The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1902-11-13
VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT.
The Effect of Village Improvement
Upon Education.

: OpOu luuCollONs
Apaper by Miss Nary pArrisA-Read by
Mrs. L. B. Jackson Before the Decatur
County Farmers Institute.
AS the teacher 80 is the school, is an
old adage SO often told to teachers at
Normal Institutes, Teachers Conven.
tions, ETC., and with equal truth it may
perhaps be said "As the village or town
SO is the school,. A neat, we'll kept
and enterprising town insure neat,
we'll kept and enterprising school.
Prof. Hamilton writes in one of the
leading periodicals of the day about the
towns. He says that We are the most
untidy among the great nations of the
world and that in this respect We rank
with Turkey rather than with England
and Germany. One may we'll believe
that Prof. Hamilton is correct if coun.
try towns are anything of an index of
the larger American cities. Any health
officer in any of our towns will tell you
that he has great trouble in making
people keep their premises in condi
ton anything near healthful for them.
selves.
In every child is an innate love Of the
beautiful which if encouraged, helps to
make the character more noble and
gives higher aspiration. A town which
is beautifed in every way possible
awakens pride in the youth and desire
to helpto keep it beautiful. This idea
of service for the common good is the
fundamental thought of all real patriot
ism which IS the true aim Of education.
Oliver Wendell Holmes says ''There is
no spot on earth which may not be
made more beautiful by the help of
trees and flowers" and Lucy Larcom,
"Heaven and earth help him who
plants a tree and his work his own re-
ward shall be-.
ssThe duty of each and all" is q motto
taken by club whose aim is to be
he pfui TO their town in every way
possible. This is motto which might
q we'll be adopted by every club that
4 wishes to hel y in the education Of the
Last February came the call from the
s. Mothers Congress at Des Moines asking
Y for help to influence the legislature to
pass laws for bettering the condition Of
children. Abolition of child labor and
securing compulsory education are
measures the legislature was asked to
enact. In the homes of nine-tenths of
the citizens of Iowa such laws may have
no use, but in the small one-tenth it
may be the means of great good and
now that the compulsory education law
has been enacted what could be more
worthy work for the Clubs of Leon than
to see that it is enforced? During the
year 1900 out of the total population in
the U. S. of 81, 900 900 between the ages
of five and eighteen years, only
15,000,O00 less than seventy per cent
the other thirty per cent we're not in
school at all. The average daily attend
ance was sixty-nine per cent of the total
enrolment SO taking one school day
with another more than half the children
who ought to be in school are some
where else. And if we we're to invest
igate the matter in Leon we might be
surprised to find how much the enforce.
ment of the law is needed here.
These facts indicate that We need to
solve the problem of how to get the
children in school and keep the enrolled
pupils there more regularly and great
er number Of years. The pupils must
be convinced that school is the most
pleasant as we'll as the most profitable
place fer them to go during the day and
the parents must be shown that school
is preparing their children not only for
greater usefulness but also for lives of
less drudgery than they themselves may
have ex perienced. First, to make the
school.room more attractive. In some
towns village Improvement societies
have given pictures for the rooms and
books to the school library. Many of
the children even in cur small towns
come from BIZ mes which are not as
pleasant as might be desired. and if
the place where they spend six hours a
day, five days Of every week and nine
months of the year for ten or perhaps
more years ls made pleasant and attrac.
tiye, what influence might it not have
on their future lives? In Rochester, N.
y, we have an example of school
ground Improvement, encouraged by a
local club, the Women's Educational
and Industrial Union. A year ago last
spring this union succeeded in getting