| OCR Text |
Show it, and no good county superintendent will admit a discreditable thing about his county if he can help It. They only claim 1,794 perfectly comfortable schoolhouses. Between these extremes are all degrees of fitness and unfitness. ' There are nearly 2,000 school premises prem-ises known to be absolutely treelesa. There are nearly 5,000 schools without libraries. There are 169 districts where the taxes are insufficient for the support of the schools. There were 435 schools last year in which the enrollment en-rollment was ten or fewer, and seventy-eight in which the enrollment was five or not so many. In the single county of Winnebago five schools enrolled en-rolled exactly ten, thirteen schools fewer than ten, four schools fewer than five and ons school had one pupil. Our Countrv School. Alfred Bayliss, superintendent of public instruction In Illinois, reporting for the year ending June 30, 1900, says: Rain, mud, blizzards and bad roads greatly affect the regularity of the country child's attendance at school. There are other conditions existing to a degree not generally appreciated. For example: Of the 12,809 schoolhouses in Illinois, 1,278 are so unsanitary or otherwise unsuited to their purpose that the county superintendents admit |
