the schools to be in the hick of inteUigent cooperation on the part of 

 parents and trustees. They asserted that a teacher could not be ex- 

 pected to conduct a school to the entire satisfaction of a community 

 unless she had such cooperation from the patrons and the Board of 

 Trustees. Others pointed out defects in ventilation, or lighting, or sani- 

 tary conveniences, or expressed regret at the lack of proper play grounds, 

 recreational facilities and attractive surroundings. These things they 

 considered an important part of the school's equipment. Still others 

 very properly advocated the elimination of politics from the school 

 system. One wrote in language that deserves to become classic: "I 

 respectfully suggest that the school goes to Reno, secures a divorce from 

 politics and sees to it that politics gets a life sentence at hard labor." 



Certain other important improvements were suggested, as for example 

 a compulsory school attendance law (which, as we have said, has just 

 been passed by the State Legislature to go into effect this fall) a more 

 uniform and careful grading of the schools to facilitate passage from 

 one school to another in case of removal; some system of moral training; 

 facilities for gi\ang proper attention to deficient and backward children. 

 These are all points deserving careful consideration. 



The question as to whether the school could serve the community 

 other than as an ordinary day school for children was asked with the 

 possibility in mind of making the school something of a neighborhood 

 center ministering to the community as a whole, as well as dispensing 

 elementary knowledge to its youth. Many of the answers anticipated 

 this conception of the school's possible function. "Make it a social 

 and civic center" was frequently suggested. "Make it a place where 

 the school patrons may meet both formally and informally to discuss 

 needs of mutual interest and import." Few of the schools are at the 

 present time doing anything of this sort for their patrons but this is a 

 field possible of rather extensive development which would add materially 

 to the value of the school to a community. 



By the fifth question "are the schools as they are now operated satis- 

 factorily progressive" we wanted to learn if the people felt that the school 

 administration had been making sufficiently substantial progress in adapt- 

 ing the schools to changing conditions and in keeping up with the modern 

 ideas of school administration, equipment and teaching methods. Of 

 course it was discovered that there are those who have no conception of 

 progress either of its nature or of its reason for being; who feel as one 

 expressed it "that we have the same old arithemetic, a geography dis- 

 cribing the same territories and the same methods of spelling, why should 

 the school be progressive?" Why indeed? " the school is good enough 

 as it is so let it be." For the most part,[however, the attitude of the 

 patrons was that progress is necessary and that the schools have been 



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