"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself." This is an old and true maxim, and one that applies well as to communities as to individuals. One of the biggest jobs a community has to do is to provide education for its young people, and the more of this education that can be given right in the community the better for all concerned. By this I mean that nearly every community can and should provide facilities for a high school education, so that its young people need not be sent far away from home to school at such an early age. Every time I go past the high school in our town, which is ten miles from home and see the dozens of student cars lined up along the street, I have the profound hope that somehow before our children are old enough to go to high school we can have one nearer home, right out in our own community in the open country, where the surroundings are pure and wholesome and beautiful.
Went Ten Miles to School
To be sure, I went ten miles from home to a town high school twenty years ago, and I don't know that suffered any serious consequences from it. But times have changed a lot in twenty years, and the young people of today have a lot of freedom and do a lot of things that were not even dreamed of then. While I think it is true that the young people now are no worse than they were then, certainly they have more temptations to meet, and have greater need for good home influence than ever before. When I went to high school it would hardly have been considered proper for the principal to frequent poolrooms up town and swagger down the street puffing a cigar, but such things now seem to add to his popularity. To my mind there is no worse institution little cities today than the poolrooms, and I would like to have my children go through high school out here where they are not in close contact with those demoralizing agencies. There is an ever increasing demand for good schools. Here in Illinois there are 64 new school buildings, being built this year. These are either township or community schools. Many of these, of course, are located in towns of some size, while a fair sprinkling of them will serve very largely rural communities.
Spend Too Much Money
One thing that holds many communities back from the building of community high schools is the amount of money that is being spent for many of them. ple is One town of about 4,000 people spending $300,000 on a new school building, and it is reported that one town of 17.000 population is planning to spend a million dollars on a high school plant. Unless these communities have a very unusual source of income, it looks as though they would be saddled with a school debt for many years to come. And the fact is that their children will not get any better preparation than they would in • schools that would only cost one-fourth as much.
The tendency seems to be growing to make our high schools more and more elaborate as to architecture and equipment until many of these new building would do credit to a college or university. But in a great many of them the pupils are no better prepared for college or for life work than they were a quarter of a century ago, when the schools and equipment and curricula were much less pretentious.
Not Necessary
It is not the purpose of this discussion to say why this is true, bu the fact to be remembered is that elaborate and costly buildings and equipment are not necessary for good high schools. In any school the teacher is the most important factor. A good teacher with modest or even meager equipment will do better than a mediocre teacher with the finest equipment. Let us come down to earth again in our school building program, and then let us have these schools scattered throughout the country so they are readily accessible to our country children and are surrounded by the influences that we want our children to have.
There are notable examples of this kind of school to be found in every part of the corn belt. Here in Illinois there 1s none more famous than the John Swaney school in Putnam country. For a quarter of a century or so It has been there, a pioneer in the feld, a modern, complete, accredited high school right out in the open country, two miles from any town, in one of the prettiest spots in that part of the state only provides high school instruction for the children of that community and for others who come from a distance and pay tuition, but it has become a social center for the community. Athletic contests, amateur dramatics, literary programs and social events all center at the school. Practical instruction in agriculture and household science is given the pupils and institute and farm bureau meetings held at teh school attract the older people and stimulate progress in their work.
Good Cannot Be Estimated
It is impossible to estimate the good that such a school does in a community. The leaders in thought and action in our business, professional and political life are going to come from the farm as they have done in the past, provided we can give them the right kind of training there. But if we allow them to be lured to the city at an early age, before they are old enough or experienced enough to have some perspective of life, their foundation of training will not be as solid nor their vision as broad as the biggest things in life are going to demand. And our young people will be and are being lured to the city wherever there is nothing adequate provided at home to interest them and fill their leisure hours.
So there is no more important item in a program of real communtty thrift than the item of education. Educate the children as near at home as possible until they are through high school. Surround them with favorable influences, occupy their time with the things that are interesting, let the parents know and take an interest in whatever the children do, and they need have little fear that the children demoralized if they to college. --Daddy of Illinois.