The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 31, 1917, Page 6

e ——— Moving the Movies to the Country Determination to Serve Rural Communities and Rare Inventjve Genius Combine to Help Make Farm Life More Worth While BY E. B. FUSSELL HIS story hasn’t anything to do with the movies at its start. It starts with a war on the little red schoolhouse. But first of all let it be said that at the North Dakota Agricultural College they don’t hold to the theory that all a farmer ought to do is to work 16 hours out of the 24, raising wheat and corn and potatoes. When the farmer displays symptoms of sit- ting up and wanting to know what is going on, they don’'t tell him to ‘“go home and slop the pigs.” They don't say to the farmer what the writer heard a political boss in another western state say to the legislative representative of the biggest farmers’ organization in the state: “You’d do better to go back to your farm and raise wheat than to come down heré to the capitol to raise hell.” In fact, at the college they hold to the theory that there is more to any man’s life than the hours he puts in at work. They believe at the college that the farmer should have the ad- vantage of“sani&a.ry measures and that his children should have the advan- tage of medical ipspection, so that they may keep their health. They believe that the farmer’s children should have the advantage of a good education, not only at the college, but also in the grade schools and high schools. And finally they believe that the farmer is as much entitled to occasional enter- tainment and amusement as if he lived in the city. OUT OF THE BEATEN PATHS Because they believe this at the col- lege Andrew P. Hollis is on the college staff. He does not teach classes at the A group of buildings that resulted from the consolidated schoo! campaign. Up- per left, Brooklyn consolidated school; center, Grassland school; lower right, teacher’s cottage at Santer consoli- dated school. Andrew PR. Hollis ready to start on a lyceum trip. Andrew P. Hollis and Roy Corbett, who perfected the storage battery method of operating a moving picture machine, at a country school, ready for a performance. Entertainment is furnished to the boys and girls of the cities by those who derive a profit from supplying it. Here is a big-souled effort to give entertainment to country boys and girls because they want it and deserve it. college nor yet does he work in one of the college laboratories. He is out in the field, all the year around, in all kinds of weather, aiding in the estab- lishment of better schools, helping to get better school buildings, en- couraging the teaching of more agriculture and domestic science and manual training in the grade schools, working for better medi- cal inspection and safe-guarding the health of the pupils, and finally, trying to plan new ways of bringing a few of the advantages of the city to the coun- try, so that life on the farm may be more livable. The whole state is hig laboratory. Mr. Hollis came to Fargo four years ago to work with the extension depart- ment, which is under government su- pervision. But after awhile the gov- ernment authorities adopted the theory that all they ought to do was to show the farmer how to grow more wheat and more potatoes and so forth. They took the stand that making living con- ditions better for the farmer and his children was none of their business. But the college authorities thought otherwise, so they adopted Hollis and put him on the college staff. The first big work done by Hollis Patriotism is being appealed to these days to - keep people on the farms. everyday pleasures of city life could be had, the boys and girls would stay on the farms without special appeal. was done in co-operation with N. C. Macdonald, now state superintendent of instruction. Together the two men carried on a war against the little red schoolhouse. There has been a tend- ency on the part of Americans to venerate and exalt the little, one-room, ungraded red schoolhouse in the coun- try. True, some of the big men in American history got their education in this way. But that was long ago, in most cases, and perhaps they be- came big men, not because of the little red schoolhouse, but in spite of it. Hollis and Macdonald argued that it was not possible for a one- room school with one teacher in charge of eight grades, to give the childrén a fair chance. It was im- possible to teach such subjects as agriculture and wood-working and sewing and cooking. The country boy and girl weren’t being given an even break with the city boy and girl. RURAL SCHOOLS ARE MADE EFFICIENT Hollis and Macdonald started a cam- paign for consolidated schools. They - urged that two or three or four school districts should get together, pool their finances and put up three or four room buildings, planned so that city advantages-could be given to the coun- try children. They urged also the building of “teacherages” so that capa- ble teachers would be attracted to the If some of the country. Many of the ‘teacherages” were provided with barns so that-the teacher could keep a cow and operate a small model farm for the benefit of the pupils. . Hollis and Macdonald put their hearts and souls in this campaign. Hollis offered his service, for a week at-a time, to any county working for consolidated schools. He would start off on a speaking campaign like a politician running for congress, travel- ing by automobilé, making two or three meetings a day, with handbills scattered ahead to announce his com- ing. Only instead of asking votes for himself, Hollis asked the school di- rectors and voters generally to give the children a chance. He had a set of lantern slides that showed the inadequacy of the small school plant and a lecture that went with them. The campaign was a phenomenal success. North Dakota now has 401 consolidated schools, most of them built within the .last three Yyears. These take the places of approximately 1200 of the out-of-date one-room schoolhouses. According to the latest report of the United States commis=- sioner of education, only two states, Indiana and Ohio, both with much greater populations, have more con=- solidated schools than North Dakota, so the Flickertail state really leads the nation in the improvement of rural schools, population considered. One of the strong arguments that was put up in favor of the consolidate ed schools was that they could be de- veloped into social centers. Many of them were built with two or three rooms planned so that they could be thrown together into an- auditorium. Hollis had told the farmers in his came paign that they could have entertain- ments in these auditoriums. After the auditoriums were provided, the farm=- ers said to Hollis: ‘“Here are the auditoriums; now where are our entertainments?” Hollis cudgeled his brains. He got an idea. It was: 3 ARRANGING THE FIRST LYCEUM COURSE “Why not arrange a lyceum circuit for the country schools?” True, it had never been done before, but in Hollis’ opinion, that was no argument against it. So he started arranging a program. It mustn't be an expensive one. Traveling expenses, when the average trip would be 150 to 200 miles, would be large enough, without having high salaried talent. They couldn’t count on an audience of much more than 50, and they knew the farmer could not afford to pay more than $§1 for the course of three numbers. For one number on the course Hollis obtained the services of Dr. John H. (Continued on page 12) N. C. Macdonald, state superintendent of instruction, associated with Mr. Hollis in the campaign for consolidated schools. It was a member of the engineering départment of the North Dakota Agricultural College, who improved upon one of Edison’s latest inventions and produced enough electricity from a storage battery to run a motion picture outfit successfully, where there was no electric current. &y §urh