THE
EDINBORO
QUARTERLY

Yol. II. September, 1915 No. 4

IEJJtnbor0 ^uart^rly
'T'HE EDINBORO QUARTERLY is issued in December, March, June and September by
^ the Edinboro State Normal School. The March number constitutes the Alumni Reg­
ister, the June number, the Catalog.
and general news matter.

The other two numbers are filled with announcements

"Entered as second-class matter, December 11, 1913, at the postoffice at Edinboro,
Pennsylvania, under the act of August 24, 1912."

FACULTY FOR 1915-16
FRANK E. BAKER, PRINCIPAL
Education
A. B., Allegheny; A. M., Harvard
WILLIAM G. SIDDELL, VICE- PRINCIPAL
Mathematics
A. B. Syracuse; A. M., Clark
ANNIE L. WILSON
Librarian
Edinboro Normal School; Western Reserve Library Board
MARY ELIZABETH POWELL
Art
Clarion Normal School; Valpariso University; Harvard Summer School
H. SACKETT
History and Mathematics
A. B. and A. M., Washington and Jefferson
OLIVIA J. THOMAS
Music
A. B., Thiel; Dana Institute; Chautauqua Summer School;
pupil of Madame von Klemmer
WALLACE J, SNYDER
Science
Sc. B., Bucknell
GEORGE B. FROST
Manual Training
Alden Academy
DAVID STANCLIFF
Science and Common Branches
Edinboro Normal; Leland Stanford
JANET GILLESPIE
Critic Teacher, first and second grades
Edinboro Normal School; Teachers’ College Summer School

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
MAUD HOWARD
Critic Teacher, fifth and sixth grades
Edinboro Normal School; Teachers’ College Summer School
FRANCES BURCHFIELD
Critic Teacher, third and fourth grades
Edinboro Normal School; Teachers’ College Summer School
RUBY ANDERSON
Critic Teacher, seventh and eighth grades
Edinboro Normal School
HOWARD H. DENISON
Principal, High School Department
A. B., Allegheny College
FLORENCE FOWLER BAKER
Household Arts
Miss Cook’s School of Domestic Science, New York; New York
Library School
ELLEN M. SULLIVAN
English
Edinboro Normal School; Emerson College
ROBERT PATTON ANDERSON
Latin and French
A. B. and A. M., Princeton
FRANCIS L. LaBOUNTY
English
A. B. and A. M., Allegheny
LEILA M. COBB
Supervisor, Training Schools
North Carolina State Normal School; Teachers’ College
FRANCES H. CLARK
Psychology and Principles of Education
B. S., Teachers’ College
VERA SCHUELLER
German
Hoehere Maedchenschule, Pirna, Saxony
STUART D. GRAHAM
Physical Training and Athletics
Edinboro Normal School; Springfield Y. M. C. A. Training School;
^
Harvard Summer School
MABEL E. ENTERLINE
Critic Teacher, Model Rural School
Edinboro State Normal School; State College Summer School
BEATRICE K., SHERWOOD
Piano
Ohio Wesleyan Conservatory of Music
MRS. RHODA SMITH ROSSMORE
Matron and Nurse
LOUIS GVATSOVSKY
Violin

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

3

work of the German Department in
any of our best private schools or to
fill the position of native instructor
in a college. She has been a constant
student all her life, and much of the
time she has assisted her father in
tutoring Americans who come to him
for advanced work. For the past four
years she has done advanced private
tutoring in Helsingfors, Finland,
largely with University men and wo­
men. In all of this work she has had
the highest success.
‘T fell sure that Fraulein Schueller
would be a strong addition to any
faculty, or a most valuable private
tutor, if she cared to take such a po­
sition during the summer.”
During the present summer, Frau­
lein Schueller has been instructing in
German in the Summer School of
Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt.

MISS VERA SCHUELLER
Miss Vera Schueller comes from
the German Department of the
Packer Collegiate Institute to take
charge of the same department in
the Edinboro State Normal School..
Fraulein Schueller was born in Pirna,
Saxony, and was educated in the
Hoehere Maedchenschule of that
town and in her father’s school of lan­
guages.
The following extract is from a let­
ter by Miss Eulalie Osgood Grover,
author of the “Sunbonnet Babies:”
“I first knew Fraulein Schueller
when she was fourteen years old, at
which time I spent eight months in
her parents’ home studying the lan­
guage and literature with her father.
I have kept in touch with her during
the intervening years, and it has been
a great pleasure to watch her develop
into the finely educated and cultured
woman which she now is. Two years
ago I was again in her home in Ger­
many for a few weeks, and I was at
that time assured of her quite unus­
ual practical and inspirational quali­
ties as a teacher.
Fraulein Schueller is, I believe, thor­
oughly competent to conduct the

FRANCIS L. LaBOUNTY
All friends and alumni of the Edin­
boro State Normal School will be
glad to hear that Mr. Francis L. LaBounty is to come back to the school
as head of the English Department.
Mr. LaBounty was graduated from
Allegheny College in 1907. From
1907 to 1911, he taught English in

4

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

Alden Academy. In 1911, he became
head of the English Department in
the Edinboro State Normal School,
resigning in June, 1914. to take up
newspaper work.
Mr. LaBounty has contributed to
various newspapers and magazines
and to the Centennial History of Al­
legheny College.
In 1913, he was
elected an honorary member of Phi
Beta Kappa of that institution in
recognition of the scholarly merit of
a paper read by him at the Founder’s
Day Celebration, entitled “Timothy
Alden, A Study in Leadership.”

lege during the regular sessions of
1906-7 and 1914-1S and the summer
sessions of 1910-14, securing a certi­
ficate in supervision of elementary
schools, a diploma in supervision of
rural schools, and the degree B.' S.
in education.
'

MISS LEILA M. COBB
Miss Leila M. Cobb, who has been
appointed Supervisor of the Training
Schools for the year 1915-16, has had
unusual experience and training for
this work. She was educated in the
Goldsboro, N. C., Pligh School, in the
State Normal School of North Caro­
lina, and in Teachers’ College of
Columbia University.
After graduating from the Normal
School, Miss Cobb spent eight years
teaching and two years in country
school supervision in the state of
North Carolina. For the next three
years she taught in the Normal De­
partment of Winthrop College, Rock
Hill, S. C. During the years 1913 to
1915, she was a student in Teachers’
College, receding a certificate in
Elementary Supervision in June,
1915.

Miss Cobb has lectured and in­
structed in summer institutes in the
state of North Carolina, has taught
in the summer school in the Univer­
sity of North Carolina, and is now
engaged in the Summer Normal
School at Richmond, Va.
FRANCES H. CLARK
Miss Frances H. Clark, who will
have charge of the new department
of Theory of Education, is a native of
Tennessee. She taught in the rural
schools of that state from 1902 to
1906 and in the Isidore Newman
Manual Training School from 1907
to 1914.
Miss Clark attended Teachers’ Col­

MISS MABEL E. ENTERLINE
The appointment of Miss Mabel E.
Enterline as Critic Teacher of the
new Model Rural School assures the
success of that departure.
Miss Enterline became interested
in the country school problem during
her senior year at Edinboro. Those
who attended the 1914 Commence­
ment will remember her excellent or­
ation on “The Country School a
Social Center,” which was published
in full in the October, 1914, Edinboro
Quarterly.
Last year Miss Enterline taught a
very successful country school in
Mercer County, under the able super­
vision of County Superintendent H.
E. McConnell. She is now at State
College
Summer
School,
taking
courses in Rural School Methods.

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

5

the end of one year in that school he
received an appointment as athletic
director of a branch Y. M. C. A. of
Toronto, Canada.
Mr. Graham is spending the sum­
mer at the Harvard Summer School,
making special preparation for his
work next year.

STUART D. GRAHAM
It can almost be said that Stuart
D. Graham was brought up in a gym­
nasium, his father having been in­
structor in gymnastics at the Uni­
tarian College in Meadville for
twenty years. During his course at
the Edinboro State Normal School,
Mr. Graham distinguished himself in
all branches of athletics, football,
basketball, tennis and indoor gym­
nastics.
After graduation from the Edin­
boro State' Normal School, Mr. Gra­
ham entered the Y. M. C. A. Train­
ing School at Springfield, Mass. At

MISS BEATRICE SHERWOOD
Miss Beatrice Sherwood, who will
assist in the Department of Music, is
a graduate of the Conservatory of
Music of Ohio Wesleyan University.
For the last two years she has taught
piano and pipe organ in the Synodi­
cal College of Missouri.

1915-16 PROSPECTIVE
The Edinboro State Normal School created the department of Theory of
will begin its fifty-fifth year on Sep­ Education, and chose Miss Frances
tember seventh with unusually bright Clark of Teachers’ College to fill the
position. This will give the head of
prospects.
Educationally, there will be several the Department of Education more
departures. In order to unify and time for the supervision of the prac­
strengthen the professional work of ^ tice work and will result in greater
the school, the Board of Trustees unity in the professional instruction.

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THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

Hereatfer, all the strictly professional
subjects will be taught by the Prin­
cipal, Miss Cobb, Miss Clarke, and
Mr. Siddell.
The Rural Model School, which is
described below will be another step
in the differentiation , of the profes­
sional work of the school.
Much new equipment has been
ordered and will be installed before
September seventh. The Music De­
partment will be equipped through­
out with new Henry F. Miller pianos.
Twelve new instruments, ten up­
rights, one concert grand and one
parlor grand, have been ordered and
will be ready for use on opening day.
Much new physics and chemistry
apparatus, new chemistry desks, and
one hundred new tablet arm chairs
for the remodeled class rooms in
Normal Hall have been ordered.
The Board is planning to spend
nearly $20,000 in improvements, all of
which they hope to have completed
before cold weather.
The first floor of Normal Hall is
being remodeled, partitions are being
removed and windows added to in­

crease the light. These changes will
give three more large, well lighted
classrooms. The book room will be
moved from the basement to the first
floor and will be combined with the
Registrar’s office.
The first floor of Science Hall is
being remodeled so as to make room
for the new chemistry desks.
The walls of Reeder and Haven
Halls are being repaired and redec­
orated and new furnishings installed.
Contract has been let for the con­
struction of an addition to Haven
Hall 125 X 65 feet. For the present,
only the basement and first floor will
be completed. The first story will
contain a dining room to seat five
hundred, kitchen, serving rooms,
pantrys and servants’ dining room.
The basement will contain cold stor­
age rooms and servants’ quarters.
With the completion of this wing,
there will pass another landmark
among the school buildings. South
Hall will be torn down and its site
made ready for the new science build­
ing which it is hoped the next session
of Legislature will make possible.

THE RURAL MODEL SCHOOL
The most definite educational trend
among Normal Schools is toward
greater differentiation. Superintend­
ents and school authorities are no
longer satisfied with teachers who
have had a general professional train­
ing. They demand teachers trained
especially for the kindergarten, pri­
mary grades, or the grammar grades.
The demand for specially trained
rural school teachers has just begun,
but it is growing more insistent every
year and soon will become impera­
tive in many counties.
The Edinboro State Normal School
was one of the first in Pennsylvania
to recognize the demand for trained
rural school teachers; in fact, Edin­
boro has done much to foster this
demand.

Heretofore we have been greatly
handicapped in our rural school work
by the lack of a rural model school
to supplement and strengthen the
theoretical work given in the classes
in Rural Methods, Rural Sociology,
etc. To remove this handicap, the
Board of Trustees has provided a
Rural Model School for the year
1915-16. Such schools have been in
operation in the west for several
years. Two plans have been adopt­
ed there. Either the Normal School
has built a model rural school on its
own campus and transported the
children to the school, or else the
Normal School has made a contract
with adjoining districts by which the
normal students in the rural school
group were allowed to practice and

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
observe in these schools, under com­
petent supervision. The latter plan
has been adopted at Edinboro.
The Trustees of the Normal School
have entered into contract with the
Trustees of Venango township, Craw­
ford county, by which the Torry
school in that township will be used

7

as a model rural school. Miss Mabel
Enterline has been employed as critic
teacher, and seniors in the rural
school group will be sent to the dis­
trict in groups of two or three, each
group to remain in the district a week
at a time to practice and observe in
an actual country school under rural
conditions.

THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT, 1915-16
The Music Department of the Edin­
boro State Normal offers two-year
courses in piano, voice, violin,
theory of music, and public school
music. Three teachers, Miss Olivia
Thomas, director, who teaches piano,
voice, theory, pipe organ and public
school music, an assistant teacher
and an instructor in violin consti­
tute the teaching force of the de­
partment. Music Hall has been
newly painted and has undergone ex­
tensive repairs during the summer
and the studios and practice rooms
have been equipped throughout with
new pianos.
The assembly room,
the meeting place of classes, or­
chestra and choral society, and Nor­
mal Hall have new Grand pianos.

The orchestra, which plays for
chapel each morning and for all
school affairs, is composed of stu­
dents and meets once each week
under the direction of the head of
the department.
The Choral Society, whose mem­
bers are students and towns people,
is, an active organization of about
fifty members. This society prac­
tices once each week and gives can­
tatas, concerts, etc., and furnishes
music for all public services held in
Normal Hall. Gaul’s Cantata, “Ruth,”
was given by the society last spring
and proceeds given to the charity
fund of the town.
Three persons graduated in June
in public school music, two in piano
and one in voice.

THE COUNTRY GIRL’S VISION
Edna Hazen, ’15
Just as naturally as birds build
their nests do girls want to be homekeepers, and though many customs
have changed through the slow pro­
cess of evolution, yet we find this
instinct more deeply rooted in the
hearts of our girls than ever. To be
an efficient home-keeper in every
sense of the word is what the Amer­
ican girl should attain.
It is woman’s sphere to make life
livable anywhere. To her is given
the sense of the graceful and gra­

cious, the touch that molds the com­
mon-place into the exquisite. It is
her highest faculty and her mission
and yet everywhere about us we see
girls failing to accomplish this very
purpose. Where do people get that
desirable quality, which we call re­
finement? Surely it is only through
the influence of the home and com­
panions. Whatever the effect of this
influence upon our lives may be, the
prime source of it, the home, should
be pure and sweet.

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THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

Though the country home should
be the ideal place for developing in
our girls this inborn instinct of home­
keeping, it seemingly has not ful­
filled this ideal. Let us think what
the conditions of the average coun­
try girl are. The farmer has long
been progressive and has tried to
teach his boys how to raise more
corn per acre and better stock, but
he has not thought about helping
his daughter to make a better home.
And because he has not thought of
that he is unable to keep his boy in
the country, for the boy is leaving
the country more because of the lack
of an attractive home than of any­
thing else.
The farmer has long
since invested in as expensive and
up-to-date farm machinery as he can
get for himself, yet, rarely do we
find a kitchen with modern conven­
iences to the same degree. Slowly,
wearily, time-killingly, health-killingly mothers and daughters are making
drudgery of their work, which keeps
them going round and round in the
same spot instead of going forward.
It is because of this, that mother and
daughter rarely find the time or need
for home-keeping magazines. Each
knows very little of the world out­
side her immediate community. The
girl longs for a good time, but where
will she go for it.
The country
church offers very little in the way
of an attractive recreation, and there
is almost no other resort but the
dance, and the influence of the coun­
try dance, as we usually know it, is
questionable.
Thus only as a natural result of
such an environment, the girl de­
velops from girlhood to woman-hood,
living as it were, from day to day
with no ambition, merely expecting
that she will, some day, be married,
and have a home of her own. We
often find her married in her teens,
settled down to a life of almost con­
stant drudgery, void of those many
things which make life so attractive,
and help one over the hard places.
Her home is surrounded by nature’s
beauties, and yet the little spot of

ground around her house is often the
barest and dreariest place one can
imagine. She has found nothing to in­
spire her, and because of this she fol­
lows along in the same way, never
changing her life for something bet­
ter.
But all country girls are not willing
to settle down in this ambitionless
and hum-drum way. There are some
who have visions and because they
have visions they reach out to grasp
better things, and the nature of their
visions determines the heights to
which they will attain. For instance,
there is one type of country girl
whom we all known, and whom we
often must pity, because her life is
so many times a tragedy. The dis­
content among the farm wives and
daughters is brought to bear directly
upon her life. She is discontented,
not so much, because she must work,
but discontented because, after all her
hard work, her life is not satisfying.
She is alive and ambitious, but her
vision is wholly material. There are
two things which she wants, and
which she thinks the cky will offer
her. They are money and, more al­
luring still, an attractive marriage.
So, in her effort to broaden her life,
she pushes out from the country
road to what is often a more narrow
city street. She is eager and hopeful,
but we know how many, many times
she is disappointed.
We find her
sometimes with little more wage per
week after several years’ service in
the city than when she started. Per­
haps she is married, living in a rented
home with little more of this world’s
goods than the household furnishings
and the constant worry that the hus­
band will be thrown out of work. She
has fulfilled her vision, yet in a
larger sense she has failed—but the
fault lay in her vision.
But there is another country girl,
who like her more unfortunate sister,
has been yearning and longing for
something to make her own life more
satisfying.
The vision which has
come to her is not merely the satis­
fying of her own material wants, Tut

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
the enrichment of her whole life. She
sees the utter desolateness with which
those about her go from one day’s
work to another, thinking of it only
as dreary, montonous drudgery. She
realizes that the bareness and sordid­
ness which fill their lives should not
be there, but instead an eager and en­
thusiastic interest in their work and
the things about them. She realizes
that if the housekeeping were run on
a thinking and intelligent basis and
not on a mere matter of physical en­
durance, that the home would become
attractive and inspiring, and with the
home changed, the attitude of those
in it would be altogether different.
The wife would have time to be a
companion to her husband and a true
mother and comrade to her children.
And because she sees how directly
the influence of the community is
brought to bear upon the home and
children she reaches out to help this
too. She knows there is too little
of real pleasure and thinking of the
better things in life, and so she grad­
ually works to make the lives of
those people about more enjoyable
and more worthwhile to themselves.
She sees before her what will be at
times a very difficult and discourag­
ing life, but oh—how very satisfying!
Country girls, whoever you are,
wherever you are, and amid whatever

9

surroundings, should there ever come
to you the faintest glimmer of such
a vision, will you not nourish and
care for it, so that it may grow and
become the beacon-light to your
lives? You have the chance to put
into your hearts and souls and char­
acters, all the things that are most
worth while, if you can only compre­
hend that God created the country
with the greatest advantages in the
whole world for you. We carry our
own happiness and our satisfaction
to a great extent in our own hearts,
and if your eyes are wide open, you
may find right at your doors what
you might search in vain for, else­
where.
It rests entirely with you
what you are going to get out of your
country life. It is you that count
for—
Some ships sail east, and some sail
west.
By the self-same winds that blow:
’Tis the set of the sails, and not the
gales
That determines which way they go.
Like the winds of the East are the
forces of fate.
As we travel along through life;
’Tis the set of the soul that deter­
mines the goal.
And not the calm or strife.

SHOULD THE COURSE OF STUDY FOR RURAL
SCHOOLS BE FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED?
Rural School Conference, February, 1915
By Helen W. Zons
The course of study for the mod­
ern rural school must be broader and
more practical than that of the old
type of school. Rural schools for­
merly met the requirements socially
and intellectually.
In those days
there was no need for Manual Train­
ing, Domestic Science, etc., because
such training was received in the

home.
Almost everything, from
clothing to furniture and farm ma­
chinery was the product of their own
hands. In modern times, however,
this home-manufactory has passed
away and in its place we have the
factory and the workshop. Life has
become more complex, and children
must be trained to meet the new re-

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THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

quirements.
They must learn to
work with the hand as well as the
brain. The old course of study is
no longer adequate.
It must be
changed to meet the new demands.
The aim in reorganizing the course
of study in rural schools, is to select
a point of common interest and to
use this as a foundation, on which to
build a mastery of the fundamentals
of knowledge, and then to add cer­
tain things which have heretofore
been lacking. This will lead to a
more complete learning of the ele­
mentary branches, and create a de­
sire for more extended and helpful
education than the children are now
receiving.
The fundamental basis of interest
is easily found in the lives of rural
school pupils for they all come from
homes founded on the same type of
occupation—agriculture.
They are
interested in the same industrial
problems. For this reason. Nature
Study should be made the basis
around which the other subjects are
to be grouped. Manual Training of
the type most related to the needs of
the farm, and Home Economics
suited to the condition of the farm
home, should also receive their share
of attention. This does not mean
that the branches now taught are to
be omitted and neglected; they are
only to be set in their proper relation
to the interest and experience of the
pupil. Reorganization, not annihila­
tion is the aim.
The old curriculum has been mod­
eled after that of the city, and does
not meet the needs of the country
child. In fact, it has been educating
the child away from the country. It
has laid too much emphasis on the

technical and theoretical side rather
than the practical.
The new curriculum, on the other
hand, connects the school with the
home activities, by starting at the
most practical and natural starting
point—nature study. Thus the child
learns to appreciate the country, with
its beauty, to live a more hygienic
life and to be a more successLil far­
mer. And these, we all realize, are
vital points.
Nature study forms a natural basis
for all other branches that deal with
our physical environment, such as
Geography, Physiology, Agriculture,
Manual Training, Farm Mechanics,
etc. Reading, Writing and Arithme­
tic will not be neglected but will be
taught even more efficiently than
ever before. We all know that there
is much room for improvement in
these subjects, in the average coun­
try school. Music and Art should
also constitute a part of the rural
school program. The country child
has as much right to enjoy good mu­
sic and good pictures as the city
child, and since he has not the oppor­
tunities that the city child has, there
is all the more reason why they
should be brought into his home. The
Rural Schools must meet the require­
ments socially, if children are to be
kept in the country.
One of the greatest questions we
have to consider in America today is
that of the high price of food. This
vital question will not be solved until
people stop leaving the country for
the city, and until agriculture is car­
ried on in a more scientific way. I
believe that these conditions can be
brought about only by the reorgan­
ization of the course of study in
Rural Schools.

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

II

REVELATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE
COUNTRY CHURCH
Ethel Bentley, ’15
Almost two thousand years ago a ter that all this life and activity and
child was born among the hills of far progress must be vitalized and spirit­
Judea. Fostered with loving care, ualized. A great and glorious oppor­
and guided by wise hands the Child tunity is hers if she will but reach
grew into manhood beautiful and out and grasp it and lay hold of it as
strong, and “He went about his something very precious. There is
Father’s business.”
He gathered no good reason why the country
about him a group of simple country church should stand alone as such.
folk, and lo! the first church had its It should, and can be made a social,
beginning. Close to the very heart as well as a religious center for the
of nature from which it drew its very whole community. It must not mere­
life and strength and peace; living ly save souls, but it must save and
under the stimulus of the divine com­ conserve and develop for this present
mand, this simple country church has life the bodily, moral, and the intel­
developed even to the present day, lectual powers.
until the numbers of its members
Kenyon L. Butterfield of the Com­
have increased from the few scores mission on Country Life says: “Ag­
of fishermen and farmers at Galilee ricultural prosperity is not to be the
to its hundreds of thousands. One final result of rural improvement.
day this Man taught his people a The rural problem is the preserva­
Prayer. It was this; “Thy Kingdom tion upon our American farms of a
Come.” For a long time men did not fine, strong, intelligent, resourceful,
understand what that could mean; honest class of people.” Spirituality
they struggled in their ignorance to is absolutely essential to this reali­
bring that Kingdom to earth; they zation, but spirituality must not be
did not realize that this earth must mis-used. It is the country church
be brought nearer the Kingdom and itself that has laid the foundation for
not that the Kingdom should descend its own death during the decades
to earth. And now at last, men have when it tried to teach the people not
come to know that they must seek to be well and wise and prosperous
salvation through this world—not be and happy and good, but merely to
dodging around it. And it is to the be religious. Surely it is not a par­
country church that a divinely mute adox to say that a religion of “Thou
appeal is even now being made—to shalt not’s” produces at the outset a
help mankind; to lift up to a new class of people whose goodness con­
richness of life and a broader concep­ sists of not doing things—the exact
tion of an existence truly worth while. opposite of the American ideal of to­
The opportunity of the country day, which finds its real salvation in
church is almost boundless. It is in doing things and in rendering ser­
the heart of the world’s greatest in­ vice to others.
dustry. The farmer indeed stands be­
Therefore, we find that t1 e task of
tween the world and starvation. The the country church is well nigh stuprosperity of the nation and of the penduous. It must achieve results
world depends on the prosperity of which will find expression in human
the farmer. A great tide is sweeping character and in social environment.
over our country bearing upon its It must be an inspirational force to
crest the good news that country life the home. It must instill in the
has not yet had its day. And it is hearts of the young people a love for
through the country church as a cen­ farming and for country life; it must

12

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

glorify- toil and idealize it; but above
all else it must inspire the country
with a spirit of belief in itself.
But that the country church as well
as any other church will meet diffi­
culties and hardships we all know.
Every community should keep open
one church and only one. Too many
churches are not founded right. A
strife arises and now two churches
stand where one and only one is
needed. In a country town which I
know not far away, there are three
churches only a few yards distant
from each other.
In one, services
have not been held for many years,
and the other two are struggling
along for mere existence. Coopera­
tion, not creed is the secret of church
union in country as in city. The only
sound basis for a vital church today
is the spontaneous religious emotion
of a happy and prosperous people.
Another difficulty is the unattrac­
tiveness of the church itself.
The
farmer spends a great deal of time
and money in modernizing and beau­
tifying his home, but still the coun­
try church stands there year in and
year out, weather beaten and unpaint­
ed, and if the windows are unbroken
and the roof sheds rain, the far­
mer stands back and views it com­
placently. Then, too, the church must
strive not to be too narrow. The
“boss” system rules in many rural
districts to the detriment of commun­
ity life. Two or three families are
often as real tyrants as an eighteenth
century duke. Many a country church
has had this discouraging feature to
cope with, and many a congregation
has given up the struggle-for democ­
racy and equality in despair.
The greatest mistake, however, is
made in separating religion from life.
The little white church on the hill is
the place where an intelligent and in­
dustrious class of people meet to
worship; to greet each other in happy
fellowship, and to hear plain practi­
cal sermons that will teach them to
live in the best and, happiest way.
The church must be made a neces­
sary part of their lives. It must lead

in community activities and must
share in a great campaign for rural
progress. It is high time that due
consideration was given to all our
legitimate interests as a part of our
religion.
Indeed, there is no good
reason why the young people could
not meet together at a rural church
and on the same evening have an
oyster supper and a prayer meeting—
and in such a way that each would be
vitalized by the other. The church
must remember that the body, mind,
and spirit are to be cared for and
developed. The church plant must be
enlarged and made attractive and
useful. In some places classes have
been established in agriculture for the
boys, and in domestic science for the
girls. Everywhere these have met
with great success. Surely a new era
is dawning in which country people
are recognizing the fact that if they
would keep their boys and girls on
the farm they must educate them for
the farm. It is too big a life to enter
into without careful preparation. The
country has too many problems for
-the uneducated man. The young peo­
ple must be surrounded with a stimu­
lating atmosphere, harmonious and
cultural, that will teach them to love
the country and to believe in it. The
church and its two great allies, the
home and the school must co-oper­
ate in this work. If each of these is
made attractive and inspiring, the
country boy and girl problem will be
solved.
Probably the greatest factor in the
rural church problem is that too
many country ministers are not well
prepared for their work. The country
minister must be a power in the com­
munity. He should know the up-todate methods in agriculture and all
phases of farm life. He should re­
ceive special training for a rural pas­
torate, for his duties there vary from
that of janitor to high financier. He
must be public spirited, and public
spirit is only another name for ser­
vice—his great ideal. A large part of
the life of the Christ was filled with
social service which was loving and

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
kind and beautiful, and the country
minister divinely called to a great
work must need also spend a great
deal of his time in this splendid work.
To men of vision, who love the open
country with its pulsating life and
beauty; who love old Mother Nature
and the soil with its marvelous pos­
sibilities, the country parish is send­
ing a mighty challenge, and to him
who accepts this challenge earnestly,
prayerfully and hopefully, the reward
will indeed be great. And O! let us
believe in the gospel of labor for
there is work to be done, wherever
we are in city or country, good and
glorious work, all of it, and our part
is to do it gloriously and well, for:
In some great day
The country church
Will find its voice
And it will say:
“I stand in the fields
Where the wide earth yields
Her bounties of fruit and of grain:
Where the furrows turn

13

Till the plow shares burn
And they come round and round
again;
Where the workers pray
With their tools all day
In sunshine and shadow and rain.”
“And I bid them tell
Of the crops they sell
And speak of the work they have
done;
I speed every man
In his hope and plan
And follow his day with sun;
And grasses and trees.
The birds and the bees,
I know I feel everyone.”
“And out of it all
As the seasons fall
1 build my great temple alway;
I point to the skies.
But my foot stone lies
In the common-place work of the
way;
For I preach the worth
Of the native earth
To love and to work is to pray.”

THE MINIMUM PROFESSIONAL REQUIREMENT
OF THE RURAL TEACHER
Rural School Conference, February, 1915
Mabel Shattuck
There is no other one factor that
contributes as largely to the success
or failure of the school as the teacher.
The people of the district may be in­
terested in improving the school; the
•directors may be liberal and progres­
sive; but, if the teacher is a failure,
the school will be a failure. This is
especially true of the rural school.
In the city schools, the principal and
supervisors oversee the work, to
some extent; but the country teacher
is her own supervisor and principal.
Since so much depends upon the
rural teacher, it is very necessary that
she be well prepared for the position

which she is to fill. First of all, she
must have an adequate scholastic
training, equal at least, to a good
high school education; but beyond
this, she should be professionally
trained to teach. It was formerly
thought that scholastic training was
all- that was necessary to become a
successful teacher; but time and ex­
perience have proven this to be a
mistake. The great specialists are
often the poorest teachers. They are
masters of their subjects, but they
do not know how to present these
subjects to students.
The teacher
must not only be perfectly familiar

14

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

with the subject, herself, but she
must know how to present this sub­
ject in such a way that the pupils
will be able to grasp it.
We say that some people are
“born” teachers; but this only means
that they are quick to grasp the fun­
damental principles underlying in­
struction, and are skillful in putting
these into practice. Even the Ijorn
teacher needs to be trained in the
principles underlying her art.
The fate of the new branches now
being introduced into the rural
school depends in a large degree upon
the skill and effectiveness with which
they are taught.
If agriculture,
domestic science, and manual train­
ing are presented in an impractical

way, both the pupils and their par­
ents will be likely to see little value
in the study of these subjects. While,
if they are taught in such a way that
the children can apply them in their
everyday lives, these subjects will
find an important place in the rural
school curriculum.
In order to receive this training, so
necessary to successful work, the
teacher must take some course es­
pecially designed for this purpose. In
connection with some high schools,
there are teachers’ training classes
that are efficient to a certain degree;
but, in the majority of cases, a nor­
mal school education should be the
minimum professional requirement
of the rural teacher.

THE IDEAL IN EDUCATION
John Harbaugh, ’15
When you have looked for the last
time into the truthful eyes of the
children, as the relation of teacher
and pupils is about to be severed, and
they stand before you on the threshhold of manhood, and move slowly
onward to fill their places in this
world of activity, think of what you
have produced and see if you can say,
“It is well, I am content.” What
will the harvest be? How have you
trained these lives? Society asks of
you a perfect man. What have you
given her? These questions invari­
ably arise and they must be answered.
You cannot evade them, teachers,
ministers, parents, and, whether you
will or not, your answer will go on
record.
How will the men and women you
have trained, your educational goods,
so to speak, be rated in the markets
of success?
Will superior mental
products crowd them to the bottom
or will they be leaders among men?
When Christ gathered the children
around Him and said, “Suffer the lit­
tle ones to come unto me,” well

might He have said, “These are My
loved ones, take them, teach them,
train them for life, and, when you have
done, send them again to Me.” But
would they have returned to Christ
filled with the joy of right living,
strong in the service of right, pro­
ducts worthy of the Master, or would
they have returned mere creatures of
habit, with no designation as to what
that habit is?
With questions of this nature ring­
ing in our ears do we not naturally
pause to see what our schools are
producing? What are the fruits of
our toil? Let us look about us. At
once we observe the man in thestreet, the beggar, the man who toils^
that he may have bread to keep away
hunger. That is, we see the creature
of habit, the human machine.
He
goes because he was set going with­
out knowing why.
He labors be­
cause he is hungry or because he was;
so commanded. Go down into the
mine and see another class from
whose life sunshine itself is withheld.
Go into the shop and see the mam

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
standing over the machine of which
he seems to be the counterpart, toil­
ing for the miserable pittance by
which his life is sustained. But some­
one will ask, do they not live an hon­
est, industrious life? Invariably yes,
but so does the ox that is harnessed
to the plow, or the dog that does his
master’s bidding. Human machines,
creatures of circumstance.
But if these constituted all the vis­
ible waste products of our educa­
tional system, the cry of uneducated
lives for redress would be lowered
from a shriek to a wail. If I were to
tell of the thousands of thieves,
drunkards, and murderers found in
society today, and ask the cause you
will say at once, “improper training.”
But let me tell you, parents, minis­
ters of the church, teachers of the
school, when you see a young man
hurried toward the electric chair with
the hand of the law upon his shoul­
der, you may truthfully say, “There
goes a product of my toil, for the
moulding of this life I drew my wage.
This I handed to society when she
asked a man. He asked of me edu­
cational bread and I gave him a
stone.”
We perceive another type of man
in society.
The partially educated
man, the man of intermittent aspir­
ations. He is like a traveler journey­
ing at midnight in a thunderstorm
when his only light is an occasional
flash of lightning revealing the path
here and a chasm there, but once the
lightning has passed, a greater dark­
ness prevails. So to this man comes
luminous hours, rebuking the common
life and as Hillis says, “Then does his
soul revolt from any evil thought and
thing and long for all that is God-like
in character, for honor and purity,
for valor and courage, for fidelity to
the finer convictions deep hidden in
the soul’s secret recesses.
What
heroes are there—in the vision of the
hour! With what fortitude do these
soldiers bear up under blows—when
the battle is still in the future! But
once the conflict comes their cour­
age flees.” As the frost upon the

15

window pane shows trees, houses,
thrones, cities, castles, which quickly
fade away, so before the mind the im­
agination hangs pictures of the glory
and grandeur of the higher life, but
one breath of temptation proves their
evanescence.
In this group of individuals, moti­
vated by intermittent ideals, we ob­
serve the contestant who never quite
wins, the judge who never fully de­
cides, the teacher who is not quite
sure of his work, or the artist whose
paint is never quite right—creatures
of mediocrity.
Teachers, are we going to be con­
tent with producing such men? Or
are we going to renew faith with our
ideals and lift them above the social
horizon and produce for the world
the educated, pulsating, soul-archi­
tects, who travel forward, not any
whither but towards a definite port,
who steer not by clouds, but by fixed
stars? Men, high in manhood, who
have for their ideal life’s great Ex­
emplar?
With the idea of transmitting to
society such a man we naturally look
for the place to begin his education.
The training begins with the grand­
father or even his father. The child
must be well-born. He must spring
from sound, sane stock, then the
problem of his development is decid­
edly lessened. Eugenics must play
their unquestionable part in develop­
ing this individual. Wendell Phillips,
when asked how he acquired his skill
in oratory, said, “By getting a hun­
dred nights of delivery back of me.”
So the best development begins not
with the child, but with the grand­
parents.
“Let him who would be
great, select the right parents,” says
President Dwight.
Now consider the parents’ respon­
sibility, the child’s training before he
enters school. This is the perilous
moment. It has been said that fu­
turity is vulnerable only at the point
named childhood. The parent must
deny himself some of his ease, intel­
lectual advantages, and perhaps some
of his cultural pursuits, make a con-

i6

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

slant companion of his child, harvest
for the child all the wisdom of his
own long years of experience, teach
him self-control, and finally reflect
his own nature in the child. Children
are wax to receive and steel to hold
the parents’ teachings. Every man
thinks of his parents with tenderness
and devotion if he has been trained
by them as he should. ’Tis this train­
ing that carries him through the per­
iod of doubt when in later years he
begins the study of science and is
wont to grow skeptical.
Now the child is given into the
teacher’s charge, a bubbling lad of
six. Here is the teacher’s problem,
how to cultivate his life. He must
remember to begin with nature.
Drummond says: “Nature is the scaf­
folding by which we climb from the
known to the unknown, from the maaterial to the mental, and from the
mental to the spiritual.” With nature
he must work and to her he must ever
go for guidance.
With the simple
law of the natural world in his grasp,
the humblest teacher, so far as he
uses it, is on an equality with the
most famous.
I scarcely need mention that the
teacher must be guided by the law of
continuity, that he must never forget
that mind is a force, not a receptacle
for a text or proscribed rules and
daily routine. Viewing the mind as
a passive recipient rather than a
force is one of the most, if not the
most, baneful weaknesses of present
and past teaching. He must accept
with a glad heart the truth that mind
naturally enjoys growing right, and,
having put his mind and heart into
the faith, look not backward. His
concern is with real vital things, with
the spirit, not the bones of a dead
past. He must remember to educate
the entire man, for individualism in

education, though fundamental as a
motive, is inadequate and disappoint­
ing as an ideal. He must develop a
man beyond the training required for
any industrial occupation.
And thus the teacher pushes for­
ward in his work, never weary, never
faltering, ever upholding his ideal,
laboring to fill the demand of society,
aiming to develop the man Whittier
depicted when he said: “Our yeoman
should be equal to his home, set in
the fair, green valleys, purple walled.
A man to match his mountains, not
to creep dwarfed and abased below
them.” Thus he produces a well
poised, refined, cultivated human be­
ing, one that can cope with any phase
of life. He must not endeavor to
reach his ideal too quickly, but re­
member that the one perfect product
of this type was thirty years in prep­
aration. Thus he strives for his ideal,
“Slow as the oaks grow, lifting man­
hood up through broader culture,
finer manners, love and reverence, to
the level of the hills.”
As the young artist who had at­
tached himself to the master-painter
and had struggled through many
years toward the same goal,’ seated
before the canvas one day felt the
spirit of the master glow within him,
seized the brush and began to paint.
But ere he had his vision on the can­
vas his ideal had eluded him. He
sank down in discouragement and fell
asleep, and as he slept the master
entered, saw the canvas and, with one
deft stroke, added all that was needed
to complete the ideal. So with our
struggle for the ideal in education;
with the spirit of the Master glowing
within us, let us go to work with the
zeal of the artist and, if we do not
quite attain the ideal, surely after we
have lain down to rest the Master’s
touch will bring perfection.