The Valentine Democrat. [volume] (Valentine, Cherry Co., Neb.) 1896-1898, 1896-04-16
EDUCATIONALCOLUMN
NOTES ABOUT SCHOOLS AND
THEIR MANAGEMENT.
Bright Sid of the Country School as
Compared with the City Sugges-
ton Abou Discipline - Tests for
Good LANGUAGE Teaching-Notes.
h Bright Side.

has the PAIN IL anu youl
boarding place seemed long, hot and
dusty in the fall, cold and snowy in the
winter, and wet and muddy in the
spring? Perhaps the contrast has sug-
gested the thought that it is the lot of
some teachers to use pavementS and
street cars. Possible while discharg-
ing the manifold duties Of principal,
grammar-grade, intermediate and prl-
mary, teacher and janitor all In one,
it has occurred to you that it would be
pleasant to teach one grade, and have
no sweeping, busting nor building OF
fires! 1t may be that you recall some
other undesirable features Of country
schools, but we will turn from the
bright side. Suppose you jot down a
list of the pleasant things, the priv
ileges Of a country school. Have you
completed the list. Did you note the
pure air among the privileges? You
did not count that?" Well, you would
find to your sorrow how much it counts
If you were compelled to do without it.
Did you count CHEEKY sunshine? No?
Well, surely you did not forget to count
the blessed privilege Of a play ground;
q place where the children may 'romp
and holler," and give vent to the frolic-
some animal spirits which are so at
tractive when there is a safety valve,
and so troublesome when unduly re-
pressed? Do you think that pure air
and sunshine and play grounds are as
much a matter of course as a h
room? Would that they were! But
alas for the children and teachers and
alas for the nation, they are not!
If you should receive a letter saying:
1--WE need another teacher in the New
York City corps. Will you. accept the
positionY' Would you accept? Would
you close the door Of your country
school full of pleasant anticipations OF
q place in the graded schools Of a great
city? Next fall you might open the
door of the same country school pre-
pared to make the list of privileges
longer, and to count some Of them much
higher than you do to-day.
Jacob A. Riis, in the September Cen
fury, has given us a glimpse Of schools
where pure air and invigorating sun
shine and Fairgrounds are so expensive
that the unfortunate pupils and teach
Frs must go without them. Fancy eX-
changing your sunny little school house
with it's play ground, for "a classroom
where the air is so 'vitiated' foul and
unhealthy" that the teachers are com
nn1lo1 70 cJ,cror5 ctr1inc for q fimn
Turing each session, to open all win
lows and doors for the admission Of
fresh air, exercising the children by
.%alisthenics during the time the win
lows are open, whatever may be the
outside temperature at any season Of
the year, claSS-rOOmS in which the chill
iren spend five hours Of the day,
breathing sometimes little less than
rank poison" Some of the class-rooms
are Sc dark that "even on a day bright
with summer sunshine they have to
burn gas in them" Some of the play
grounds are merely large rooms, of
which Mr.. Riis says There is always
heed of a lamp. In the cellar-like gloom
Of these cherries apartments the boys
and girls dodge countless iron posts
and pillars in their play. In the. most
recently built schools these have been
abolished, and a stone floor has been
substituted for the dusty boards, but
there is no trick of construction that
can bring sunlight and cheer into them.
y Il y The wife of q missionary,
who having spent half a life time shar-
ing her husbands labors among the
heather, returned to New York and
civilization, overjoyed at the thought
Of having an opportunity to give her
boys proper schooling, but Mortified at
what she saw at the public school to
which she took them, marched them
off at once to the nearest private school
that was not like a dungeon, as she
said.'
Mr.. Riis continues: "In the matter of
healthy play the %schoolboy in New
York does not have a chance. With
boys to play is to run. To run they must
have room. How much room is there
on one floor for the children to run in,
who, sitting down, pack three rooms?
They must either go on the street or
they are set loose in the play-room on
Sufferance. II y y The result was
described by an employe in n East
Side school, n of the best in the city,
where more than three thousand chill
dren go. There is generally one Of the
teachers looking after them to see that
thy don't overdo it. They have to make
noise kind of easy-like. Anyhow, they
can't all be here. Most Of them stay I'D
stairs studying at recess. 1t has to be
that way And" Mr.. Riis adds, down
in the Allen street school, which is one
of the worst in the city-where the play
ground is, if anything, darker and more
repulsive than the Wooster street, the
janitress explained the prevailing quiet
in SO great a crowd by the statement
that these children are of a kind that
have to be kept down. AS it they were
not kept down enough out of school,
poor wretches! They were the children
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