Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1903-01-21

l lLdIeu III NdSSdc0uSeIIS III loi4, aQt
 in few years the majority of the dis
 tricts of Massachusetts were working
 under the plan. But not until 1S9. | did the idea penetrate to the west
 In Kingville township, Ohio, a law
 had been previously passed, providing
 for township school board consist
 ing of one director from each loca
 district. This board performed all
 the duties usually belonging to schoo
 boards. T he need of a new schoo
 house in one of the local districts al
 this time, was met by an invitation
 from the principal of the high schoo
 in the township to send the advanced
 pupils to his school, the district tC
 pay the tuition of such. As tht
 tuition and transportation of the pu
 pills was less than the wages of { teacher, to say nothing of the cost o a new building, the proposition met
 with favor. Soon several other dis tricts signified their willingness tC enter into the new plan. The town
 ship school board employed teamster: who work under contract, and agree to construct covered wagons, approved
 by the board of education, to be used in conveying pupils to and iron
 school. The wagons are provided
 with side curtains to be raised ol
 lowered according to climatic condi- tions. They have steps in the rear,
 by means of which pupils enter the
 wagon. The seats are sidewise and
 have cushions and lap robes, and
 carry from eighteen to twenty fouI
 pupils.
 The contract is let to the lowest re-
 sponsible bidder, the moral character
 of the bidder as we'll as the price be-
 ing of great consideration. The
 teamster agrees to see that the pupils
 are upon the grounds at 8:45, and
 leave at 3:l5, that no profane or in
 decent language is used, and that to-
 bacco or spirituous drinks are also
 prohibited in the coach. When the
 teamster drives to home, he rings
 a bell or blows horn, and after wait
 ing a few minutes, if the child fails
 to appear, drives on, in which case
 the child is tardy. But thus far very
 few cases of tardiness have been re-
 ported.
 Educators and people alike took a
 very lively interest in the experi-
 ment, some declaring it impractica | ble, others seeing in it the solution
 of the veXed question of unclassified
 and ungraded rural schools. By this
 plan the country boy or girl can
 have allsthe advantages of a village
 school and yet remain at home
 With the mingling of the pupils from
 the local district and the village, has come a broadening influence upon
 both. The country lad thus may
 have dsipelled from hls mind the all too prevalent idea of the advantages of a city over the country, and the great tendency to leave the farm and its cares and to rush to the already overcrowded cities, will largely find its solution here. The health of the children is better, because they are not compelled to walk to school in slush, rain or mud, and sit in damp clothes or wet feet in poorly ventilated rooms. Quarreling or mis- conduct or loitering' by the waysiden is done away with. The attendance has increased from 90 to 150 per cent, truancy unknown. The school term is heightened, and land in the dis tricts commands a better price. It has given the desired grading of the schools, and the stimulus which comes from numbers makes the work of both pupil and teacher more effec- tive, and lastly. financially. it is cheaper to run these schools than on the old plan. Higher wages are paid the teachers, consequently better teachers are secured, and longer ten ure of office, and a general awaken ing in educational affairs is felt among all classes. In this particular township of Kingville, the incidental | expenses have decreased from S950 to | S500. In the first three years it actu- | ally saved Sl00O.
 l.. E. York. superintendent of | Kingsville school, in writing concern ing the system says: "The best phys | ical laboratory in America is the l well regulated American farm. Here | the boys and girls study nature first | handed. Here they observe the growth | and life of plants and animals. Here | they bresthe pure air. become famil- | jar with the beauties and wonders of | the natural world. Here they make | character To have added to all these | the advantages that at tend the spending of evenings. with out chores or home duties, in the town, is an eucational condition that is almost ideal.'
 An editorial in the Chicago Tribune 5the opinion that "Nothing can stop the extension of the new sys- tem-not even the sentimental inter est which hangs about the little old | red school house.
 In the more sparsely populated DOT tions of Arizona. the plan of cOnsoli- iatiOn is impracticable at present; but when we reflect that over one half of the schools of the whole country are country schools, the matter is worthy of the serious attention of the residents of our cultivated valleys.
 We now come to the third move ment we are to discuss. There is no trend of thought educationally that is more manifest i'll the papers and mag iZines of today than that in the direc- ion of Industrial training. We can hardly read magazine without find ng therein some echo of the general md growing sentiment as to the needs )f our young people along this line. And the prediction is safe one that within few years or decades at most. instruction will be as general md accessible as instruction from the ext book A recent writer in the Cosmopolitan declares that parents ( will soon be wise enough to refuse to end their children to a school in which at least one half of the time is lot given to manual instruction in , ome form. The results of industrial 'ducation among the negroes as dem . ,nstrated in Booker T. Washington's chool at Tuskegee, have widely sug- tested the practicability of such { methods in the instruction for the ] 'hildren of our own race as we'll.
 Two distinctive ideas of what ' chools should do, train for utility [ IT. train for culture, have been and [ re still with us. The culture idea las so long held sway and developed a me sided education, that the demand f S now for the utility idea. and in an r wer to this demand. we have this z and training. Pestalozzi defines I ducatiOn as the generation of power: f lot only the power to think, but the { Ower to do or act. And this power f 0 act intelligently necessitates the l qual development of mind and body. I he proper development of the mem , ry, reason. and imagination stimu- f ates all mental growth, and the V roper development of the construc- | i've faculties enables this mental de- k elopment to give oppression to itself e l some practical way. Our old edu- a atiOn was one sided. and the new f ducation whose motto is Learn by i oing.' is but helping to mould a a lore rounded and symmetrical model. h The following quotation from Prof. c .irk. of the Southern Illinois normal a pon our debt to our constructive s lculties is very forcible to all who s ,ach for accomplishment and culture, nd those who train for utility? i,