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Department of Administration

The School Laws and their Interpretation
School Boards and their Problems
The State Department of Education

The most important event in connection with the state department last month was the resignation of Mr. L. W. Wood, State Rural School Inspector, who retires in order that he may be free to canvass the voters of the state for the position of state superintendent of public instruction. The civil service commission held an examination for

L. W. WOOD

Rural School Inspector, who has announced his candidacy for the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Mr. Wood's succcessor on Saturday, December 19, but up to the time of going to press no one has been named for the position, though this will probably be done the first week in January.

Some years ago a township high school was established at Washburn and for many years was alotted only the usual amount given to regular free high schools. Recently it was discovered that this school should have received one half the actual

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amount paid for instruction since its establishment. This fact was brought to the attention of State Superintendent Cary and the city treasury of Washburn was enriched by the sum of $7,995.68 which was found to be due the township. This amount was taken out of the fund for special aid to free high schools.

The child without a home has become a problem to those who are attempting to enforce the compulsory education law. In some of the larger cities boys and girls have moved from their country homes and are working for day's wages. Others are orphans with no legal guardians. The parents are not accessible for the service of papers in connection with the violation of the law. There seems to be no remedy for it.

At the last session of the Massachusetts legislature a law was passed providing for the medical inspection of the children in all the public schools. Of the 432,937 children examined 96,387 were found to have defective hearing. Wisconsin should have such a law on its statute books.

The Supreme court of Wisconsin has recently ruled that nuns may teach in the public schools but are not privileged to give instruction in the Catholic religion. This case came up to the Supreme court from a school district in Kewaunee County.

Several misleading items found their way into the press of the state last month, the reading of which would lead one to believe tht the law authorizing a rural school district to receive $50 a year for three years providing the district lived up to certain requirements in the matter of equipment and efficient teaching, was merely another form of graft. Such a statement is not only ridiculous but absolutely false. The section referred to is Chapter 600 of the laws of 1907 and was passed on the ground that heretofore the higher institutions of learning were receiving special aid at the expense of the district school which needed it most. It is

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true that some have declared this law unconstitutional. This, however, can only be determined by the state supreme court. The charge of graft in connection with this law is simply a farce and would have so been considered by these sensational writers if they had taken the trouble in the first place to read the law, and in the second place to find out how much good it has done in the rural schools of Wisconsin since its passage two years ago. It is one of the best laws ever put upon our statute books.

Supt. W. E. Larson of Manitowoc County is supplementing the regular county school board convention with district conventions held at different intervals throughout the county. His plan is to spend two or three days in a certain locality visiting the schools and then on some evening at a convenient center meet the school officers of that vicinity in a body.

On December 8 State Superintendent Cary mailed his regular monthly circular letter to principals and superintendents. In this he calls special attention to a recent article by Henry S. Pritchett, head of the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, on the "Organization of Higher Education," in the Atlantic Monthly for December. Four recent books on education are also recommended to teachers.

The attendance at school board conventions this last fall and winter has been remarkably good and a great deal of interest has been manifested by school board members. Those who have attended these conventions year after year report a pronounced increase of interest in school affairs by district officers. This has proven a good law and is going to do much, as it has already done, for the

district school.

A KICKER GETS HIS MEDICINE.

About one of the worst examples of ignorance we have ever met in connection with school affairs comes from Chippewa County in a letter published by the local paper in which a supervisor blames Superintendent Brunstad for calling a school board convention according to the provisions of law and for keeping the taxes up too high. Instead of appearing in person at the school board convention this kicker sent the letter by another man and asked him to read it at the convention. This the man refused handing it over to Superintendent

Brunstad who read it in full and proceeded to answer the same in detail, giving the misinformed gentleman all that he had coming to him. Such examples as this are rare in school work. Intelligent people are only too ready to admit that the county superintendent today is paid all together too small a salary for the many duties he is obliged to perform. If this man had taken the pains to come to the school board convention, he would probably have learned some things about school matters which would have enlightened his otherwise lack of knowledge of such affairs. We would further suggest to this kicker that his lack of intelligence in these matters is only exceeded by his poor spelling and worse grammar as exhibited in his letter. his letter. Such pessimists deserve just what this one got from Supt. Brunstad.

HAND YOUR JOURNAL OVER TO THE TEACHER.

We make the suggestion to every clerk who receives this Journal that he hand it over to the teacher as soon after he receives and reads it as is convenient. Of course if the teacher subscribes for the paper herself this will not be necessary, but there is no reason why the Journal can not do double duty in every school district in the state of Wisconsin.

THE STATE SCHOOL FUND APPORTIONMENT.

Last month State Superintendent Cary announced the annual apportionment of the state school fund income, amounting this year to $1,764,744.28, which is $2.27 for each child of school age in the state. This amount is about $250,000 more than the apportionment last year, due to the increased valuation of the general property of the state. The amount reserved from this fund as special aid for those district schools which have complied with the requirements of Chapter 600, Laws of 1907, is $154,550, or $50.00 for each of the 3,091 districts that have fully met the demands of the law.

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SWEEPING THE SCHOOLROOM BY A DUSTLESS

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PROCESS.

At last it looks as if the day of the actually clean schoolroom has arrived-the hygienic millennium for which teachers have so long prayed.

The average schoolroom is the dirtiest, the most ill-smelling, and the most disease breeding place known in our modern civilization. Some bar

rooms possibly may be worse but their inmates are not compelled to stay in them all day nor are there so many human inhabitants to the cubic foot. Much has been done to alleviate these public school conditions in the installation of modern plumbing, providing proper ventilating apparatus, disinfecting frequently, etc., but none of these has done away with the dust raised by the shuffle of the children's feet and the sweep of the janitor's broom.

Dust is Disease.

And, dust? What of that? Where from forty to fifty pupils, coming from all sorts of home con

The Blackboards, Walls, Picture Frames and Chalk Mouldings Are Cleaned Every Night.

ditions, are brought together in a single room, several hours of the day, nine or ten months of the year, each contributes to the dust of that room from his particular environment. If a pupil is ill, or associates in his own family or elsewhere, without precaution, with those who are afflicted, the germs of the diseases with which he has come in contact are likely to be found in the dust contents of the room where that pupil attends school.

Pupils in school today are out tomorrow ill with

Getting Under the Seats and Sucking the Dirt Out of the Cracks and Crevices.

whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria, influenza, pneumonia or other communicable diseases. The dust of the room today is "pregnant with the spit of yesterday."

Both experiment and observation have shown that the ordinary ventilation, has but little influence in diminishing the amount of dust floating in the air. Being present in abundance, it is kept constantly in suspension by the movements of the many pupils. Dust is the great vehicle for the distribution of many disease germs. The dust evil is the greatest problem of sanitation remaining for public school authorities to solve. Without great care the schoolrooms become the disease clearing houses of the community.

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The Remedy,

But the remedy? It is found in a simple air suction machine which for some time has been used in cleaning houses, hotels and sleeping cars. Not until Principal W. L. Cooley of the sixteenth district school, Milwaukee, got after the problem was it effectively applied to school-houses. Mr. Cooley saw the dirt in the cracks that was never reached by the broom or even by the mop; day after day he noticed the same old dust on the mouldings and picture frames; the feather duster, he observed, merely changed the resting place of dust particles; the corners were never cleaned; the space under the seats was usually missed by the manipulator of the broom. These conditions led Mr. Cooley to investigate the vacuum cleaning process and its application to the schoolroom. In the basement of his three-story building he attached

an air suction pump, such as is used in other work, to the fan motor. From this pump up through the center of the building an iron pipe was run and tapped at each floor. Then the janitor took his hose, attached it to the pipe on the floor where he was at work, applied the suction sweeper to the floor, blackboards, desks, and walls of each room with the result that without raising any dust at all the room was cleaned in the full sense of the word -then over the entire building, and today the formerly ill-smelling, dusty sixteenth district school building is a dustless, odorless structure which is exciting the envy of all other Milwaukee schoolmasters.

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Advantages of Vaccuum Cleaning.

In enumerating the various advantages of this system of cleaning it must be borne in mind that the one great mission it is fulfilling is in checking the spread of disease, especially tuberculosis. Other incidental advantages may be enumerated as follows:

1. Without raising a particle of dust in the room, it sucks up all the dust and dirt, and shoots it into a dust tight tank in the basement where it is destroyed by fire.

2. It sucks the dirt and filth out of the cracks which is never reached by the broom or brush.

3. It sweeps clean nooks, corners, cracks, under the seats, and from everywhere the dirt is drawn into this suction apparatus.

4. No after dusting is required as no dust is raised during the cleaning process.

In this Process the Desks are "Swept" Also.

Cleaning the Floor.

5. Very little, if any, scrubbing or the use of water is necessary about the building as the cleaning is so thorough with this process that there is nothing left for water to attack.

6. Not only the floors, but the walls, the blackboards, the chalk troughs, the picture frames, mouldings, and everything in the room is perfectly cleaned.

7. The actual work of cleaning by this process is done quicker and finished earlier by the janitor than by the old broom method as it can be carried on in the halls and corridors while school is in session for no dust is raised. In the same manner, teachers are not required to leave the room after school when the janitor appears with the broom.

8. With the dust all expelled and destroyed every day, it means all disease germs and foul odors taken out of the building at night. There is no dirt the next day to soil the hands, clothing, and books, and no poisons to inhale.

Of course, it is to be understood that this vacuum cleaning process at the present time is applicable only to the larger city school buildings where motive power can be provided to run the suction pump, but it is in these crowded buildings where cleanliness is most to be desired. Undoubtedly wthin a few years every school house in the city and country where electric power is available will be equipped with this vacuum cleaning apparatus. The new Madison high-school has been piped for this purpose and probably all new school buildings of any considerable size will provide for

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the same in the plans and specifications of the future. Anything that will save lives is to be commended. The vacuum process of cleaning schoolhouses certainly is a life-saver and should be installed in every school building where power can be furnished for running the vacuum pump.

THE TOWN HIGH SCHOOL AS AN AID IN KEEP. ING BOYS AND GIRLS ON THE FARM.

L. W. WOOD, RURAL SCHOOL INSPECTOR.

During the last decade the statement has been made frequently, both in the columns of the public press and from the public platform, that the farmers' boys and girls are being educated away from the farm and toward the cities-and there is much truth in the charge. The problem of keeping more of the boys and girls on the farm is one of the most important that the farmers of our state have to solve, and they can never solve it rightly until they provide in the country itself a system of education for their children that meets the needs of these children just as fully and completely as the system now provided by the people of our cities meets the needs of the city children. At the present time very few farming communities have such a system. In practicaly all of these communities provision is made for giving only the first eight years of instruction. For any additional instruction the farmer, under present conditions, must send his children to the city schools, and it is not at all surprising that after spending four years in the city environment-years which represent one of the most impressionable periods of their livesmany become enamored of city life and never see in the country and its life what they would see if these years had been spent in a high school located in the country. Country high schools cannot be organized in every town, but there are many localities in the state where the conditions are such that their organization is perfectly feasible.

The State Pays One-Half.

For some years we have been hearing from the public platform that while the state has been doing much to aid the people of our cities to maintain high schools, it has done nothing to aid the country people to provide a better system of schools for their children, and the cry has gone up, "Why doesn't the state do something for the farmers?" The fact is that for more than thirty years the

state has been offering greater inducements to the towns to organize country high schools than it has to the cities to organize city high schools. In 1875 a law was passed by virtue of which any town organizing a country or township high school receives from the state one-half of all the cost of instruction in such school-but during the thirtytwo years that have elapsed since the passage of this law only twenty-seven such schools have been organized and in nearly all of these communities a small city is included in the town and furnishes the majority of the pupils in attendance. In 1907 the city free high schools received only $358 or $359 of special state aid, while many of the township high schools received several times as much.

In the organization of a country or township high school it is not necessary to abandon the one department country school included in the territory. The people can combine or consolidate on the high school alone, leaving the country districts just as they were before the organization of the high school. Neither is it necessary to provide transportation for the pupils attending the high school, for when they are ready to enter the high school they are old enough to transport themselves. The only thing necessary to provide are stables where the pupils can care for the horses that they use in coming to and returning from school. Make the Subjects Practical.

To organize country high schools and run them on the same plan as city high schools are run will not meet the needs of country communities. The course of study in these schools should be so administered as to give the work a decided agricultural trend. In the teaching of arithemetic, for example, the problems should be based largely upon farm topics. The pupils should be given a good common-sense course in farm bookkeeping. The elements of physics and chemistry should be taught because the fundamental principles of these sciences lie at the basis of much that the farmer does. Botany should be included in the course, but it should be agricultural botany; that is, the plants that the farmer raises should be made the basis for special study. In the strongest of these schools manual training can be taught, thus giving the pupils an opportunity to learn how to use the common tools of the farm with a reasonable degree of skill. The principal of these schools should be competent to teach agriculture in such a way as to

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