The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-06-25
COUNTRY SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENTS
Country Life Commission
Makes Plans for Com
munity Center.


sion of the state of Washington, ap-
pointed recently by Governor Mar
ion E. Hay, meets in Spokane the
week of November IA, plans will be
presented for model community
center and consolidated country
school, to be established in one of
the rural districts adjoining Spokane
early in 1911.
David Brown of Spokane, chairman
of the commission, announces that
Governor Hay and possibly Colonel
Theodore Roosevelt will attend the
conference and assist in formulating
a practical plan for the betterment
of life on the farm, along the lines
suggested in the report of the Roo
sevelt Commission on Country Life,
which, headed by Professor Liberty
Hyde Bailey, of Ithaca, N. Y, made
a tour of the larger farming districts
of the United States the latter part
of 1908 and early in 1909.
This is to be the preliminary step
of a nationwide movement, cooper
ative with the various states and
territories, in an endeavor to teach
the youth of the land the fundamen-
tai principles of agricultural and do
mestic economy and manual and in
dustrial training, also giving the
farmers in the communities the ben
eft of the most approved methods of
agriculture and allied subjects. The
community center is designed to fur
nish a place where men and women
can meet for the interchange of
ideas.
Primarily, the school is for the av-
erage boy and girl, whose institu-
tional education ends even before
they finish the secondary school, the
purpose being to train them to be-
come useful men and women and ca
pable of supporting themselves, and
thus adding to the wealth production
of the country at large and the dis
tricts in which they live and to bet
ter their condition of life.
The Washington commission has
prepared tentative plans for a COM
munity center, including a CONSOLE
dated rural school. 1t is designed
to cover 10 acres and will serve a
school area or SO square miles, the
most distant point being three miles.
In addition to the school building
the plans show a large community
hall, residence for the principal and
supervisor, athletic and Fairgrounds,
tennis court, pressure water tanks
for domestic, lawn, irrigation, stock
and fire uses and plots for the prac-
tice of agriculture, horticulture, flor
iculture and forestry. Surrounding
and bisecting the tracts will be mod
els of good road building.
The school and other buildings
will be under the direction of prin-
cipal, trained in the various branch
es of agriculture and familiar with
conditions in the Northwest. This
official will be assisted by super
visor and a corps of teachers. In
connection with the community hall
will be bureau of information, con-
tanning all the available data OF fed
eral and state departments of agri-
culture and experimental stations in
the country, also books and journals
dealing with all the branches of the
industry.
+. The community center is to be
made beautiful with trees, shrubs,
flowers and lawns without being or
nate. and no saloon, store or other
commercial institution can be locat-
ed within half mile of its boundar-
les. The teachers will be men and
women with red blood in their veins
and able to adapt themselves to the
ideals of the center and school of the
type outlined. Among other quail
fications they must be broadminded
and optimistic and able to see the
human side of life, also be helpful
to those under their charge.
The keynote is that the best de-
tense against misfortune is to give
every child in the country such edu-
cation that will enable 1t to make
its own living on a piece OF land, II
niece ssary, when 1t becomes OF age.
1t is also purposed to launch cam
raign, urging the people of the open
country to work together, not mere
+ly with the view to forwarding their
own economic interests or In Compel