The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser., 1910-11-04

ton movement says:
The desolate rural school, stand
ing on the bleak plain, is too un-Amer-
lean to endure the changes of the
times. 1t must be transformed into a
part of our beautiful outdoors, and
1t must be made more efficient in
general studies, In culture, and in
vocational training for country life"
Soil Analysis and Stock Judging.
So education seems to have taken
on new meaning for the parents of
the country children. The new sys-
tenn teaches all that the old one did,
all the important studies that the
city school offered; all the phases of
literature, art, history and science
needed to round out the American
citizen.
But 1t does much more. 1t adds to
these sudies, the vocational training
for the farm" The new schoolhouse.
instead Of standing on a barren lot
at wind-swept four corners, Is sur
rounded by a carefully plated farm
of ten acres or so. In the more ad-
vanced of the schools experimental
buildings have been erected, small
fruit and forest tracts laid out, minia-
ture dairy and poultry plants con-
structed. and experimental work of
all kinds laur ched.
The boys are taught stock Judging,
breeding, crop rotation, scientific
analysis Of the SOIL the keeping of
farm accounts, and kindred subjects
Contests are organized between rival
groups of students to see what results
can be obtained in the experimental
plats, and also in practical work on
the farm at home The boy carries
away from the school not a confused
mass Of information that he cannot
apply to his daily affairs, but a spe-
cific idea that certain things can be
evolved from the piece of land he
has been working on for years. He
becomes intensely interested in his
work and studies, and his eyes are
opened not only to the knowledge"
of the world in the ordinary sense but
to the great possibilities Of the land
with which he is most familiar and in
daily contact.
The new school has 200 pupils, in
stead of 20. 1t has a lecture hall
where spelling bees. class programs,
and amateur plays are carried out
and where the neighboring farmers
families gather for community"
meetings, lectures. and entertain
ments.
There are lunchrooms for the chill
dren who come in the vans each
morning In some of the schools
there are gymnasiums as we'll
equipped as those Of city schools of
like size. There Is real baseball In
the country now, not the zone old
cat" of former days; for the new
schools have enough pupils to en-
courage American ideas Of class
sports and athletic contests
The girls are educated in the new
scheme. not simply to be "educated,"
but to make them capable farmers
wives and mothers of sturdy farm chill
dren. The district school could not
teach home economics, home manage
ment, sewing, cooking, and practical
home training. The big combined
school. with its staff of three or four
trained teachers, can and does teach
all that a small domestic science
school would. 1t introduced new ideas
Of life into the farm house. IT edu-
Gates the girls to improve the home
rather than to get away from it be-
cause Of its shortcomings.
The whole neigLborhood, often en-
brac1ng 200 farms, becomes an i'm
mense laboratory for the school. In
the experimental farm surrounding
the building plats are laid out to re-
semble the leading farm of the neigh
borhood.
Great cooperative enterprises, such
as creameries, bakeries, laundries. as
well as the churches and the township
buildings, it is predicted, will in the
near future be located about the
school grounds.
The giant successor to the district
school brings into the country two
full years of high-school life, and in
the ninth and tenth grades the elder
pupils put in six months Of each year
upon their own farms in practical
farm work.
In many sections the farmers and
their children furnish the conveyances
to carry the neighbors' children to
school; but in the majority of dis
tricts 1t has been possible to estab
lish regular carryall service, main
tanned at public expense.
Indiana leads the way at present
in the progress of the new school
movement. In almost every county
in the state che school wagons are
bringing crowds Of children daily to
the central buildings. and the "Hoos
ier schoolmaster" is of a different
type than a generation ago
Massachusetts is second, Ohio third
and Florida and North Dakota con
test for fourth place. In almost eyery
state, with the exception of some of
the sparsely settled western ones. the
farming districts are either experi
menting with the new system, or have
proven 1t a complete success