Chapters in Rural Progress

Many a father and mother whose lives have been broken upon the wheel of labor have heard some of America's orators, have read some of the world's best books, because of this movement, and their lives have been made happier, more influential, more hopeful.

Thousands of people have been inspired, made better, at the Hesperia meetings.

In western Michigan the annual gathering at Hesperia is known far and wide as "the big meeting." The following extract from the Michigan Moderator-Topics indicates in the editor's breezy way the impression the meeting for 1906 made upon an observer:

Hesperia scores another success. Riding over the fourteen miles from the railroad to Hesperia with Governor Warner and D. E. McClure, we tried to make the latter believe that the crowd would not be forthcoming on that first night of the fourteenth annual "big meeting." It was zero weather and mighty breezy. For such a movement to succeed two years is creditable, to hold out for five is wonderful, to last ten is marvelous, but to grow bigger and better for fourteen years is a little short of miraculous. McClure is recognized as the father of the movement and his faith didn't waver a hair's breadth. And sure enough there was the crowd – standing room only, to hear the governor and see the great cartoonist J. T. McCutcheon of the Chicago Tribune. For three evenings and two days the big hall is crowded with patrons, pupils and teachers from the towns and country round. During the fourteen years that these meetings have been held, the country community has heard some of the world's greatest speakers. The plan has been adopted by other counties in Michigan and other states both east and west. Its possibilities are well-nigh unlimited and its power for good is immeasurable. Everyone connected with it may well feel proud of the success attending the now famous "Hesperia Movement."

In 1897, Kent County, Michigan (of which Grand Rapids is the county seat), organized a Teachers and Patrons' Association that is worth a brief description, although in more recent years its work has been performed by other agencies. It nevertheless serves as a good example of a well-organized association designed to unite the school and home interests of rural communities. It was for several years signally successful in arousing interest in all parts of the county. Besides, it made a departure from the Oceana-Newaygo plan which must be considered advantageous for most counties. The Hesperia meeting is an annual affair, with big crowds and abundant enthusiasm. The Kent County association was itinerant. The membership included teachers, school officers, farmers generally, and even pupils. An attempt was made to hold monthly meetings during the school year, but for various reasons only five or six meetings a year were held. The meetings usually occurred in some Grange hall, the Grange furnishing entertainment for the guests. There were usually three sessions – Friday evening and Saturday forenoon and afternoon. The average attendance was nearly five hundred, about one-tenth being teachers; many teachers as well as farmers went considerable distances to attend.

The Kent County association did not collect any fees from its members, the Teachers' Institute fund of the county being sufficient to provide for the cost of lectures at the association meetings. Permission for this use of the fund was obtained from the state superintendent of public instruction. Some counties have a membership fee; at Hesperia, the fee is 50 cents, and a membership ticket entitles its holder to a reserved seat at all sessions. The Kent County association also suggested a reading-course for its members.

The success of the work in Kent County was due primarily to the fact that the educators and the farmers and their leaders are in especially close sympathy. And right there is the vital element of success in this work. The initiative must be taken by the educators, but the plan must be thoroughly democratic, and teacher and farmer must be equally recognized in all particulars. The results of the work in Kent County were thus summarized by the commissioner of schools of the county:

To teachers, the series of meetings is a series of mid-year institutes. Every argument in favor of institutes applies with all its force to these associations. To farmers they afford a near-by lecture course, accessible to all members of the family, and of as high grade as those maintained in the larger villages. To the schools, the value is in the general sentiment and interest awakened. The final vote on any proposed school improvement is taken at the annual school meeting, and the prevailing sentiment in the neighborhood has everything to do with this vote. And not only this, but the general interest of patrons may help and cheer both teacher and pupils throughout the year. On the other hand, indifference and neglect may freeze the life out of the most promising school. There is no estimating the value to the schools in this respect.

The Kent County association had a very simple constitution. It is appended here for the benefit of any who may desire to begin this beneficent work of endeavoring to draw more closely together rural schools and country homes.

Article I. – Name

This association shall be known as "The Kent County Teachers and Patrons' Association."

Article II. – Membership

Any person may become a member of this association by assenting to this constitution and paying the required membership fee.

Article III. – Objects

The object of this association shall be the promotion of better educational facilities in all ways and the encouragement of social and intellectual culture among its members.

Article IV. – Meetings

At least five meetings of the association shall be held each year, during the months of October, November, January, February, and March, the dates and places of meetings to be determined and announced by the executive committee. Special meetings may be called at the election of the executive committee.

Article V. – Officers

Section 1. The officers of the association shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary, a treasurer, and an executive committee composed of five members to be appointed by the president.

Sec. 2. The election of officers shall occur at the regular meeting of the association in the month of October.

Sec. 3. The duties of each officer shall be such as parliamentary usage assigns, respectively, according to Cushing's Manual.

Sec. 4. It shall be the duty of the executive committee to arrange a schedule of meetings and to provide suitable lecturers and instructors for the same on or before the first day of September of each year. It shall be the further duty of this committee to devise means to defray the expenses incurred for lecturers and instructors. All meetings shall be public, and no charge for admission shall be made, except by order of the executive committee.

Article VI. – Course of Reading

Section 1. The executive committee may also recommend a course of reading to be pursued by members, and it shall be their duty to make such other recommendations from time to time as shall have for their object the more effective carrying out of the purposes of the association.

Whether the Oceana County plan of a set annual meeting or the Kent County plan of numerous itinerant meetings is the better one depends much on the situation. It is not improbable that itinerant meetings, with an annual "round-up" meeting of the popular type as the great event of the school year, would be very satisfactory.

Other counties in the state have taken up the Hesperia idea. In some cases associations similar to the Kent County association have been developed. More recently the work has frequently been carried on by the county commissioner of schools directly. "Institutes on wheels" have become a factor in the campaign for better rural schools. One commissioner writes:

My aim has been to bring into very close relationship teachers, patrons, and pupils. This is done, in part, in the following manner: I engage, for a week's work at a time, some educator of state or national reputation to ride with me on my visitation of schools. Through the day, schools are visited, pupils' work inspected, and in the evening, a rally is held in the locality visited in that day. A circuit is made during the week, and Friday evening and the Saturday following a general round-up is held. The results of this work have been far reaching. Teachers, patrons, and pupils are brought into close relationship and a higher standard of education is developed.

The form of organization matters little. The essential idea of the "Hesperia movement" was to bring together the teacher and the school patron on a common platform, to a common meeting-place, to discuss subjects of common interest. This idea must be vitalized in the rural community before that progress in rural-school matters which we desire shall become a fact.

It is only fair to say that administrators of rural-school systems in several states are attempting in one way or another, and have done so for some years, to bring together teachers and school patrons. In Iowa there are mothers' clubs organized for the express purpose of promoting the best interests of the schools. In many of the communities the county superintendent organizes excursions, and holds school contests which are largely attended by patrons of the schools.

Ohio has what is known as the "Ohio School Improvement Federation." Its objects are: (1) to create a wholesome educational sentiment in the citizenship of the state; (2) to remove the school from partisan politics; (3) to make teaching a profession, protected and justly compensated. County associations of the federation are being organized and the effort is being made to reach the patrons of the schools and to create the right public sentiment. In many of the teachers' institutes there is one session devoted entirely to subjects that are of special interest to the school-board members and to the patrons of the schools. Educational rallies are held in many of the townships, at which effort is made to get together all the citizens and have an exhibit of school work.

In Minnesota, a law was passed recently to the effect that school officers within a county may attend one educational convention a year upon call of the county superintendent. They receive therefor, three dollars for one day's services and five cents mileage each way for attendance. Already a number of very successful conventions have been held, wherein all school districts in the counties have been represented.

The county institutes in Pennsylvania are largely attended by the public and are designed to reach patrons as well as teachers.

In Kansas, county superintendents have organized school-patrons' associations and school-board associations, both of which definitely purpose to bring together the school and the home and the officers of the school into one body and to co-operate with individuals for the purpose of bettering the school conditions.

Doubtless other states are carrying on similar methods.

An interesting movement wholly independent of the Hesperia plan has recently been put into operation under the leadership of Principal Myron T. Scudder of the State Normal School, New Paltz, N. Y. He has organized a series of country-school conferences. They grew out of a recognized need, but were an evolution rather than a definite scheme. The school commissioner, the teachers, and the Grange people of the community have joined in making up the conference. An attempt is also made to interest the pupils. At one conference there was organized an athletic league for the benefit of the boys of the country school. The practical phases of nature-study and manual training are treated on the programme, and at least one session is made a parents' meeting. There is no organization whatever.

Dr. A. E. Winship, of the Journal of Education, Boston, had the following editorial in the issue of June 21, 1906:

It is now fourteen years since D. E. McClure spoke into being the Hesperia movement, which is a great union of educational and farmer forces, in a midwinter Chautauqua, as it were. Twelve miles from the railroad, in the slight village of Hesperia, a one-street village, one side of the street being in one county and the other side in another, for three days and evenings in midwinter each year, in a ramshackle building, eight hundred people from all parts of the two counties sit in reserved seats, for which they pay a good price, and listen to one or two notable speakers and a number of local functionaries. One-half of the time is devoted to education and the other to farm interests.

It is a great idea, well worked out, and after fourteen years it maintains its lustiness, but I confess to disappointment that the idea has not spread more extensively. It is so useful there, and the idea is so suggestive, that it should have been well-nigh universal, and yet despite occasional bluffs at it, I know of no serious effort to adopt it elsewhere, unless the midwinter meeting at Shelby, in one of these two counties, can be considered a spread of the idea. This child of the Hesperia movement, in one of the two counties, and only twenty miles away, had this year many more in attendance than have ever been at Hesperia.

This work of uniting more closely the interests, sympathies, and intelligence of the teachers and patrons of the rural school has had a test in Michigan of sufficient length to prove that it is a practicable scheme. No one questions the desirability of the ends it is prepared to compass, and experience in Michigan shows not only that where the educators have sufficient enterprise, tact, enthusiasm, and persistence the necessary organizations can be perfected, but that substantial results follow. For the sake of better rural schools, then, it is sincerely to be hoped that the "Hesperia movement" may find expression in numerous teachers and patrons' associations in at least the great agricultural states.

CHAPTER IX

THE RURAL SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY

Among the great phenomena of our time is the growth of the school idea – the realization of the part that the school plays in our civilization and in the training of our youth for life. Our New England fathers started the school in order that their children might learn to read the Scriptures, and thus that they might get right ideas of their religious duty. Even after this aim was outgrown, our schools for generations did little more than to teach the use of the mere tools of knowledge; to read, to write, and to cipher were the great gains of the schoolroom. Even geography and grammar were rather late arrivals. Then came the idea that the school should train children for citizenship, and it was argued that the chief reason why schools should be supported at public expense was in order that good citizens should be trained there. History and civil government were put into the course in obedience to this theory. Another step was taken when physiology was added, because it was an acknowledgment that the schools should do something to train youth in the individual art of living. Still another step was taken when manual training and domestic science were brought into our city schools, because these studies emphasize the fact that the schools must do something to train workers. And finally we have at present the idea gaining a strong foothold that the schools must train the child to fill its place in the world of men; to see all the relations of life; to be fitted to live in human society. This idea really embraces all of the other ideas. It implies that the schools shall not only teach each individual the elements of knowledge, that they shall train for citizenship, that they shall train men in the art of living, that they shall aid in preparing for an occupation, but that they shall do all of these things, and do them not merely for the good of the individual, but for the good of society as a whole.

And not only is there a feeling that the pupil in school can be brought into closer touch with the life of the community, but that the school as an institution can be made more useful to the community as a whole. This double thought has been expressed in the phrase, "Make the school a social center," and practically it is being slowly worked out in numerous city schools. How far can this idea be developed in the country school?

The purpose of this chapter is not to deal in the theory of the subject, nor to argue particularly for this view of the function of the school, but rather to try to show some methods by which the rural school and the farm community actually can be brought into closer relations. In this way we may perhaps indicate that there is a better chance for co-operation between the rural school and the farm community than we have been accustomed to believe, and that this closer relation is worth striving for. Five methods will be suggested by which the rural school can become a social center. Some of these have already been tried in rural communities, some of them have been tried in cities, and some of them have not been tried at all.

1. The first means of making the rural school a social center is through the course of study. It is here that the introduction of nature-study into our rural schools would be especially helpful. This nature-study when properly followed approves itself both to educators and to farmers. It is a pedagogical principle recognized by every modern teacher that in education it is necessary to consider the environment of the child, so that the school may not be to him "a thing remote and foreign." The value of nature-study is recognized not only in thus making possible an intelligent study of the country child's environment, but in teaching a love of nature, in giving habits of correct observation, and in preparing for the more fruitful study of science in later years. Our best farmers are also coming to see that nature-study in the rural schools is a necessity, because it will tend to give a knowledge of the laws that govern agriculture, because it will teach the children to love the country, because it will show the possibilities of living an intellectual life upon the farm. Nature-study, therefore, will have a very direct influence in bringing the child into close touch with the whole life of the farm community.

But it is not so much a matter of introducing new studies – the old studies can be taught in such a way as to make them seem vital and human. Take, for instance, geography. It used to be approached from the standpoint of the solar system. It now begins with the schoolhouse and the pupils' homes, and works outward from the things that the child sees and knows to the things that it must imagine. History, writing, reading, the sciences, and even other subjects can be taught so as to connect them vitally and definitely with the life of the farm community. To quote Colonel Parker, who suggests the valuable results of such a method of teaching:

It would make a strong, binding union of the home and the school, the farm methods and the school methods. It would bring the farm into the school and project the school into the farm. It would give parent and teacher one motive in the carrying out of which both could heartily join. The parent would appreciate and judge fairly the work of the school, the teacher would honor, dignify and elevate the work of the farm.

The study of the landscape of the near-by country, the study of the streams, the study of the soils, studies that have to do with the location of homes, of villages, the study of the weather, of the common plants, of domestic animals – all of these things will give the child a better start in education, a better comprehension of the life he is to live, a better idea of the business of farming, a better notion about the importance of agriculture, and will tend to fit him better for future life either on the farm or anywhere else, than could any amount of the old-fashioned book knowledge. Is it not a strange fact that so many farmers will decry book knowledge when applied to the business of farming, and at the same time set so much store by the book learning that is given in the common arithmetic, the old-fashioned reader, and the dry grammar of the typical school? Of course anyone pleading for this sort of study in the rural schools must make it clear that the ordinary accomplishments of reading, writing, and ciphering are not to be neglected. As a matter of fact, pupils under this method can be just as well trained in these branches as under the old plan. The point to be emphasized, however, is that a course of study constructed on this theory will tend to bring the school and the community closer together, will make the school of more use to the community, will give the community more interest in the school, while at the same time it will better prepare pupils to do their work in life.

2. A second way of making the rural school a social center is through the social activities of the pupils. This means that the pupils as a body can co-operate for certain purposes, and that this co-operation will not only secure some good results of an immediate character, results that can be seen and appreciated by everyone, but that it will teach the spirit of co-operation – and there is hardly anything more needed today in rural life than this spirit of co-operation. The schools can perform no better service than in training young people to work together for common ends. In this work such things as special day programmes, as for Arbor Day, Washington's Birthday, Pioneer Day; the holding of various school exhibitions; the preparation of exhibits for county fairs, and similar endeavors, are useful and are being carried out in many of our rural schools. But the best example of this work is a plan that is being used in the state of Maine, and is performed through the agency of what is called a School Improvement League. The purposes of the league are: (1) to improve school grounds and buildings; (2) to furnish suitable reading-matter for pupils and people; (3) to provide works of art for schoolrooms. There are three forms of the league, the local leagues organized in each school; the town leagues, whose membership consists of the officers of the local leagues; and a state league, whose members are delegates from the town leagues and members of the local leagues who hold school diplomas. Any pupil, teacher, school officer, or any other citizen may join the league on payment of the dues. The minimum dues are one cent a month for each pupil, for other members not less than ten cents a term. But these dues may be made larger by vote of the league. Each town league sends a delegate to the meeting of the state league. Each league has the usual number of officers elected for one term. These leagues were first organized in 1898 and they have already accomplished much. They have induced school committees to name various rural schools for distinguished American citizens, as Washington, Lincoln, and so forth. They give exhibitions and entertainments for the purpose of raising funds. Sometimes they use these funds to buy books for the schoolroom. The books are then loaned to the members of the league; at the end of the term this set of books is exchanged for another set of books from another school in the same township. In this way, at a slight expense, each school may have the use of a large number of books every year. The same thing is done with pictures and works of art, these being purchased and exchanged in the same way. Through the efforts of the league schoolhouses have been improved, inside and out, and the school grounds improved. It is not so much the doing of new things that has been attempted by this league. The important item is that the school has been organized for these definite purposes, and the work is carried on systematically from year to year. It needs no argument to show the value of this sort of co-operation to the pupil, to the teacher, to the school, to the parents, and ultimately to the community as a whole.

3. A third method is through co-operation between the home and the school, between the teacher and pupils on one side, and parents and taxpayers on the other side. Parents sometimes complain that the average school is a sort of mill, or machine, into which their children are placed and turned out just so fast, and in just such condition. But if this is the case, it is partly the fault of the parents who do not keep in close enough touch with the work of the school. It is not that parents are not interested in their children, but it is rather that they look at the school as something separate from the ordinary affairs of life. Now, nothing can be more necessary than that this notion should be done away with. There must be the closest co-operation between the home and school. How can this co-operation be brought about? Frequently parents are urged to visit the schools. This is all right and proper, but it is not enough. There must be a closer relation than this. The teacher must know more about the home life of her pupils, and the parents must know far more about the whole purpose and spirit, as well as the method, of the school. A great deal of good has been done by the joint meeting of teachers and school officers. It is a very wise device, and should be kept up. But altogether the most promising development along this line is the so-called "Hesperia movement," described in another chapter. These meetings of school patrons and teachers take up the work of the school in a way that will interest both teachers and farmers. They bring the teachers and farmers into closer touch socially and intellectually. They disperse fogs of misunderstanding. They inspire to closer co-operation. They create mutual sympathy. They are sure to result in bringing the teacher into closer touch with community life and with the social problems of the farm. And they are almost equally sure to arouse the interest of the entire community, not only in the school as an institution and in the possibilities of the work it may do, but also in the work of that teacher who is for the time being serving a particular rural school.