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‘Jte RURAL NEW-YORKER 
305 
Results of Community Education in Iowa 
ITY AND COUNTRY CONSOLIDATED.— 
During my superintendency of the Des 
Moines public schools the school district 
was enlarged to an area of 54 square miles 
or more, thus consolidating many suburb¬ 
an and some purely rural districts with the 
city system. Some school buildings were abandoned 
and the pupils transported in wagons. New build¬ 
ings were erected, the old ones being found at once 
to be inadequate, at an approximate cost of $200 
per child seated. The tendency was to bring every 
school in the system up to the level of the most 
favored one. This was only a matter of cost so far 
as material equipment went; but in the vital mat¬ 
ter, the teaching, it was impossible, as the same 
teachers were employed. A good teacher is, of 
course, a good teacher in any kind of school building, 
and a poor one is not improved by changing the fur¬ 
niture. 
LARGE OR SMALL SCHOOLS.—There is a 
chance for an argument on the advantages and dis¬ 
advantages of large central schools over small 
schools located near to the homes of the children, 
including social and moral problems not at once ap¬ 
parent. With me costly buildings, erected for show 
as much as for use, equipped with swimming pools, 
shower baths and motion picture ma¬ 
chines. do not mean so much. 
effects in rural communities. 
—But of the effect on the people of the 
rural communities whose schools are 
closed, whose children are picked up at 
crossroads and carted to school centers, 
who practically cease to have a voice in 
matters of vital concern to them, there 
can be no argument. It is positively bad. 
r i'he immediate effects of the school meas¬ 
ure, if it becomes law, will probably be a 
sort of educational boom resulting in many 
new school buildings and additions to old 
ones in the community districts, the aban¬ 
doning of many old one-room shacks, and 
some good buildings in the outlying dis¬ 
tricts; increased salaries for teachers and 
wages for janitors; a large increase in the 
cost of supervision and, most marked of 
all, an increase in school taxes to the 
breaking point. These predictions are not 
based on theory, but experience. 
THE TEACHERS.—There will be no 
perceptible change in the quality of the 
teaching, as the same teachers will be on 
the job. It is not within the power of 
legislatures to make school teachers. 
THE DOLLAR MARK—But, alas! 
Most people judge a school system by the 
school buildings- and furniture. That is, 
they measure educational excellence, as 
they measure everything else, in dollars. So measured, 
our American cities easily have the finest schools 
iti the world. But they do not, any more than they 
have the greatest courts of justice in the world just 
because the judges sit in the costliest courthouses. 
A million-dollar high-school building is no more a 
guarantee of corresponding educational results than 
are the automobiles parked about the school build¬ 
ing. In fact, both are evidences of a condition not 
conducive to learning. The fallacy is characteristic. 
Larger buildings, bigger airships, vaster fortunes, 
more gigantic undertakings, make the strongest 
appeal. 
THE STEAM ROLLER SYSTEM.—Another fal¬ 
lacy as insidious and perhaps as dangerous, is the 
tendency to steam-roller the public school system 
until it shall be as smooth and beautiful as a State 
highway. It must be ironed out by the deadening 
methods of the efficiency experts. There must be no 
irregularities showing on the surface. It must be a 
perfect thing to look at. 
SUPERFICIAL WORK.—Every teacher and every 
school man knows that the course of study is so over¬ 
loaded that all school work is hurried and pitifully 
superficial. That is fatal to real mental discipline 
that comes from deeper study of few subjects. There 
is no time whatever for the teacher to note and en¬ 
courage originality and initiative. And often it 
would be accounted heresy and dangerous to system. 
I make no defense of the little one-room school 
whose immature and uninterested teacher makes 
nine o’clock connections with the schoolhouse and 
hurries away soon after three to a more congenial 
environment. But the one-room school has no mon¬ 
opoly of poor teaching. Every city school system has 
its time-serving old teachers, crusty, unlovable wom¬ 
en holding their jobs by the grace of God or a “pull” 
until eligible to a pension. The pension system tends 
to keep them in their position. 
COUNTING THE COST—I come now to the mat¬ 
ter of taxes. To ask a spiritually minded advocate 
of the school bill, who believes himself to be a bearer 
of the sacred flame of learning to the benighted 
dwellers in the lonely hills—to stop him and ask 
him how much this is going to cost us—is to wound 
him deeply. To him it is like dickering over the 
price of an immortal soul. Money cannot be consid¬ 
ered. But the question must be asked. Utopian 
dreamers will continue to dream, but the people 
who pay the bills must keep their feet on the earth. 
There is a limit to what we can pay, and that limit 
has been reached. Poor people, or even people in 
moderate circumstances, cannot have the services of 
great medical experts even when it might save life. 
They must get on with ordinary doctors. There is a 
limit to what a man can do even for those nearest 
and dearest. It is misleading and unfair to try to 
make the people believe that the burden will fall on 
the State and not on them. Such doctrine is too 
careful and unbiased study as was requested by this 
group has a resolution to offer. 
Miss Slippery : Be it resolved that we the people 
here assembled request our Legislature to pass the bill 
taxing the banana peel as a public conveyance. 
Mr. Chairman : I recommend its adoption. 
Voice from Third Seat Back: Mr. Chairman, (is 
recognized.) This is a very important problem and 
one on which we may act too hastily in spite of our¬ 
selves. I, therefore, move you, Mr. Chairman, that 
the remainder of the program be postponed and the 
evening taken up in a careful study of the proposed 
bill, copies of which each of us have made it a point 
to equip himself or herself with. 
Voice from Front Seat : Mr. Chairman, (is recog¬ 
nized). Such action should not be necessary. I have 
here a clipping from The Rural New-Yorker, Mr. 
Dillon’s paper, requesting that a resolution be passed 
requesting that the Legislature pass such a bill. 
Another Voice: Mr. Chairman, (is recognized). I 
personally have not taken the opportunity of studying 
this measure and finding out just how it will affect me, 
whether or not its passage will have a wholesome effect 
on my children and some time on their children. The 
Rural New-Yorker might be wrong. I therefore, sec¬ 
ond the motion of the man requesting the time for dis¬ 
cussion and study. 
Lady : Mr. Chairman, (is recognized.) I believe we 
will all agree that there is not one among us capable of 
leading the discussion on this bill. Certainly we should 
call a special meeting and I move you, Mr. Chairman, 
that we do, and ask our Legislator to come here and 
discuss the Bill with us that we may not take any 
rash action. 
Crowd: Second the motion. 
Second Voice : Question. 
Chairman : The motion is out of order; there is 
already a motion before the house. 
Another Voice: I withdraw my second 
of the previous motion. 
Voice from Third Seat Back: I with¬ 
draw my motion. 
Chairman : The question is on the mo¬ 
tion to hold a special meeting. As many as 
are in favor of holding such meeting please 
manifest by saying Aye. (The walls echo 
the outburst.) 
Chairman : The motion is carried. Let 
us make it known to the world that Redunk 
may slip on school bills, but that we stand 
firm on banana peels. 
I 
MRS. HELEN S. K. WILLCOX 
A frequent contributor to The Rural New-Yorker. She has been al¬ 
luded to as “The woman who writes like a man.'’ 
dangerous to trifle with. Guesswork is not wise and 
not necessary. It is easy to ascertain from the peo¬ 
ple in Iowa what community schools are costing 
them, though not so easy to ascertain actual educa¬ 
tional results for such schools, for too many people 
are dazzled by show, and unable to see what are the 
real results. w. o. riddell. 
An Insult to Farm Intelligence 
T HE following remarkable article is taken from 
the Farm and Home Bureau News of Cattarau¬ 
gus Co., N. Y. We print it to show the sort of stupid 
insults which are being directed at country people 
by their supposed friends. Some of these “funny 
men,” in their efforts to play with humor, are as 
clumsy as an elephant and as pathetic as a human 
tragedy. 
(By O. II. Chapin) 
It may have happened at a meeting in Cattaraugus 
County. 
A PLAY ON IGNORANCE 
Lady: I have a clipping from The Rural New- 
Iorker, stating that we should pass a resolution against 
the passage of the Rural School bill. 
Audience : Hurrah. 
Lady ; I have a resolution. 
Crowd : Read it. (Lady reads resolution condemn¬ 
ing proposed Rural School bill as a common nuisance 
and recommends its adoption.) 
Chairman : I don’t suppose there is any discussion. 
Several Voices : Question ! 
Chairman : So many as are in favor of adopting 
the resolution as read, please vote in the usual way. 
Those opposed. 
Chairman : The resolution is passed. Let us on 
to more important business. Miss Slippery after a 
Notes on Seeding Alfalfa 
Can you tell me what is (lie best method 
to establish an Alfalfa field? I have at 
limes, in seeding with oats, mixed small 
amounts of Alfalfa seed with (he Timothy 
and clover, and I note that on well under¬ 
drained gravelly and loam soils it has caught 
nicely. I have four acres of gravel and loam 
that grows good clover. It had a liberal 
dressing of manure a year ago and grew a 
fine crop of corn last year. 1 plowed it last 
hall and will apply one ton of ground lime¬ 
stone to the acre in the Spring. My inten¬ 
tions now are to drill it to oats, 2)4 bu. to 
the acre,, with 200 lbs. per acre of high- 
grade fertilizer, and to seed it down with 
half-inoculated Grimm Alfalfa seed and half 
limothy and clover mixed. Am I right or 
wrong? Can you suggest a better method? 
Mayville, N. Y. j. f. d. 
BELIEVE that J. F. 1). has the stage 
all set for a successful seeding of 
Alfalfa, as the conditions he mentions are 
apparently ideal for a stand. The sugges¬ 
tions that I would make are that oats are 
not the best crop to seed with, and again 
2)4 bu. is more seed than we would use for that crop. 
'We sow from 1)4 to 2 bu. to the acre, but when 
seeding with Alfalfa we use barley at the 
rate of seeding. The seed is sown with 
seeder after the barley is drilled in, and a weeder 
is run over the ground to cover the seed lightly. 
I he ball plowing is a good point in the preparation, 
as the soil is much firmer underneath. We are carry¬ 
ing on a garden demonstration of varieties, and 
so far the Grimm is in the lead. It is wise to 
inoculate the seed. The quantity of seed may vary 
in different localities and under different condi¬ 
tions. .Still 10 or 12 lbs. of Grimm seed should 
be sufficient. We generally sow around 20 lbs. of 
common Alfalfa to the acre, but if good seed is 
used, this is more than is necessary. Large quan¬ 
tities of Southern and foreign seed are on the 
market. Ibis is not adapted to our conditions, and 
will cause great loss to those who use it. Would 
not advise sowing Timothy and clover with this 
seeding. 
T'v^nroe County, N. l r . 
same 
a grass 
h. e. cox. 
T? 15 , other (la y we saw on a restaurant bill of fare 
Reindeer steak, hunter style, $1.” Whale meat is not 
uncommon. We are told that within a few years meat 
oi reindeer will be nearly as common as mutton. 
. f. IIE ^tate of Nevada has adopted a new method of 
kdling murderers sentenced to death. They are put in 
an airtight room and “treated” with hydrocyanic acid 
gas. Death is absolutely painless and instantaneous. 
Many of us can remember the eflrly days of the battle 
against the San Jose scale. That was long before lime- 
sulphur or oil sprays, and laws were passed to compel 
all nurserymen to fumigate trees with this gas before 
shipping . 
