The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1912-01-03
co. SUPT. 0LRY
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Textbooks of Rural Schools Should
Be Changed for More Up
to-Date Ones.
MODERN SCHOOLS NECESSARY
Every Day Spent in School Now Is
Worth $40 to Student in His
After Life.
MODERN SCHOOLS NECESSARY
Rural School Patrons, Crawford

After Lie.
TO Rural School Patrons, Crawford
County:
Friends:
There has been some talk Of chang
ing the textbooks in the rural schools
of this county so meeting OF all the
directors of the rural schools of the
county was called to talk over this
change and other school matters. The
older teachers and the patrons in g
position to know what is being done
in the progressive schools OF Other
counties and in the better town
schools, know that the books now in
use are not up to the standard text
books now used.
There is no one thing which we can
give our children that will be of more
value to them than a good education
This education should be an equal
training of the head, the heart, and
the hands, and we all agree that this
education is not to be procured alone
from the textbooks. The school
grounds, buildings and everything we
put into them are an influence on the
lives of our boys and girls, either for
good or bad.
The children who receive their
early training in a school district
where everything is kept in flrstclass
condition will 60 from the school with
much higher ideals than the children
from a school district where the oppo-
site conditions prevail. Children rails
ed under former influences when they
have homes of their own will take
pride in keeping them as many of the
best homes in this county are kept.
1t means much to the children to be
raised under the influences of good
teachers and well-kept schools.
If you will think for moment over
the conditions as they were twenty
years ago and then note the condi'
lions now, we shall see that there are
many changes. Not many of us would
be willing to go back to those times
and live as people lived then. Yet |
imagine the man who knew how to
swing a cradle objected to the intro
duction of the Mccormick reaper as
that machine required from four to
six horses and several men to oper-
ate it. The Mccormick harvester re-
quired four horses and three men and
still some objected. The Irvine bind
er of today requires one man and
three horses to operate it and you
hear no objections as the people have
gradually became educated to the ad-
vantages of the better machine. No
one would be willing to go back to
the days of the cradle.
Along other lines inn movements
have kept pace with the times ond not
many would be willing to go back to
former times and conditions.
AS l drive from school to school
through this county and see the many
modern homes, and sometimes in the
same section the new school building
built on the plan of forty years ago, it
makes me think that the school
buildings have not received their
share of thought and Improvement. 1t
is true that the most of the schools
in this county have been put into fine
shape for school purposes and it
is a pleasure to visit these schools
and see the excellent work being done.
The building in No. s Paradise town.
ship is the kind of building we
should build when we rebuild our
school houses. 1t is neat room, we'll
planned, and has the light from one
side instead of from both sides. If
we could visit some of the very neat
and attractive school buildings now
being built in other parts of Iowa and
in other states, it would be reVe-
latiOn to some of us. These buildings
look more like modern homes than
school buildings. Why not build our
new school buildings along modern
plans and not the same as they were
built thirty or forty years ago. 1t
may cost little more (they are to be
used for years to Gomez yet the eX-
pense does not compare with the
amount of pleasure and good that will
result from having the best.
Not many would be willing to use
the older tools and follow the older
methods, yet we are asking the chill
dren in the rural schools to use books
that are nearly as many years behind
the times. The subject matter OF the
books now in use is good and in the
hands of live teacher can be made
interesting, but it does not represent
the new methods and ideas OF the
last few years.