The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1914-01-01

Much interest is felt in the final
outcome of the exhibit and contest
What school is going to win the
greatest number of prizes? and what
| township will prove to be the banner
| township? There are number OF
schools now in close competition for
sweepstakes and there are five deci-
sions vet to be made: those in rope
tying. spelling and defamation, and
in essays on the subjects, The His
tory of Schools in ------Township."
and "A Story of Pioneer Life in De-
be left with the county superinten-
dent by January 10th. The deci-
sions will be announced and the
awards made at the declamatory
contest, the date for which will be
announced soon.
The boys and girls Of the Leon
schools manifested much interest in
the exhibit. During the out-of-school
hours an eager crowd could always
be found viewing the exhibit, COM
pairing, criticising and praising the
efforts of the boys and girls from
the rural schools A high school boy
came into the Office to ask if he
could enter a map of Decatur county.
\ boy and a girl from the lower
grades not understanding that the
exhibit was confined to the work OF
the country schools, prepared a set
of sentence diagrams and a set OF
arithmetic problems and brought
them to the county superintendent.
Generally speaking we believe the
exhibit and contests have received
the support of the rural teachers
whether or not they were able to
send in specimens of their school
work. But this is not always true.
One boy prepared splendid piece OF
work which won prize, not because
of the encouragement of the teacher,
but in spite of her indifference. An
other teacher expressed her indiffer-
ence to the exhibit in the presence of
little girl from another district
where much splendid work had been
prepared. When the teacher had left
the room the child exclaimed, "Oh
my! | think a teacher who talks like
that ought not to have a certificate.'
and she was right.
There is no question but that the
boys and girls, if properly encourage
ed most heartily endorse and sup
port the exhibits and contests. This
is perfectly natural. The desire for
self expression, and the desire to
measure strength with others, are
both instructive, and teachers can
do no better than to engage them in
the promotion of interest in school
work.
The best work exhibited as a
whole we're the sets of physiology
drawings. Many sets were entered
and most of them were so excellent
that the judges were sorely perplex-
ed in making awards. The farm
arithmetic problems and the maps
and the sentence diagrams were also
good, but there were not so many
entries in these classes.
The weak points in our school
work if we may judge by the ex-
hibits. are penmanship and English
composition. There was but one set
of penmanship specimens exhibited
and very few essays were entered.
The new course of study divides the
common branches into six groups.
The first and by far the most impor-
tauL Ol Iucse 10 tue GA6HSH 6lOuP,
which includes reading, spelling,
phonics, language, written and
oral) classics and writing. AS a
whole this group does not receive
the attention it should. Especially is
the writing neglected. There are
children in the county in the second
Ind third, grades studying physiology
and geography every day out of text
books, who do not write fifteen min
utes a week under the direction of
the teacher. In fact too many chill
dren are taught neither to read or
to write. They just ''sorter pick up"
what they learn. The writer speaks
out of bitter experience. Her pen
manship will always be q thorn In
the flesh because she was not taught