The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1915 
The Big Problem of Rural Schools 
I would like to lay a matter of district 
and high school controversy before your 
writers best able to answer the same. 
Why is our Educational Department at 
Albany anxious to shut up the one neces¬ 
sary, convenient and long-standing dis¬ 
trict country school? The parents very 
much need the help of their children 
morning and night. 
If the department at Albany is not 
anxious so to do. why does it compel 
children to go to the country school and 
be nothing more or less than kicking 
balls for the larger bullies of the school? 
We live in a town 10 miles square. 
They are building in the little center 
village a high school. They got two dis¬ 
tricts consolidated into the center by 
some very sly work. Now the superin¬ 
tendent seems to want the other district 
schools to fail entirely. He seems to 
have no interest in them at all. If the 
teacher is a good one in the district school 
it is all right; if not, he is more pleased, 
seemingly, to see it fail. As to closing 
the country schools, there are the long 
hours the children would have to put in 
to get to the centralized or high school, 
in some kind of a conveyance. Then 
there is the standing on a corner with 
little or no breakfast to wait for a ride, 
for all know children eat very little in 
the morning. But the city child can 
sleep that extra time, have a ride on the 
cement or walk from his door to the high 
school, and go home to a warm dinner. 
Is it right? Is there a law to enforce 
such wicked selfishness on law-abiding, 
tax-paying citizens? mbs. h. b. 
The above is an actual letter written 
by a woman with children. Our corre- 
pondence shows that these are vital 
questions—and there are thousands who 
feel as this woman does. What is the 
answer, and what can be done about it? 
We must face this situation and work it 
out, not in any selfish or arbitrary spirit, 
but with a broad understanding of the 
facts. The first discussion follows: 
A Discussion of the Little Schools 
There is a question implied but not 
asked in the letter as to whether she must 
send her children, or others must send 
theirs, to a district school where the disci¬ 
pline and management is apparently very 
bad. and the little children are bullied 
by bigger ones who abuse them. Also the 
other question is implied whether parents 
can be compelled to send off little chil¬ 
dren at an early hour in the morning on 
a long, cold ride, after perhaps waiting 
on a corner for the conveyance to a con¬ 
solidated school. 
As I understand the compulsory edu¬ 
cation law at present, it provides that 
children eight to 12 shall attend school 
every day that school is in session, but 
states that excuses will be granted for 
the following reasons: Impassable roads, 
sickness in the family and no one to help 
except the child, weather dangerous to 
health, sickness of the child. After at¬ 
taining the age of 14. if the pupil holds 
an eighth grade certificate and attended 
school 130 days in the year previous to 
making application for the permit, and if 
the pupil has regular employment in view, 
then such a pupil may leave school and 
go to work. If. in addition to the above 
regulations, a pupil has not passed out 
of the sixth grade, that pupil must re¬ 
main in school until the sixth grade has 
been completed, or until 10 years of age. 
Now what can a parent do? This. I 
think, if the school is very bad or the 
conditions are such that it seems unwise 
or unfair to the child to send the child 
in a conveyance: First, the parent 
should appeal to the trustee, the attend¬ 
ance officer, the district superintendent, 
the State Department, in the order named. 
Proceedings could be started for the re¬ 
moval of the one or ones responsible for 
the bad conditions. There are a number 
of teachers in New York State rural dis¬ 
trict schools who should be summarily 
removed, and doubtless the school au¬ 
thorities would remove more of them if 
others who are better were available, 
which does not appear to be the ease. 
There are also very many district school 
teachers who are doing excellent work 
under very adverse conditions, and where 
they are there are good schools, the chil¬ 
dren want to go to school and the parents 
want to have them. If their noses get 
cold on the way and they sometimes get 
sick, the youngsters go just the same, and 
they want to go. But sending a child to 
a poor school and an incompetent teacher 
is often worse than giving the child no 
schooling at all. To eliminate those 
poor schools and incompetent teachers 
and to readjust the courses of study are 
perhaps the vital matters in school re¬ 
form. What part the principle of con- 
solidation is to play in the reformation 
remains to be argued out and seen later. 
The rural population has apparently de¬ 
cided once and for all against the old 
township system that was tried last year. 
That there are terrible injustices in¬ 
flicted in isolated cases under our present 
school system as it operates in remote 
rural districts. I know from hearsay and 
personal experience and observation. It 
is not true that these injustices are very 
often intentional. The poor youngsters 
are the ones who suffer iu impaired health, 
often corrupted morals, and bad habits 
of thinking and living. There are many 
chronic complainers. too, who have little 
idea what their real grievances are. 
Personally, I do not see how a school 
is going to be run economically with one 
to' six or eight pupils, nor how enough, 
teachers are to be found for all these 
little schools, or at least how competent 
teachers are to be found for all of them. 
Young, often ill prepared, remaining in 
the profession for a year or two, or three 
in the majority of cases; teaching to 
earn a little pocket money or to get some 
money to set up housekeeping. I believe 
that a majority, or at least nearly half 
the rural school teachers are incompetent, 
and that a very large number of the dis¬ 
trict one-room schools are not fit to send 
children to. That is not a popular opin¬ 
ion. of course, but there is plenty of evi¬ 
dence back of it. 
There are also serious objections to 
consolidation, and this woman has men¬ 
tioned a few of them. I would not let 
a young child of mine go on a long ride 
to a remote consolidated school in the 
charge of a politically selected, possibly 
careless or immoral driver. That most 
of the drivers would be competent and 
that many consolidations could be made 
satisfactorily is. however, probably true. 
Some big problems are on the black¬ 
board, and we want the right solution. 
That is what the committee of 21 is 
planning the State-wide survey for. I 
think that this survey will be a great 
thing, that it will get at the truth as it 
has never been got at before, and that 
then we will see. quite likely, what should 
be done to get better teachex-s in place of 
those who are incompetent, and so to 
arrange courses of study that they will 
furnish what children should really 
study, and not merely what the teachers 
know how to teach, and for that reason, 
mainly, do teach. A new generation of 
teachers will possibly have to be trained 
up to teach what is required in modern 
life, although of course the good old 
“three R” studies will always be with us, 
and if all our girl teachers could teach 
reading, writing and arithmetic well it 
would be a long step toward good schools. 
H. G. E. 
The Beaver or the Farmer 
I am a farmer and have been troubled 
since last August with beavers. Upon 
finding them 1 immediately notified the 
State Conservation Commission, who 
wrote me not to touch the dam until 
their game warden came. In the mean¬ 
time the beavers flooded the meadow, and 
I could not gather four tons of hay, 
which was a complete loss to me. When 
the game warden came he told me I could 
collect no damage for the hay, and he 
gave me a permit to tear out the dam. 
Since that time I have been as busy as 
the beavers working to pull out what they 
put iu. As the permit expires the first 
of December, and as this is no swamp, 
all good meadow land, with a spring 
brook running through. I would like to 
ask you if there is no protection for the 
farmer as well as the beaver? m. m. 
Sullivan Co., N. Y. 
Apparently the beaver comes iu ahead 
of the farmer as a protected citizen. The 
State Game Commission tells us that they 
will x-enew this permit to tear out the 
beaver dams if M. M. will simply make 
application. That will be necessary to 
make a record. The commission then 
adds: 
As to a recovery for the damage done, 
iu the case of William G. Barrett and 
another vs. the State of New York, the 
full text of which may be had by con¬ 
sulting the records of the Court of Ap¬ 
peals. Judge Andrews held that no recov¬ 
ery could be had under the claim filed by 
the x-espondents, the judge stating that : 
“It is true that one who keeps wild 
animals in captivity must see to it at his 
g ’ril that they do no damage to others. 
ut it is not true that whenever an in¬ 
dividual is liable for a certain act, the 
State is liable for the same act. In lib¬ 
erating these beavers the State was act¬ 
ing as a goverment. As a trustee for the 
people and as their representative it was 
doing what h thought best for the inter¬ 
ests of the the public at large. Under 
such circumstances we cannot hold that 
the rule of such cases as those cited is 
applicable. We reach the conclusion that 
no recovery can be had under this claim. 
Therefore, the judgment of the Appellate 
Division and the determination of the 
Court of Claims must be reversed and 
the claim dismissed.” 
Garden Tractors for Spraying 
Can you or any of your readers inform 
me of any method by which a so-called 
“garden tractor” can be used as power 
for an orchard-spraying outfit suitable 
for an apple orchard of five acres? Some 
of the trees are 25 ft. high. I have not 
a power spraying outfit and do not know 
that there is any in existence. Anything 
that is very expensive is out of the ques¬ 
tion. as it would hardly pay to buv an 
exclusively spraying outfit with power in¬ 
cluded for an orchard of the size men¬ 
tioned. c, u. 
Indiana. 
We cannot answer this from experience, 
but we have no doubt some of our readers 
have considered the plan. If so will 
they please give their experience? 
THE JURY AGREES 
(Experience is the Guide) 
That commercial fertilizers and barn yard 
manure have a better effect when the soil is made 
sweet by Grangers Lime. 
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