1314 
It*  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
October  20,  3923 
Hope  Farm  Notes 
One  of  my  boys  is  in  the  army,  and 
he  seems  to  be  putting  up  a  good  light 
against  the  enemy.  He  is  a  captain,  and 
has  command  of  a  fighting  company.  Dur¬ 
ing  the  Great  War  this  boy  had  some 
trouble  in  enlisting.  There  is  something 
the  matter  with  his  foot  and  leg,  and  the 
doctors  rejected  him  several  times.  He 
went  around  from  State  to  State,  and 
volunteered  over  and  over,  until  finally 
lie  was  accepted.  It  made  me  think  of 
the  man  they  tell  about  in  the  South  who 
walked  down  from  the  mountains  and 
tried  to  volunteer  for  service.  The  doc¬ 
tors  rejected  him  because  he  had  flat 
feet.  “Why,”  they  told  him,  “you  never 
could  stand  a  march  of  40  miles.” 
“But,”  said  the  man,  “I’ve  walked  150 
miles  over  the  mountain  roads  to  get 
here,  and  I  could  walk  to  Germany  if 
there  was  any  bridge !” 
A  good  deal  of  this  inspection  business 
is  nonsense  because  it  is  done  by  human 
machines  who  do  not  have  the  wit  to 
distinguish  personality  or  human  effi¬ 
ciency.  But  at  any  rate  my  boy  was 
finally  accepted  and  entered  camp  life 
just  like  thotisands  of  others.  He  never 
had  a  shot  at  the  Germans,  never  “went 
over  the  top”  out  of  a  ditch,  never  did 
any  thrilling  deeds,  and  never  was  deco¬ 
rated  for  great  bravery.  When  the  ar¬ 
mistice  was  signed  this  boy  was  frying 
doughnuts  in  a  camp  as  his  part  of  army 
service. 
*  *  *  *  * 
I  think  they  were  good  doughnuts,  well 
fried.  This  boy’s  work  was  more  deserv¬ 
ing  of  a  medal  than  that  of  some  of 
these  money  patriots  who  spent  their 
rime  frying  the  fat  out  of  Unde  Sam  and 
his  contracts.  When  the  war  ended  this 
boy  dropped  out  of  the  United  States 
Army  and  went  back  to  his  old  job,  where 
he  is  still.  But  I  thought  you  said  he 
was  in  the  army!  He  is  in  the  Salva¬ 
tion  Army,  a  captain,  and  on  the  whole 
I  would  rather  have  him  there  than  in 
the  regular  army,  for  I  think  our  family 
has  seen  about  all  the  fighting  and  kill¬ 
ing  that  is  good  for  it.  I  think  the  rec¬ 
ords  will  show  that  some  of  my  ances¬ 
tors  have  fought  in  every  American  con¬ 
flict  from  King  Philip’s  War  down 
through  history.  I  want  our  folks  to 
have  their  full  share  in  *he  quiet  battles 
which  must  be  fought  for  the  plain  rights 
of  common  men.  The  Salvation  Army  is 
doing  great  work.  I  confess  that  I 
should  not  care  to  march  around  with 
drum  and  horn  and  Bible  and  do  the 
work  which  the  boy  is  doing,  but  it  is 
good  work  and  has  its  place  in  the 
world’s  conflict.  There  are  many  of  us 
who  are  quite  willing  to  stand  off  and 
contemplate  the  “underworld”  without 
going  near  enough  to  touch  it.  We  are 
fine  on  advice,  and  perhaps  we  give  a 
little  of  our  money  and  let  off"  a  little 
moral  talk,  but  we  do  not  get  right  dowrn 
to  a  collar  hold  as  the  Salvation  Army 
does.  What  impresses  me  is  the  earnest¬ 
ness  with  which  these  people  go  at  their 
work.  They  get  little  or  no  money  out 
living  is  simple  and  their 
and  often  discouraging,  but 
at  it  cheerfully  and  never  falter, 
tells  me  of  one  woman  with  nine 
who  has  joined  his  corps  as  a 
earnest,  faithful  and  full  of 
Of  course  there  cannot  be  any 
material  reward  for  such  a  wo- 
gives  her  life  to  the 
with  full  faith  that  she 
for  if  she  will  only  do 
that  I  should  lack  the 
do  such  a  thing,  yet  T 
this  sort  of  courage  is 
of  it.  Their 
work  is  hard 
they  go 
My  boy 
children 
worker, 
energy, 
hope  of 
man.  She  just 
cause,  apparently 
will  be  provided 
her  duty.  I  fear 
moral  courage  to 
am  sure  that  just 
needed  more  than  anything  else  in  pub¬ 
lic  life  right  now.  In  private  life  such 
heroism  is  common.  We  all  know  wot 
men  who  have  fought  to  keep  their  fami¬ 
lies  together,  and  worked  themselves  out 
in  efforts  to  give  their  children  oppor¬ 
tunity.  What  the  world  needs  now. 
above  all  things,  is  more  of  this  heroic 
spirit  put  into  public  life — not  so  much 
by  the  great  leaders  as  by  the  little  offi¬ 
cers  who  influence  the  lives  of  the  com¬ 
mon  people. 
You  take  this  woman  with  her  nine 
children  !  The  chances  are  that  she  has 
little  of  what  we  call  education  or  cul¬ 
ture.  Let  her  be  examined  by  a  com¬ 
mittee  of  young  graduates  from  a  theo¬ 
logical  seminary  as  to  her  fitness  to 
preach  or  minister  to  the  spiritual  needs 
of  people  and  how  -would  they  mark  her? 
Tf  she  ever  got  above  Z  I  should  be 
greatly  surprised.  Yet  the  chances  are 
that  she  could  do  far  more  effective  work 
among  the  poor  and  the  troubled  than 
any  of  her  examiners.  In  fact  this  in¬ 
cident.  of  the  woman  with  nine  children 
putting  her  life  and  her  future  right  on 
the  altar  without  hope  of  reward  or 
fame  impresses  me  as  a  lesson  to  all  of 
us.  I  think  it  may  be  applied  to  the 
great  question  of  rural  education  which 
is  now  hanging  over  us  like  a  storm 
cloud.  I  do  not  think  we  need  higher 
educators  or  school  experts  half  as  much 
as  we  do  humble  people  like  this  woman 
who  will  go  into  every  school  district  and 
labor  to  improve  the  spirit  of  the  school. 
In  former  years  there  was  a  great  gulf 
of  suspicion  and  misunderstanding  be¬ 
tween  most  of  the  established  churches 
and  the  poorer  people  in  town  and  city. 
There  was  a  mutual  life  misunderstand¬ 
ing  between  the  poor  man  on  Shinbone 
Alley  and  the  wealthy  man  on  Main 
Street.  They  could  not  get  together  on 
any  reasonable  idea  of  religious  life.  The 
Salvation  Army  was  organized  to  remedy 
this  situation,  and  few  of  us  realize  how 
much  it  has  accomplished.  The  army 
got  right  down  into  the  life  of  the  poor 
people,  gained  their  confidence  and  gave 
them  something  of  spiritual  vision  and 
power — which  the  wealthy  and  fashion¬ 
able  church  could  not  do.  There  are 
still  many  who  regard  the  Salvation 
Army  tactics  and  methods  with  amuse¬ 
ment  or  even  contempt  but  I  think  this 
organization  has  a  definite  and  needed 
place  in  American  religious  life.  While 
I  could  not,  with  any  comfort,  express 
such  religious  feeling  as  I  have  in  that 
way,  I  rhink  my  boy  can  be  of  far 
greater  service  to  humanity  in  the  Salva¬ 
tion  Army  than  he  ever  could  be  in  the 
regular  army ! 
*  t|s  *  :j!  * 
But  bow  does  all  this  apply  to  the 
rural  school  question?  As  I  see  it  edu¬ 
cation  as  worked  out  in  most  towns  and 
cities  is  becoming  too  expensive,  too  high- 
toned  and  too  far  away  from  common 
life.  It  is  coming  to  be  more  and  more 
in  the  hands  of  an  exclusive,  compact  or¬ 
ganization  of  teachers  and  educators  who 
rank  among  the  strictest  autocrats  we 
have  in  the  country.  Today  the  average 
town  parent  or  taxpayer  has  little  or 
nothing  to  say  about  the  way  bis  chil¬ 
dren  are  to  be  educated.  It  is  all  -worked 
out  for  him  by  an  arbitrary  system  of 
educators,  and  many  a  helpless  parent 
sees  his  children  made  part  of  an  ex¬ 
periment  in  new  methods,  or  sees  them 
slowly  but  surely  drawn  away  from  his 
own  simple  life  and  the  future  which  he 
is  able  to  provide  for  them  !  It  is  but 
fair  to  say  that  my  daughter  and  other 
town  teachers  tell  me  more  or  less  po¬ 
litely  that  I  am  wrong  in  all  this,  but  I 
have  seen  more  years  go  under  the  bridge, 
and  I  know  that  in  former  years  parents 
had  far  more  control  over  the  schools 
than  they  now  have.  In  our  rural  schools 
there  is  still  opportunity  for  the  parents 
to  control,  and.  in  my  opinion  this  power 
should  be  retained  at  any  cost.  In  fact 
the  great  fundamental  struggle  over  rural 
education  today  has  to  do  with  local 
power  over  the  rural  school.  Without 
any  question  the  educators  and  law¬ 
makers  feel  that  the  rural  child  should  be 
drawn  into  the  great  polishing  machine 
which  they  have  built  up  in  city  and 
town.  These  educators  will  deny  that, 
and  claim  that  they  want  to  give  the 
local  school  full  power.  They  may  even 
think  that  is  what  they  want  to  do,  but 
no  one  can  study  the  development  of  pub¬ 
lic  education  in  this  country  without  see¬ 
ing  clearly  that  all  these  educational 
plans  lead  definitely  to  centralization  and 
the  taking  of  the  child  more  and  more 
from  home  influence  and  local  control. 
That  is  a  hard  thing  to  say.  but  thou¬ 
sands  of  men  and  women  will  tell  you 
that  it  is  happening  to  their  children.  I 
am  frank  to  say  that  I  can  see  very  lit¬ 
tle  hope  for  the  rural  school  at  the  hands 
of  these  educators  and  law-makers.  Tf 
left  to  have  their  own  way  what  they 
substitute  will  not  be  a  rural  school  at 
all.  It  would  be  a  mongrel  town  school 
in  which  for  years  the  farm  children 
would  be  at  a  disadvantage.  It  has 
turned  out  just  that  way  in  several  of 
the  Western  States.  I  feel  that  the  real 
rural  school  is  just  as  essential  to  this 
country  as  the  more  elaborate  town 
school.  It  is  distinctly  necessary,  and 
instead  of  trying  to  force  a  new  and 
complicated  experiment  upon  the  rural 
people  I  think  greater  efforts  should  be 
made  to  improve  such  schools  as  we 
have ! 
$  :]c  $  He  $ 
And  here  appears  my  application  of 
the  work  of  the 'Salvation  Army.  It  is  evi¬ 
dent  to  me  that  the  educators  and  school 
experts  want  to  wipe  out  every  one- 
room  school  that  can  possibly  be  com¬ 
bined  with  others.  Many  of  them  will 
deny  any  such  desire  or  intention,  but 
it  is  essential  to  the  fulfillment  of  their 
plans.  Just  as  soon  as  they  can  get  the 
power  they  will  change  our  present  rural 
schools  into  a  hybrid  combination  of 
town  and  country.  I  am  not  trying  to 
say  whether  such  a  school  would  be  bet¬ 
ter  than  the  old  one  or  not,  but  make  no 
mistake  about  the  intention  and  desire 
of  the  educational  authorities.  The  pres¬ 
ent  school,  as  it  stands,  will  receive  little 
help  from  them.  They  have  decided  that 
ultimately  it  must  go.  And  here  must 
come  in  the  work  of  the  educational 
Salvation  Army.  The  only  way  to  save 
our  rural  schools  is  to  do  it  ourselves. 
There  must  be  home  people  who  will  go 
into  the  campaign  to  save  the  district 
School  with  just  the  spirit  of  the  woman 
With  nine  children  who  has  joined  my  boy’s 
company.  The  educators  are  inclined  to 
give  up  the  job  as  hopeless.  They  have  an¬ 
tagonized  the  rural  people  and  now  com¬ 
plain  because  they  cannot  make  people 
do  as  they  think  should  be  done.  There¬ 
fore  the  work  of  improvement  must  be 
done  by  people  like  the  woman  with  nine 
children  who  will  give  a  good  share  of 
their  lives  to  the  task  of  changing  the 
spirit  of  the  rural  district.  Where  can 
OLD  folks,  like  little  ones,  require 
a  constant,  easily  tempered  heat 
— you  might  almost  say  a  flexible  heat 
is  absolutely  necessary  for  their  health 
and  comfort. 
Yet  making  a  bigger  fire  in  the  fur¬ 
nace  means  over-heating  the  rest  of 
the  house.  Even  when  the  particular 
room  is  hot  enough  for  Grandpa  and 
Grandma,  you  can’t  very  conveniently 
turn  the  furnace  lower,  and  reduce 
the  heat  elsewhere.  But  a  Perfection 
Oil  Heater  furnishes  portable,  yet 
flexible  warmth.  It  will  quickly  and 
economically  heat  the  particular  room 
that  you  want,  and  young  as  well  as 
old  will  enjoy  its  genial  and  comfort¬ 
able  presence. 
Your  nearest  dealer 
will  gladly  demonstrate . 
Economical  .  Clean  «  Odorless 
PERFECTION 
Oil  Heaters 
STANDARD  OIL  CO.  OF  NEW  YORK,  26  Broadwa 
