Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1908-02-06
SCHOOL DIRECTORS
CONVENTION


tion WIS held in the court house
Thursday. The attendance was most
gratifying. some sixty directors out of
the seyentv-three holding Office in the
caulry. being present. The address,
were Of u high order, intensely prac-
tical and to the point, and were we'll
received by the audience
IN the absence of Jacob Fischer,
pres ident of the school directors as
sociation, the meeting was called to
order by w. II. Orth, secretary. Mich
ael Breckbill was chosen as chairman.
A 10 :45 O'Clock W. W. Evans. sup
erintendent of the schools of Colum-
bia county, was introduced. The talk,
which had as its subject, "The Direct.
or who Directs was a moet sound
aud practical one.
BY way of introduction the speaker
emphasized the Importance of the
office of school director. He dwelt up
on the different types of men elected
TO this office and showed that the
school director is the most important
factor in the public school system
more important than the teacher, the
school building, or the text books.
The school director is the most i'm
portant factor in education because he
has to do the thinking for the people
he represents. Anything that is prop.
erly directed will succeed, whether a
public school or grocery store.
The speaker dwelt upon the differenq
! types of school directors to be found
in almost every community. The chief
idea of some. he said, is to keep down
expenses. They are honest men, but
mistaken. Their idea is to run the
schools not because they appreciate
them as useful institutions, but mere
/ ly because they are obliged to do So
in order to comply with the law.
/ There is another class of directors,
he said, who direct surely enough, but
/ they direct in tEe wrong direction.
Being OF influence and gifted with
leadership they carry the whole board
along with them in the direction of
low salaries until the schools of the
district fall to the lowest rank.
There is still another class of school
directors, who think they have no
time to attend the meetings OF the
board when it comes to electing teach
ers and transacting other important
| business, although they NAV be prop.
erty owners aud be Intelligent men
well able to direct the affairs Of the
schools. As mltter OF fact the bes;
school directors are busy mon. who,
like all other public spirited wen,
notwithstanding their varied inrer-
ests, md time to make some E4or fee.
for the good of the public.
Another class OF directors. ara luiIi-
oient because they are Indifferent
For the most part these are men wine
were put ou the ticket without their
consent. The logical conclusion is
| that no man should be elected as
school director without his consent.
On the other hand, for obvious reasons
the speaker advised that the man "too
willing should not be elected
. PROFESSOR ALBERT.
Superintendent Evans was followed
by Professor o. H Albert, who spoke
OH "The Relation of the Public
Schools to the Community. In a
general way Professor Albert aimed
to show that the public schools should
be improved in such way "a to solve
some of the real problems of getting
on in the world. He deplored that SC
many young people from the farms
are crowding into town, where the
conditions seem more alluring and
better opportunities are supposed to
exist
The speaker held that in order to
give the rural districts advantages that
exist elsewhere an important work de.
wolves on the public schools. The
country boys and girls, he said, are
entitled to just as good an education
as the boys and girls in town and the
standard of the country schools will
have to be raised to correspond.
What the American youth needs is
not to be taught wholly how to carr
money but also how to spend it, There
is lack of practical knowledge. il
this respect. which retards real advance
ment, that might be supplied by the
schools.
At present there are too many fads.
Too much time is spent ON cube root,
square root and the like " ,ioh scarce.
ly anyone seems to have real use for,
70 the exclusion of practical instrrc-
tion that would aid the school boy OF
girl in getting on in life.
To illustrate, Professor Albert said,
while it is we'll enough to know how
to extract square root, cube root
etc it is vastly more important that
the country boy should be abIe to de-
termine, from knowledge gained in
school, which would be the more profit
able, to husk crop of corn, haul it to
town and sell it at certain figure, or
to feed the corn to hogs raise ] on the
farm and sell the fattened hogs at