Education: Schoolmarm

There are still some 138,500 one-room rural schools in the U. S., but full-dress modern education tends to forget about them. TIME herewith reports a normal day in such a school:

In Iowa City (pop. 16,000), where she rooms with a private family, Miss Margaret Campbell got up at 5:45 (it was still dark) one morning last week When she was dressed, in a neat blue silk blouse and a blue wool skirt, she went outdoors to start her 1933 Ford coupe and her day. Miss Campbell, 26, teaches school in a typical one-room country schoolhouse. In such schools, 2,500,000 U. S. children get their education.

Miss Campbell stopped for breakfast at Reich’s Cafe on Dubuque Street, where she works for her board three hours an evening as cashier. Then she drove six miles across the prairie to her school in Scott Township. It is a square, white frame building between a pasture and ; field of yellow corn stubble. Miss Campbell unlocked the door, lit a fire in the big Waterbury stove in the corner. Soon, trudging up the road from nearby farms, most of them in overalls or slacks came Miss Campbell’s pupils: the seven Sladek children, three Smiths, two Leonards, two Hotzes, Lorraine Stockman, Frances Mc-Namer, Bertilla Loventinsky and Doris Augustine. Total: 13 girls five boys. Ages: 4 to 14. Grades: primer (kindergarten) to seventh.

Primer children sat at tiny armchairs in front, first-grade children at small desks in the centre, other pupils at bigger desks along the sides. They stood up to salute the big flag, then began their lessons While primer pupils went to play with dolls in the “play corner” and other pupils busied themselves with books, Miss Campbell announced: “First grade reading. Five tots marched to the front of the room, seated themselves on a long recitation bench. There Miss Campbell gave them a Christmas story to read in an Elson-Gray reader, sent them back to their seats with work books, in which they had to cross out lines that made no sense, paste appropriate objects on a Christmas tree.

Next in rapid succession, came second grade reading, reading for the primer tots, third grade reading, fourth grade arithmetic, sixth grade arithmetic (long division seventh grade arithmetic. Lest classes fall behind schedule, Miss Campbell did most of the talking, prodded her pupils to hurry By day’s end, Miss Campbell had taught her classes reading, writing, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, geography, history, science. Total amount of instruction for each grade: 50 minutes.

Between classes, Miss Campbells pupils kept fairly busy reading, writing or drawing, occasionally got up to go outdoors to the privy. Miss Campbell kept a sharp eye open, once remarked: “I see so many drone bees instead of busy bees.

At morning recess (10:30), the children took their dinner pails out of closets, munched fruit and passed around popcorn They also put potatoes in the stove to cook for lunch. Johnny went out to the well to fetch water and Ralph to the shed for coal (Miss Campbell lets her boys take turns at these chores, pays them 15¢ week.) Then boys & girls went to play kickball (like baseball but played with a football) in the yard.

At lunchtime, pupils lined up at a basin took turns washing. Miss Campbell and the older boys & girls, helped the young children unwrap sandwiches, got the potatoes out of the stove. While the children ate, Ralph told them about an airplane trip he had taken a few days before. First crisis of the day came after lunch, when Ralph and Johnny were discovered in the ditch beside the road, fighting. Brought before Miss Campbell, they bawled. She restored peace by appointing them both captains to run the kickball game. But Ralph was still sulky after the game. Said he: “I can’t get along with no girls.”

After the lunch hour, having swept her schoolroom, and put Mercurochrome on Gaylyn’s cut finger, Miss Campbell found the going harder than in the morning. When Johnny, during a history lesson, remarked: “It sounds kind of goofy,” Miss Campbell was shocked, said severely: “I don’t think that’s very good English.” During a sluggish geography lesson that followed, Miss Campbell lost her temper, pointed her pencil, said grimly: “Listen, Doris, you go back and read slower and don’t make any mistakes. You’re getting to be a terrible thinker.”

At 3:45, Schoolmarm Campbell relaxed, saw that her brood were well wrapped in overcoats, shooed them home.

Miss Campbell, who has been at this school seven years, knows her children and their families well. She stops to chat at their houses, is often invited to their parties or to stay overnight. Brought up in Iowa City, where she graduated from high school, she studied at Cedar Falls State Teachers College (Iowa) for a year, then began to teach. She does not smoke or drink. Weekends she has dates with a young Iowa City storekeeper. Because she likes to be independent she does not expect to marry for a while. She keeps up with developments in her profession by reading Midland Teacher, organ of the State Teachers’ Association. She also likes to read fiction, recently read Drums Along the Mohawk and Grapes of Wrath. She thought Grapes of Wrath “too frank.”

Miss Campbell thinks that she has been in this school too long, would like to go on to a bigger one. Next year she plans to take Saturday courses at the University of Iowa. Her teaching salary now is $72.50 a month (she began at $40). Her restaurant job helps tide her over the summer vacation (when she gets no salary) and pay for such extras as the dentist. She is proud of her improvements to the school. When she arrived, it had a big black stove in the centre. She got rid of that, made the room more habitable. Now it has white curtains with red ribbons at the windows, a new floor, a globe of the world hanging from the ceiling, a map stand, a phonograph (temporarily out of order) with a few records, a water cooler, a mirror, soap and paper towels. Until this fall it had no electric lights, but Miss Campbell raised enough money for that by euchre parties among the parents.

Miss Campbell’s constituents, who live in Johnson County’s richest township, are farmers, mostly young, with large families. She urges all her boys to go to high school. One of her girl graduates is a beauty shop operator in Iowa City, another is doing housework in Evanston, Ill., saving up to study nursing.

Last Friday night Scott Township’s farmers & wives dressed in their Sunday best, drove in to Iowa City’s Courthouse to hear the finals in a county declamation contest. Schoolmarm Campbell was there, too. So was laughing-eyed little Irene Leonard. Irene, 7, stepped up and recited a story, entitled “Paddy’s Pets,” about a little girl whose pet dog and cat jumped out of her father’s overcoat pockets in church. When her pupil was declared winner of the contest, Miss Campbell permitted herself a proud smile.