HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
The Country School Once More
Professor Joseph Schafer, Ph.
D., Director of Extension Work $
and Professor of History in the
University of Oregon at Eugene, J
in a speeial article to the Farm
Magazine, tells farmers why the $
old-time one-room school should S
become a union two, three or $
four room school in a consoli-
dated district. Taxes need not ?
be increased by this operation,
while school efficiency is. The Q
school law of Oregon permits
such consolidations. Dr. Schaf- ?
$ er's artiele is of vital interest $
to farmers with families still to
be educated. A second and con-
$ eluding article will be run in
the next issue of the Farm
$ Magazine. Editor.
"
THE REASON WHY we are having
such a determined, unabating agi
tation of the rural school question
becomes clear only when we take a
large view of it.
A reeent bulletin of the Bureau of
Education presents these significant
educational facts: (1) That 40 per
cent of the children of school age in
the United States are being taught
in city and town school; (22 that 60
per cent are being taught in rural
schools, so-called, and 36 per cent of all
children are taught in country schools
having one room and one teacher.
Our problem is found in the last
statement that more than one-third of
all American children are still being
"educated" in the one-room, one
teacher school. This is so because of
the limitations upon this type of school
as an institution, and not because,
within its proper scope, it has failed to
justify itself. No one familiar with
American pioneer history can fail to
reverence the "district school" because
of what it has meant to our people in
the past. It was well adapted to eare
for the needs of a people engaged
almost exclusively in a simple, non
scientific and almost primitive agricul
ture a people who came only indirect
ly in touch with those phases of busi
ness life which were complex or with
correspondingly intricate social or
political affairs.
It was easy to establish, for when
ever a few families moved into some
new valley or pushed out into a new
area of the plains, they could have
their school for at least a few months,
thus keeping open the priceless oppor
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tunity of learning to the boys and girls
of the frontier households. Moreover
this "district school" has been the
scene of activity of thousands of men
and women who are remembered by
many more thousands as capable and
devoted teachers, whose lives have been
woven into the moral and intellectual
woof of American socioty.
One Boom an Anacronism.
We all should honor the district
school of the past, but so far as it
still remains an institution of one room
and one teacher it has become an an
acronism in American life and must be
changed to something different before
the country school education of today
can be made adequate to the social
needs of children living in the country
today.
There is hardly need to argue the
point. Everybody admits that farming
both as a business and as a life is
vastly different from pioneer eondi
tions. The farmer, because land is high
priced and margins of profit narrow,
must be a man trained to close busi
ness habits. Because science can aid in
making his farm more productive or
in preventing losses, he must be trained
at least to apply scientific principles in
his business.
Because the farmer is today cosmo
politan in his business and social rela
tions, he must have the training neces
sary to enable him to understand social
and economic facts in all their varying
forms as local, state, national and in
ternational. Because he is a citizen
dealing directly with the most vital and
far-reaching problems problems, more
over, which grow more and more com
plex with the progressive intensifica
tion of American life the farmer as a
prop of the commonwealth and of so
ciety, requires for his equipment an
education no whit less thorough or less
broad than that which today comes
as a matter of course to the man en
tering business life in the towns or
cities. And .-. similar statement will
hold for the women on the farm. j
Adequate Education.
Therefore, En education adequate to
the needs of the present day farmer
must differ from the old time district
school education in range of subject
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VIM
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matter, in the degree of perfection to
which training is carried, and in its
vocational aim. AH of this means, more
and more specially trained teachers,
more equipment, more years cf school.
It means some opportunity for varia
tion in the training given to the two
sexes respectively.
A school of two rooms and two teach
ers a man who, among other subjects,
can give boys the special training now
required m agriculture and the me
chanic arts, and a woman to teaeh girls
the home-making arts with equipment
proper to its work, is the least that any
country dwelling parent should be sat
isfied with. From this minimum, there
should be as rapid an ascent as possi
Lle to a school of from four to five
teachers, equipped to care for pupils
through the high school years.
Of course, the chief obstacle in the
way of getting such schools in places
where they do not exist is the lack of
money. Districts now are organized
on the basis of furnishing support for a
one-room, one-teacher school to be
reached by the children from their
homes, traveling on foot Frequently
the valuation of the district property is
only high enough to secure at a reason
able rate of taxation the support re
quired for one teacher; some districts
ore too poor to do this without aid from
the country.
Consolidate Districts.
If the schools were to be developed
to a two-room basis, or something still
more pretentious, the financial support
would have to bo expanded correspond
ingly. This would involve, usually, the
enlargement of the district by union
with other adjoining districts or the
formation of what is called a "consoli
dated district" for which the school
law of Oregon provides already.
The people are accustomed to the
"district school" of one room and one
teacher; the bulk of the present genera
tion "went to school" in some "little
red school house"; somebody, or sev
eral persons in every district have prop
erty near the school house and they
fear that consolidation would affect
wjiRLIiaimnMm
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Importer! and Roaaten of Coffee
Seattle, Wash.
Clin
1 r--
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property values; others have no chil
dren of school age and prefer to have
things remain as they are; while some)
of those having children are opposed to
a change which would increase the dis
tance these must travel to reach ' the
school. Jealousy among the constitnent
districts, the problem of transporta
tion of pupils and a pervading fear of
"new-fangledness" are other deter
rents to the formation of new consoli
dated districts out of several contiguous
districts.
But, if the new type of school is
needed by our rural dwellers, then these
various obstacles must be resolutely
overcome, for the education of our chil
dren in such a way as to afford a, rea
sonable guaranty of success for them
as high-class citizens, men and women,
is the first and most pressing duty of
the present adult generation.
Wanted Badly.
A Loiiisvillfl man tells of an incident
at a Sunday school convention. In an
swer to the roll call of the states re
Dorts were verballv eiven by the vari
ous state chairmen. When Texas was
called a big man stepped into the aisle
and in stentorian tones exclaimed: "We
represent the imperial State of Texas.
The first white woman born in Texas
is still living she was born in Texas,
tion of over 3,000,000." Whereupon
a voice from the gallery eried out in
elarion tones: "Send that woman to
Idaho we need her."
GOING EAST or
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Bates and Information famished on rsqnsti j
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this Oonnon and mail tn In
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i obllffttloa lnenmd.
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AdaWil
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A Marwt Mrthda. i.(V(MakM
Znaarsne flsttl
VJ.
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