SERVICE: THE WATCHWORD FOR RURAL SCHOOLS

...The teacher may know and care little of the life and interests surrounding the school...

...Efficiency demands that the 6,600 rural schools of Wisconsin shall serve the interests of the people...

...By the time he had figured all this out, the sink man was so interested that he designed a new sink, a sort of sink on stilts, or a daddy-long-legs of a sink, and in no time at all now it will be on the market...

...Service: the Watchword for Rural Schools The Time Has Come to Emphasize the Policy of Increased Service to the People Rather Than Added Cost of Operation By WILLIAM KITTLE THE RURAL SCHOOLS need and deserve the best support of the state...

...The text books are written by men and women in the cities...

...By that time, 1912, the men who had started it no longer made inspections (only speeches) and turned over the field work to women...

...There should be a more definite preparation of teachers for industrial and social service...

...Some of her friends saw that This kind of work would be good for Page county and so they secured her election, as county superintendent of schools, Herbert Quick told me that she secured the introduction of the most practical subjects in the rural schools of that county, that she started school gardens all over the county, stimulated corn-growing contests and that he attended a farmers' institute where 700 farmers and their wives, sons and daughters attended and where County Superintendent Jessie Field was the conductor...

...A specially prepared teacher of penmanship was given drills and work necessary to secure the best results on the part of the pupils in the rural and graded schools...

...Kittle's candidacy for State Superin-tendent...

...Culture Comes In, Too THE POLICY of Service does not exclude the element of culture in the common schools...

...Some of the subjects taught are so many roads leading to great cities or to distant countries...

...provided the policy is distinctly recognized...

...She probably did not realize that her work in that school was a recognition of a great principle,—-that the rural school can he made to serve the real interests of the people...

...The very best school buildings, equipment and grounds and a force of 6,600 teachers having scholarship and good methods in pedagogy are not enough to serve the social, civic and economic interests of the people...

...Who ever inquires about the value of the plant at Hull house in Chicago...

...The various and often diverse investigations should be united into a unified, constructive program...

...If in the next decade, Wisconsin should double the value of all its rural school plant, these schools may yet remain, partly or mainly, alien institutions among the people whose interests they ought to serve...

...More than one-half of the people of Wisconsin live in rural communities...

...Not one of these- or all combined, with the policy of service lacking, will make these schools of the highest value to the people...

...Enough has already been done in rural school districts in this and other states to prove that the rural school can be made a social center, that it can become a part of the civic life of the community and the state, and that the school can become an "instrument of the state" for the production of wealth upon the farms...

...Some progress has indeed been made in the rural schools...

...I'm blessed if I know," he confessed...

...The state should require the country schools to serve the economic interests of the farmers...

...Why are sinks made so low that they give women backaches three times a day...

...Many specific remedies have been prepared for the betterment of the rural schools...

...Thereupon he set, out to find the reason...

...The elements of agriculture and other sub-jects- directly connected with industrial work should be emphasized...

...Who asks about the endowment or method of support, or the number of persons employed or even the number of persons whose lives are made better and whose interests are served by that institution...

...So Miss Headley went to a manufacturer of sinks...

...Experience in a few cases has shown that the rural schools may be made factors in the production of wealth upon the farms...

...she asked him...

...The rural school may have little or no part in the actual farm life of the community...

...The civic life of the state should be felt in every school and every school in turn should become a vital force in democracy and representative government...

...Some of the remedies proposed point just as readily to the policy of mere bigness or to the policy of better academic work...

...The elements of agriculture, domestic science and other sub-jects connected with industrial work should he emphasized...

...All of which is to the everlasting eredit of Miss Headley—AR-THUR P. Kellogg, in The Survey...

...they do not teach domestic science, they teach plain cooking: In other words, he holds steadily to the policy of direct practical service...

...When faucets and shallow vessels came in, the sink still scrooched down by the floor...

...very life of every school room...

...The office of the state superintendent should be an educational bureau where the best ability in the state, whether from the industrial, business and professional classes, or among the city and county superintendents of schools or in the normal schools, the colleges or the university, may be utilized.—From platform of prin-ciples issued on behalf of Mr...

...What has been done in many districts ought to be extended to the whole system of 6,600 rural schools in Wisconsin...

...practical arithmetic was emphasized by an excellent method and a simple set of apparatus...

...The object point in every recitation seemed to be the rural or graded school where the student would soon be the teacher...

...The Policy of Service NO ONE ought to minimize the-importance of modern school houses, of practical and sufficient equipment, of ample grounds and of trained teachers...

...In one of the summer schools recently the policy of services was paramount...

...Thoroughness in the common branches,—in reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic should be demanded...

...Mors than one-half of all the people of Wisconsin live in rural communities...

...Their schools should be of direct and practical service and widen the opportunities for every boy and girl on the farm...

...It was this way: The housing reform movement gathered momentum and published reports and accomplished great things for some twenty years, under the direction of men and of women who had help in their kitchens...

...But every one is interested in the fact that here is an institution dedicated to the policy of service to the "submerged tenth" in that great city...

...Her policy of service can be put in operation in every county In Wisconsin (and in every other state...

...The value of the building, land and equipment there is, indeed, important...

...and efficient domestic science teacher gave a course in plain sewing...

...THE POLICY OF SERVICE WILL GIVE EFFICIENCY AND DE-MOCRACY...

...The old wooden sinks were built in the days when dishwashing and such tasks were done in wooden tubs and buckets with high sides, so that a low sink was comfortable to work over...

...Washington has declared that in his school, they do not teach agriculture...

...The school house should be made the social and civic center of the community...

...A Story of Sinks and Backaches NEAR THE CLOSE of the year 1912 it was discovered for the first time why kitchen sinks are built so low that all women who wash dishes must suffer three backaches a day and nag their husbands to try boarding...

...No one in Wisconsin ought to be satisfied with having this state rank 27th in the value of its common school plant...

...There should be a definite preparation of teachers for industrial, social and civic service...

...Bring School and Farm Together OVER in Iowa, a few years ago, there was teaching in a country school, a plain, modest young woman...

...If a school district has the most modern and well-equipped school house, with ten acres of ground, with the most carefully selected library and with a normal school or college graduate as teacher, it may still stand apart from, the real interests of the community...

...All that is best in history, in literature, art and science and which is adapted to children should be kept in the rural schools...

...The idealism in such a poem as "The Chambered Nautilus," in the life of Abraham Lincoln and in the patriotion of the Civil War must abide in the THE rural schools need and deserve the best support of the state...

...But no one ought to think that an annual increase of 10 per cent, in the value of the school plant will, in itself, bring a like increase in efficiency...

...the science teacher showed seventy-five students how to use the Babcock test and to be able to reject from a herd the unprofitable cow...

...Experience in a few cases, netaHy in Winnebago Connty, Illinois, and in Pago County, Iowa, has shown that the rural schools may be made factors in the production of wealth upon the farms...

...The pupils are not led to admire the successful farmer, the application of science to farming and all the real advantages of farm life...

...another teacher in-structed a large class how at very small cost the school room could be caleimined in attractive color...

...They teach plain farming...

...Every boy and girl has tha right to the culture of the race...

...Who ever inquires about the value of the school plant at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, where for twenty years Booker T. Washington has steadfastly adhered to the policy of service to his race...

...spelling was carefully taught...

...Traced back to its beginning, the length of sink legs appears to have been set for a good reason and continued for none...

...Moreover, it was before the time of running water, the tubs and buckets were heavy, and the lower the sink the less the lift...

...Their schools should be of direct practical service and widen the opportunities for every boy and girl on the farm...

...The pupils for several months each year learn to admire what is said or done in the cities...

...The annual school board conventions, the appointment of a rural school inspector, and recent investigations are all efforts to improve the country school...

...One woman, Madge D. Headley, saw that the sink of the model tenement in the twentieth century is as low as the ancestral sink of the nineteenth, over which she had leaned and ached...

...Back of the entire school plant and a body of trained teachers must stand a paramount policy of service which must be emphasized all the time and which must determine every activity of the school...

...The remedy was simple—raise the sinks...

...Such idealism is a part of the great policy of service...

...But such investigations show that the rural school of today is in need of marked improvement...

...They learn to admire the captain of industry, the railway king, the financier, the eminent lawyer and the statesman...

...but the policy back of it all has always in view the industrial and moral welfare of a whole race of 8,000,000 people...