Imperial Valley press., 1916-09-27
RURAL SCHOOLTfRM
subject OF TALK
SCHOOL Agent
(By j. l.. McBrien, School Extension
Agent, United States Bureau
of EXtension.)

there must be an aroused public SEN
t;ment as to the needs. Previous
talks have served to show how to in
crease the rural school term by a bet
ter average daily attendance on the
part CT rural pupils. 1t has been point
ed out that the average daily atten-
dance of all pupils enrolled in the
rural schools Of the United States is
only GIT per cent of the enrolment.
If it were possible to take into con-
sideration the large number of rural
pupils who are not enrolled but who
should be enrolled by proper en-
forcement of reasonable compulsory
attendance law the average daily at
tendance in the rural schools for the
country at large would be less thai
60 per cent.
In support Of this declaration the
following is quoted from the Annual
Report of the State Superintendent of
Schools of Georgia for the school year
ended December 81, 1915. Pleading
Tor reasonable enforcement of a
reasonable compulsory attendance law,
the Superintendent declares:
'There are some men who are so
mean by nature that they must be
forced before they will give their chill
dren educational opportunities for
school training. The figures show that
169,63O children of school age in this
State did not attend school last year.
Many of these have never been en-
rolled during any previous year. With
out the strong arm of the law they
will GROW up in ignorance pust as
thousands before them have done.
If we go one step further in our
reasoning and take into consideration
| the millions of rural children in short
.e1m schools of three to four months
in length, it is evident that the aver
age daily attendance of millions of
pupils in the rural schools for the ma
ton at large is not SO per cent of
what it should be, when measured by
the attendance of pupils in the city
schools with nine-months' term. In
'ther words, the short term and the
| poor attendance in the rural schools
| are depriving millions Of country boys
| md girls of over half their birthright
in matters of free school privileges
&c compared with city boys and girls.
We are glad city children have the
rood school privileges that are theirs.
1--WE wish the city schools were better
But with the help of the press we are
determined to expose this unjust, un-
| reasonable and un-American discrim-
ination against country boys and girls
| Equality before the law and equal edu-
cational opportunity have not yet
teen provided for the farm boy and
he farm girl.
But, strange as it may seem, sparse
~ settled rural communities often
fight against the thi-ss which are for
heir own good A striking statement
| # this pb9,e of the rural problem is
found Il the Extension Bureau Circu-
la, No. 2, of the University of North
Carolina, July 1916. In this issue Pro-
fessor E. c. Branson declares:
Everywhere in thinly settled coun-
try regions we find people here and
tLere who ARE suspicious, secretive, ap-
athletic and unapproachable; who live
in the eighteenth century and preserve
the language, manners and customs Of
past long dead elsewhere, whoprefer
their primitive, ancient ways, who are
ghettoed in the midst Of present day
civilization, to borrow phrase from
President Frost. They are the crab
like souls described by Victor Hugo
in "Les Miserables," who, before ad-
vancing light, steadily retreat into the
fringe of darkness. People like these
abound in Clinton and Franklin coun-
ties New York; where an eighth of
tie native white voters are illiterate,
in Aroostook county (Maine) where
nearly one fifth of the native white
voters cannot read their ballots or
write their names; in Windham coun-
y (Connecticut) where seventh Of
the voters are illiterate Windham, by
the way, hes midway between the ac
ademic effulgence of Yale on the one
hand and Harvard on the other. YOU
can find within the sound of the
oolleke bells anywhere what we found
he other day in the field survey that
took us into every home in a mid
state county i'm North Carolina-a
f"mily of whites, all illiterates, half Of
the children dead in infancy, and never
G doctor in the house in the whole his
tory of the family"
And yet the only remedy for such
conditions is education of these peo-
pies. Let there be light!