Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 215, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1916 — SPOILS MANY LIVES [ARTICLE]

SPOILS MANY LIVES

(“BEST" TEACHER SCHOOL EVER HAD A FAILURE. She Refused to See the Opportunities Near Home and Created a Spirit of Unrest and Discontent Among Pupils. The “best” teacher we ever had in our old district school had a distinctly bad influence in the community, says a writer in Farm Life. Born and raised in the country, she longed for the town with her whole soul. She despised the rural life. She Thought all the wisdom of the world was printed in books, and that all the worthwhile opportunities of life were to be found in distant cities. She did not openly deride and mock our parents, of course, but we knew without being told what her feeling was. She was full of enthusiasm, and she found it easy to inspire us with her own top-lofty ambitions. Alost of the girls in the neighborhood wanted to be Jenny Linds and Florence Nightingales. All the boys wanted to be heroes —great soldiers, poets, judges, statesmen. None of us, of course, wanted to be great in his own neighborhood. Each thought he had to get away from home In order to have a chance in life. Teacher could not, in fact, see the neighborhood. u The eyes of her soul were afflicted with that disease which the oculists call hypermetropia. She could only see distant objects. The girls in the neighborhood, feeling the impulse toward “wider horizon,” drifted away to the towns and cities. They escaped the “deadening monotony" of rural life by becoming waitresses in hotels and workers in factories. Some fared a little better and some a great deal worse —but none of them became a Jenny Lind or a Florence Nightingale. The boys, too, were full of the grand unrest. They turned their backs scornfully on the old homesteads. Each was “the architect of his own fortune,” and teacher had taught him to believe that all the building materials were to be found in distant places. After they had failed as architects, many of them came humbly but gladly back to the old district and succeeded as farmers. Now as never before in the world opportunity is found on the farm, and every school teacher should know that. There are more statesmen of real worth and more genuine poets coming from the tall grass than from the tall buildings. The wider horizon is the privilege of youth, but it is visible to everyone who lifts his head at home, while it is too often obscured by clouds.of smoke to the sojourner in the cities. Do not let teacher fill the minds of your children full of cheap romance while she ignores all the beauty and dignity that should make rural life so satisfying.