The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-09-08
CAPT. SYLVESTER on PUBLIC SCHOOLS
President of the Agricultural College
Makes q Stirring Address to
Country Teachers-School
Consolidation ETC.

A joint institute of hepublics school teachers
OF Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles and Prince
Georges counties was held at the Maryland
Agricultural College early this week. Presi'
dent Sylvester, of the college, delivered the
address of welcome and in the course OF his
remarks said:
81 want to congratulate all connected with
the public schools of Maryland upon the move
ment to iuaugurate the summer institute. 1t
evidences the decadence of time-service and
prophesies for the future greater interest IN
that institution in American life which is truly
its shibboleth as well as its palladium. Inc
public schools of America will never De
filling their highest mission until they place
in the hearts and minds of the boys and girls
of our country life the foundation principles
of American citizenship bequeatLed to us by
the founders of the American republic. These
principles, well grounded will give birth TO
patriotism which will father the thought that
to be citizen of the United States is q greater
honor than to be king.
mo less important is it to plant in these
same hearts and minds a love for Gods great
out-of. DOORS There has been little effort in
the past to give to children of the rural districts
an adjustment to their environments. People
cannot be happy or contented unless this ad-
iustment is made. All work without this
adjustment is drudgery, and the performance
of ones work under such circumstances cannot
be attended with that enthusiasm and interest
so necessary to contentment and happiness;
The boy and girl in country life would find
much enthusiasm and interest in conditions
and acknowledgement dead matter to them
had they only the training to see hidden in
the thing the thought that animates its being.
You say this is an ideal of an idealisf. am
not out of sympathy with you. l have trod
the path you are now treading when conditions
were even worse than those Of the present day.
/ know your trials. l know of your strivings,
to perform the impossible feat of teaching the
pupils of eight grades under present conditions.
1 know the discouragements in your work,
as would every other man who realizes the
value of higher grade of public school work
to the republic under which he lives.
Every thoughtful citizen should be willing
to be taxed to produce this result. tits coming.
The day must come when the little one room
building must go and in its place will spring
up the consolidated school of five or six rooms,
with each room accommodating not more than
two grades, and this room presided over by
teacher who has devoted all the power Of heart
and mind resident in the body to secure a
training to fit the whole personality to fully
perform the duties of the high vocation to
which his life is consecrated. Let each public
school teacher become power in bis or her
community for the accomplishment of this end.
ION the lines of the Baltimore and Ohio and
Pennsylvania Railroads between Washington
and Baltimore, with the intersecting lines of
the Annapolis and Chesapeake Beach Rail-
roads, together with the electric lines, this con-
soidation could be easily effected. Twenty
district schools in this section could easily be
merged into five consolidated schools and thus
eliminate the necessary inefficiency of the dis
trict school and substitute the attendant bless
ings of the consolidated school, and in the
change effect an economical expenditure of
public shool funds.
"'rhe country child is entitled to every edu-
cational opportunity enjoyed by the most
favored city child attending public school.
To secure this educational opportunity the
country people must spend more money in
more efficient manner. To secure this every
man and woman connected with the educa.
tional system of the State must lend himself
to the creation of public sentiment which
will demand this Justice for the country child.
This granted, the country children will be-
come home- makers in the rural communities.
Each new home built up and maintained in
the country strengthens the foundation of our
republic and equally true is it that each home
abandoned weakens the structure of our ma
tional life. 1t has been well said that there
can be no such thing in the highest sense as a
home unless you own it. 1t elevates man or
woman to own home. 1t gives certain in
dependence a force of character that is obtained
in no other way. Homes make patriots. The
property and glory of our country depend upon
the number who are the owners of homes.
1.-THE per cent. of home-owners in the city is
small in comparison to those in the country,
and it is our duty to train the young men and
women of rural communities to possess the
mbition to own q rural home and make it the
counterpart of an ideal formed under your
competent instruction"