The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-02-04
REQ AUTO MAKES
GOOD CITIZENS
Speed Wagon Gathers Up Rural Chill
dren and Transports Them to
Consolidated School"

~The consolidated school is a means
of making better citizens. because it
gives the country boy or girl first
class education at a central institu-
ton. instead of a mea5re and poor ed
ucation at a rur4! sctoolhouse tended
by an undergrad school teacher" says
Mr.. Will Paine. OF the Palmer Auto
&C
TIE essence OF lie consolidated
scliool plan is that children froal I
vide district a.y4r.d shall be h~u'e1
every morning and taken back at
night. This means that transportation,
cheap, punctual and comfortable, is
the key 10 the scheme--at which point
the REQ Speed Wagon steps in with
the key. For instance:
In former years most OF the schools
around Cimarron. Gray County, Kan
sas, We're poorly attended. In one
district the directors thought they
could afford to pay but small salary
TO a teacher, with the result that the
only one who would take the job was
entirely untitled for it. She had but
two pupils. Some families in this ill
served district gave up their farms
and moved to town, desperately re-
solved that their children should not
grow UP in ignorance.
And now what a change,
Consolidation has blotted out the lit
tie old primitive rural school--often-
times a wretched affair despite all the
sontimentality about the little red
schoolhouse"---and a big, modern in
stitution at Cimarron is giving the
boys and girls of the region a real
education, fitting saem to be success
full men and women-and good Ameri-
can citizens,
Cimarron is not the only consolidat-
ed center, but is the largest in Gray
county. 1t has twenty teachers. There
are 375 pupils. of whom $50 are from
the country Besides the eight pri-
mary grades which the country pupils
had, or were supposed to have, prior
to consolidation, there is a fully ac-
credited high school with departments
OF agriculture and home economies.
Better yet, plans are under way by
which the young folks will study mod
ern farming at experiment plots on
their fathers farms and in the school
6IOuuQS, hnQef SupcTNlSlOn Oh the
Kansas State Agricultural College.
Transportation did it all. Because
there is concentration Of pupils, due
to transportation, some of the CT
marion teachers draw $1S7.50 a month,
none less than S125, and in addition
make ION the side" from $50 to S25 n
month driving the buses that haul
the children. The teacher drivers
make the youngsters behave on the
bus as well as in the classroom, thus
starting their education. not at the
school door, but on the running board
OF Speed Wagon.
The old rural school houses, relies
of a poor system, are being sold to
farmers to he used for granaries. the
money going to buy motor busses.
There is no hardness. The buses
used at Cimarron are all on REQ
Speed Wagon chassis, consequently
speed, regularity and dependability are
foregone conclusions. Some of the
teacher drivers are men and some are
women. The female OF the species is
found to handle the busses as well as
the men do. The cost of operation is
only sl20 per month per pupil.
Good citizens are being made by the
consolidated school system, and REQ
is doing it's share of the work.