The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 12, 1917, Page 7

A e A S A aking Rural Schools Better How One County Solved the Problem of Giving Country Children as Good as the City Children Get in Education BY RALPH L. HARMON ET'S give thé children of the country a chance. Let's lift them up out of the lonesome- ness of the little one-room . school house with its hollow echoing walls, its smell of chalk dust and its oppressive plainness, to some- thing interesting. Let's make going to the country school as attractive and valuable as going to the city school.” That is the plea of the rural school teachers and county school superin- tendents in North Dakota, in Minne- sota, Washington and many states; the goal of the country school of today as interpreted through the enthusiastic movement for ‘“consolidated” schools, for new types of buildings, for gymnas. iums, heating systems, pictures, pianos, games and social life. It is a big program, big with promise for the future, and fun for the present. Fyn, interest and enthusiasm are the intsruments by which these pioneers of a new idea in country school de- velopment are going about their work. They are aiming to make the country school a place that will draw the boys and girls to it as if by gravity—and their parents as well. Something in the cities has been more attractive. What is it? The larger number of people to be seen and associated with? The varied life of the cities and towns? The more comfortable buildings, the better .educated teachers, the sports and playgrounds? OLD TYPE SCHOOLS " ARE BEING REPLACED ' What these thinkers and planners of a better day believe it is, may be guessed by what they are doing in rur- al sections. Wherever men of vision are directing the development of the coun- try schools pretty nearly the same goals are in sight. The little one-room school houses with three windows on & side are being torn down or turned into teacher’s cottages, and large school houses with plenty of fresh air, light, and comfortable furniture, are taking their place. Instead of all the grades from A B C to algebra muddied together in one room and the little tads compelled to listen to the recitations of the older ones (or strain their ears not to hear) there are separate rooms, even small reecitation rooms, and the pupils of different ages are separated. Typical of this movement are the rural consolidated schools of Ransom county, North Dakota. . When Dr. E. A. ‘Winship, the distinguished educator of Boston, who knows rural school Amer- ica better than any other person, visit- ed the Ransom county schools' two years ago he said Ransom county had made more progress in two years than any other county in the United States that he knew. Ransom county has 12 consolidated schools now instead of 35 or 40 one- room schools, and not half the county is consolidated yet. In every one of the consolidated schools high school work was given last year or is schedul- ed for the coming year. In only a few of the one-room schools before .con- solidation were there any high school pupils, and these were isolated by twos and threes with no associates to stimu- - ing to the left is one of the several late interest and help make the studies mare than hard jobs. RANSOM COUNTY BUILDS FOR RESULTS The buildings being developed are of a general type that at once gets away from the old time disadvantages, such as non-adjustable seats, light from two sides of the pupils, the community pail of water brought from some near- by farm, and the big stove that was able only to heat one corner or the above, - which is carried outside the building. All day this continual circu- lation of fresh, warm air is kept up. At night to conserve the heat of the day, the outside intake is closed so that no more cold air gets .in, all the doors inside are opened, and the circulation continues throughout the night by the heat of the banked fire. When the pupils and teacher come in the morn- ing the room is warm, and ready for business. Quite different from the chilly ates can take a short course at the normals including a little pedagogy and psychology and get a certificate good for a term with the privilege of a renewal. “What kind of a teacher is the aver- age high school girl at that stage?"’ he continued. “This question came up at a recent meeting of educators in North Dakota and I took the occasion to point out the failure of the normal schools to do their duty by the state and sup- ply the rural teaching force. One of the schools. ship. middle of the room. The new buildings areartistic in design as well. They have bell towers, vestibules that take off the drafts, are all painted, have hot air heating systems and ventHators that automatically make it impossible for the pupils to suffer from foul air. Take the school at Buttzville for in- stance. Its 40 by 46 féet of space is all utilized. Two large study rooms with a rolling partition between that can be sent up like the roll top of an office desk, makes this two-room school house at once an attractive auditorium which the people use and appreciate for more than school purposes. Two -smaller rooms will provide for smaller classes when wanted, but at present one is used as a library where the 200 or 300 books are kept and distribut. ed to readers. Every foot of its base- ment is utilized as gymnasium, toilet rooms and fire room. A current of fresh air is takeh from outside the building into the bottom of the heating aparatus, is wrapped around the fire box two or three times and emerges-at the top still fresh. but warm, to drive down the heavier vol- ume ‘of used air in the school rooms A $12,000 consolidated schoo;. showing the old and new. The small build- -room schools discontinued and now; fitted up as a teacher’s cottage, wheéf® the principal lives all the year round with his family, | 3 schoolroom of the past that must be stove heated and is dank with foul air. This building cost $4500 with its plastered and tinted walls, its maple floor, its concrete foundation, and its modern equipment. Some larger ones cost more and some cost far less. But the aim in all has been to make them comfortable and attractive, Artesian water from a well in the school yard, for instance does away with the old oaken bucket at Moore school and spring water piped under pressure is a luxury in some of these rural schools that even the city pupils can not enjoy. An organ or piano, the property of the school is in nearly every school and pictures, and curtains make them home-like. CONSOLIDATION REMOVING “URBAN-MINDEDNESS"” “What good is it all?"’ Superintendent Cavette was asked after several of these new school houses had been in- spected and a few of the vanishing type had been passed along the road. “Do the people appreciate these new schools, and. are they bringing’ the ex- pected returns in their effect upon the pupils?” A ; “It is changing the view point of our people” he replied. “Our pupils, and even their parents have been too urban- minded. They have looked toward the city as their ideal of a place to live. They have been accustomed to feeling that there there -was not much worth while in the country. The consolidat- ed schools have brought to the pupils the associations of the town, more companions, greater stimulus to do their work. They no longer see a con- trast between their way of going to school and the way in the city. Their school houses are just as good as many ‘in the towns, and they are getting a - -Superintendent Cavette.” better class of teachers than before.”. “What about the teachers?” he was asked, % ; “To: get good teachers is the biggest problem of the rural school” replied Our normal schools. are not making the effort to supply our rural schools, although that is their special function, for which above everything else, they were es- tablished. @ But our normal school graduates at once seek city jobs and consider themselves lowered in dignity if they have to take a country school. The teachers we get in the country schools are very largely high school girls of immature age and sadly defi- cient in training. High school gradu. 0 PAGE SEVEN ST PR Hanson school, Ransom county, N. D., where one modern building now does the work of four old style “district” In the background is 'seen the barn kept supplied with feed for the horses of the children from the whole town« leading normal school men of the state replied. NORMAL SCHOOLS MUST SHARE THE BLAME “‘Why, I would consider myself & piker, if I recommended a-position in the rural schools to one of my gradu=- ates.’' “It is that attitude of mind that has kept down the rural schools. The country girl by the time she gets through a normal school course where A suspension bridge over the Shey- enne river at Scovill school, Ransom county N. D, put in by the consoli- dated district after consolidation to bring distant parts of the township to- gether.