The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1914-02-12
VIEWS ON PLANS
FOR SCHOOL FAIRS
Editorial from the Portland Evening
Telegram)

Editorial from the Portland Evening
Telegram)
1t will not be the fault of Superin-
tendent Of Public instruction Churchill
ii there is not an interest aroused
among the boys and girls of this state
concerning the e'hoHely arts of agrcul-
tural and domestic life equal to that
shown by the boys and girls of any
other state in the Union.
MIR. Churchill has laid q broad found
alton for the work he has in hand.
Through the superintsndents of the
country schools he plans the organiza-
tion of boys and girls clubs in every
school community, and he plans that
every club shall have q practical aim.
Among the boys there will be corn
clubs and potato clubs, and as We may
presume pig clubs, cattle clubs and
chicken clubs. Among the girls there
will be canning clubs, sewing clubs and
cooking clubs, and so on with other ad-
ditions to the list.
The constructive scheme of it all is
to interest the boys and girls of the
state to the development of expertnsss
in the various lines suggested. And
the development is to be on the basis
of reward in which the individual and
the community in which the individual
lives shall take pride. 1t is york of
the same piece as that done in the
state of Ohio, which sent expert boy
corn growers from the Buckeye terri
tory to the capital of the nation on q
pleasure and sight seeing trip. The
reward for the prize winners is to be
that they shall represent their CON-
manities at the state fair, that the
honor Of their achievements may be-
come state vide. Beyond that it is
contemplated that limited number of
those who stand highest on this roll of
honor shall represent the state of Ore
gon at the Pacific Panama exposition
next year.
In the sum the benefit to accrue from
the successful working out of the
Churchill plan is hardly to be esti-
mated at the present time. Only q
small percentage of that benefit will
m manifest in the honors to be reaped
by the prize winners. The educational
and habit-forming value of the striving
on the part of the veritable army of
children who will not land prizes. and
the effect of these in the communities
where thoae children live are really
the prime factors.
Every member of every club pro-
posed to be organized will be in an at
mosphere of appreciation for those
things that contribute to comfortable
and wholesome living. Every home of
every child interested will feel the
effect. Every farm that. can boast of
one of these striving boys or girls,
either prosmctively or actually, will
be the better farm for it. Every school
that gives serious and practical atten-I
ton to the furtherance of this propa- |
sanda will be the more efficient as a |
school. And more than all this. in |
few years, when the boys and girls of |
now are the men and women of tomor-
row this sytsem of devoting more time
and thought to those matters which
will make this everyday life of ours
more worth while will be intensified,
Ne will cease to comment upon il as
The promise of progress, and regard it
rs the fact. Many things that now we
rope for then viii be realized. Many
problems that now give US serious con-
,ern, then will be solved.
Rationalism and future efficiency.
,eyound our present conception, are
wrapped up in all this movement. Ii
s movement which seeks to make
he boy and girl of today a sharer in
activities along that plane which pro-
luces the greater comfort of the aver
'ge home and the more solid building
# the community. This plan that Su-
Churchill has broached is
ut part OF the more universal scheme.
I is a piece in the mosaic of educs-
ional and social progress which gives
romise of results that we have hardly
AIRED to dream about. If it is appre-
lated at its true value there will be
o doubt about the public cooperation
nd no question about its success.