1. What school is the dearest,
The neatest and best,
What school is more pleasant,
More dear than the rest,
Whose highways and byways
Have charms from each day,
Whose roads and alfalfa,
They have come to stay.
Chorus.
Kile, Kile, our own Kile,
We love her, we’ll praise her,
We’ll all work for Kile.
2. Whose corn is so mellow,
Whose cane is so sweet,
Whose taters are so mellow,
Whose coal’s hard to beat,
Whose Ma’s and whose Grandpa’s
Are brave, grand and true,
Their love for their children
They never do rue.

There follows a program like the program of any other social evening, except that very often the parents take part as well as the children. The things are interesting, too, like this little duet, sung at the Thanksgiving entertainment by two of the Kile girls:

1. If a body pays the taxes,
Surely you’ll agree,
That a body earns a franchise,
Whether he or she.
Chorus.
Every man now has the ballot,
None, you know, have we,
But we have brains and we can use them,
Just as well as he.
2. If a city’s just a household,
As it is, they say,
Then every city needs housecleaning,
Needs it right away.
3. Every city has its fathers,
Honors them, I we’en,
But every city must have mothers,
That the house be clean.
4. Man now makes the laws for women,
Kindly, too, at that,
But they often seem as funny
As a man-made hat.

The grand event of this fairyland comes in the summer, when the boys and girls from all of the schools go to the county seat for a summer camp, where, between attending classes and lectures, playing games and reveling in the joys of camp life, they come to have a very much broader view of the world and a more intense interest in one another.

They are only one-room schools out there in Page County, but they have adapted themselves to the needs of the community, focusing the attention of parents and children alike on the bigger things in rural life, and the ways in which a school may help a countryside to appreciate and enjoy them. So the boys and girls of Page County have their fairyland, and are devoted to the good fairy, who, in the shape of a generous, kindly county superintendent, helps them to enjoy it.

VI The Task of the Country School

The teacher of a one-room school in Berks County was quizzing a class about Columbus.

“Where was he born?” she queried.

“In Genoa.”

“And where is Genoa, Ella?”