The Caledonian-record. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1920-current, 1922-11-27

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tying to decide which way to fall,
should be replaced by a furnace.
This might be easily installed as
the schoolhouse already has a
basement. The furnace has several
advantages over the iaeketed stove
it keeps the floor warm, does away
with the dust and dirt incidental
to bringing the fuel into the
schoolroom, takes up no space in
the school room, and the teacher
need not peer this way and that
around a stove and stove-pipe to
see that the mischievouS boy, who
always happens to sit behind it,
is attending to his lessons.
This school also needs a sand
table, a reading table with chairs,
a bulletin board, one large diction
airy and several of the smaller
ones, a schoolroom flag, a globe,
various text books and supple
mentary readers, mirror, a pen
Gil sharpener, a thermometer,
new teachers desk and chair, and
a small oil-stove for use with hot
lunch equipment in summer.
The repair of the foundation,
the grading and seeding of the
schoolyard, building a sand table,
putting up a bulletin board, and
the installation of some apparatus
for play might be accomplished at
little or no expense by a neighbor-
hood bee. The painting of the
building, laying a new floor, add
ing new windows, installing a
furnace and furnishing of diction-
aries and books would require
town action. They would cost in
the vicinity of three hundred
collars if the furnace were used,
and, with the approval Of the
State Supervisor, half this expense
would be met by the State.
The globe, thermometer, mirror
pencil sharpener, teachers desk
and chair, schoolroom flag, and
small oil stove may be provided
by funds earned in various ways
by the school. They may give
plays, socials, box suppers, COM
munity sings, sales, and many 9TH
er methods of earning money will
suggest themselves to the wide
awake teacher. These little plays
and entertainments help in various
ways, they train the children to
appear at their best in company
this is especially needed in isola-
ted rural communities develop mi
tiative, satisfy their dramatic in
stincts, give added interest in the
school, also they help provide
equipment of which the children
will take particularly good care
because they helped to earn it. In
addition to all this there is the OPP
portunity for the teacher and par
ents to meet on common grounds
and discuss school matters frank
ly.
We require each child to bring
a small towel from home for his
own use. The free sample cakes of
soap, sent out by toilet soap man
ufactmers for advertising pur-
poses, have provided US with indi
vidual cakes of soap the entire
year. Both soap and towel are
kept in a small boX in each child's
desk and, with the six agate wash
basins which out town as provided
they are required to wash up be-
fore dinner each day.
We have a steam cooker or oven
with two doors which will hold
fourteen or more glass jars of
various sizes. The children bring
from home in the glass jars, cocoa,
potato and meat, or anything their
mothers deem best to send Tor hot
lunch. At recess the jars with
loosened covers are placed in the
steam oven on the wire shelves. A
quart or two of water in the bot
tom of the cooker provides steam
to warm the jars OF food, it needs
no constant watching for it can
not burn so we just forget it
and go on with our lessons until
noon. At dinner time our jars of
food are nice and hot, the child
rem eat right from the jars and
carry the empty Jars home in then
Iunch-boxes. This entirely elimina-
ties the bugbear of dishwashing
and requires the minimum OF
equipment for hot lunches.
The steam oven costs ten doll
airs and at present we are trying
to earn money for one-burner oil
stove to use when it is unneces-
Sary to have a hot fire in the box
stove. 1t would be hard to find a
more satisfactory hot lunch equip
ment than this steam oven, we
have used it in our rural school of
twenty-five pupils for the past
year and both parents and child
rem are delighted with it. | might
add that the oven was bought with
the proceeds of a Halloween Party
given by the pupils in their school
'oom.
These suggested improvements
would add to the beauty of our
environment and enable US to do
better work. We hope to have
them soon so that we may have
Standard School