The Little River news. (Ashdown, Little River County, Ark.) 1897-current, 1920-11-06
stony ground that night,

mud that night, Evans replied.
We'll, the seed you sowed that night
bore fruit, and it has grown into this
magnificent school," said the farmer
One sunny cay last spring I drove
OIL! from Chickasha seven miles 10 see
that school in the Meridian district
School was IL session. and from an
open window came the sound of voices
in recitation, like the soft droning of
bees. I walked round the building,
and looked at it's walls of tapestry
brick; at the wide window spaces, and
at the curving walks in front border
ed with young trees planted by the
scholars, and the name Meridian
spelled out in flowers between the
doors.
j Near by was the cottage where the
teacher of agriculture lived. The next
nearest building to the school was a
farmhouse mile away, beyond a
wheat field of vivid green. The land
- IAACI SctOOuC 10 " ct&fi, oIctIlb-
ing in the schoolhouse yard | could
see the tree-lined Washita River wind
ing across the flat plain; beyond it, in
the distance, the chimneys of Chick
asha with pillars of black smoke as
cending In all other directions the
fields of wheat and alfalfa, lay to the
horizon line.
Out there, in the midst of their
farms, the men of Meridian district
had built that $685. 900 schoolhouse, and,
although the assessed valuation Of all
the property in the district was only
a trifle over half million dollars, they
were paying $4,000 year to keep this
school and three other one-room
schools going, with six teachers and
127 pupils.
But. one of the farmers in the dis
school; it is church and Sunday school
every Sunday, and a social center
picture show, lodge room, and rally
ing point for the whole community
any day or night in the week. We
never began to live out here until we
built this school,
Under the laws of Oklahoma two or
more rural school districts, or parts of
districts, may join together into either
a consolidated school district or I'M
graded-school district,
A. cons olidated- school district must
have taxable property valuation of not
less than 100000, II the taxable val
uation is $500 900 or more, the area
of the district may be fewer than twen-
ty-five square miles, but if the valua-
ton is less than that the area must be
at least twenty-five square miles. Only
one school can be maintained in it, and
all pupils living two miles or more
from it must be transported to and
from school at the expense of the dis
trict
There is no limit to the size of I'M
ion graded-school district, because, in
it the pupils are not transported to and
from school, but the old small school
houses in the original districts are
kept busy as they were before the un--
ion, and the younger children arg
taught there up to the sixth grade. The
seventh and eighth grades and the
high-school grades are taught in CEN
trail school. One school board super
yises all the schools in the district.
The Meridian school district is one OF
the best examples of union-graded-
school district in Oklahoma. It was
formed by the merging of three dis
tricts and has an area OF twenty-nine
square miles, all of it farm lands.
There is not factory or shop or any
kind of industry, outside of farming,
in the district The three original one
room schoolhouses were retained, each,
with one teacher. One of the advan.
tages of this is that the smaller child
rem have not far to walk to school. In
the three small schools are eighty-Hye
children. The central school has 10
| boys and girls in the seventh an
eighth grades, and seventeen in the
lhigh-school.
Practical School Work.
/ The central school is modern IN
everything, with hard-pine finish and
hardwood floors. In the center or IL
lis the auditorium, big enough for a
game of basket ball. On each side OF
the auditorium, running through the
building from front to back, is wide
hall, and beyond this two large class
rooms, making four in all. The prln-
cipal of the school and his family oc-
cupy an apartment in one corner OF
the school, His first assistant and his
family live on the second grounds. The
principal, w. S. Marsh, and his first as