The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-03-26
NEW TYPE OF RURAL SCHOOL
Teaching Negro Children How To
Live.
Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee, Als

Booker L. washington, LuSkeSee' Ala
Exclusive Service The Survey Press
Bureau.)
In large sections of the South, the
parents of most of our rural Negro
children are ignorant ex-slaYe folk
whose Hives have been spent wholly on
the farm. They know, nothing of cook
ing or proper housekeeping, nothing
about rules of health. They have no
idea as to how a home should be kept.
Broken chairs, floors with holes in
them, broken windows, leaky roofs'
ragged and unwashed bed quilts, soil
ed dishes and table linen-aH these
are about the child from infancy. See
ing this it early became clear to us
at Tuskegee that if we really wished
to dovetaiI school work into the real
life and for the uplift of the people,
something more than the ABSTRACT
teaching of cube root and the con-
jugation of verbs must be impaired
in the class room.
To solve the problem we hit upon
this plan in Macon County, Alabama
We determined that to be OF the
greatest service to the child, to com
bat his environment, we must not SIM
ply provide a special class ROOM put
must make everything surrounding
the child serve as school. As an ex-
periment we constructed a building on
the order of our southern cottages
containing rooms for a family ana IN
addition a large assembly room We
then secured a family, in which both
narents were teachers to live in the
building Following this we MADE
the understanding that every room in
that house, and everything about the
house should be a school room; tnat
the front yard, the back yard, -the
stable. the horse, the COW, the garden
and the little farm adjoining should
of teaching. The dining room, the
kitchen, the bedroom are all open
daily to these children, who are shown
how to clean and keep them, actually
doing the work. The girls of GER
tain grade take turns in doing the
cooking. They leave, home in time
to prepare the morning meal for the
teachers and family. This is served
properly in the dining room which
has been set in order by another group
of little girls-the aim being that all
shall learn the best methods OF SER
vice. The pupils set the bedrooms IN
order and look after the small chill
dren of the teachers.
All this is done under the Vigilalnt
eye of the mother teacher, who is
thoroughly competent-hav1ng been
trained at Tuskegee Institute, master
ing trades as well as academic WORK
The girls in the higher classes are
taught cooking, but all the girls do
gardening, housekeeping and sewing
The boys come more directly unoer
the eye of the man of the house ana
care for the small farm, the STOCK
wards and garden and do in ADDITION
a certain amount of farm carpentry
These are all made real lessons just
as much as the black board exer-
cises in the class room. We call 1t
The model School," not meaning that
if is model to any other school, but
that everything in it and ABOUT 1t IS
a model to the girls and boys who are
in attendance.
All this serves a double purpose It
fits the child for life in the commun-
itv where he lives and it affords ma
+eriaJ to give life to the exercises in
his text books The boy not only
constructs a fence, but he figures out
the cost-cost of nails, hammer. time
which makes live exercise in
arithmetic. For his GRAMMAR lesson
he uses nouns and verbs from his
fence and writes short compositions
on his work.
The same is true of the girl in her
cooking bed-making and table set
ting. The work is done and then
used as a basis for the lessons in
books This gives life to the class
room work. Both teachers and chill
dren feel that they are writing, talk
ing and figuring on actual things,
which always lends enthusiasm to the