Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1914-12-31
PRACTICAL SCHOOL TRAINING.
Rural School Should Teach Courses in
Agriculture, Domestic Science.

marion Progress.)
In another column we r publish
ing an article written by Miss nellie
Gibbs of Garden City School, who was
one of the foul girls representing Nc
Doweu County in the sewing demon
stration given at the Teachers ASH
bly, in Charlotte.
We wonder how many of our read
crs realize that this is a beginning of
the New School" which is at last to
be made to suit the needs of the
try. Of course that good work a
been done in the schools of North Car
DINA for several years. We are not
criticizing what has been done, but
just calling attention to what has been
left undone. What has been done to
make better farmers out of the bright
school boys who SO earnestly study
their History. Latin and Algebra?
Have the rural schools done anything
toward making neat, economical and
industrial house-keepers and home
builders out of the numbers and num-
hers of bright, rosy-cheeked girls who
are daily working yer such beneficial
problems, as, IF 800 cats catch 300
rats in 300 minutes. how many rats
viii 100 cats catch in 100 minutes.
The larger per cent of these boys
are needed on the farms. The cities
are already crowded. A number of
country boys fill bright and RESPONSE
BILE positions in the cities but a still
greater number of those leaving the
farm for town make utter failures. In
the face of this it seems necessary
that the country schools help the boys
to become better farmers thru the
study of practical agriculture.
AS for the girls, isn't it the natural
that they should have instruction in
sewing and cooking? Sometimes we
hear the cry that their mothers can
teach them this at home and they are
sent to school to study their books"
We might suggest that their mothers
could in most cases teach their child
ren History, Geography and Arithme-
tic at home but she doesn't do it for
the simple fact that she has no time.
1t is the same with cooking and sew
ing, and the average girl grows up,
makes high grades on her Latin. Alge-
Ira, etc., then marries and gives her
husband indigestion in three months
because the only bread she can make
is "soggy."
The demonstration at Charlotte OF
what the country school can do with
agriculture, sewing and cooking open
ed the eyes of the people to the needs
OF rural children. If all the school
committeeman and patrons of Mellow
ell county could have witnessed the
work of the four girls from Garden
City and Greenlee schools and head
the comments of the teachers from all
parts of the State, as we'll as the men
and women of Charlotte, on their neat
appearance and the business-like way
in which they did the work and the
love and interest they put into it, why
next year we could see a change. You
would refuse to accept a principal I'M
less he could teach agriculture and in
terest your boys in the corn club.
You wouldn't have an assistant who
boosted that she hired all sewing done
and had never made a=biscuit in her
life. But you could demand teachers
and a school that would make Of your
boys and girls the happy. useful men
and women that this county of ours
place in North Carolina.