Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1880-01-08
our COUNTY SCHOOLS.

- u &0KSUQ 00us VtsIy ASSVs-0A ASSNs w
visited the school taught by John scham
Der In
DISTRICT No. Al.
situated about four miles west of GAINESVILLE
and about twenty-five miles northwest o
Yankton.
The district comprises an area of about
liz square miles, peopled almost exclusively
BY a Russo-G German population, very few
of whom can speak the English language.
I had been called there on the day previous,
to settle a difficulty incident to the rising
interest being felt by this people in their
school, and found ample reason, at the pub
lie meeting held to settle it, to congratulate
the county, no less over the dawn OF a bet
ter day to our school sentiment in this Sec
tion than over the jealousy with which they
aim to guard the public fund, apportioned
for payment Of teachers wages, from being
diverted to other than its particularly legit
innate ends.
In my visit to the school / found is chill
dren enrolled as pupils,15 of them at school,
their ages ranging from 5 to Is years. The
record exhibited a creditable regularity in
the attendance Of the whole IS, sickness,
that day, rendering the absence Of the other
three unavoidable. The pupils are all young
and their reading necessarily Of the primary
grade. l found them, however, in addition
to reading, %studlously at work in writing,
spelling, geography and arithmetic, aud, in
the pursuit Of the last named study, the
blackboard was brought into active requisi-
ton. The discipline Of the school is very
good and the moral instruction of the pupils
judged of by the evidence afforded me by
their demeanor under my observation,
equally 80. The school house is about to be
supplanted by a better one, to this end a
seyen mill tax having been voted this year
on the assessed valuation of the district.
Besides the work of the children in the
day school, a night school, for the education
of their parents in the English tongue, has
been established here, through the energy of
this teacher in support Of the popular wish,
from which l anticipate happy results.
On the 22nd 1 paid my second visit, since
it's opening, to the school taught by Miss.
McLsin in
lsTRI NO. 46.
This is one of the new districts organized
by me during the last nine months, among
an almost exclusively Bohemian population,
and affords about as gratifying proof of a
spread of American sentiment in the work
as it has been the fortune of this country to
fall heir to. The district was organized
last spring and sprung into existence in a
perfect hot-bed of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm
is an element Of Bohemian nature. Public
meetings were held and IN the absence of a
school house every nan in the district
flung the doors of his residence wide open
to supply the wan. The house of Jacob
saukob being most centrally located
was accepted and steps Immediately
taken to prepare the larger share
of his residence for a school
room. This gentleman Immediately fitted
it up with stove, desks, seats and a black
board, at his own expense, notwithstand-
ing the urgent offer Of each of the others to
share and even assume the outlay. The
present term of school was Immediately
voted and a seven-mill tax directed to be
levied on the taxable property of the dis.
trict toward the erection Of a school house
and the other expenses incident 10 their
aohnOI this fNo in tho f,oo - ~. e.. a.
the law demands no tax nor requires a
school term to be held until they have
twice drawn through me from the general
county fund. Nor in this matter was this
commendable feeling confined alone to this
district.
The district comprises the east six Sec
of what last year was known as dis
trict No. II. The west six sections, all
Bohemian, applauded the work, at a Joint
meeting cheerfully gave up one half their
local revenue, assumed the respon-
sibility of moving and maintaining
their " school, and paid. to the newly or
ganized districts, one-half the value of the
school house and its appur,enances, waving
thus a question that, perhaps, the very
silence of the law might raise in favor of
less equitable action.
This having been my second visit to the
since its opening, I found myself
compelled to admire the progress of these
pupils under their very efficient teacher.
Twenty of the twenty nine children living
this district are enrolled as pupils and,
although the day was one Of the most pierre
lngly cold oflast month, thirteen of the
twenty were present.. Their bardihood, it
is true, in occasional instances succumbed
the severity of the frost and several of
The little fellows came in crying. Their
chief pain seemed, however, to consist more
admitting their tenderness, through graf.
teeth, than to arise from the actual sense
Of numbness tingling in their toes. 1t is Of
inch atnf that nhiloaonhors oro mode O,,.