The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 17, 1919, Page 8

' Decent Schools for the Farm Children i Proper Pay for Teachers, Better Instruction for Pupils of North- Dakota Rural : Schools Another Accomplishment of Farmer Administration b S _to the case. -ers, so that country children could “ get the same advantages ' secured ‘and girl in getting an education were un- BY E. B. FUSSELL ; 1 FEW years ago a North Dakota . school teacher struggled into her home, after a two-mile tramp through snowdrifts. She collapsed on her bed, exhausted and ill. Friends found her next day delirious. She was rushed to a hospital at Bismarck.. The physicians who examined her shook their heads and said, “Pneumonia.” Her sys- tem, they said, had been run down by lack of nour- ishment. She had tramped daily through snow- drifts in thin, cheap shoes, apparently contaihing more paper than leather. Why she suffered from lack of nourishment and wore cheap shoes that en- dangered her life was apparent when it was found that she was receiving as salary less than $500 a 1/ year and that she had just $1.37 in the world when . she was taken ill. The attention of Neil C. Macdonald, then super- intendent of schools in North Dakota, was called Macdonald told Lynn J. Frazier, a farmer of Pembina county, N. D.,; who was inter- ested in educational matters, about it. Later, when Frazier, the Pembina county farmer, be- came governor, he and Macdonald, with the as- sistance of other North Dakota farmers elected to the legislature, planned a campaign to prevent the state of North Dakota from being placed in the shameful position of paying its teachers starva- tion wages. The farmers saw, too, that if they continued to pay the teachers of their children less than half the wages they paid their hired men, North Dakota would get an inferior brand of _ teachers and the children would get a poor grade of instructibn. q The farmers decided that they would have to take a stand as to education and outline a definite pro- gram of what they wanted to accomplish. This is what they decided upon: To make the schools serve the vital needs of all the children of the state. To secure equality of opportunity for all children to attend good schools—rich and poor, town and country, League and anti-League. To emphasize the improvement of the rural schools. To train a type of citizen that would believe in and maintain democracy, industrially and politically. . The first necessity for action was in regard to rural schools. North Dakota for years has had a high type of city schools, but the country was 25 years behind the cities. The rural schools were largely one-room affairs, with a teacher, whose pay averaged from $50 to $60 per month, teaching all the grades. The result was that the farm children of North Dakota were receiving a grade of instruction far below that of the city children, who had one teacher for each grade, well paid, and consequently better prepared instructors and all the equipment needed for a modern school. CITY SCHOOLS FOR COUNTRY CHILDREN The campaign decided upon was to put schools of the city type into the country districts. This meant consolidating the two or three or half a dozen local, one-room schools into one large graded school, with two or three or half a dozen teach- to city children. Governor Frazier temporarily laid aside the duties of his office to go out on a series of speaking tours, urging the advantages of consolidated schools. Campaigns were also started in most of the counties to in- crease the local appropriations for schools. Farmers drove in from 50 and 60 miles around to see and hear the first farmer governor of the state. Here was a man that they felt they could trust and his ar- guments in favor of giving the farm boy and girl an even chance with the city boy answerable. ) Governor. Frazier also went before the North Dakota legislature, both in 1917 and in 1919, and urged greater -appropriations for educational work by the state, so that rural schools could be built up, a better grade of teachers secured and all children in the state be given a fair chance. What North Dakota has done along educa- tional lines has been largely overlooked because of the greater prominence that has been given to the fight of the farmers for a terminal ele- vator and mills, a state bank, the hail insurance law and the like. The fact is that during the last four years North Dakota’s record in im- proving education has given the state front rank in the Union. This is what has been done: 3 North Dakota now has 502 consolidated 'schools, more than any other state. These enroll 30,000 farm children, who thus are given advan- tages nearly the same as those of city children. Of these, 3,125 are doing high school work, which would have been altogether impos- sible under the old system. State appropriations for education, which were only $1,628,210 in 1515, were -increased to $2,034,145 in 1917 and to $3,020,- 505 in 1919. Rural school appropriations were in- creased from $120,000 in 1915 to $225,000 in 1917 and to $425,000 in 1919. This also beats the record of any other state. Of the total increase in appropriations made by the 1919 legislature, 73 per cent was for education. -This is a point that opponents of the League in North Dakota try to dodze. They attempt to make it appear that the state’s industrial program is responsible for the increased costs. The facts are that the increase in North Dakota taxes is less than that in other states and that in North Dakota the taxpayers are getting a dollar’s worth of benefit ¢from every dollar in increased taxes; which the taxpayers are not gettig‘gf’iq other states. Salaries of ruraf” school teachers, which formerly averaged between $50 and $60 a month, have been increased to $70 and $80. Night schools have been organized with state aid and provision has been made for vo- cational education with state aid. The age of compulsory school attendance has been increased. The number of state school inspectors has been increased from two to five. Finally, provision has been made for unifying the work of all educa- tional departments by placing the ~common schools in city an® coun- try, the normal schools, agricultural college and university and all other educational and chari- table institutions under Here is the type of the pioneer one-room log schoolhouse that is rapidly disappear- ing in North Dakota as better edu- cational methods are adopted. a single board. This board, ‘called the “board of administration,” was created by-the last legislature and the law creating it was upheld by the people in a state-wide referendum vote. This'means that the different educational institutions, instead of work- ing at cross purposes and fighting each other, will all work together in one harmonious unit. The board of administration ‘will be able to employ experts who will devote their services to all institutions which need them By mak- ing purchases - for all in- stitutions together the board will be able to save large sums to the taxpayers. The board now has under way an investigation of the sys- tem of state printing of ~school books. Kansas, Cal- ifornia and many of the Ca- nadian provinces mnow are printing their own textbooks and thus escaping from the clutches of the book trust, and North Dakota farmers are far-sighted enough to see the advantages of the system if it can be adopted in that state. . After reading this article " to this point the editor of the Leader asked what happened to the school teacher who was brought to Bismarek, dangerously ill with pneumonia and with just $1.37 between her and starvation. With the help of those interested in seeing a better school system established in North Dakota she was nursed through her illness, fully recovered, went to teach- ing again at a fairer salary, got married, and, everybody hopes, will live happily ever after. Canadian Farmers Win Ontario Party, in Field for -First Time, Sweeps Conservatives From Power 7]N WHAT was one of the most remark- able electiotts ever held in Canada, if not the most remarkable, the Unit- ed Farmers of Ontario, a party organ- ized since the last general é&lection, has swept the Conservative govern- ment, which has been in the saddle, from power and has a plurality of the seats in the provincial parliament. A new legislature, composed of 43 farmers, 12 Laborites, 26 Conservatives, 28 Liber- als and two independents, was returned. Only some 20 of the old members of the legislature were re- turned. Premier Hearst was beaten by a Labor candi- date, and several members of the cabinet were defeated by farmers. The victory in Ontario, one of the oldest and naturally most conservative provinces of the Dominion, is an indication of even . more sweeping victories in other provinces, such as hlaqitqba and Alberta, where farmers are in the majority and where strong organizations have been built up. 5 : ; Included in the platform of the FThe “Frazier” school, located a few miles outside of Bismarck and named for the North Dakota governor on account of his interest in rural schools, Above is a picture of a consolidated school in Ransom county, N. D., where country children‘ get the same advantages that are possible for city children. | PAGEBIGHT . . . farmers’ party is a plank declaring for public ownership and control of railways, water and aerial trans- portation, telephone, telegraph and express systems, all projects in the development of natural pow- er and of the coal mining industry. Other planks are the restoration of the right of free speech, pro- portional representation, initiative, referendum and recall, greater tax- es on large incomes, excess profits and unimproved lands, reduction of the tariff and a land settlement scheme for returned soldiers. The farmer and labor represen- tatives will have a slight. majority in the legislature, but it is consid- members of the Liberal party will work with theé dominant power in the parliament on all vital ques- tions, The new premier and jthe cabinet probably will be farmers. “ ered extremely likely that the in- dependent liberals and some of the'