Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-26
TIE new RURAL SCHOOL.
V.-Sugar-Coated Science.
By Frederic J. Haskin.

When the second session of the expert
mental rural school at Rock Hill began
in September things were quite different
from that March day when the Fun
School, was first launched. It was au-
tumn, not spring. The flowers were dy-
ing, not budding. And the children, COM
ing from the farms instead of from the
mill village and the college campus, were
shier Furthermore, there were more
Of them. some of them were older-the
first three grades being represented-and
most of them had already been to school
and had their own ideas of what a school
ought to be. OF course, they knew this
school would be different, for their par
ents had talked Of the radical action Of
the trustees in closing up their own
schoolhouse and hiring a wagon to take
all the children into the new school. But
they We're natural conservatives and they
had to be won over.
Having brought their old schoo.books
and the state law requiring the use Of
certain adopted text books, there was
NOTHING. to do but to add the second read
sn aqs hs tive spsl and
Rhymes" and Fairy Tales on the big
table. But still they were not used until
after the NICE interesting story books had
taken away all awe Of a book as an
enemy and had made ecery child know
that book is a friend. And the school
books We're not used at all except for
helps-nobody was required to learn" out
of book or to rec.te from one.
The children now were of various ages,
one boy being as far along as the fifth
grade. No classes were organized but
the children fell into natural groups ar
ranged with respect to their advance
ment. And the older ones helped the
yrnr1y1 xr,s<I
velous word, the younger ones helped
their elders in seeing closely. for their
powers of observation had not been
spoiled by even the slightest faint of a
conventional education.
* X
There were two girls. thirteen and
fourteen years old, who had been to
school two
Experience of Two months win
Field Working Girls. v yer LOT s ese,n
ming when cotton picking was over in De-
cember and quitting when cotton planting
began in March. for these were field work
ing girls. They were very shy, and when
on the first morning the younger children
ran romping from the wagon to the
schoolhouse the two girls reproved them
ard told them they were coming to school
now and must behave. They were
amazed when the teacher Joined in the
fomp. and led the school running toward
the garden. They were Mortified when
the younger ones talked aloud in school.
They didn't at all like the notion of
playing games in school when it wasn't
recess but in a few days their shyness
had vanished and they were heart and
soul in the fun of 1t all.
In the several school terms they had
attended :hey had advanced to where
they could spell out few lessons in the
second reader and they could say the
second line'' of the multiplication table.
That was ali. They could not sew. They
could not cook. They could do nothing
but hoe and pick cotton.
To teach such girls as these, and their
brothers like them, not only to read and
to write, but to read and write to a pur-
pose, and then to teach them useful
and practical lessons in chemistry. in
physics. in asronomy, in botany and 20
ology-that was surely wonderful ac-
complishment for a year. The best prac-
teal proof of it's success Is that when
cotton planting time came the parents of
these two girls did not take them out of
school, but let them go on because. they
said, "they are learning SO much that