carxey] SCHOOL AS NEIGHBORHOOD CENTRE 293 



If "Union is Strength" politically, commercially and strategi- 

 cally, so also is it socially, and it is in the country that the strain 

 of denominational division is most severely felt, not only in sup- 

 port of the church, but in the social life of the people. 



The School in Pioneer Days 



Time was when the country school was the centre of the social 

 and every other life of the community. Those were pioneer days 

 when life was a struggle with elementals, when our parents and 

 grandparents were hewing homes out of the wilderness. To be 

 able to attend school then was a privilege indeed. Some could 

 manage no more than two or three months in the year ; some were 

 restricted to night school and that in the winter only. 



Those were the days of Singing-Schools, Spelling-Matches, 

 Debates, in which everyone was interested and everyone took part. 

 Life then was a community life and the school was its center. 

 In those days people were neighbors to one another in the true 

 sense of the word ; and if we have lost the virtue of neighborliness 

 as has been said we have, it is perhaps something to our credit 

 that we reverence its memory and desire its return. 



With the development of the country came more means, more 

 leisure, more opportunity for study, till in process of time we find 

 the once coveted privilege of attending school replaced by a 

 Compulsory Attendance Act ! 



The rude home-made benches of the old" log school once crowded 



by bearded men and boys eager to learn, often studying by candle 



light, have given place to modern schools with single seats and 



polished desks, too often alas! empty. It would almost seem that 



in removing the disabilities of education we have lost the desire 



for it. What is difficult of attainment has ever been a coveted 



prize. 



"The little rift within the lute 

 That made the music dumb." 



Gradually the efforts of the people to make their own pleasures, 

 were relaxed. New fashions in entertainment were introduced. 

 The youth nocked to the village to listen to the hired entertainer 

 or to watch others making merry for a price, while the old folks 

 stayed at home with their memories, their fears and their rheuma- 

 tisms, life in the country all the while growing more monotonous 

 to the young and lonelv to the old. Thus slowly but surelv the 



*■& 



