REPORTS OF COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS. ANDERSON COUNTY. In accordance with your request for a written report on the progress of Anderson County schools, I am sending you the following: Just after the Legislature incorporated the library provision in the general Education Bill and passed the same, we inaugurated a library crusade in Anderson County, which is still going on, and which met with unparalleled success throughout East Tennessee. $1,053 worth of library books have been added to the county schools, through State aid, up to the present writing. In addition to this, six traveling libraries have been furnished us by the State library; so that approximately half of our schools have been furnished with excellent libraries since the Legislature enacted this law. Pupils and patrons are reading them with enthusiasm, and they are now one of the most important educational factors in our county. With the library plan well on foot, we took up the idea of school improvement associations, and they are now spreading with success in the rural schools of the county, and some valuable improvements are being made on many of the school buildings and grounds. The county organization has a library of 549 volumes, and the money is now on hand to make a valuable addition. A large number of local organizations have been made, and the idea is spreading at a healthy rate. We don't expect all these reforms to mature suddenly, and an occasional failure does not cause us to give up the struggle. We realize that the battle against ignorance is a real "battle," and that illiteracy does not surrender without a fight. It is only a question of time until all our schools are organized. About five one-room school buildings, with modern apparatus to furnish same, have been erected during the last eighteen months, but I am not in sympathy with the one-room idea. Hence, I am not very proud of this part of the report. In every case I urged the Board and people to consolidate, but they do not take to this idea as well as some others that I have urged. I believe that every county in Tennessee has as many school buildings of the kind as it needs, and a deplorably few consolidated ones. I attribute this lack of sympathy with the consolidated schools to ideas that have been inherited from an older generation, and to a false love of the patron for his child, which causes him to fear that his child will have a little distance to walk, forgetting the advantages, both mentally and physically, gained in the same. As to county high schools, we have one of the best central schools, judged from the standpoint of thoroughness, that is found in the State. Our only drawback is lack of funds. When our court comes to a deeper appreciation of the function of the high school, I am sure that this perplexing problem will be solved. When I came into office, the school was endeavoring to exist on the pitiful sum of $900 a year. Of course, the results were disappointing. The court then increased the appropriation to $2,000, including $500 State aid. This enabled us to secure a Principal at $900 and give other places in the county high school advantages. Last January, the court further extended its aid by a 5 cent tax, which, including State aid, will yield us about $2,400. This is certainly an improvement, but I haven't got near what I want yet. I want the City of Clinton to donate its school property to the county for a central high school. Then I want the court to appropriate $5,000 per annum to equip and maintain it. I want it equipped with apparatus for teaching manual training, domestic science, drawing, home economics, bookkeeping, stenography, agriculture, etc., a real high school in action as well as in name. We used about $1,800, or will use this amount to pay for instruction in the central school this year, and the remainder towards extending high school privileges to other parts of the county. In consideration of the extra outlay used to improve the central school, the City Board of Education have agreed to erect and give us permanent use of a dormitory, the estimated cost of which is $2,500. This is to be ready for occupancy by the first of the year. When our people appreciate the real function and value of the high school, the above conditions will be secured. I would have them now, if I could; but I am a representative and not a dictator, and must patiently labor and hope for the time when these demands will be made by the people. In the meantime, I cannot but comply with their wishes and endeavor to bring them into an appreciation of the ideas here set forth. At present our tax for the support of the elementary schools, including the State tax of fifteen cents, is forty cents on the hundred dollars. This is not sufficient, and I believe the full amount allowed by law ought to be levied. The poll tax, including the State levy, is $2.00. Some provision ought to be made for erecting and repairing school buildings without having to depend on the elementary school fund for it. We ought to have an elementary school fund sufficient to run the elementary schools nine months in the year. In order to secure greater efficiency in the school instructing force, while the rural schoo's are only five or six months in length, I believe it is a good idea for one teacher to teach two schools. This will secure him constant employment, so that his heart and time can be devoted to the work. We had a compulsory school law enacted, but we found it defective in many particulars; so that an attempt to enforce it, while materially increasing the attendance, did not meet with the approval expected. The trial has made us doubtful about. the wisdom of forcing ideas on people, for which they are unprepared. Public sympathy does not yet favor the enactment of such a law; and with the masses antagonistic to it, its enforcement is very difficult, if not impossible. On the whole, however, the public is becoming more enlightened and more in sympathy with progressive ideas. With continual agitation of educational uplift, these ideas will gradually be absorbed by the public mind. With such a change in the attitude of the public mind, educational reforms will be demanded, and persuasion will be a thing of the past. COUNTY INSTITUTE. FACULTY AND DIVISION of Work. A. C. Duggins, Superintendent, Conductor. Institute closed 22nd day of July, 1910. Number of days devoted to written examinations of teachers, 41. |