Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-05-25
What Is Needed
for Betterment.

a living wage, and
What is Needed until more money
.,. is put into equip
expected from unframed, poorly paid
girls, or men either, working with little
or no supervision or assistance. without
proper facilities. having many Rotations
from pupils of widely different ages each
day during a few months of the year.
The problems of country school teach
err are many. / know. for 1 served as the
head of a typical one-teacher school when
| was seventeen years old, instructfng
pupils who ranged in. age from seven to
twenty-six. ] perhaps had a little more
training than the average person doing
the job in a rural section today. but l
look back on my performance as the
most miserable of my experience.
I'VE need larger and better schools for
the country boys and girls, and some
rural communities which are recognizing
educational needs are getting better
schools through consolidation of several
small ones. This is the right idea: After
the children have finished grammar
school they should not be compelled to
go to the heavy expense OF travelling to
city for further training, or stop school
altogether but throughout the country
there must be developed a system OF
strong country high schools. These hign
schools will furnish from among their
graduates more and better teachers than
now come to the rural schools. many OF
which have to take young men and
women who have no training other than
that given by the grammar school.
with the building up Of an efficient
country school system and with the in
crease of equipment the school should
become the center of community life.
The use Of the buildings should not be
restricted to five hours a day for few
months of the year: they should be used
for every purpose which is based on the
Improvement of country life conditions
and the making of rural life more at
tractive. s...,
expense for better teachers and better
buildings? l think SO. The expenditure
of 100000, 900 year on war past present
and future: $500, 100000 on tobacco and
81 500. 100000 for whisky does not give
the nation an opportunity to make plea
of poverty The rural education prop
lem is national as well as local. Inc pe9-
ple of the cities must awaken to its seri-
BUSINESS. If they do not cooperate 70
make rural life efficient. which can De
accomplished largely by making rural
education efficient, the time Will come
when they will have to leave the clties
and 20 to farming themselves in order TO
provide themselves food supply
Walter H. Page, the new American am
bassador to the court of st. James. mas
some very definite ideas
Government about the value ana the
lack of value of many of
Prints. Uncle Sans varied lines
Of publications which are pr1nted ana
sent out of Washington by the severai
anartments The ambassador gave MS
views of the governments methods OF
disseminating information during his last
visit to Washington few days before ne
sailed for England, when Secretary Hous-
TON invited him to address the chiefs OF
the bureaus of the Department OF Agr-
r;cn,ture at an informal gathering.
n,rins his many years as a publisher
.nd editor of magazines Mr.. Page gave
much attention to the work OF populariz-
ing the governments sclentlnc researches
and statistical Investigations. and many
are the difficulties which he encountered
while irving to get information on the
nations business. He found most govern
,nent documents of little value to him be-
cause they seldom told him the Things
which he wished to know.
Agricultural Department experts had two
nrincipal lines of criticism OF govern
ment bulletins. He believes that the rea-
son why many of the publications nave
never had a wide appeal to the pupic Is
because often they are written IN IAN
guape which is too technical and heaVy
for the average person to understand.
He also believes that an important reason
why government publications are not
read more is that they are unattractiVe
from a typographical point of view
Changes were suggested by Ambassador
Page for both of the chief faults Whlcn
he found in the government printed
documents intended for popular distribu-