

I 



H. I. Marshall 



November as a technician, third grade 

 with five battle stars. 



Howard Marshall, assistant claims 

 superintendent with Country Mutual 

 Casualty Company, 

 came to the Chica- 

 go office in 1935 

 and entered the 

 army air forces as a 

 lieutenant in 1942. 

 He received train- 

 ing in air intelli- 

 gence at Harris- 

 burg, Pa., and pro- 

 vost marshal work 

 at Camp Custer, 

 Mich. Overseas 18 

 months, he was 

 given additional training at universi- 

 ties in Sorbonne, France and Naples, 

 Italy. He also served in England, Ger- 

 many, Belgium, Corsica and Luxem- 

 bourg. Marshall was discharged with 

 the rank of captain last November. He 

 has five battle stars. 



Richard I. Dodson, claims examiner 

 with Country Casualty, joined the com- 

 pany in 1941 and 

 went into naval 

 service in 1942. He 

 received his train- 

 ing at Great Lakes, 

 Memphis and San 

 Diego and spent 15 

 months overseas 

 chiefly in the Mar- 

 J^ ^^^ shall and Gilbert 

 ^^L ,V ^^B Islands. Dodson 

 ^^^ ^"'^^^ was discharged at 

 R. I. Dod«,n San Diego in Octo- 



ber as an aviation 

 radioman, first class. He has two battle 

 stars. 



Lawrence C. Vork of Illinois Farm 

 Supply's cost accounting department 

 started doing book- 

 keeping for the 

 Ford County Serv- 

 ice Company while 

 in high school and 

 about two years 

 after graduating 

 from college in 

 1933, he came to 

 the Chicago office 

 of the Illinois Farm 

 Supply Company. 

 He entered the 

 armed service in 

 1942 and became a member of the in- 

 spector general's department, and later 

 the budget and fiscal department of 

 the army air forces. He was recently 

 discharged with the rank of lieutenant. 



SCHOOL SU RVEY 



L. C. Vork 



University of Illinois Circular 596 reports 

 on performance tests of winter wheat vari- 

 eties in Illinois for 1944-45. Copies are 

 available from the county farm adviser or 

 by writing to the College of Agriculture, 

 Urbana. 



Si'Mce. itibb 



NINETY-THREE counties have voted 

 to make a study of their school 

 conditions with the idea of proposing 

 changes which would be for the benefit 

 of pupils. Including the votes in the 

 9 counties that voted against the sur- 

 vey, 11,261 board members out of 15,- 

 308 voting agreed to set up a county 

 committee to make the^ study. 



This action definitely launches the 

 state on a program of local study, local 

 planning and local adjustments brought 

 about by the cooperation of local peo- 

 ple. 



Why was the school survey program 

 proposed ? First, because the school 

 survey program promises greater im- 

 provement in Illinois' public school 

 systems than any other step taken since 

 1855. 



The schools set up in 1855 served the 

 need for that day. They were adjusted 

 to communities with mud roads, slow 

 transportation, large farnilies, and to a 

 people who needed only a general ed- 

 ucation. 



With the coming of better roads, 

 faster transportation, smaller families 

 and the need of more specialized train- 

 ing, the school organization of 1855 

 does not fully meet the needs of pupils 

 today. 



Here are some more reasons for the 

 school .survey program. Enrollments 

 in rural elementary schools have de- 

 creased 29% from 1920 to 1940 and 

 69% from 1880 to 1942. 



Fifteen hundred districts have ceased 

 to function normally as schools and 

 transport their few pupils to other 

 schools. 



There are 1,092 districts that have 

 fewer than 5 pupils in average daily 

 attendance and 2,211 districts with few- 

 er than 7. 



Approximately 73% or 7,278 districts 

 have fewer than 15 pupils. 



Enrollments in one-room schools is 

 less than half of what it was a genera- 

 tion ago. 



For example, there are 295 boys and 

 girls in grades by themselves in Ma- 

 coupin county. Vermilion has 232 ; De- 

 Kalb 199; Winnebago 130; and so on. 



Over half of our 900 high schools 

 have fewer than 100 pupils and over 

 two-thirds have fewer than 150. Small 



high schools cannot broaden their pro- 

 gram sufficiently to include vocational 

 agriculture, home economics, commer- 

 cial and perhaps general shop courses 

 without running into very high per 

 capita costs. A one hundred and fifty 

 pupil enrollment seems to be the point 

 at which small high schools can offer the 

 most education for the money spent. 



Also it is becoming extremely diffi- 

 cult to secure good teachers in rural 

 schools. About 8 out of 10 teachers on 

 emergency certificates are in rural 

 schools. Many have no training be- 

 yond the high school. Only about 15 

 teachers in training now are planning 

 to teach in rural schools. Only 12.4% 

 of the teachers now in training are 

 planning to teach in elementary schools, 

 city or rural. The others are training 

 for high school jobs. We need ap- 

 proximately 21/^ times as many elemen- 

 tary teachers as high school teachers. 

 Salary is part of the answer, but we 

 shall have to improve the school or- 

 ganization, working and living condi- 

 tions of the teachers to get them back 

 into the elementary field. 



There is considerable inequality be- 

 tween districts in their ability to finance 

 their school programs today, due large- 

 ly to the wide difference in the assessed 

 valuation of school districts. 



We have districts with assessed valu- 

 ations of $8,000 and others with $5,- 

 000,000. We have districts with no 

 school tax rates, districts with 3 cent 

 tax rates, and districts that levy the 

 limit under the law and still cannot 

 finance their schools locally. When 

 these districts were set up in 1855, the 

 tax was on agricultural land mainly. 

 Few railroads or industries existed to 

 create inequalities between districts. 

 The tax base should be broadened and 

 the benefits of such special advantages 

 should be distributed over the larger 

 school district. 



Running a school is a good deal like 

 running a farm. The farmer recognizes 

 that to make the most efficient use of 

 his equipment, his labor and his man- 

 agerial ability, he needs a reasonable 

 acreage. 



The vaccination of calves four to eight 



months old is a recognized aid in the con- 

 trol of brucellosis disease. 



FEBRUARY, 1946 



11 



