The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1915-04-08

teacher of which We hear so much
about.
A board of education can hire a
person without any special trai ing to
keep school for $50 or $40 per month,
but they can ecure a real teacher
whose value can not be measured in
dollars and cents though they pay her
$50 to SIS per month and thereby re-
ceive in return for money and energy
used 1000 results-that's business.
What the schools require is a manager
rather than a keeper. The board of
education has an important office in
the affairs of the school. They should
always be ready to give the teacher
kindly advice and offer constructive
criticism rather than destructive. Mis-
understandings in the affairs of the
school can be tremendously adjusted
in SO cases out of 100 by cooperation.
The teacher a never allow herself to
ignore the wise counsel of the board
of education. The cause of the great
civil war between the North and South
was brought on by misunderstanding
of the people of these two great Sec
lions of the U. s. They had no COM
munication in the way of railroads
and telegraph lines. This lack Of So
cial contact and personal relation TO-
stored this misunderstanding which
eliminated in that great tragedy, the
civil war.
Every householder knows that the
best way to protect his property is to
have it inspected from time to time,
to have all damages repaired at once
and to take %opportune precaution
against impending risks by the intro
duction of improvements. These simple
statements apply in a greater degree
to u educational institutions.
The rural school is the greatest pro-
duct of u civilization. You are do
ing more in these schools than you
can know. Our most promising boys
and girls that we have in the high
school come from the farm. l am
proud that I was reared on a farm and
I shall always admire what the rural
school did for me.
The great problem of the teacher as
we'll as every other person is to learn
to accommodate ones self to his cir
cumstances, and he who cannot ad-
just himself. to conditions, and like
Mr.. Hawley Smiths frog which kick
ed and padded around until he churn-
ed the milk in which he was about to
drown, producing a ball of butter on
which he peacefully sat while he took
in the surroundings, finally deciding
what course to pursue. If he cannot
do as well as this frog he is in con-
slant danger of humiliation. We read
in the daily press Of suicides who
could make no track outside a beaten
path; lever having done anything out
side Of n little groove marked out
for him, when this avenue is closed he
sees but one thing to do-to die. One
of the chief objects of education is to
make a person enjoy his surroundings.
Blessed is the toiler who can sing at
his work and thrice blessed is he
work takes him out of doors
and into touch with nature. Who that
ever sketched a tree or painted a land
scape, no matter how unskillfully, but
will forever more find new interest in
the outline of the forest against the
sky, and in many shades of green in
the spring, and the yellow and ma
o in the autumn? Or who that
has made the most casual study of
the geography of the heavens, but
thereafter, walking alone under the
starlight dome of the sky, looks up
with a smile as at the sight of a friend,
when he recognizes Perseus, or CASIO
pea, or old Orion. He is no longer
alone. He has pleasant companions.
The farmer who watches the flight
of the birds, who knows the plants he
brushes with his feet, who looks up
from his furrow to admire for the
t~housandth time the force and direc-
ton of the train rushing past, and
who can tell why the sun rises and
sets farther north, giving him longer
days in summer, will not find life one
long boredom.
A child naturally likes the birds,
and trees and flowers; and If his edu-
cation is at all wisely directed, he will
like them better the more he knows
Of them. He becomes dull and indiffer.
ent only when he is kept in such com
pany or at such occupation that he
has no incentive to think.
Prof. Patton of the University of
Pennsylvania, in his book on heredity
and social progress advances a very
interesting theory respecting evolu-
ton. He says in substance, that when
ever an animal has to expend all of its