226 
Iht RURAL NEW.YORKER 
February 9, 1924 
Hope Farm Notes 
The Battle for the Rural School 
Part II. 
I am one of those stubborn creatures 
who will not admit that, our system of 
modern education as applied to town and 
city is ideal. I think there are serious de¬ 
fects in it. I think we are paying too 
much for the practical results in our chil¬ 
dren. There are too many ornaments and 
frills. Life in the country is so different 
from that in town that there should be a 
distinctly different sort of education for 
country children. In parts of certain 
Western States rural schools have been 
consolidated, and much time and money 
has been spent in working out the system. 
Now I do not pretend to be an educator. 
I could not pass an examination for a 
teacher’s certificate, but I think I have 
spent more time investigating the effect of 
this school consolidation and its effect 
upon farmers than most of the experts. I 
have not appealed to the teachers, but to 
the country people who send children to 
school. The R. N.-Y. has thousands of 
readers in these Western States, and I 
have gone to them without any special 
pleading or any effort to make a special 
case. These men and women have told 
me frankly w T hat they think. 
1. As to the matter of taxation, every¬ 
one admits that consolidation has greatly 
increased the cost. There can be no ques¬ 
tion about that. It would be folly to try 
to deny it. Many beautiful school build¬ 
ings have been erected, chiefly through the 
sale of bonds, payment of which will run 
over many years. In some cases these 
magnificent buildings have had a demoral¬ 
izing effect upon the children—the con¬ 
trast between these palatial surroundings 
and what the humble parents can supply 
being too marked. Years ago .1. IT. Hale 
told me of a very successful school for col¬ 
ored people at the South. The school 
was without funds, and the pupils were 
poor. Hale took some Northern man out 
to see the school, and he saw a class of 
girls doing laundry work with rather 
rough equipment. Hales’s friend was im¬ 
pressed, and as he went home he said: 
“Hale, that is great work. I am going to 
present that school with the best possible 
laundry outfit. I'll get them marble tubs 
and every new fixture up to date.” 
Hale said: 
“Don’t vou do it. It will do them 
more harm than good. Their lives will 
be spent in humble surroundings, lliey 
will have to use tubs of split oak and heat 
water over a stove in their own homes, 
and they will do theii best work with that 
sort of an outfit. They are needed to 
help plain, home people. Your marble 
tubs will spoil them for the work they 
ought to do—make them discontented and 
unfit! Give your money and let these 
wise colored people use it as they know 
will help most.” , , 
I think Hale was right. I think much 
of this splendor and high polished fix¬ 
tures of our school system do more 
harm than good to those who must of nec¬ 
essity work in humble places. I would 
give them plainer fixtures, but the high 
ambition to go out and earn the better 
ones. I find it very difficult to give a 
child ambition for better things if brought 
up under luxurious conditions. Too many 
children seem to think that if the State 
surrounds them with all these beautiful 
things so that they acquire the habit ot 
associating with them, the State assumes 
an obligation to provide them all through 
life. 1 am aware that some of the edu¬ 
cators will be horrified at such a state¬ 
ment from me, but perhaps the emotion 
will do them good. I state what many 
years have taught me. 
" 2. The great majority of pur corre¬ 
spondents say that consolidation finally 
leads to the full domination of the town 
over the rural districts which are com¬ 
bined with it. This is brought about in 
various ways. The town is more com¬ 
pact and better organized. It also has 
what thev cjall the “psychological drop 
on the country. For the past 30 years 
and more people have been taught that in 
order to “be somebody” one must move to 
town or adopt the town point of view. 
The result is that after a few years there 
are no rural schools left. Even the few 
that are left in some of the districts are so 
thoroughly inoculated with the town idea 
that they cannot be called “rural.’ Every 
bit of evidence that I can gather from 
these Western people goes to prove that 
the evident plan of the educators is to 
destroy the old rural spirit of the country 
schools and substitute the town or village 
spirit. Some people seem to regard that 
as a good thing. I am xrank to say that 
I do not. I think we need the spirit of 
the old district school. It should be im¬ 
proved—but we still need it. 
3. The effect upon country children is 
not entirely good—I care not what the 
experts say. They must be dressed more 
expensively, and they must have far more 
spending monev than they now have. Such 
incidental costs are far more than doubled. 
The countrv children are at a disadvan¬ 
tage socially. They are sneered at, and 
worse, by many town children. We had 
a case of this in our own family some 
years ago. when we sent a girl to town 
high school. At noon the little girls would 
get together and discuss life. 
“My father is a merchant.” said one. 
He ran a little cigar store on a street 
corner. 
“My father is a professional man !”— 
he worked at the sheriff’s office—serving 
writs or other papers. 
“My father is a literary man!”—he 
worked in a book store as janitor—now 
and then behind the counter. 
So they went on. The girl from our 
house knew that her father was a farmer 
and nothing more. It is small wonder 
that she was silent. One of our boys 
started at college, and was hazed so rough¬ 
ly and constantly that he could not study 
or live in comfort. I wrote the college 
president and found he knew next to noth¬ 
ing about what was going on. There is 
no question whatever about the fact that 
when children are brought to the big town 
school from the country they are often 
put on unfair terms socially. On their 
long journeys to and from the school the 
children are left pretty much to them¬ 
selves, and are often under little if any 
restraint. Some very strange stories are 
told me about what goes on in the “kid 
wagon.” I think they would be much 
safer in an improved local school. 
* * * * * 
What, then, are the compensations 
which flow in from consolidation to offset 
these evident disadvantages? The friends 
of the system say the schools are better, 
and that the children have a fairer 
chance. When I ask what they mean by 
“better” they usually say the schools are 
more expensive, the teachers are paid 
more and therefore more expert, the equip¬ 
ment is better, the course of study more 
extended—well, of course the school is 
better; it is larger, it gives the children 
better social condition, a better knowl¬ 
edge of the world, and a demand for bet¬ 
ter things! 
When I ask what these better things 
are I do not seem to get a definite answer. 
The children are better fitted for college, 
as I understand it. In fact, the chief 
aim of our modern high school is not to 
fit a boy or girl to go out and make a 
living, but to train the student so he can 
enter college and study several years 
more. Then at the average literary col¬ 
lege the boy is not trained for any specific 
purpose; he needs several years more be¬ 
fore he can expect to make much more 
than a living and really exercise his 
trained mind. Here, I think I am on safe 
ground. I think I know as much about it 
as the educators do, since I have had more 
or less to do with sending eight children 
to college. Unless a boy or girl expects 
to go on and enter college. I question 
whether our modern high school educa¬ 
tion is of any superior benefit. I do not 
think it is the business of the State to 
turn our high schools into brooders for 
college work when the vast proportion 
of our boys and girls never expect tfo take 
a.college course. I shall shock the edu¬ 
cators when I say, after mature thought, 
as the result of a life about as busy and 
stormy as most people go through, that 
a tremendous majority of our country 
boys and girls will be better off without 
a college course if they can have a chance 
at the right sort of country schools. I 
have seen numberless human tragedies 
where boys and girls have been stolen 
away from their parents by the influence 
of the town high schools and colleges. I 
know that I shall be criticized for saying 
this, called an old fogy and worse, but I 
am ready to defend my position. 
* * * * * 
Well, then, what do you want ? I 
want several things. I want the educa¬ 
tors and experts to come down off their 
perch, if I may respectfully use such lan¬ 
guage in discussing these dignified people. 
I want them to wake up out of the dream 
that just because they think a system of 
education is perfect it must be so. I want 
the plain country people who provide the 
country children and pay most of the 
school taxes to have more to say about 
how their children are to be taught and 
what they are to study. I want a sys¬ 
tem of schools where rhe teachers have 
some greater ambition than simply to 
make their students pass out of one grade 
into another. If we are to have high 
schools for rural children, I want them 
different from anything I have seen in 
town. They must be fitted to country life 
and not made-over city garments. I mean 
just exactly what I have said about the 
conflict of classes which this school bill 
represents. The most important class we 
have left in the nation is the great middle 
class of working farmers. They have not 
the wealth, the polish or the organized 
power of the bankers, manufacturers or 
business interests, but they have a strong 
honesty and stability of character which, 
when all is said and done, is the true 
foundation of society. These people have 
been organized and “educated” and di¬ 
rected and advised until they are con¬ 
fused and discouraged, and if the experts 
can have their way, they will in 20 years 
more lose much of their identity and sim¬ 
ply become hangers-on for the towns, 
with real country life destroyed. This 
battle for the district school, as I see it. 
makes the last stand for real rural con¬ 
trol of the children. Let these educators 
have their way and the true rural school 
will be a thing of the past, and when 
that goes the true rural life will go with 
it. The most stabilizing influence we ever 
had in the country will drop out. 
I would keep up the rural schools at 
One Reason 
for Nervous 
Disorders 
Y OUR doctor can tell you that 
nervous disorders are very com¬ 
mon among Americans. One reason 
for this is found in the fact that they 
are great coffee drinkers. 
CoSee contains caffeine, a drug, 
prescribed by doctors as an emergency 
stimulant for the heart and nervous 
system. It has a tendency to increase 
blood pressure, develop heart irreg¬ 
ularities and cause digestive dis¬ 
turbances. 
If you feel that coffee is not good 
for you, serve Postum as your meal¬ 
time drink. 
Postum is a pure cereal beverage 
that refreshes and satisfies. It is ab¬ 
solutely free from caffeine or any 
other irritating drug. 
Try a cup of Postum with your 
dinner or supper tonight. Postum is 
sold everywhere. 
Postum 
for Health 
“There's a Reason" 
Postum comes in two forms: 
Instant Postum [in tins] pre¬ 
pared instantly in the cup by 
the addition of boiling water. 
Postum Cereal [in packages] 
for those who prefer the flavor 
brought out by boiling fully 
20 minutes. The cost of either 
form is about one-half cent a 
cup. 
IF YOU WANT ALL YOUR 
RAW FURS 
ARE WORTH and prompt returns— 
ship to 
WILLIAMS BROS. & CO., Atglen, Penna. 
Reference—ATGLEN NATIONAL BANK 
Write for Prices 
Mean More Sap . N. ^trap 
&Betler Sap IT 
THE HOPE FARM B00I 
^ This attractive 234-page book has some of the 
best of the Hope Farm Man’s popular sketches 
— philosophy, humor, and sympathetic 
human touch. Price (1.60. 
For Sale by 
Rural New-Yorker, 335 W.30th St., New York 
i 
\ 
^ Saves More Sap 
Air trap stays full and seals the bore. No sour¬ 
ing, drying up or reboring. Thin flanges of rib¬ 
bed shank allow freer sap flow. Galvanized; 
hence always sweet. 
Send for free circular and 42- 
page Government Bulletin Wrt 
on maple syrup and sugar. 
WILCOX-CRITTENDEN CO,INC. 1. 
Dept. D' .Middletown, Conn. K?' 
LOWER PRICES ON LIME 
You’ll always pay less for standard quality 
LEHIGH HYDRATED LIME 
and 
LEHIGH GROUND BURNT LIME 
Our large output means lower prices. 
Also Manufacturers of Beef Scraps, Digester Tankage, etc. Write for prices, 
ROB’T A. REICHARD, Inc. Allentown, Pa. 
