White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1931-11-05
The Modern School
BY Ernest L. MuzzaH

Superintendent of Schools, Ritzville
Over forty-siX thousand pupils in
the state of Washington rode to school
in 1880 in district-suppli transporta-
ton. Jimmie Jones, the average pu-
pill, travelled eight miles to school and
eight miles home again each day in
warm, sanitary, and comfortable bus,
taking thirty-siX minutes each way.
Each trip was made with a high degree
of safety and at moderate cost.
Contrast the day when Jimmie's dad
or grand dad trudged over the hills
and through the woods in good weather
and bad to the one-room school where
in winter he thawed out numb feet
and hands by the old "heater." Mod
ern transportation methods have made
| it possible for children who live at
| what were formerly long distances to
reach school quickly and safely. This
in turn has made possible the scores
of fine consolidated schools in the
state with their modern buildings, up
to-date courses of study and equipment
and we'll trained grade and high school
teachers. Usually there are sufficient
numbers of children in the modern
consolidated school to make possible
teacher for every grade. This makes
possible a better quality of instruction
than is true in the district school
where one over worked teacher at
tempts the impossible task of teaching
all subjects to pupils scattered over
eight. grades.
School buses are safe, parents con-
Germ and apprehension to the contrary
Notwithstanding. While private cars
are being driven heller SHELTER into each
other, into bitches, trains, trucks, tele-
phone posts, and rivers, Jimmie travels
in far greater safety in the school bus
than when riding in the family car
School transportation facilities have
the highest safety record of all trans
lportation facilities in America. The
number of school bus accidents an6
fatalities in this state and others has
been surprisingly small.
School BUSES are required by law
to "stop, look, and listen" before cross
ing railroad tracks The state high
way department inspects school buses
carefully In general they are subject
to more safety precautions than any
other type of transportation.
Yes, transporting Jimmie and his
friends to school is expensive. So is
a multiplicity of district schools, ane
SO are all types of transportation. But
school transportation is not nearly sc
expensive as private transportation. Il
cost an average of $34.25 for each pu-
pill transported in the state of Wash.
ington in 1880 for a sixteen-mile roune
trip. Compare this with the cost o.
private cars per passenger. Then, too
in a large measure the cost of trans.
|portation is absorbed by the decreased
lper pupil cost and more efficient in.
struction in the larger and better
equipped schools.
Yet are not buses characterized by
a poor moral atmosphere? Do they
not constitute moral hazard? Are not
swearing, hazing, bad temper, and obs
Gene talk common? These conditions
are not found to be true in the vast
majority of cases where the bus is I'M
der the supervision of competent
driver who has authority to enforce
reasonable discipline. This is in marked
contrast to the footpath of elementary
education in rural districts of this