The Bulletin. 43 



for the boys and domestic aciencc for the girls — is the cry that the educational 

 leaders are sounding in the ears of the country sclioolteachers. '1 lie land is 

 waking to tiie fact that the country school does little for the b<jys and girls who 

 are to stay on the farm. And what part are the farmers over the State taking 

 in this awakening? la it they who are agitating the question of school improve- 

 ment? Is it they who are demanding that the schools give their boys and girls 

 some preparation for their life work? With few oxcejitions they are the people 

 who are saying least. The people most directly concerned are the ones least 

 interested. 



There are farmers attending these institutes to discuss soil improvement; to 

 discuss better methods of stock-raising and better methods of stock-feeding. 

 There are farm mothers here to discuss better methods of houi^ekeeping. Yet, 

 when have these parents ever come togctiicr to talk over better methods of edu- 

 cating their children? The great majority of farmers know nothing of the 

 school work or the school life of their children. There is not a farmer among 

 you who would keep his cattle for six montiis in a pasture that he had never 

 inspected, yet you send your children to school and never think of inspecting the 

 schoolhouse or going to observe the school work. You know vastly more about 

 the training that your horses get than you know about the school training that 

 your children are getting. Very few of you ever visit the school, so how can you 

 know what is going on there? Just so we teachers do not administer punishment 

 in such a manner as to leave marks upon your child we are not likely to see you 

 at the schoolhouse. If, however, we do use our "ruler" so as to bring out a 

 healthy glow on your child, you do not hesitate to descend upon us in all your 

 wrath. We are at liberty to make as many bad impressions upon his mind as 

 we please, but we must not mark his back. Y'et the physical being will recover 

 in a few hours, while a false impression can never be erased from the mind. 



If I could in a word sum up the greatest need of the rural schools, 1 believe 

 I could with truth say, visiting parents — parents who visit thier school regularly 

 with a view to ascertaining its needs and strengthening its work. And may I 

 put in a word just here for the teacher? When you have visited the school, 

 observed closely the work done and found a fault, don't go home and discuss it 

 with your children, or spread the news over the neighborhood. Go to the teacher 

 and tell her frankly what you think. She will not resent it. When you criticise 

 a teacher before her pupils you are destroying her possible influence for good. 

 No teacher can do much for children whose parents are antagonistic to her work. 



And now I want to suggest a few ways in which country people may make their 

 schools greater powers for good. 



The first great need, I believe, is better built, better cared-for schoolhouses and 

 grounds. Very few of the rural schools have proper means of ventilation and 

 regulating light. I have seen hundreds of children studying with the blinding 

 sunlight on their desks. (Still shades can be had for fifty cents each.) In many 

 of the country schools the drinking-water is carried as far as a quarter of a mile. 

 When it reaches the school the common dipper is passed from lip to lip. Each 

 time it is used it is put back into the bucket and virtually washed in the water 

 that the children drink. There are probably not ten in a hundred of the country 

 schools that have sanitary closets. With conditions like these why do we wonder 

 that so many children wear glasses; that throat trouble is so prevalent? (Out 

 of seventy-five children in my school last year, sixty showed diseased throats.) 

 Where can a child run greater risk of hookworm infection than in the country 

 school ? 



Every school should have a playground which is provided with suitable out- 

 door games for the children. It is an injustice to ask children to play in the 

 road, or on a rock-covered, gully-scarred ground. It would be but little trouble 

 and expense to the parents to equip basketball and baseball grounds, and to put 

 up swings and turning poles for the children. Nowhere will a child learn self- 

 control better than on the playground; and with few exceptions, the children who 

 play best study best. But, .you say, this is work for the Woman's Betterment 

 Association. Yes, it is, and fine and beautiful work are the Betterment Asso- 

 ciations doing: but too often these associations are made up of a few faithful 

 workers. If this work is to be left to the Betterment Associations, every parent 



