The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-03-25

the boys egg club is waiting. On each egg, as
H. is brought in, is written the number of its
owner and the date it was laid. And during each
school day the eggs are packed and sent by par.
eel post to one of the clubs customer in Chi
cago.
The arithmetic lesson in several of the Cook
county rural schools now consists in keeping
books on the receipts and sales of fresh eggs by
members of the egg clubs.
Once a week, instead of the old-fashioned re-
view of lessons, in which the pupils had not the
slightest interest, the weekly remittance for egg
shipments is received and divided by the boys
among themselves in proportion to the number
of eggs each has contributed. To them the study
of arithmetic has become a very real, important
and interesting matter. All through the $50 rural
schools of Cook county the same new spirit Of
life has been put into the dry bones IF study.
Boys and girls are studying botany, for in.
stance, by testing the seed corn which their ia.
theirs are planning to plant next spring; that
brings in again the study of percentage. And
when father is shown that. on the average, only
SO per cent of his proposed seed corn will actin.
ally terminate, he is likely to get a new idea of
and a new interest in the country school.
There are few things of which Chicago has a
greater right to be proud than that the rural
schools of the county in which it is located are
probably the most advanced and progressive
country schools in the United States. The d.
vision of these schools into five districts, with a
trained teacher, who ~ also a graduate of an ag-
ricultural college, at the head of each as director
of rural life and of schools, has proved a tre-
mendous step in advance.
County Superintendent of Schools Tobin. who
persuaded the county board to make an appro-
priation of $1,000 to cover the salaries of the
five rural life directors for the year, has lust
received the reports of these directors covering
the work done during the fall and early winter
months. To read them is to wish that one might
be again a country-scbool boy going down the
long road every morning to the little red school
house.
Almost every schoolhouse has been a social
center for the rural community of which it is
the center. Gas and wood ranges have been
put in many schools and the girl pupils prepare
hot lunches every day for all the pupils. They
demonstrate their skill in household chemistry,
also, by preparing and serving on special occa-
sions dinners at which their parents are the
guests of honor.
Day after day the boys and girls bring sam
pies of milk to school and test them with a milk
tester for richness in b%utterfat. After a series
Of such tests they are able to help their fathers
decide which cows are worth keeping and which
are only Improbable "boarders."
In many neighborhoods the parents of the pu-
pills have been organized into agricultural clubs
and have begun to take an active and eager in
terest in all the work of the school. On the long
winter evenings the parents and pupils have fire.
quently met in one of the schoolhouses to take
part in and watch an old-fashioned spelling bee,
based on lists of 500 common words sent out at
the beginning of the year by the county super
intendent.
Especially interesting and important is the plan
to keep the schools-or at least the school activi-
ties-in evidence all through the summer months.
With that end in view. a large number of garden
clubs were organized a year ago, on a basis
which would keep the children interested. enable
them to apply their newly acquired knowledge,
and put a more or less definite financial reward
up for them to try for.
Each member of one of the country school gar
den clubs rented from his parents last spring. at
the regular rate prevailing in the neighborhood,
a small piece of land for cultivation of which he
was to be entirely responsible. All the money
resulting from the sale of garden products grown
on that piece of land was to belong to him.
BY way OF adding additional zest to the compe-
tition among the schools and among the indiyid-
ual pupils. a series of prizes were awarded re-