Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1914-05-08
The New Kind OF Country School.
PUBLISHED BY REoUEsr.l

State Board of Agriculture, and La Fol-
lette's Magazine made full report of his
remarks, which are copied into the SENTI-
MEL and are as follow:
think everyone here will agree with me
and agree with the Rural Life Commission
that we do need something new in the
rural schools, whether new kind of rural
school or not. The gradual drift of the
people from the farms to the cities has
very many causes, but leave it to you to
say if one of the most ordinarily expressed
reasons is not this,-"We want to 60 where
we can give our children better chance 4;
we want to give our children better school
ing"
Now, did it ever occur to you that there
is no practical reason why good schools
should be concentrated in the cities and
that the bad schools should be scattered
about through the rural districtsS don't
know very much personally about the rural
schools of Kansas. but | do know some
thing of them as found in most of the
States which surround you, and state I'M
hesitatinely that unless Kansas is better
of than our surrounding States in this re-
gard her rural schools are bad
am graduate" of the rural schools
of the Unitsd States. All the schooling |
ever had in regular way, had in the rural
schools of county in Central Iowa. |
have in mind very fully the old kind of
rural school, because for some years after
had ceased to be pupil in these schools
| was teacher in them. Such education
as have, therefore, is based upon the rudi-
ments given in the rural schools of the
Middle West, schools like these of yours.
have in mind the little boy who took
his books in hand and very timidly went
to school, that fatal first day.-the most
important day in the little boys life. He
went into the front door Of the little white
school house and found there very formi-
dable parsonage in the person of a young
lady, installed as teacher. She was a
young woman from a town. She knew
nothing about farming. She knew nothing
about farmers except as they appeared
when they came to town and bought their
groceries and dry goods over the counters
in the village stores. She had no interest
in farming or rural life. Her whole desire
was to do the best she could by her pupils,
to bridge over the time between the end of
her own schooling and the beginning of her
married life, in the drawing of very small
salary as a rural teacher She knew moth
ing about farm problems, about agriculture,
about the great body of sciences upon
which agriculture is based.
When the little boy went in and began
reading, he read in books filled with things
which he did not understand, because they
did not relate to his life. They related to
things which took place in England, where
the writers which were then supposed to
be the best, lived, and from those books.
extracts were made for the purpose of
making reading books for the children in
Iowa He learned about Lords and Ladies,
dinners, balls and servants, and about
enchanted houses and remember very
distinctly the thrill Of joy which this boy
finally felt after he was about ready to
leave the public school. He found in one
of the readers which had been recently
prepared for school use reference to
something he knew about Some body
had put into a school reader reference
to the prairie gum weeds The school read
ing which he had done upto that time was
just as alien to him as the scenes depicted
in Kiplings poems are to you.
When he began studying arithmetic he
studied problems of the counting room. in
surance. and so forth. but there wasn't
single problem in it relating to farm build
ings, farm problems or the vast number of
arithmetical quantities which entered into
the life of the boy.
So that during all his life as student
of arithmetic in the country schools of Iowa
he never solved one problem which belong
ed to the life he led.
When he studied history, he studied the
history of wars and voyages and discove-
ries. and battles and the lives of men who
had become Presidents, Senators and Rep
resentatives. II there was any mention
of agriculture. it consisted of the first para
graph of those biographies, /. e.. that
Abraham Lincoln, we will say. was born
on farm, and the impression he got from
all this was that the soOnera man left the
farm. the greater he was likely to become
lie studied physiology. but there was
nothing in it of the physiology Of the beasts
+ of the field. There were some things with
, relation to human hygiene. but nothing in il
I that related TO the food value Of the things
he fed his horse, his hogs. his hens and
/ his COW. There was nothing in il about
the physiology on which live stock farming
| is based. The truths which would have
Illuminated his farm problem. as well as
the preservation of human health and
welfare were ignored.
/ He studied grammar. Every sentence
he parsed and all the language work he
performed were foreign to his own life, and
were on foreign SUBJECTS
No wonder children reared and educated
under these conditions got the idea that
there is nothing in farming which is worth
the while Of an intellectual person. No
wonder under these conditions that the
children drift to the towns. Our country
schools. my friends. are country schools
only in their location. They are located
in the country. but beyond that. most Of
them are merely bad copies of poor city
schools. They breathe the city atmos-
phere. They reek Of the pavements. They
echo Of traffic along the great streets Of
the cities. The hum Of bees, the low Of
cattle. the wonderful and interesting and
complex things which 90 to make up az.
1901 f...-l l.. .... .ok.oI, l.. Al.