El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-07-26
Fun Is Mixed With Science
New Rural School Teaches Children
Without Their knowledge and
Without Restraint.
By Frederic J. Haskin-

! w 7 ASHINGTON, D. c., July 90
! w When the second session Of
the experimental rural school
| at Rock Hill began in September
| things were quite different from that
( March day when the Fun School" was
first launched twas autumn, not spring,
! The flowers were dying, not budding.
And the children, coming from the
| farms instead of from the mill village
/ and the college campus, were more shy.
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.
Having brought their old school
/ books, and the state law requiring the
| use of certain adopted text books. there
was nothing to do but to add the sec
ond reader and the progressive speller
! and even an arithmetic to the Mother
| Goose Rhymes and Fairly Tales on the
] Dig 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
| every child to know that a book is a
| friend And the school books were
not used at all except for heIps-nO-
| book or to recite fro none.
Two Very Shy Girls.
There were two girls, Is and II years
l old, who had been to school two months
a winter for several years, beginning
4 when cotton picking was over in De-
cember and quitting when cotton plant
ing began In March, for these were
field working girls.
They were very shy. and when on
the first morning the younger children
ran rOmping from the wagon to the
school house, the two girls reprOVed
them, and told them they were coming
to school now and must behave. They
were amazed when the teacher Joined
in the romp and led the school run
ming toward the garden They were
Mortified when the younger ones talked
aloud in school.
In the several school terms they had
attended they had advanced to where
they could spell out a few lessons in
the second reader and they could say
the second line of the multiplication
table. That was all They could not
sew. They could not cook. They
could do nothing but hoe and pick cot
ton.
Escape From Cotton Field.
To teach such girls as these. and
their brothers like them, not only to
read and to write, but to read and
write to purpose; and then to teach
them useful and practical lessons in
chemistry, IN physics, IN agrOnOmy, in
botany and zOOlOSy-that were surely a
wonderful accomplishment for a year.
The best practical proof of its success
is that when cotton planting time came
ia Ike them out of school but let them go
on because. they said, They are learn
ing so much that it would be a pity to
stop them, and We can manage the
planting somehow
Teaching Through the Stove.
The garden is used not only to teach
as well The kitchen stove is first of
all introduced as an instrument for the
demonstration of a lesson in physics
the effect Of the draughts OF air on the
lob. Hfa-r
when biscuits are baked, or tomatoes
canned. The carpenter shop is practi-
cal proving ground for mathematical
accomplishments.
No seven year old child would ever
remember, even If he understood, a
lecture on polarization of the corn
flower, but the experiments of with
holdlnS the pollen from the corn SILK
proves to him, so that he can never
forget it, the theory Of the fertiliza-
ton Of the corn.
Chemistry introduced.
The potato beetles had to be fought
with poison the plants were sprayed
with Paris green They brought in a
bit of chemistry, but it also nightly
interested the children in the beetles
A terrarium was one of the first bits
of equipment added to the school The
boys made a shallow box and filled II
with earth and there they placed for /
observation and study every insect they |
could find, every larya and chrysalis.
a plague of cotton caterpillars de-
mOlished the tiny cotton crop, but it
added greatly TO the store of know
ledge gained from the terrarium.
Birds Are studied.
Birds, too, were studied, and the
children learned of the way the birds !
bodies were made to facilitate flight
and why some birds walk and other !
hop. Birds and beetles were always
however, from the economic |
and not the scientific angle The first |
question was always; Is he our enemy /
or our friend?
The liberal sciences are not neglect /
ed. The beginnings of orderly ac-
counting are made when each child |
keeps a painStaking record of the day /
the peas were planted. the day they \
came up, the day they were first cul- !
tivated, how many times they were i
hOed when the first bloom appeared, /
when the first peas were picked, and 1
finally, how many peas were picked |
before the plants died and were de- l
strOyed. Also, what was done with the |
peas2 How many pecks were there in /
the pod? How many pints. when they /
were hulled2 How many were cooked !
at school? How many taken homer
Then Their are other books to be kept !
histories to be written in other ways
than by Keeping tables of dates and
Decks and quarts. Each child draws a
picture of the sprouting bean and it
Is put in a book. and as the stages of
the bean growth are pictured the book
grows until, at the end, the child
crop.
No Discipline.
What of discipline2 There is none
except that of self discipline imposed
1y Overwhelming interest in the task
1t hand. Once in awhile a boy has
pulled a girls hair. for fun, and once !
)ne boy in the carpenter shop spanked
another with a bOard-but each time
here was only Il chase through the
-ard, laughing struggle and a return
D work.
The children who came in from the
arms and who had been to school
would not reliaquish their text books.
md wanted TO read in the readers as
veil in the fairy tale books, but it
vas only a few days until they had /
discovered the truth that an education
$ not to be found in books alone. but