Part 19 (1/2)
”My dear Miss McDonald:
”The rag-baby tester is causing a whole lot of excite started another We notice one thing in particular, the corn which was dried by stove heat sprouts perfectly, while that dried in granaries, etc, is not sprouting at all Last fall papa saved his seed corn, selecting it very carefully, and hung it up in the granary to dry I selected several ears from the same field and at the same ti the papa's corn does not sprout at all, while ood as the Golden Glow sent out to the school children Thissome more of papa's, and if that fails he will have to buy his seed, a thing he has never had to do before We tested the corn secured froer pupils froht seed to be tested We had a package of last year's seed left and tested several kernels of that, as well as some sent out this year, and we think last year's seed is testing a little the better”
The new arithlish, deals with the country It see at the board coranaries, the price of bags and the cost of barns and chicken houses; yet what ure out his and perhaps his father's probleraphy is no less pertinent Soil fors, the physical characteristics of the townshi+p and of the county are matters of universal interest and concern Every school in Berks County, Pennsylvania, is provided with a fine soil survey ical Survey What raphy?
Here and there a country school is waking up to the physical needs of country children ”Country boys are not symmetrically developed,”
asserts Superintendent Rapp, of Berks County ”They are flat-chested and round-shouldered” That is interesting, indeed Mr Rapp explains: ”It is because of the character of their work, nearly all of which tends to flatten the chest Whether or not that is the explanation, the fact remains, and with it the no less evident fact that it is the business of the school to correct the defects In an effort to do this we have worked out a series of fifty gareat ”Field Day and Play Festival” is held, to which the entire county is invited Each school trains and sends in its teaons contribute their quota, until five thousand people have gathered in an out-of-the-way spot to help the children enjoy thereat believer in activity Tireless himself, he has fifty teacher-farmers--men who teach in the winter and farirls He believes in activity for children, too ”If the school appealed as it ought to theto drive them in, you would have to drive them out” To prove his point Mr Rapp cites the instance of onein the schools, decided to havein his one-room Berks County school
”He did the work hi out the cellar and set up a shop in it The only help he had was the help of the pupils, and the as done in recess time and after school They made their own tools, cabinets, book-cases, picture-fra else they wanted And do you knohen it got dark, that man would send the children home from the school in order to be rid of them”
Consolidated schools help They make rural education broader and easier, but the one-room country school, presided over by a live teacher, may be made worth while Social events, sports, contests in farm work and domestic work, studies couched in ter the child and the co the Little Red Schoolhouse
Without, as well as within, the little red school-house may be transformed The course of study ht The rural school-house ardening
How typical of old-time country schools are the lines:
Still sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sunning
Around it still the su
The unpainted, rough exterior of the little school vied with the unkerounds Both supplied subjects for artistic treatment To the consternation of the poet and the romancer, the modern one-roo filled with a thicket of blackberry and suardens The up-to-date country school, while far less picturesque, is much more architectural and more useful
The State Superintendent of Education in Wisconsin furnishes free to local school boards plans of modern one-room schools With a hall at each end for wraps, an iht cofro from two thousand dollars up, provide in every way for the health and coo farther than to suggest in Wisconsin, however, for if a school building becomes dilapidated he may condemn it, and then state aid to local education is refused until suitable buildings are provided The law has proved an excellent deterrent to educational parsimony
Superintendent Kern, of Rockford, Illinois, has done particularly effective work in beautifying his schools Within the schools are tastefully painted and decorated Outside there are flower-beds, hedges, individual garden plots, neatly-cut grass, and all of the other necessaries for a well-kept yard No longer crude and unsightly, the Rockford school yards are hborhood e As the school becomes the center of community life local pride makes more and more des in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois you would be better able to understand why men boast of ”Our School” in the sa of their corn yields
V A Fairyland of Rural Education
You will perhaps be so folks who have ceased to believe in little people--when you hear that out in western Iowa there is a county which is an educational fairyland Yet if you had traveled up and down the country, gone into the wretched country school buildings, seen the lack-luster teaching and the indifferent scholars, which are so appallingly nu committee which has just completed its survey of Wisconsin rural schools the state pens were on a better plane of efficiency than the school houses; if you had seen the miserable inadequacy of country schools North, East, South and West, and had then been transported into the e County, Iowa, you would have been sure that you had passed through the looking-glass into the queer world beyond Yet Page County is there--a fairyland presided over by a really, truly fairy
The schools in Page County, Iohich, by the way, is one of the best corn counties in Iowa, are little republics in which the children have the fun, do the work and grow up strong and kind Each school has its song, its social gatherings, its clubs, and its teams How you would have pricked up your ears if you had driven past the Hawley School and heard a score of lusty voices shouting the school song to the tune of ”Everybody's Doing It!”
Decee County contests, when each school sent its exhibits of dress and its corn-judging teaed very much as they would be at a county fair
Further, it was the ti the best acre of alfalfa, of corn and of potatoes (Queer, isn't it, but last year a girl got the first prize for the best crop of potatoes) Decee County This year more than three thousand exhibits were sent into Clarinda, the county seat Every boy and girl is on tip-toe with expectancy, and after the awards the successful schools are as proud as turkey cocks
”We have never taken the thing seriously here before,” explained a farmer who had left his work in mid-afternoon and coe seed corn ”This year we're going down there to Clarinda for all that's in it” If he hadn'this hours in the school-roohly in earnest they would not have been there, after school, learning how to judge corn
The co with excite arding their corn-judging and their s, while the wo, for it is no small matter to be hailed and crowned as the best fourteen-year-old cook in Page County, Iowa
One Page County teacher conducts her doirls On a given day of each week the entire class visits the hoirls, prepares, cooks and eats a meal What an opportunity to inculcate lessons in domestic economy at first hand! What a chance to show the behind-the-tie County) how things are being done!
Because Page County is a great corn county s a string of seed corn which is brought in by the boys in the fall, dried during the winter, and in the spring tested for fertility A Babcock milk-tester, owned by the county, circulates fro the children to test the productivity of their cows Teams of boys, under the direction of the school, s, and care for stretches of road--fro the best work are rewarded with substantial prizes Do you begin to suspect the reason for the interest which the big folks take in the doings of Page County's little folks? It is because the little folks go to schools which are a vital part of the comathering of the friends and parents of the children So, sometimes they have a ”Parents' Day” Anyway, the boys decorate the school, the girls cook cake and candy, and the parents coin with their school song, sung, perhaps, like this Kile School song, to the tune of ”Home, Sweet Home”: