TEACHERS' COTTAGES 



score horses, trained the children in practical manual training 

 by making a walk and gate and whitewashing the fence, and 

 acted as doctor, nurse, and maid when a new little arrival came 

 to a neighbor's home. It was a strange sight for an outsider 

 to see a line of infant's garments strung from school-house to 

 shed. There was no one else to care for the baby, so the teacher 

 took her duty as a matter of course. "If Miss Blank had done 

 nothing else," said one, "She would have been a God-send to 

 us for teaching our children how to play." The first entertain- 

 ment in that district in years brought out people fifteen miles 

 away. This teacher's vision is broad enough to see beyond the 

 four walls of a schoolroom. She feels that she can best serve 

 the community by teaching those things that parents neglect 

 to do. Unlike the city teacher who has to have faith that in 

 time there will be results, she sees almost immediately a com- 

 munity response. 



Does someone who has not the imagination and vision say, 

 "Those things cannot be done unless other school work is neg- 

 lected"? It is true; much is omitted which educational "stand- 

 patters" would still consider essentials. They are neglecting 

 cube root, the names of the mountain ranges of China, the 

 diagramming of sentences, and the details of all the wars large 

 and small; but they are learning more about farm accounts, 

 the geography of their own region, how to write a good letter, 

 and local history. 



One young man teacher had the good sense to neglect the 

 formal part of the eighth-grade subjects, even though he might 

 be judged a failure by someone higher up, when his students 

 came to take the eighth-grade examination; but he had brought 

 into his little rural school two red-shirted "lumberjacks" who 

 had left school a year or two before because of discouragement 

 or lack of interest. The athletics, practical arithmetic, and, 

 best of all, the manly young teacher, appealed to the boys, so 

 they were easily persuaded to come back. 



Probably the young woman who had her pupils make 

 bird-houses brought more culture into her district than any 

 formal book study could, for the whole community was ben- 

 efited by it. The same teacher, through her practical agricul- 

 ture, saved the orchards of the patrons, men who had little 

 knowledge of fruit-growing and who were depending on the 

 future bearing of their fruit trees for their livelihood. When 

 the teacher and her pupils were pruning a neighbor's orchard 

 they found many trees whose roots were eaten by gophers. 

 After further investigation, three hundred gopher-traps were 

 ordered. While waiting for their orchards to mature, the farm- 

 ers tried to raise other crops, but without much success because 

 of poor soil. Again the young teacher saved the day by test- 

 ing the soil for acidity and getting a neighbor to experiment 

 by liming his soil. 



A new generation of teachers like these will educate future 

 citizens to be more in sympathy with their environment. Then 

 country life will be satisfying. When teachers are thoroughly 

 imbued with the idea of re-directing the rural community, 

 through the school, along more practical, social and recreational 

 lines, they will do more for the "country-life movement" than 

 any other force." 



Page Twenty-two 



