A Stake in the Land

by Peter A. Speek

The great majority of rural public schools are one-teacher schools. The Commissioner of Public Education of California stated that there were in the state of California in 1918, 2,300 one-room public schools and 410 two-room schools. Over a third of all the Wisconsin school children, city as well as country, and 42 per cent of the Wisconsin school-teachers, are found in the one-teacher country schools. [31] A report on school conditions in Arizona shows that 149 rural schools, or 70 per cent of a total of 214 reporting, are one-teacher schools.[32]

The one-teacher school usually means a crowd of children of various grades taught by one teacher during the same day. In most cases the recitation work can go on only with one grade at a time, while the other grades have to do study work. Without the supervision of the teacher, this is much less efficient than the recitation work. About two thirds of the rural teachers answering questionnaires sent out by the United States Bureau of Education [33] instructed eight or more grades and held from twenty-two to thirty-five classes a day, which means that the recitations averaged the absurdly short time of nine to thirteen minutes. A few teachers manage to lengthen the recitations by a system of organizing the grades into groups and of combining classes, but this is the exception, not the rule.

As a rule the one-teacher schools have limited room and equipment. Most of these schools visited by the writer were small one-room frame buildings with porchlike attachments on which were built a tiny hall and dressing "rooms." Quite a few did not have even these "modern conveniences." The toilets are usually at a distance from the building and are not always kept clean.

Several teachers stated that the smallness and poverty of the schools have a depressing influence upon the teachers and prevent any great respect on the part of the people toward the school.

A third defect of the one-teacher school consists in its monotony and lack of color and variety as compared with larger schools. Rivalry is lacking and the recreation enterprises are limited. Of course, much depends upon the qualities of the individual teacher, but a good teacher does not stay long in a one-teacher school; she is attracted by better opportunities elsewhere.

Dissatisfaction with the one-teacher school the writer found to be quite general, even among the immigrant settlers. The Finnish settlers at Rudyard in upper Michigan expressed the wish that the government should give a better public-school system, although the existing schools were said to be standard schools. They wanted three or four-room schools, a better heating system, and higher salaries for teachers. Only in this way could better teaching forces be attracted and kept steadily in the same schools.

The Polish colonists in Posen, Michigan, explained that they have six one-room standard public schools in the colony and its vicinity, but that as the teacher has to deal at the same time with eight grades the efficiency of her work is naturally below what it should be. The settlers said that consolidation or enlargement of the schools is badly needed. No agricultural training is included in the school work.

Reverend Kuizinga of the Dutch colony at Holland, Michigan, stated that in the backwoods parts of the colony, in purely rural districts, the school activities ought to be more efficient than they are; certain schools might be consolidated so as to make fewer grades for one teacher, teachers' salaries must be increased, and the program for teaching citizenship broadened.

A leader of an Italian colony at Canastota, New York, stated that the Italian parents appreciate the schooling of their children, who attend the American public schools, speak English among themselves, and prefer the American to the Italian ways of life. In regard to the same colony, the county school superintendent said that the Italian children attend school fairly regularly, are able pupils, and excel American children in their studies.

There is at least one school district in the same colony which has a defective one-teacher school, which the writer chanced to visit. The trustee of the school, an American woman, married to an unnaturalized Italian settler, said that she was worried about getting a school-teacher for next year, as the county pays only $17 a week. Last year it paid $15, and that was an increase of $3 over the former salary. She thought the county might possibly pay $20 this year if she could not get anyone for less. The people did not like the teacher they had last year—they thought she did not know enough. There are now seventy-three children of school age, but there were only twenty-six before, and the schoolhouse is only large enough for twenty-six. The building is very small, oblong in shape, with a small partition at one end for cloakroom and entrance. The school board voted $250 for enlarging the building and taking down the partition, but the trustee was certain that this would not be done for that small sum, as "lumber is so high, and the carpenter wants something." The building needed painting and a number of the windows were broken The woman said that last year many children of school age worked instead of going to school, as there was nobody to force them to go. Now that she was trustee, she said, she would see that everybody went.