Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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GOO0D-BYE COUNTRY SCHOOL As an Educational Institution it is Rapidly Giving Place to the Mod ern Centralized School. New York Sun. Before long the dodo itself wiUl nol be more extinct than the old time country school.' As a people we have bad a mania for multiplying school houses. We doted on a landscape well supplied with them. Pevple were never too hoarse tc dheer a certain Indiana superinten dent -who, for ihis part, was never toc hoarse -to shout his ambition to equih all -Ho6sierdom wih "a schoolhousc at every enossroads:" Somebody else's pet slogan was: "A church or every hilltop ?nd a schoolhouse ir every valley." Maybe it was the other way around But the proportion was the same. And the general idea was tha7t, if it rainee schoolhouses one day, 1he milleniurr might be expected -0he,next -day or at the furthest,' the day after. That's all changed. Certainl sdhools are being sut up by th( score. But dont get excited. Th< yioung idea is not being deprived ol its :right to shoot. On the contrary it is at eiast receiving just as good i chance along that line as used to b( &e exclusive privilege of town chil dren. Iis is the way it is done. Taki anywhere from two to a dozen spind ling, tottering, 'half dead countr3 sdhools. There are thousands o them. Throug1hout the east the rura school population has dwindled tc balf what it used to be. One reason is tihe movement toward the cities. Another is that the degrei and kind of learning handed out ir these fa;niliar little old buildings wa. nost able to bring a child within les4 than long distance communicatioT wie -an education. R was nobody's fault, of -course You can't expect Manlie Smith, age 18, at $2o a month and her board, t< -be of the proper calibre to teach ar assortmen?t of ~pupiIs from 6 to 23 years 'of age. At any -rate Mamie must be -forgiven if the higher branches are -cater slighted. Sudbi a school it apt -ai degenerate into a .mere set-t< between :teacher and pupils, in wihid all -therules anid most of the furnitur< get sadly out of -repair. Undler 'te new system all of thest Nscratch-scrabble schools in a town ship a-re closed. N there already ex isbs a graded sdhtiool within th'e town 'ship, the country pupils are taken bach -and forth between their homes an< - ie school, The cost of their trans portation being paid out of the scho fund of the township. Ilh'e result is that the country chii dren 'have the same a'dvantages a those in town. And Te cost to th< township is less. The reports on the ,working of th< rnew system are interesting. TPh change began in N.ew En'gland,.. bu now is in use in about 30 states. are south, w4here .the school fund! rellamen'rably small adthe countra -) districts are lucky to get 'tree m1onthi poor teaching in the course of ths year, is behin-d the procession. Bu in ,Florida, Virginia, Nort'h Carolin: andi Georgia tlhe system is graduall: -gaining groun~d. KIn the north~ it is fairly revolution izing farm life. Take one instance 'tat of -Green towns'hip, Trumbul county, Ohio. -This is the real ciountry. Not a city nrot a town, not even a sizeable vil age in 'the township. This is a ru-ra community, if ever there was one. I is i i miles from one railroad and si: miles from another. The town shig itself is five 'miles square. In 19oo 'the people of Green town ship built a modern brick Ibuildini at a cost of $6,0oo. The buildingi steam ~heated. It contains six c'llss i'boms, with two additional rooms one for a library, the other for offic and reception room. rIthere is a basement under th enbtire building. Part of this is for laboratory and gymnasium. The camr pas contains 'three acres. 'Te building is in the centre< me township 'and 'all the chil'dren < school ages are brought to it in tb morning 'an'd taken home at the clos .of school in eight wagons regular] engaged for that purpose. *During the first year 'after the clo: ^mg dte small, scattered schools an 1he opening of thie central one, t'h -n -+lmn inrea frm 1xo to 1d and the average attendance was more than proportionately higher. Tardi ness, as in all these centralized schools, is unknown. The drivers are under contract to bring their loads of children 'co school in time, and the children soon learn to be ready for! .9he wagon. These .wagons are generally long hacks or barges, with seasf along the sides. 'Te law requires that they be provided with curtains for stormy weather, with lap robes .and hot -soap stones. WIlhe drivers must be 1responsible persons. Each driver bas a special route, and though, of course, some children may have a longer ride than their souls really crave, this is off set by -the fact that nobody has to tramp through rain, mud, slush or snow -and then sit in school with wet feet and clothing. In townships like Green, -where there is no village or towri life, this central sdhool life is an element of almost incalculaile power. It brings about friendships whi-dh unite the scattered families iof the district. It raises the standard of intelli gence. Itgives the boys a wholesome and hitherto impossible knowledge of sport, for on the campus baseball, football and other athletic games are played. Even special teach-ers in music, na ture study and drawing make regular visits to these centralized sclhoolsk whose pupils a few years ago were wrestling -rudely with Marmie Smith and a limited acquaintance with the three Rs. In Massachusetts, with its network of trolleys, centralization has been growing easier every year. Country children living within -a reasonable distance of a trolley line-and it is a comparatively small proportiont which does not live near one nowadays-re ceive trolley tickets from the school authorities and go back and forth 10n the ubiquitous electric car. I These tickets are furnished the school authorities at fhalf rates, and eadh dhild gets two a day. If the par ents wish to have A child come home for luricheon they can 'have two ex tra tickets a day by paying 'another five cents themnselves; or the children carry luncheon wwitiht Them. Almnost invariably the new method results in a saving to the township. Inr New Hampshire, out of 124 townis only one reported an increased cost, while 26 out of 'the number give the present cost, including conveyance of the children, as only one-half What it used to be un'der he orossroads school system. -This is easy to understand, 'and when tone realizes that in New York state there are about 3,000 school dis tricts with an average attendance of less than 1o pupils. TIhere are some which report an 'average at.tendance of three-quart-eus of a pupil. In an Ohio county. close to tihe Green 'township paradise of centraliz ed schools, some inspecting visitors stopped at a 'district schoolhouse in a township, paradise of centralized method. They found a small building, no shade trees, an.tiquatred furniture, primitive ventilation 'and sanitary ar rangem'eits, in fact, 'the 'typical coun Stry school of sentimental poetry. SAnd in this battered institution of learning exactly four children were pursuing knowledge. 'Ilh;e teacher was getting $30 a mont.h to teach four pupils. If she was above the grade of t'he ordinary country school teacher, as -the amount of her salary would in dicate, it :may have been edi-fying for t te lonesome quartette, though not exactly an inspiring experience. But ~ it seems as if tih;e taxpayers must have felt 'that those four children were an ex.pensive ornament to thie Sdistrict. In Maine, where a total of one.-thir -tieth of all the school funds is paid 'for the transporting children, 'it is the elaw th>at all schools with an enroll ment of less 'than eight pupils shall consolidate with a neighboring school. aAs a resul,t, even with the cost of con veying, some districts report as high a saving as $4.00 'a pupil. This is good. ~fBut the best of it is that :tih;e country Schildren thus 'have better teachers, better courses of study and better mental, moral and physical training. yIn Massachusetts the number of chil dren conveyed to and from cent-ralized schools has increased from about 30, dooo in 1890 to about 15o,ooo at present. S'Il:e increase has been ever nimore SI pronunce in sme te+ s of the mid die west. In New York the method has not made much progress, but leg islation is helping it somewhat. Ex perience will do the rest. The-country schoolhouse as it has been in the past will soon be a curios ity. INSTINCT OF THE INSECT. Mystery of Presence in Beings That Live Only a Short Time. Literary Digest. According to -the theory that in stinct is inherited experience, it is difficult to see why insects that live only a few weeks. or months should have any instincts at all, since the time in which they may accumulate experience is so limited. But Ed mond Perrier, an advocate of this theory, -shows us that we may recnm cile it with these facts by supposing that the original experience, of which the instinct of insects is tih.e successor by 'hereditary transmission, was ac quired by their ancestors ages ago, when they lived longer and had time to learn. Of this ingenious tlheory M. A. Latour says in La Nature: The progress made recently in the study of the nervous system led E+ mond Perrier to a new thelory of in stinct, regarding which philosophers will probably be somewhat skeptical btt of wbich a geoglogical conse quence deserves to be known -for its ingenuity. The author is endeavoring to explain by means 'of experience and 'heredity alone how insects whose adult life lasts sonly a few weeks, or even a few days, and who know noth ing of their parentage, have ih-e -time and the ability to acquire their won derful instincts. Evidently there is no p6ssibility here of education nor cus toms; it would seem as if the manifes tation of instinct in .the individual were quite spontaneous. "But M. Perrier notes that the ex istence of The seasons, as twe know them, appears to be of very recent geoglogical origin. Geologists in gen eral agree that temperature & climate were once, for velry long periods, ab solutIely uniform in all parts of tihe ear'h and throughout the 'whole year. This is explained 'by the fact that The sa was theni much larger, the ine qualities of ~the seasions biaving been brought about, littl~e by little, by its grad'al condensation. Now, insects existed a't a time when this condensa 'tion h'ad not yet 'taken place. In sects were remarkably abundian't on the carbonitferous lakes or lagoons, and the interesting discoveries of Messrs. Fayol 'and . Charles Bron giart at Gommentry have shown how great was their variety and 'how Ihfuge their size 'at th'at -time. "Now, since there were -then no sea sons-the cause that now brings about the early 'death of insets so soon af t.er their reproduction-these carbon i.ferous insects must.'have lived as long as any otihier creatures; 'they must *have able, like our higher animals, to acquire -experience 'and transmit it to their ioffspring, Thus gaining an ac q~ired and cultivated in'telligence in the same measure as other living be ings. This was then transmitted by heredity, 'and wh-en the se.asons be gan to appear, in 'the tertiary epodh when by the appearance of col-d in sect life was reduced .to a brief sea son, when experience and parer*al ed ucation could no longer play 'their part, the intelligence formerly ac quired 'and transmitted from genera ion to generation mus-t, according to M. Perrier's thkory, 'have been c'hanged into. immut-able instinct; that is to say, it 'must 'have been fixed at a determinate point 'without power 'tc progress further. Ou-r present insects are tIus -reproducing indefinitely t.he faculties and cerebral development of the insects of the secondary epoch of geological 'time." NOTICE DRAWING JURY. Notice is hereby given 'that we, th< undersigned Jury Commissigners foi Newberry County, South Carolina will on the 18th day of November 1905, at nine o'clock a. in., in the office of the Clerk of Court for said County and State, publicly draw thirty-si: jurors to serve as petit jurymen foi the second week of the Court of Corn mon Pleas for Newberry County, S C., beginning December 4, 1905, an< ontinuing for one week. Jno. L. Epps, Win. W. Cromer, Jno. C. Goggans, Jur Conemissioners. 1Tho RIgat For Safe Presc For All Sick Ro For the Best H; For Warranted For All Good T For All Good T4 For Lazel!'s--l Talcum--6 C For a Satisfact< Mone Gilder, -Just FR Fresh lot Seeded Rai: New Orleans Syrup, Sour Kraut, Grape Ni Prunes, Figs, Dates, I Evaporated Fru t, Min4 G. D.D Phone 110 . 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We do no experimenting r but execute all con approved sanitary lines- employ the most experienced - and competent me.. chanics and use the very best fixtures made -namel y "tandM'd" Porce Slain Enameled Baths and One-piece Lavatories. If you do not fnd' it convenient to call in person, write or phone us and we s and other literature on the subject@ i advise, however, that you inspect displayed in our showroom. Ask mbing."t Free upon request. SALE BY7