44 The Bulletin. 



in North Carolina should be an active member; for surely no one would entrust 

 his child's health and training into less interested hands than his own. 



Into tlie good schoolhouse must come a good teacher; and in the selection of 

 this teacher the parents should exercise the greatest care and thought. Eighty 

 per cent of the population in tliis State is rural. About ninety per cent of tliis 

 rural population is entirely dependent on the country pulilic schools for training. 

 How great, then, is the responsihility— the inducnce — of the country teachers 

 who are to train seventy-five children out of every hundred in North Carolina 

 for citizenship! Yet this is seldom given a thought. Of all classes of workers 

 in our State the country school-teachers are prol)ai)ly the poorest qualified. Few 

 enter the work with the intention of making it their profession. It is but a 

 stepi>ing-stone, for many, to more lucrative positions. We have numbers of boys 

 teaching in order that' they may attend a business college and then swell the 

 already°overcrovvded list of sales'men. Girls teach whose one desire is a sununer 

 outing. In one county in North Carolina one hundred and twenty-five teachers 

 attended the County 'Teachers' Institute this sununer. One hundred of these 

 were inexperienced and less than six had college training. 1 was told, too, that 

 only five first-grade certificates were issued in that county last year. Truly, only 

 the" "nubbins of education" are fed to the great majority of country children — 

 and it is the fault of the parents. Wlien the parents become interested enough to 

 demand better teachers they will get them. So long as the parents are so indif- 

 ferent to the progress of their children as to allow them to be imposed upon by 

 poor teachers our State will not make the advance we are hoping for. We must 

 have better teachers. 



When a clean, comfortable house and a good teacher are provided it next be- 

 comes the duty, or privilege, of the farmers to see that their children are in 

 school every day. How often do you hear a farmer say: "Well, I'll not send my 

 children the first week or two. I've got a few odd jobs I want to finish up"; or, 

 wlien a child has been forced to lose a day: "My boy couldn't go on Tuesday; 

 I'll just keep him at home this week and start him in fresh next Monday." We 

 country school-teachers waste fully one-half of our time in school on account of 

 poor attendance. With five or six grades it is no easy matter to teach the child 

 who comes a day and misses a day. The best teacher in the land can not teach 

 a child unless he is at school. Our poor attendance is largely due, I believe, to 

 pure and simple carelessness on the part of the parents. 



Another problem confronts the country school — the course of study. It is the 

 boast of many rural schools tiiat they pVepare children for college. So often we 

 hear this remark: Oh, yes! We have a good school here. We prepare our boys 

 and girls for college." Yet less than ten country children in the hundred ever 

 go to college. What is the country school doing for the ninety or ninety-five 

 who stay at home? Beyond the rudiments of education does it in any way pre- 

 pare them for their woik? If the object of the school is to prepare for life, is 

 not the country school missing its aim when it fails to give agriculture and 

 domestic science a place in its course? I am not going into a lengthy discussion 

 as to which gives the most culture, knowing how to take a Latin word of three 

 letters and twist it into one hundred and fifty different forms, or knowing how 

 to take a grain of corn and raise three ears, twelve inches long. I do not want 

 to discredit the study of the classics, but I want to emphasize the importance of 

 studying agriculture and household economics. Remember that ninety out of 

 every hundred country children are going to the country school only, and they 

 are going to be farmers and home-makers. I believe in higher education with all 

 my heart, but I fail to find the "fitness of things" when I see country girls— girls 

 who are going to be farmers' wives — struggling with algebra and bank discount 

 when they know nothing of cooking and sewing. Farm boys are spending days 

 in the study of the same and like topics, when they will never have a bank account 

 unless they are taught to farm better than their fathers are doing. We have in 

 our public schools girls studying ratio and proportion. To judge by the biscuits 

 they make we are forced to believe that they know nothing about what proportion 

 of soda to use. Out of twenty-five grown girls in one country school last year 

 only one could cut out and make a shirt waist. Three could fry meat and make 

 soggv biscuit. Not one knew the first thing about the nutritive value of foods. 

 YetTln a few years these girls will be the housekeepers of that neighborhood. 



