erate women's home at Fayetteville, and an orthopaedic hospital at Gastonia.
History. The state Government throughout the period 1909-21 was under the undisputed control of the Democratic party. In 1913 Locke Craig succeeded William W. Kitchin as governor, and in 1917 was succeeded by Thomas Walter Bickett. In 1920 Cameron Morrison was elected governor. The Legislature at every session had large Democratic majorities. One Repub- lican member of Congress was elected in 1914. So confirmed was the Democratic faith of the people of the state that alone of all the states it increased the party majority in the election of 1920. There was little of purely political interest during these years. The striking fact was the influence exerted upon politics by the steady development in the state of a social consciousness which manifested itself in demands for advanced social legislation. The result was a greater body of progressive legislation than that of any other southern state for the same period. During the World War the state furnished to the armed forces of the nation 88,168 men; casualties were 1,610 killed and 4,128 wounded. The subscription to Liberty and Victory loans was $138,095,400, besides $21,085,388 for war stamps. (J. G. DE R. H.)
NORTHCLIFFE, ALFRED CHARLES WILLIAM HARMSWORTH, 1ST VISCT. (1865- ), British newspaper proprietor and statesman, was born July 15 1865 at Chapelizod, Dublin, the eldest of a family of fourteen. His father, Alfred Harmsworth (1837-1889), descended from an old Hampshire family, was a barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple and one of the standing counsel for the Great Northern Railway Company. His mother, Geraldine Mary (b. Dec. 24 1838), a woman of remarkable intellect and strong character, was a daughter of William Maffett, well known in Ireland in his time as a banker and land-agent, of Ulster-Scottish descent. Of the seven sons, the two eldest, Alfred and Harold, became members of the House of Lords as Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermere respectively; the third, Cecil Bisshopp (b. 1869), became in 1915 Under-Secretary for Home Affairs and in 1919 Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, having entered the House of Commons as Liberal M.P. for Droitwich (1906-10) and subsequently sitting for S. Beds, (from 1911); while the fourth, Robert Leicester (b. 1870), who was created a baronet in 1918, entered the House of Commons in 1900 as Liberal M.P. for Caithness, a seat which he still retained in 1921. The other three sons were Hildebrand Aubrey (b. 1872), from 1901 to 1904 editor of the New Liberal Review; St. John (b. 1876), the creator of the " Perrier " mineral- water business; and Vyvyan George (b. 1881).
It was in 1867 that the Harmsworths moved to London, and the family means were then small. Alfred, the eldest child, was exceptionally energetic, studious and thoughtful. At 1 1 he went to Stamford grammar school and at 13 to Henley House school, West Hampstead, where in 1878 he started the first of his journalistic adventures, a school magazine. This was originally issued ki MS. but was afterwards printed and sometimes set up by himself in his spare time. At 15 he did some work for Mr. Jealous, then editor of the Hampstead and Highgate Express, from whom he received his first very modest payment in journalism. In 1881 he began to work under a tutor for Cambridge, while contributing as a " free-lance " writer to the Bicycling News, Globe and the publications issued by James Henderson for boys and girls, in one of which Stevenson's Treasure Island made its first appearance. As secretary and companion to one of the third Lord Lilford's sons, he travelled extensively in Europe. On
his return to London Sir William Ingram (of the Illustrated London News) made him assistant editor of his paper Youth at the age of 17; and he continued "free-lance" work for the press, contributing leading articles to various newspapers, among which was the Morning Post, and articles to the St. James's Gazelle, where his work attracted the attention and praise of Frederick Greenwood. But his health temporarily broke down in 1884. Ordered to live out of London, he went to Coven- try in 1885 and worked for the firm of Iliffe & Sons, owners of many publications, including the Midland Daily Telegraph. With them he remained till 1886. He subsequently regarded his experience during this period at Coventry as specially valuable. He declined the offer of a partnership made him by Mr. Iliffe before he was 21; and having saved nearly 1,000 went back to London, where he joined a general publishing business. This from the first had a promising existence. Among other ventures he started on June 16 1888 Answers to Correspondents, a weekly periodical intended to be a more popular form of Notes and Queries. Ere long it turned the corner and, as Answers, laid the foundation of what eventually became the largest periodical publishing business in the world, the Amalgamated Press. In 1889 larger offices had to be acquired. Alfred Harmsworth had already been joined by his second brother, Harold (see ROTHER- MERE, LORD), to whom he ascribed a great share of the success of the undertaking, particularly on the business side. He himself wrote much, outlined serials, trained young editors, discovered new writers and artists, and revolutionized the current methods of periodical journalism. The profits of the accumulated publica- tions soon soared to 50,000 a year. In 1892 he published the first " net sales " certificate, showing that the actual sales of the various Harmsworth periodicals were over a million copies a week; and in that year Mr. Gladstone praised Answers for its " healthy and instructive reading." In the next few years Alfred Harmsworth travelled much in Europe, India, Africa, Canada and the United States; he was a good athlete, excelling in lawn tennis, and in the days before the motor-car, which as far back as 1894 became one of his chief interests, was a great lover of horses, fond of cycling, and devoted to fishing. On April n 1888, he had married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Milner, a West Indian merchant, and to her sure judgment and quick brain he always attributed much of his subsequent success.
On Aug. 31 1894 he and his brother Harold acquired the London Evening News, in which the Conservative party had sunk some 300,000. It was then losing money heavily, but it was at once reorganized by himself, his brother, Mr. Kennedy Jones and Mr. W. J. Evans, with such effect that the first working week yielded a profi.t of 7, and the first year one of 14,000. In the same year he fitted out an Arctic expedition under Mr. F. G. Jackson, which explored Franz Josef Land and assisted in the rescue of Nansen. In the general election of 1895 he stood un- successfully as a Conservative candidate for Parliament at Portsmouth. On May 4 1896 a new halfpenny morning paper, the Daily Mail, was launched, " the busy man's newspaper," as he called it. It embodied many innovations, a very full service of cables, the employment of numerous famous writers, condensation of unimportant topics, and costly and daring enterprises of various kinds. A comparison of past files of the London press shows how it revolutionized daily journalism. The most rapid machinery was used to the utmost ; a system of arrange- ment was introduced which enabled the reader to know where to find the news he wanted. It was characteristic of the foresight which, with initiative, courage and tenacity, was among the secrets of its chief proprietor's success that one of the three leading articles in the first number dealt with the then almost unknown motor-car, in the future of which Alfred Harmsworth had a firm belief, being himself already a qualified driver. The Daily Mail rapidly attained an enormous sale, rising to 600,000 copies a day in the Boer War, and this gave him great influence on policy at home and abroad. In 1903 he founded the Daily Mirror; it was at first a complete failure, losing 1,500 a week, but after being soon transformed from a penny paper for women into a halfpenny illustrated morning journal, became as signal a
