Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1923-10-04
GIVE REASONS FOR SUPPORT
OF PRESENT SCHOOL SYSTEM

This year two members of the
county board of education are to be
elected. 1t is important that the
right kind of men be chosen for
these positions men who believe in
education, men who are facing the
future and not the past, men who re-
alize that the educational Opportu-
mites offered by the schools 80
years ago, while lnany good things
were offered, would not be suffi-
cient today, men who under any law
will try to give to the children of the
county the best opportunities of ed
ucation that circumstances will per-
nit. men who will devote their time
and energy to Improvement of the
schools rather than to opposition to
the school laws, which board of
education is powerless to change.
Such men are DR.. Lee Humphrey
and Mr.. Hiram Hart.
These men are now members Of
the county board of education and
are asking for reelection. Can we
afford to reject these men for 9TH
ers who have given us no assurance
of any thing except their opposition
to the school laws and their determi-
nation, as they expressed it in a
meeting a few weeks ago, to set the
schools back thirty or forty years?
Can we afford to jeopardize the op-
portunities of education now offered
in the schools of Morgan county for
the promise of opposition to the
school laws and an attempt to turn
the schools backward to the condi-
tions of thirty years ago?
Shall we educate our children to
meet the conditions of the past, or
shall we educate them to meet the
conditions which they will actually
have to face? If they are to be edu-
Gated for the past, TO be consistent
shall we not have to turn the clock
backward with respect to the sondi-
tions of life? Shall we discard the
self-binder and return to the grain
cradle? Shall we tear down all the
telephone lines? Shall we discon-
tinue the use of the automobile?
Shall we destroy all our improved
roads? Shall we prohibit the use of
modern electric lighting systems?
Shall we scrap all the gas or gaso-
line engines in use all over the coun-
try? In short would we be willing,
if it were possible to do so, to re-
ty years ago?
The schools are the instruments
by which the children are trained for
the duties of citizenship that they
may take their rightfu1 places in the
society in which they find them
selves. 1t is evident that the train
ing offered in the time of Washing
ton or Lincoln would be wholly in
adequate today. And the same is
true, in less degree of course, of the
education offered a generation ago.
But what is the use of consider
ing impossible things? What are the
schools doing to meet the conditions
of today that they We're not doing
even ten years ago? The first i'm
provement was the introduction of
an up-to-date course of study for all
the rural schools of the county. This
furnishes guide for teachers and
pupils and does away with the hap
hazard work of the old system. The
second big improvement was the
adoption by all the rural boards of
the county of a uniform list of books
for the elementary schools. This
not only improves the teaching
equipment of the schools but also
eliminates the necessity of buying
new books when pupils are compell-
ed TO change schools. 1t also elimi-
mates the frequent change of text
books in the same school which for
merly was practiced. Only three
books have been changed in the
eight years during which the uni
form list has been in use in the
county. A system of grading and