Many of the remote rural schools employ normal graduates at good wages, provide hot lunches during the cold weather, have a library, do some work with tools and are as much abreast of the times as the schools of the towns.
In the matter of expense for public education, the question never has been how little but how much can we afford to give or how much can we give. The configuration of the county has made necessary many remote and small communities and it is astonishing how much the people in these remote communities have been willing to sacrifice to educate their children and when it has been impossible to maintain a local school on account of the small valuation or small number of pupils many families have annually moved to town for the winter months to give their children the opportunities of the schools.
The amount spent last year, 1917, for the entire county was $65,793. When it is remembered that we have not a mile of railroad in the county and no manufacturing industries whatever and that our total valuation is but little over $4,000,000, it will be plain that Asotin County shows its interests in education in a most practical way.
Every year a considerable number of young people enter higher institutions of learning, and an increasing number are coming back into the county as teachers, ranchers, etc.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the schools of the county is the great variety of physical conditions found. At Asotin and Clarkston and other points on the Snake River the climate is mild, in fact a veritable winter resort for this entire section, while up on the high flats one could imagine himself on the prairies of Iowa or the Dakotas in the winter. Some of the schools are situated on steep hillsides, some in the great pine woods, some beside the beautiful Asotin Creek. Some of the pupils ride to school on horseback, some come in autos, some in sleds through the deep snow, some cross the wide Snake River every day in row boats, some are brought in by school wagons. Some live next door and some come in from the ranch seven miles away, but the great majority walk in the good old-fashioned way.
Among the teachers responsible for the present condition of Asotin County schools should be mentioned the following: J. B. Jones, for many years superintendent of schools of Asotin, when Asotin maintained the only high school in the county. Mr. Jones served a term as county superintendent and is now a leading banker of the county. Another teacher whose work will never be forgotten is Miss Lillian Clemans, now Mrs. Lillian Clemans Merchant. Mrs. Merchant was a leading teacher in the county for many years and took a leading part in educational matters for four years as county superintendent. J. W. Graham, now superintendent of the Pullman, Wash., schools, but for several years a leading educator of the county as superintendent of the Clarkston schools. W. J. Jerome, at present superintendent of the Asotin city schools, who has been associated with these schools and with the educational interests of the county for eight years. Gus Lybecker has had charge of the Anatone schools for four years and is now beginning a fifth year as the head of a new consolidated district at that place. C. B. Thornton has been associated with the Cloverland schools as principal for several years and is now the county superintendent of schools.
No resume of the schools of the county would be complete that failed to mention the three men who for many years worked together for the Clarkston schools: Dr. P. W. Johnson, W. E. Howard, and Elmer E. Halsey. Dr. H. C. Fulton, G. W. Bailey, William Farrish, W. G. Woodruff, and Kay L. Thompson served Asotin in a similar fashion for many years, indeed some of these men put in as much as twenty years as school board members. In every district there is one or more but usually one central figure, who takes a vital interest in the welfare of the children and gives unstintedly of time and talent for the schools of the district. The author wishes that all these splendid men could be mentioned here, for to them as much as to teachers we owe our schools.
In treating of the other counties, we have devoted considerable space to the churches. These indispensable agencies of the higher motives and higher life have had the same general place in Asotin as in the other counties. To some extent the same men whose names we noted in Walla Walla went on into the newer fields. Early in the history of Asotin City the Baptists effected an organization and erected a church. Soon the Presbyterian, Methodist, United Brethren, and Christian denominations became also established and maintain their church work to the present day.
Clarkston also has a full quota of well sustained churches: Methodist, Christian, Presbyterian, United Brethren, Church of God, Lutheran (Norwegian), St. John's Evangelical (German), Catholic, Adventists, Baptist, and Episcopal.
The fraternal orders are also well represented in both cities. The first lodge in the county was Hope Lodge, I. O. O. F., at Anatone. The Good Templars seem to have been pioneers in lodge organization in Asotin City, dating to 1885. The first Odd Fellow lodge was known as Riverside Lodge No. 41, and was organized in 1886. Other lodges followed, and at the present date we find the following represented: I. O. O. F.; Woodmen of the World; Women of Woodcraft; Grand Army of the Republic; Sons of Veterans; Women's Relief Corps; Modern Woodmen; Rebekahs; United Artisans; Stootki Tribe of Red Men; Masonic.