The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1913-03-21


in this condition. l take it that the
percentage is relatively as large in
other states. 1t wilS not always be
thus. 1 hope to live to see the time
when teachers will be employed for
IL months in the year with one
months leave on pay. Under such
an arrangement 1 should like to see
a mandatory requirement that at
least half of the teachers time shall
be devoted to helping the pupils out
side of the class room. There Is not
a community, village or city in
South Carolina where the teachers
and school officers might not revolu-
tionaize the diet, health, industry,
thrift and economic habits of the
people by encouraging the boys and
girls to clean up their unsightly and
unsanitary backyards and conduct
flower and vegetable gardens. The
schools should select seed and even
furnish them where new plants are
being introduced. Cold frames and
hot beds should be established at
the schools. Lessons in soils, ger
mination and cultivation should be
given them, plants should be dis
tributed and exhibits of the pro-
ducts should be made at the school
at the beginning of the fall term.
BRING TOGETHER.
This would bring patrons, teach
ore oh;
! ginning of the school and enable the
session to start under propitious cir
cumstanceS and without the lost mo-
ton and friction usually incident to
teachers should go into the gardens
and in the homes and teach the best
methods of selecting, marketing,
canning and preserving. This Is no
ideal professors" dream. 1t was
done in St. Paul last year, and in
Dayton, Ohio; is being done by
South Carolina hoy now in Little
Rock, Ark, and in modified form is
being undertaken i'm many other
places. One of the greatest benefits
come from throwing whatever influ-
ence the school may have into work
of this kind. Whatever grown folks
may think of the teacher and the
school, the children still believe that
the school is a great institution;
that the teacher is an important per
sonage and possessed of wonderful
knowledge. This abiding faith and
confidence should not be misplaced
or misused.
When the agricultural college at
Ames, Iowa, decided to give credit
in boys years work for excellence
, in managing farms in the summer
those boys did not think any the
less of the institution. When the
engineering department of the Uni
versity of Cincinnati allowed as
much credit for working as section
hands on the railroad and in the
shops for three months in the sum
mer as they did for any three
months OF study in books, they
smashed silly scholarship tradi-
tion, broke a Carnegie unit regula-
tion and rendered service to hu-
manity.
When $4,000 boys grow an acre of
corn apiece and $4,000 girls plant
their one-tenth acre gardens, with
such instructions and help as they
can get from teachers, school Off
GERS and government agents, they
are teaching some lessons to the
other hosts of pedagogy which
should not go unhceded
This is not altogether question
of training youth. The great prob
lem of adult training is involved. 1t
has been claimed that the campus
OF the University of Wisconsin is the
whole state of Winconsin. If this
same idea is applied to all kinds and
grades of schools, there will soon be
no dark alleys and benighted cor
ners ON our map. In one county IN
made by all of the school officers
and teachers to help every man. wo.
man and child in the county. Peo.
pie above three score years and ten
are going to school, and, best of all
the schools are going to them.
The late DR.. Seaman A. Knapp, OF
the United States department of ag.
riculture, had varied experience a,
a school man. He even had charge
of a young ladies seminary; "a
select school that selected all who
came, he was the head of deat
and blind school; he was the presi
dent of an agricultural college
After he was 10 years of age h,
realized his mistake and the mistak,