472 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 15, 1924 
Whatever the outcome of this battle teachers but it now has become a whole 
over the district school may be it has 
resulted in a full mental overhauling. 
People are thinking over the subject of 
education as they never did before. Up 
to this time many parents have felt in¬ 
clined to accept what the experts and 
educators offered them without question. 
Their plain common sense told them at 
times that their children were not be^g 
trained for any real and practical life and 
they felt that the teachers were often 
experimenting with their little ones try¬ 
ing out some new fad or method, but 
what could they do? In their farm opera¬ 
tions they were not forced to try out 
every new practice and theory. I hey 
would not take them on faith, but hrst 
tested them by the rule of common sense. 
They had a feeling that they could pro¬ 
tect their field crops against fads and 
theories if they cared to do so, but their 
house crops, the children, were out of 
their reach when it came to schooling. 
They have known for years that some¬ 
thing was wrong, yet they could not say 
just what it was. So they have kept at 
work, paid their school taxes and in 
many cases, seen their children enter 
school with a reasonable desire for work 
only to come out with an intense desire 
for a “white-collar job.” Many a farmer 
has longed for a school that would show 
his boy how to take off the overalls at 
times and put on as fine a white, collar 
as anyone can wear and then willingly 
don the overalls again. I have told be¬ 
fore of the college man who worked 
one Summer for a farmer. This man had 
taken a post-graduate course m chemis¬ 
try, and had specialized in fermentations. 
He was to teach chemistry in a Western 
college when the Fall term opened, but 
being short of cash he hired out for the 
Summer on a farm. He worked well 
and made himself useful. There was a 
heavy crop of clover on the faim, and 
just as it was ready to come in a rain 
soaked it. They cocked it up, opened it 
once or twice and tried to dry it, but 
that was a hard job. One morning the 
farmer thought he might risk it, so he 
called out the young chemist: 
“Henry,” he said, “they tell me you 
are ’way up in chemistry.” .... T 
“Well, I know something about it. i 
expect to teach one side of it that of 
fermentation.” 
“Well I suppose that s the same thing 
as sour or moldy hay. When you put 
clover into the hay mow too wet or too 
green it firefangs—heats up and goes 
bad. You know what I mean!” 
“Yes, it is what we call spontaneous 
combustion. The best reason for it we 
have now is that it is developed by cer¬ 
tain bacteria. In the presence of mois¬ 
ture these bacteria start up oxidation 
and-” , 
“Well, that’s all right! I never saw 
any of these bacteria you tell about, but 
I pretty near lost a barn once when the 
hay mow ‘het up.’ Now that clover down 
in the south field ought to come in, but 
I don’t want it to firefang. Go down and 
look it over. See if you can find any of 
your bacteria and tell me whether the 
clover is fit to come in!” 
So Henry took a fork and started tor 
the hayfield. He opened up several cocks 
of clover, smelt of them, felt of the hay 
and looked it all over. Back lie came 
with his report. . 
“The hay’s all right to come in. Ihe 
farmer hitched up his team and drove to 
the field with Henry to pitch on. Before 
they had one cock on the wagon that 
farmer knew the hay was not fit to go in. 
“Stop pitching on,” he said. “If we 
put this' hay in the mow this way, my 
barn will be on fire in a mouth ! Here s 
a case where ‘salt won’t save it.’ Open 
it up and drive back to the barn. ’ 
£ * * * * 
Here was a case where a farmers 
practical eye was better than a chemist’s 
theory. The young man was all right as 
far as he went, but his feet were not on 
the ground, and that being so the heavier 
the load of science he carried the worse 
his feet would slip. Of the two men the 
farmer had the better and more liberal 
agricultural education. And yet this 
young man was going out to teach others 
about fermentation, when he would have 
burned up a barn through inability to ap¬ 
ply his knowledge. At my old agri¬ 
cultural college 40 years ago it is not 
likely that any one of our professors 
knew anything about bacteria. Not even 
the name was in our text books. Yet 
practically every student could have told 
when clover hay was unfit to go into the 
barn. . I make no effort in this to poke 
fun at this young chemist. He was all 
right at heart, but the educators through 
their new methods of instruction had 
started his head off the ground. The 
original school was a little group of 
superior students gathered around a 
teacher and this teacher was the real 
heart of the school, for his object was to 
develop the individual along the lines for 
which he best fitted. As civilization has 
developed the idea of the school has 
changed. It is no longer a matter of 
developing the superior minds among the 
people through personal association with 
sale business—through a great organiza¬ 
tion which is to produce—not superior 
individuals but a great mass of students 
trained along certain fixed rules. The 
older education meant an effort to train 
a student to think clearly. A few funda¬ 
mental things were well drilled into him, 
and his ambition was aroused so that he 
went on to question the world regarding 
his life and work. The more modern 
educational system means a great or¬ 
ganization for quantity production, and 
the idea that education means the crowd¬ 
ing into the mind- a smattering of in¬ 
formation on many subjects without real 
depth of thought on any of them. 
j}s sji 5^ '•* 
Our farmers and country people have 
for years had something of this idea in 
mind, but they have not felt able to state 
it clearly. It has become evident to 
them, looking back at their own home ex¬ 
perience, that modern education is pul¬ 
ling their children, away from them. They 
do not find either discipline or the de¬ 
sire in the modern school that they knew 
in their own childhood. They realize, 
naturally, that conditions are different. 
The telephone, the car, the radio, the 
moving picture show and other agencies 
have greatly changed popular habits. The 
modern child thinks he must be enter¬ 
tained at high cost. We of the older 
generation know that we were forced to 
entertain ourselves and submit to stern 
discipline. Looking back at life we feel 
forced to admit that this discipline and 
enforced self-reliance was the making of 
real character—the making of something 
which w r e find lacking in our children—or 
at least we think we see it! Our country 
people, though perhaps not able to state 
their case clearly, feel that the modem 
school and college is too soft and super¬ 
ficial in its discipline and training. And 
that is largely why the country people 
instinctively cling to their district school 
and demand control of it. This school 
discussion has forced them to think clear¬ 
ly. The friends of the school bill call 
them narrow and prejudiced, but of the 
two classes, educators and reformers, or 
farmers, I think the latter have at heart 
the cleaner and more patriotic impulse. 
They have the instinctive feeling that 
with all its faults the improved district 
school is after all, the safest and best 
place for their children. I am careful to 
say improved school, for we must all ad¬ 
mit that some schools are not what they 
should be. They can and will be im¬ 
proved but that will be done, if at all, by 
the people Avho live in the district. It is 
evident to me that the men and women 
who are back of this school bill do not 
want to improve these country schools. 
They would rather wipe most of them out 
in order to put through their own plans. 
I talked with one of them not long ago, 
and I think his idea is typical. 
"The school in our district is a nuis¬ 
ance,” he said. “There are only a few 
scholars, a poor schoolhouse and a worse 
teacher. It ought to be wiped off the 
map !” 
"Have you ever -sent any children 
there?” 
“No. I never had any children!” 
“How long since you visited the 
school?” 
“I haven’t been inside it for 15 years!” 
“Not even to school meeting?” 
“No! What’s the use?” 
“Do vou know what is being taught 
there?” 
“No!” 
“Have you ever tried to improve the 
school? Ever talked with the teacher or 
taken any personal interest in it?” 
"No—what’s the use? You can’t im¬ 
prove it! Better turn it over to the 
State and let someone who is paid to do 
it assume responsibility!” 
There are a good many people just like 
that. They think themselves reformers 
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