Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-07-08
that COUNTRY scHooLMA,AM.

ers of rural schools said to the National
Educational Association at Denver:
There are some rural teachers who
don't know even the A B C Of educa-
ton, yet they are called professors
just the same as the corn doctor or the
dog trainer"
1t may be that in Ohio a sufficient
number of country school teachers are
fessor Williams for making the asser-
ton quoted above the most prominent
portion of his address. 1t is not SO in
Iowa and nobody is ready TO believe on
the deans assertion that conditions are
such as might be inferred from his as
sertion in Ohio. 1t is quite within pos
sibility that Professor Williams was
looking toward the press stand with
greedy eye when he carried the infer
ence that the rural teacher and the
itinerant corn doctor are in the same
class. The fact is that the rural teacher
illiterate as we commonly use and I'M
derstand the word She is selection
from the people she serves and is in adj
vance educationally of the commun-
tiles by whom she is employed. And
neither Iowa nor Ohio is ready to &C
cept the dictum of any college pro-
fessor that as state she is illiterate
and grossly ignorant.
1t is all matter of comparison. Few
rural teachers attain to the highest
standard as rural teachers. They go
to the higher salaries and higher aims
of the city schools. But let US be care
ful how we condemn as lliterate and
ignorant those who remain to the little
red school house. Somehow those IL
litera.e teachers manage to send pupils
IN t. the city high schools who march
into line with our city pupils of the
same age by right of conquest. They
know "readin', 'ritin' and rithmetic."
they have the ground work of educa-
ton and have learned much of the art
of application. To be sure the pupil
who comes in from the country is Sc
lection in a way but the best of them
are as good as the best of ours. The
country school maam seems to be do
ing something in the way of foundation
! work
She is manufactured in the same
place as the college professor, the COM
mon school and the high schools. She
mere often than not has had normal
college training 10 a greater or lesser
extent. She may not be able to write
a psychological essay on Johnnie's
is thinking and why he thinks it and
where his thinking is likely to lead
him as we'll a. any professor who lays
down the arbitrary rule that thought
begins the day the child is a month
old. There's a lot of scientific terms
the country teacher never heard but
she gets there all the same. She is do
ing good work and would do better if
she had a chance.
The greatest trouble is that she is
denied system. She is at the mercy OF
the directors wife who may not like
her looks or the way she walks by and
who sees to it that that snip doesn',
get the school next term. She shifts
here and there and is denied continu-
, Gus effort either by her own desire tc
/ change or the desire to change teach
ers She has no real head; no super
! intendent. She is a skirmisher az
against the phalanx of the graded city
school under immediate command ane
eye of qualified general. When the
country gains sense enough to system
atize the rural schools, hire the teach.
ers, not by districts but by counties, t.
I give some competent man a job as.
signing teachers to the rural school!
according to the expediencies of tn,
case and the need OF the district tn,
country school teacher will show wha
she is trying to do.
2 In conclusion: 1t is not absolute proc
Of illiteracy when one has not rea,
s Ibsen or fails to talk glibly if not un
: derstandingly about the sub consciou
j mind and analyze the mental processe
i Of child thirty days old.