1924 - Annual Convention Report

              T E N T H A N N I A I . C O W K N T I ON
" In him lies all 1 hope to lie; his
Splendor shall be mine;
1 shall have done man's greatest work
If only In* is fine.
If mum* day he shall help the world
I^ rng after I am dead.
In all that men shall say of him my
IVnisett shall l> e said.
" It nuttier* not what I may win, of
Fieri ing gold or fame.
My hnjw of joy depends on what my
Roy Khali claim.
My story must he told through him.
For him 1 work and plan.
Man's greatest duty is to lie
The father of a man.
I2t Tt- Kx Now \ su C U N S W K K THI; K I H A L S C H O O L in relation to this question.
1 be rural reboot as well a* the rural home, haa Us obligation to create a rural en­vironment
conducive to content men I and happiness, for the voting people on the
farm
The children of rural Canada, never have had a square deal, and they are not
getting a square deal today. The problem of mm! education is our biggest Canadian
problem, greater than Ihe tariff, or the wheat pool, or transportation, or even im-murrslintt.
The difficulties in rural school fife are varied. The cities generally get the beet
teachers The rural school is compelled to accept the inexperienced, and leas com-i
art en I one*. Tbe system of our teacher training is devised more for the city than
for Ibe country, with lb* result, that Ihe boys and girls in the country, arc not get­ting
the rural |* T- pnrtive.
Then the long distance* that children have lo go in the rural parts of the West,
and Ibe severe weather conditions, make regular attendance imjsissihle, and thi*
arrKMDtJy interfere* « n h ihe school pmgrcss 3
In many of ihe rural schools, ilierc is a limited number of pupils, ami hence
utile rhanee under mea. conditions, of developing a school spirit, « > r creating the
right kind of a srhool : 0 oi< « j> h> Tv
Pun her there are no facilities m the rural porta for High Schools. Not five
per rent, of the rural pupils go through High School. Their only education is the
rural pubhr wehool. and this education is usually a very meagre one. And yet
from the* eighty- five or ninety per cent of the rurally educated children, must come
the cttraen* of the future
There are those who say. that the trouble with the rural school is with the rural
trustee* They tell us that the average rural school trustee, looks Upon the rural
• rhool, as a little house, on a tittle laud, where a little teacher, for a little time, at
» little salary, learhr* hltle children, little things. Wherever such n condition
eust*. U n a calamity. We do not believe, that there is any loss grey matter, in
the brain of the man or woman who live* in the country, than there is in those who
live in the city.
We are facing however il? e MTIMU* " ituation .< i having the education of one- third
of the rhuVIrm in many of the rural parts retarded, by reason of no schools or closed
It i* only fair to say, that tin? Province of Alberta is making an honest attempt,
to at leant meet some of these dihVultica in tbe rural school- life. Notably the new
• r h w l policy of the thirty per cent, increase in the * ehoo| grants— a census taken
of tbe foreign settlements revealing the fart that many of the children had never
been enrolled in school at all the intriKluction of the Consolidated School where
i*> msilile - t b e adoption of the two- roomed school where there arc too many pupils
I hove no hcaitation in saying that the one- room school is unequal to the task,
l u equipment i* too scant, lis program toe. skimpy ami narrow and the teacher's
life t » * i moisted mid dcinrhcd. "( the two million pupils in the public schools of
C- aiuwla forty percehi or eight hundred thousand are in the one- roomed rural school.
Another encouraging feature IN the establishing of Teacherages of five- acre
pbjtf « * » ( ground Hie ( invcrnim- iii providing one- third of the cost of the house
and furnishing*, lite formation of night schools in the niral districts as well as
in the r ( t \ , ( or the foreign grown- up*. The establishing of minimum salaries for