‘The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
159 
Sound Sense from a Rural School Teacher 
HYING OUT CONSOLIDATION—Be- 
ins a teacher in one of the rural 
schools. I have been interested in the 
articles published in your columns, and 
elsewhere, on the subject. It appears 
to me that the first letter in your issue 
of .Tan. Ill is rational, logical and evidently based on 
observation of existing conditions, which the author 
does not find all bad in the rural schools. It seems 
to me that his suggestion for experimental consoli¬ 
dated schools is a fine plan, provided one of them be 
in the northern part of the State. I have yet to see 
an article written by an advocate of the new school 
bill which contains good sound judgment as to sug¬ 
gestions for meeting conditions that must arise if the 
rural schools in all parts of New York State are con¬ 
solidated into large graded schools. They generalize 
with theories which would work out nicely, if the 
standing that the Committee of Twenty-one inspected 
some of the rural schools of two or three counties, 
and took them as a sample by which to judge all the 
rural schools of the State? If such were the case, is 
that fair on the rest of us who haven't seen anyone 
of the committee in our section, especially if they 
happened to inspect the most poorly managed schools 
of the State? One would be led to think by their 
report that they must have selected poor specimens 
somewhere. 
A BACKWARD TOWN PUPIL.—If the town 
schools are so much superior, why do they allow a 
boy of fair intelligence to reach his thirteenth year 
of age in the third grade? A boy of that age who 
had been attending a city school, came to my school 
this Winter, because bis people, who are American 
born, had moved into this district from the city. He 
was in third grade. He had never had ana instrnc- 
nized and met in a sympathetic and effective man¬ 
ner? And, is it fair to pupils to allow the subject 
with which they have difficulty to debar them from 
any knowledge of subjects which their age and 
ability would indicate that they should be learning? 
It appears that that very thing is a part of the town 
system. 
OPPORTUNITY IN RURAL SCHOOLS.—If the 
rural schools are so extremely inferior, will some¬ 
one please explain how it happens that pupils from 
those schools frequently enter high school at 12 and 
18 years of age, having passed the Regents' exam¬ 
inations for their preliminary subjects? On a num¬ 
ber of occasions parents who have had their children 
in town schools and then in rural schools, or vice 
versa, have said that their children have a better 
opportunity in the rural school. 
“GUMPTION” IN COUNTRY PUPILS.—Perhaps 
Santa Rosa 
(Cal.) high school live stock judges showing how they do it. 
and the Western 
They won the California State secondary school live stock judging championship at Davis, 
.States championship at Portland, Ore. 
Cal., 
climate and topography of the whole State were 
ideal, or else, as in the second letter of your issue 
mentioned above, they resort to a mass of illogical, 
unfounded, sarcastic nonsense. 
THE QUESTION OF TEACHERS.—It has been 
stated in various articles from time to time during 
the last few years, that the rural pupils are handi¬ 
capped by having inferior teachers. In two articles 
written by people who, we would expect, ought to 
know whereof they spoke, the blunt statement was 
made that the rural schools are being taught by in¬ 
competent teachers. If that condition exists, I 
would like to ask why the State normal schools, the 
training classes and the town high schools do -not 
turn out a better product. Nearly all the teachers of 
the rural schools of this county, and also of tvyo 
other counties in which I have taught, are graduates 
i rom high schools, and of either training class or 
normal school. To be sure, there is once in a while 
one who is teaching with a temporary license (“peis 
mit”), but all considered they are very much in the 
minority. It therefore seems to me that the state¬ 
ment that the rural schools are being taught by in¬ 
competent teachers acts as a boomerang against the 
so-called “good" town schools. 
SCHOOL INSPECTION.—Am 'I right in ■ under- 
tion in geography or English. Can you imagine a 
boy nearly 14 years old. who is able to learn, who 
knows absolutely nothing of the simplest primary 
facts of geography? Such is the living result of the 
system of education in the schools of a city of New 
York State. This boy is good at spelling and read¬ 
ing- He is able to get the thought from the printed 
page even in the fourth reader. lie can also remem¬ 
ber well the English and geography work that I 
have him do. His arithmetic is what has held him 
back, and what he lacked there was a little individ¬ 
ual attention to discover and correct his error. He 
had never done problems in multiplication, but when 
he learned that when setting down the sums and 
results obtained by adding and multiplying he must 
always set down the right hand figures and carry the 
left, he picked up and went right along in arithmetic, 
doing from 30 to f>0 problems in a day. I would like 
to ask why did not a competent city teacher discover 
the reason for the jumbled staje of his work with 
figures, and start him going right? Also, where 
would a pupil like that have the best chance for at 
least the rudiments of an education; in the school 
with large overcrowded classes and an inflexible sys¬ 
tem. or in a school where the pupils can be known 
individually and their particular difficulties recog- 
tlie reason that farmers do not want different schools 
is because they are not so sure that there is anything 
better in sight. It has been stated in at least 
three different articles (not all in The R. N.-Y.j 
that people from the country districts who have at¬ 
tained eminent positions in life, have done so in 
spite of and not because of the country schools; or as 
the author of your second letter, before mentioned, 
puts it, “because they had the gumption to be some¬ 
thing in spite of the handicaps of the usual one- 
room rural school.” Anyone who reads history with 
special attention to the early lives of our leading 
people will find that nearly all of our greatest men 
and women have come from the farm, and conse¬ 
quently the country school where they could obtain 
a thorough knowledge of the fundamental subjects 
as a solid foundation for their superstructure. Will 
you tell us, please, why the efficient (?) town insti¬ 
tutions allow the country to have a corner on “gump¬ 
tion”? 
ACHIEVING THE IMPOSSIBLE.—A teacher who 
had never attended, and who had never even visited 
a rural school, but who was a normal graduate, once 
said to me with regard to teaching several grades in 
one room: “I don’t see how it can be done. I 
realty don’t understand how it possibly can be done.” 
