The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1908-11-26

prevail in most of the rural schools
throughout our State. And now do
you ask the need of Improvement
Associations?
How about the furniture in our
school buildings? Is it what it
should be? Do we see there patent
desks, maps, charts, black-boards,
libraries, pictures, etc? No, no;
some schools have no seats except a
plank nailed around the wall of the
room, where children of all sizes
have to sit. The small ones with
their feet dangling half way between
the seat and floor. How would you
like to sit on a seat as much too low
for you as some are too high for the
little folks? And the walls of many
school rooms are bare. Every teach
! er should have copies of pictures of
Calhoun and Hampton in the school
rooms.
SO much for the building and
furniture. Now comes the school
grounds. How are these? Have
you planted trees, shrubs and flowers,
or have they grown upin weeds
high as the children g heads?
work of adorning the ground
rural school houses is one which W
exercise an important and lastin:
influence for the good of the nation
al life.
Sometimes when the teacher tries
to make a change in affairs by beau
tifying the grounds and make i'm
provements in the building and asks
the assistance of the parents, this is
the ready reply: "That is good
enough; we never had that sdvan.
tage." Oh, thiRk, teachers, that we
are created to climb, to improve, to
elevate, to look and make all things
beautiful and grand in whatever
place we live. This school-building
where the little tots grow and are
trained into manhood and woman
hood, why of all places it should be
made most beautiful to attract and
awake in these young minds the
greatest enthusiasm to climb to the
heights of all that is good and no.
BILE, never being satisfied to remain
in the ugly rut that perhaps some
parents had to be in and were salts
fed with.
think every teacher should learn
this creed:
81 believe in boys and girls, the
men and women of a great tomorrow;
that whatsoever the boy soweth the
man shall reap. l believe in the
curse of ignorance, in the efficacy of
schools, in the dignity Of teaching
and in the joy of serving another. l
believe in the WISDOM as revealed IN
human lives, as well as il the pages
of a printed book; IN lessons taught
not SO much by precept as by exam
pie; in ability to work with the
hands as well as to think with the
head; in everything that makes life
large and lovely. | believe in beauty
of the school room, in the home, in
daily life and out of doors. be-
lieve in laughter,in love, in all ideals
and distant hopes that lure us on. !
believe that every hour of every day
we receive a just reward for all We
are and all We do. l believe in the
present and its opportunities, in the
future and its promises and in the
divine JOY of living
A teacher believing and living thi:
creed will teach her pupils to see and
appreciate the wondrcus beauty Of
country life; she will help to spirit
ualize country thought and life, fol
she believes in beauty in the school
room, in the home, in daily life ano
out of doors. Such teacher cannot
be content with merely drawing hel
salary while the school-house anc
grounds remain cheelaess and desc