Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1916-10-05
COMMUNICATION.
To Editor Courier-D Democrat

10 GtltOr
l am much interested in the public
letter of P. P. Kopriva asking the
school board to teach book keeping in
the Langdon city school. For the past
few years l have tried to have my
boys get some idea of keeping &C.
counts in order to assist me in my
many different lines, but have been
unable to do so. 1 consider book
keeping not only a practical study,
but an actual necessity.
Every farmer now days has some
use for it. Instead of teaching my
boys bookkeeping they are encourag-
ed in athletics to such an extent that
one of them got the basket ball fever
last winter and spent his winter even.
ings playing basket ball in the school
building instead of being given some
lessons for evening work at home.
After exercising violently at basket
ball the boys would take a shower
bath and start for home in weather
anywhere from 20 to 40 degrees be.
low zero. From this our boy contract
ed a severe cold that kept him out of
school a week and from which he has
not as yet entirely recovered.
When the new school was being
built, | Vas given to understand by a
member of the school board that it
would include an up-to.date high
school department so that we would
not be obliged to send our children to
other places for instruction needed in
ordinary walks of life. We have the
building all right, with the shower
baths, plumbing, and such other things
as help to swell the taxes of all those
within this school district, but the
children do not make the Roadway that
they did in the old frame building.
How is it that room was found for
bookkeeping in the old building, but
there is no room in the new expensive
one? 1t looks to me as if unimpor.
tant, not to say silly, stuff is crowd
ing out very important studies. l
used to be very strict about not hav-
ing my boys miss a day from school,
but since l noticed that it is consider
ed proper to take the basket ball team
away from their studies and permit
them to make trips to other towns to
play ball and when l see the high
school students during school hours
out in the fields prospecting for mice,
beetles, bugs etc., and securing the
coulee for bull frogs, it makes me
feel that the boys don't miss much if
l keep them out of school now and
then to help me. 1t would take a
whole lot of this dope to buy bread
and butter for them.
| consider it a disgrace to Langdon
city not to have book. keeping taught
in its school, and l don't think the
school board is doing their duty or
acting square to the tax payers in
this case. AS 1 understand there are
fourteen teachers in the Langdon
schools and they cannot teach book
keeping.
Back in Ontario, where | went to
a little country school with one teach.
err who would have an assistant in
the winter when there we're about
eighty pupils in n room, b%ook-keep.
ing was taught to the older ones.
There is nothing to the claim that
bookkeeping can be taught only in
the large cities and colleges. l am
voicing not only my own opinion in
this matter, but the opinion of many
others who have children going to
this school for perhaps their last year
and whose time, therefore, is precious
to them and not to be fooled away
with nonsense. The probability is
that if they don't learn something
about bookkeeping this year, they
never will get an opportunity to DE-
so, and will be at a great loss the
rest of their lives-more so in the
near future when they start to do
business for themselves. Then is the
time they will realize their great loss
| thank you for your space.
]. F. Ramage.
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