| Show correspondence mattera matters in breach preach yass lasi etc STATE LINE CITY IND and ILL ILU april 4 IS 76 editor deseret ne news after five mont months liss traveling and speaking in this state en the tho eve of crossing into indiana to continue our mission there I 1 thought a few items upon the subject of schools in illinois would be of interest to your many readers having mclean visited many schools in mele mclean melean leadford Le ford and vermilion counties I 1 think I 1 am prepared understandingly upon the subject I 1 find fir first st that heavy land grants from the general government were in an early day donated te to this Sta state teto to enable the people to establish the free school system these lands consisted of the section in each township and large quantities of so called swamp lands but which in reality are principally under cultivation at the present time proving much more valuable than was vas at first supposed possible these lands have generally been disposed or of at different prices and converted into ready money which has in too many instances been squandered and stolen which makes the taxation for fon the support of schools very heavy considering the amount of funds available at the start averaging near 70 cents on the hundred dollars in jn ome places going as high as one oae dollar and fifty cents on the hundred the schools that I 1 have visited have been generally those in the rural districts and scarcely ever numbering more thau than twenty five enrolled with an average attendance of from twelve to fifteen the teachers are in many instances students from the normal bile bilo university and other public blie institutions who between times teach school to enable them in turn tum to attend school others again are graduates of dlf dif merent different institutions who are preparing themselves yes Tes for i the profession prof essian and are so engaged when not in the school room yoom others are farmers in the summer and teachers in the winter doln doin doing their chores after school is ou oufa and before school timet in the in arn ing ng while the ladies ladles who are ate teaching are generally young ladies sll fill ing out the interim between board ing school days and married ilfe ilae which of course ignot Is not of tion for who ever heard of a school I 1 mam malm that t find a hus bus husband band t if I 1 remember right light their chances are counted equal to the young widows which is put down at nine ty nine aine in a hundred many ot the male teachers hers are arc aptly described by bupt supt bateman on page 60 of his last report wherein he says the waste of time and the irreparable i mental inquiry caused by unscientific stifle and blundering schoolmasters have been pointed out again and again and yet the preposterous notion botlon implied in the them saying that anybody can keep school f has not been rooted out of the public mind nor dismissed from popular practice men and women as unfit to handle the mental and moral natures of children through sheer ignorance as one born blind to pilot a ship in a storm storms continue to be employed edas as teachers and arld left to go on with their sad work of intellectual tel anarchy and spoliation the highest rate of salary I 1 I 1 found was fifty dollars per mouth five and six months in the year generally forty dollars for males and thirty for females the average salary wary for the state is forty i eight dollars and nineteen cents for males and thirty three dollars and forty six cents for females or not quite three hundred dollars per annum for males and about two hu hundred indred per annum for females see page ass batemann batemans Bat emans report the result that must naturally follow the meagerness of the salary ia Is that the class af q talent employed ia is of an inferior gnade grade who simply make school teaching a side issue to som some emere emore mer mei important object they have in yiew on page the school census sor jor the state was the enrolment the average daily attendance Ms or in other words that the present free school system of ionly III only brought under its influence bout about one child in three that out of the only were in actual attendance at school that mclean co had children of a school age while only were in actual attendance it strikes me very forcibly that this is not a very nourishing flourishing condition of affairs educationally or that utah need be particularly worried about copying after a system that brings forth such fruits fruita on the same page of batemann batemans Bat emans report the average cost per pupil upil is put down at 1373 1373 for tuition on average time six months or br a little rising of six dollars per quarter out of the fifty schoolhouses school houses I 1 haye haven visited I 1 found only three that were furnis furnished ked bed with patent desks all the rest being supplied with the old fashioned wooden seat and arid desk with or without shelves for books in two or three instances the walls were supplied with maps and charts in the schools in the vIl vii villages lages lazes the accommodations were better often far superior the buildings of a good quality the rooms well seated and ventilated and the course of instruction st good the teachers men and women woman of ability but the attendance was confined to the district jand jard a nonresident ron son resident would have to pay a high rate of tuition the school mon money p v is iv divided according cordin g to the census caesus population of school children which works unfairly to the farming districts i causing myah mych complaint and ill III r eeling feeling between the two classes aa as in the villages the children preponderate and the farming districts pay the taxes the number of children that are not in attendance at school according to the population is enormous and is a fruitful source ef of trouble in the school system from various causes the attendance is brou brought ht I 1 down very low and will doubt doubtless fIss become lower owing to the fact that ve very ur few families have in more moro ore oro than tuan two or three children at most AL j compulsory attendance law is talked of but with what success is yet to be seen all in all I 1 cannot see that the much boasted free school system of the states would be any benefit to our people peoples situated as we are and under the present circumstances especially when we take into luto consideration side ration rution the contrast of attendance quality of information imparted character of school furniture und ability of talent employed that bas has been produced by the two systems 8 8 ems our school system may not be perfect and may have many faults and flaws as it doubtless has but bul the fact exists that also has the free school system still greater faults and flaws the class of text books I 1 found without exception were readers and spellers rays arithmetic Pinne grammar warrens and mitchells geographies and where there were classes in history Ban crofts was the rule in some ut of the high schools edwards readers and greens grammars were substituted on page two of supt batemans batemann Bat emans report he makes the following statement of the whole number of children entitled to attend the public schools in 1874 twenty nine per cent did not attend at all and only forty per cent were in daily attendance the total number of scholars in mclean county amounts to forty percent would be and a fraction that number divided by the number of school districts in the county would give an average attendance at thirty students and a fraction I 1 am informed upon good authority that devent seventy nive five of these schools located an fn in t the he cities and towns contain one half of the entire school population which leaves pupils to be divided among county schools making an average of 21 and a fraction to each school district which I 1 think under the circumstances would be a fair average attendance for the county of mclean and above tho tha average for many counties in the state one other item connected with this matter is suggestive i 1 e that each district contains from twelve bo to twenty families where the atton ten len dance is only twenty o one le which 14 q so small a per cont cent of ten ien as to os tartie one at a first glance and must most inevitably result seriously in the he end the locality we are in now low is near Di anville danville and isa is a fine country well timbered nut ant aud and watered oiling lolling ground rich soil and ind a clas class s jf of people who are a thriving hard bard working people peoples generally pretty well to do and very liberal in their views plews generally temperate in their iia lia bits and hospitable jn their cus oms tho the farms are finall com arat vols vois vely voly speaking and y ow owned ned nod bythe by the people who live n them instead of in largo tracts y rich men or speculators at t an election I 1 attended attendee vester yester day there was but one ticket run which which reminded me very much of bf our own elections a few years ago I 1 spent about half the day at the polls and heard of no difficulty whatever no swe swearing dring nor any whiskey drunk during the day I 1 was asked te to address the crowd which I 1 did and had a very respectful hearin heaning hearing obtained three houses to speak in n and was treated very gentlemanly we are filling appointments point ments at the rate of three and four per week the nearest B eares t school sch ool lioti house so is a fine brick building well ventilated and seated with a no I 1 quality of patent desks there is a 1190 grange hall connected with it the entire cost of the building being somewhere in the tho neighborhood of 2500 A large grange organization exists here I 1 meet often with exposes of mormonism in my traveis travels and cannot but wonder whymen why men and women are so credulous though I 1 almost invariably find that the people who read these ev exposes doubt the greater portion bi bl the we story and that their is more to advert advertise ize our and wild cause inquiry than anything use if we only know that an agent for the sale of an expose of bldr mormonism mon I 1 has been through the belvi i bor bo bood we are confident that we shall have full houses and plen of questions asked aske dand jand why not ibbe he wrath of man shall be made to praise god and it ia is being pretty effectually done in this instance rhe the town that I 1 mail this ietter jetter from was the former formen home of col wall one of most energetic mining men his aged father lives here and we have an invitation to call upon him one of the first settlers that came to this part of the state was a mornion mormon bythe by the name of chandler who came from kentucky to this state and lived and died a mormon I 1 liere here the weather has been terrible for mere more than a month but appears to have settled dowland dow nand I 1 trust we shall have some pleasant weather now which would come como very acceptably after so much wading through mud and water respectfully J mordan MORGAN the school book boole convention sale SAIT lai lal ijane B CITY april 24 1871 edi ediew t or deseret news dear sir bir in your dally daily issue 0 of last saturday the dinst there a appeared a communication relative rela reia tive tivo to the action of the schoolbook school book Couve convention ution lately held in this thia city the communication has been read with interest by many and no doubt will be read by many more throughout the territory with equal interest for it contemplates a movement of vital concern to the social and intellectual welfare of the community as well as one that closely affects its pecuniary interests taken as the exponent of a general criticism by the people on the action of the convention the letter seems to call for a plain statement of all the convention did in its late se session assion as w well weil 11 II as the principles and motives that influenced its members in their decisions As a it member of the convention and asias as its secretary I 1 shall therefore make public such statement the convention was called and conducted in accordance with section sixteen of the new now school law of this territory and held its session in this city on the sixth seventh and eighth days of this month during its session it unanimously ani adopted for ibm exclusive elusive use in the district schools of utah 3 for the next five years the follow ing textbooks text books viz pacific coast readers headers and spellers payson dunton and scribners Scrib ners nera system of penmanship cornelli Corn elPs primary intermediate and physical cal eal geographies harveys series of grammars ray bay series of bryant and Strat tons common school bookkeeping book keeping Barnes Brief history of the united states song echo and home productions duct duet ions lons ori orl on music and 4 kospa drawing series it will be observed that in the abo above ve list list the penmanship the and the history were text beaks adopted before this convention met and were already in use in tho territory and that text books in bookkeeping book keeping musie music and DraWl drawing ng though not before adopted ed are contemplated by the law aad and suggested in its the only changes therefore made by the trie convention were jn in readers and spellers in geographies and in grammars in contemplating the adoption of readers and spellers Sp eilers elters the following propositions were consid considered ered ored and weighed lal the necessity of adopting tio tie some one series as ano law contemplates and 2nd the necessity of securing the best series in point of text mat ter and gradation ra dation 3rd ard gre the the necessity of securing the best terms of exchange and introduction tro ath the securing of the most favorable terms for supply during the time ef adoption ath the best plan to bring about speedily a uniformity in view of all these desirable conditions dit ions it itwara vm a matter of no little concern or labor on the part of the convention conTent lod iod to effect a compromise that would from all points be realized aa as the tho best by everybody the convention therefore adopted the pacific coast readers headers and spellers how wisely they acted in this adoption can only be understood when all the circumstances are ara taken into bon consideration etwas a matter of some difficulty to know gow tow to dispose of the diversity of readers and spellers already in use in the Territory viz the national the wilson the me gummey guffey the monroe the pacific coast etc without serious inconvenience yen ven yeni veni lence lenee enee ence and loss to the school schools for if uniformity was to be secured all or all but one must be excluded A weighty consideration therefore in the adoption of the pacific coast series was the tho Bett settlement leme n t of f this question by an offer 0 on th the oe part of the publishers to exchange their new books for the old ones now in use grade forgrave for grade an offer made by no other publishers by this exchange uniformity it was seen could at once be secured with not only no loss to the territory but with an absolute gain gala of many thousand dollars in the matter of text and gradation the pacific coast series was believed to be equal to any and superior to most that were examined the only series that was able to hold any claim against the adopted series was the national and that only by reason of I 1 its to being more extensively ten used than any an other in the territory the free exchange of the pacific coast series tor for ail all other readers and sp spellers elters of similar grade determined that question at once moreover the relative cost coat of the two series the tho pacific coast and national will be found very much in favoron tavor favor of the pacific coast as the following view of the retail prices of both series will clearly exhibit NATIONAL PACIFIC COAST |
