The Fargo forum and daily republican., 1916-12-06

IS GIVEN
BOOST
Work Staged in North Da-
kota Recognized by
Famous Magazine

The December : issue Of The Coun-
try Gentleman calls attention TO
three states whose colleges have
started worth while movements for
community good times. One of these
is North Dakota, whose agricultural
college has organized the rural ly-
ceum. The article Is as follows
j, The Rural .Lyoeun. ....
North Dakota has organized a rural
lyceum. While other states have been
bemoaninG the dearth Of amusements
in country life and the drift of the
young people to the cities, this agrt-
cultural state has, in characteristic
fashion, found a remedy. The North
Dakota Agricultural college, through
it's college extension service, organized
a course Of four numbers-one of them
musical and dramatic; another a NOV
demonstration in household arts; and
fourth, a lecture on progressive agri-
culture.
The course was varied enough to
furnish country communities with an
intellectual balanced ration, as other
departments of the college had hereto
fore furnished gastronomic ration.
Last winter was the coolest North
Dakota has had in twenty years, and
gave the new venture a mercury test
to start with. 1t stood the test, and 10S
engagements were made for the talent.
Twenty of them were in the
open country consolidated schools.
This was an unheard-of project
lecture courses out, in the country!
But the consolidated school auditorium
made the rural lyceum possible, and
the rural lyceum gave the consolidat-
ed schools a chance to show their real
worth as social centers. The college
furnished two of the numbers free
and the cost of the other two was
made SO low that the total expense
would not exceed an average of fifty
dollars.
One lecturer had to go to Deep-a
tiny town on the Great Northern rail-
way-ard then drive seven miles to
Kramer, on the "Soo." He reached
Deep In blizzard, and the tempera-
ture was beginning to drop ominously.
No driver in the town would venture
the seven miles, as the wise ones saw
weather ahead. A young man. a
school teacher, offered to share his
room with the lecturer, an offer he
gladly accepted, seeing there We're only
two houses and a store in town. That
night the mercury dipped down to
fifty-two below zero, and the school
teacher and the lecturer shivered In
an unfinished attic up against the
boards. There was little sleep that
night, and the next morning the fing-
ers of the lecturer CONCEALED so quick
ly that he had to make a wild dash
down to the kitchen to complete his
toilet. The station was only a block
distant, but his nose froze on the
way.
Still, in spite of the intense cold
which interrupted train service on
some of the branches for six weeks,
we were persuaded that the rural
lyceum has been real blessing ~
these country communities and small
towns in the long winter months. 1t
has relieved the tedium, substituted
new and larger topics of conversation
for petty gossip, and reconciled young
people to a farm life that will not
shut them off from the world of let
ters and OF science. 1t has brought to
! the church and school socials another
ally to challenge the old time monop-
oily of the card table and the country
dance.
Two courses instead of one are being
organized for this winters rural
Iyceum, and plans are being laid for
double the number of engagements.
A. r. Hollis.