Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-02-22

WASHINGTON,
How changed the country school Of
today!
Population Declines.
1.-THE population in the school dis
| trict. due largely to improved farm
machinery, has steadily declined. A
few years ago. the State Of Iowa en-
acted a law by which when the num-
Der Of pupils In any school district
| was reduced to Ave the school should
be closed and provision made for
! carrying those pupils to another school.
| Under that law 500 schools in the
State Of Iowa alone have been closed.
The country school. therefore, has
| lost its old vitality and it's old i'm.
portance in the life of the people. 1t
is hard to make the school directors
much attention to so small a group.
For the most part, the little school
house, which was once SO dynamic q
thing in the life of the community.
| has fallen into neglect. 1t remains
upon the hilltop as of yore. 1t too
often. though, has an appearance Of
decrepitude and Is usually melan-
| choly memorial of better days.
AT the same time that the rural
school has been undergoing this evo-
luton the schools in the towns and
| cities constantly have improved. Hand
some and stately buildings have
taken the place of the ruder struc-
lures of earlier years; the course of
instruction has been greatly broad
ened; sanitation and recreation have
been provided for. In other words,
for q half century at least the rural
schools have been going backward.
moving forward.
Isolation Broken Down.
1.-The old isolation of the farm in a
sense has been broken down by the
telephone, the automobile and the
radio. Communication and inter
change of visits between those who
live in the country and those who live
in the city are becoming more fire.
quent all the time. The farmer knows
how the city man lives. The farmers
wife knows the conveniences that the
housewife in the city enjoys. The
farmer and his wife and children
know of the superiority of the city
school over the country school. The
time therefore. has come when we
must strive 10 equaliZe conditions of
living upon the farm and in the towns
and cities. We shall be unable much
longer to maintain double standard
Of living in the United States. as we
have in recent years. II the inequali-
ties which now exist shall continue
we shall not much longer be able to
keep the normal boy and girl upon
the farm. The trek cityward is already
under way. If 1t shall go on as rap
idly as it has in the last five years.
the next generation Will witness
farm population largely composed or
physically and mentally unfit.
Educators have not been blind to
this disastrous contrast. In some sec
lions of hte country consolidated coun-
try schools have been established.
These schools have marked vast i'm
provement in the life OF the COM
munity. For farmers are as eager to
give their children a good education
as those who live in the cities and
towns. They have found, though.
that the consolidated school, to be at
all adequate, means a heavier tax bur
den than they can bear.
Warns Of Farm Neglect.
THE progress and security of a
nation depends largely upon the KIND
Of people who live in the country.
The cities may be more splendid and
brilliant. They are likely to attract the
notice of visitors more from far lands.
They may have a more conspicuous
place in the histories which men
write He, however. who would
measure the soundness of a nation
and predict it's future Will go out
into the open country to learn what
manner of men he there will find. A
CITY may burn to ashes and more
splendid one arise upon its ruins.
But when the soil from out Of which
the greatness of the city springs Is
once impoverished or the people liv-
ing upon it reduced to perjury. the
city will vanish from the map of the
world. History records long line
of great, splendid, metropolitan CEN
tiers that enjoyed their brief day
brief as history measures time-and
then disappeared forever because
they neglected the countryside which
has nourished them. This may have
come about by the exhaustion of the
soil 1t may have been by the grad
ual impoverishment of those who till
the soil. 1t does not matter. For
the maintenance of the soil and the
we'll being of those who cultivate 1t
are equally vital to any nation that
would endure"
Having unburdened herself Of her
serious indictment against America s
IalneTnOOC, MISS hcShlIilLlOIi SOIiliN-
ued:
THE school principal knows that his
real service to his school world con-
sists in being an interpreter. 1t is only
a matter of careful study under well
equipped authorities to find out how
to give mental tests that shall meas
ure the child's native ability to learn,
but how to profit by the knowledge
that he gains is not so simple a mat
ter. He must know how to interpret
the facts SO as to make the right ad-
justments for the child. He must per
suade the school boards to make pro-
vision for shifting the emphasis from
the study of subject matter and
method to the study of the nature and
needs of the individual child. He may
still have to allay the distrust of men,
tai tests in the mind Of the average
parent. His work Of adjusting the
limited or the gifted child is growing
simpler each year as more and more
ess