so to speak, will stand out in the pupil's mind, filled in between with what they more or less dimly or imperfectly remember, whereas, in the usual system of examinations little of any consequence remains in their memory to remind them that they have even studied history.

When the required final examination is finished, the teacher, who has kept an account of the work of each of the pupils on the tests, can grade the examination papers in a much more enlightened manner, for she knows just what to expect, and can therefore mark with better judgment the various pupils.

Perhaps the teacher has found previously that a pupil does not do as well on the examination as in class, and concludes that it is due to nervousness or to habitual confusion when attempting to write. If so, the teacher should pay little or no attention to the examination marks of such pupils, but judge mainly by the class work. It may even be that the teacher by this method of periodic tests will be able partially or wholly to cure a pupil of such a handicap. However, if such nervousness and confusion continue to result, the teacher should exempt such pupils from all examinations except the final one which is required.

In summarizing, then, it may be noted that this method of examinations is based mainly upon: (1) a scheme of reviewing in which the pupils attain a better mastery of the subject by having the important facts emphasized in such a way that they will be remembered; (2) a plan for lightening the teacher's work in regard to the extremely careful grading of papers, and (3) the fact that, as a result of this use of the test or examination, the pupils are not so tempted to cram or cheat as in the usual method now employed, and that the teacher is more conscientious in grading. In a word, the whole system makes it easier for the teacher and pupils to be honest and fair with each other in all of their class room relations.

The History of a Rural School District

IS THIS RECORD TYPICAL?

FRANK DEERWESTER, STATE NORMAL COLLEGE,
PITTSBURG, KANSAS.

T

HE writer of this article recently had the privilege of going over the records of a rural school in a distinctively rural section of western Missouri, and while the opportunity, because of the personal con nections, was more interesting to him than it can possibly be to others, yet he is of the opinion that the facts thus brought to light have sufficient educational value in one way or another to warrant their publication.

The district is exactly three miles square and is more than three miles at its nearest point from any village, six miles from the nearest railroad, and eight miles from the "county seat" town. The nearest village, a hamlet of two hundred souls, was the trading and mail post for a portion of the population of the district in the early days, as was the larger county seat, with a population of some twenty-five hundred, for the remainder of the district. This latter town, the largest in the county, has had a railroad since 1881. Prior to that time, for some six years, the district under consideration had depended for railroad privileges upon a small town situated some sixteen miles away in the opposite direction, on another railroad. Earlier than this, the nearest railroad point had been thirty-five miles away. These facts are sufficient to show the remoteness of the community from things of an urban nature, in short, it was distinctly rural. Of course, the advent of the automobile has annihilated distances, and small towns, though nearer, are at a disadvantage in drawing power as compared with larger ones much more remote.

This district was organized as a school unit in 1870, and, therefore, has just passed, though without "celebrating," its fiftieth

anniversary It is this fact of semi-centennial that suggested to the writer the present survey. In many sections of the United States, a school unit counting only fifty years of life would be comparatively new. But this district has been in its origin and life coincident with the period of American educational history which followed the Civil War. This has been a period in many ways wonderful, and the study of a unit contemporaneous therewith should have a value and an interest.

At the time of organization the district contained a population of one hundred thirteen, forty-eight being adults, forty of "school age" (six to twenty-one), and twenty-five under the age of six. Of the forty-eight adults, six are still living in the district, the others having died or moved away. Of the sixty-five under the age of twenty-one, five only are still living in the district. The present population of the district numbers one hundred seventyone, with one hundred five adults, forty-two of school age, and twenty-four under the age of six. The "school population," as these figures show, began with forty and today numbers forty-two, but the clerk's records show that in the eighties the enumeration ran from ninety to a hundred. The average school attendance for the current term to date is about twenty, but the writer remembers a term of the district's school in which the average for the entire term, without the aid of a compulsory attendance law, was fifty, with a maximum of seventy-six.

The first settler located within the bounds of the future district in the year 1867, and at the organization in 1870, the district contained a total of twenty families. These were mostly emigrants from older sections of the same state or from the transMississippi regions of Kentucky or Illinois. The only foreign element of the district's population has been the German, represented by five of the original twenty families and by a few later accessions. The children of these families, however, were in no instance foreign born.

Politically the district has been unbrokenly Democratic, even 1920 not marking an exception, although politics has never figured in the choice of school directors or teachers. In the early days

the religious wants were supplied by itinerant and non-resident preachers, who held services in the schoolhouse or in residences. The Baptists early effected an organization and later built a church near the center of the district and still maintain there a working unit. Three boys have gone into the ministry from this church, one now being a missionary in South America. Nearby churches of the Disciples, Lutherans, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South, have each a good following in the district.

No minister has ever resided in the district. Three "country doctors" have at various times lived within its boundaries. Through perhaps twenty years of its history blacksmiths have maintained shops. The earliest of the physicians kept a store for a little while, but for the last twenty years a store has been continuously conducted. For a few years preceding the universalizing of the rural delivery of mails a post office was maintained in connection with the store, but this was displaced by the free delivery service, which reaches every home in the district. The first telephone connection was made in 1902, and at the present time more than 70 per cent of the homes have telephone service. Fifty per cent of the homes maintain automobiles at the present time and two have lighting systems.

Through the first twenty-five years of the district's history, land tenantry was virtually unknown. Each farmer held title to his own tract of land, although a goodly number of the farms were more or less encumbered with mortgages. But the year 1892 marks the entry of the most influential and far-reaching factor in the history of the district. This was a system of non-resident land-ownership of almost nation-wide notoriety. Beginning with that year a certain moneyed interest began the purchase of farms in the county and rapidly increased its holdings, until in the county (approximately thirty miles square) they reached a total of about seventy thousand acres,, or twelve percent and in the district a total of sixteen hundred acres, or more than twenty-five percent of the whole. A few of the early settlers had sold their holdings after a residence in the district of only a year or so. But with the advent of the big land-owning interests, there was

tremendous exodus and, from that time onward, a constant flow of tenantry through the district. Sometimes these tenants have remained in the district or its immediate environs for a period of years and some have eventually purchased land in the district or nearby. But in the main, they have been birds of passage. Only occasionally do they become members of churches, serve on the school boards, or enter seriously into the community life. The large total enrollment of pupils in the school of this district through its half century of history and likewise the large number lost from the view of the historian are due to the fact of this floating element in the population.

The school is in its second home, the first having been erected in 1870, the second in 1886. Each at the time of its construction was a “fairly good" specimen of the type of architecture then prevalent among rural schools. Through more than half of the fifty years the district has "kept school" nine months of the year, and never more than this, nor ever less than eight, even when neighboring districts were content with five or six. In the matter of teachers' salaries the scale has not been so satisfactory, although "cheap teachers" for the sake of cheapness have never been sought. In short, the district has, in the main, been interested in having a good school, though it has not striven zealously to have "the best."

The accompanying statistical summary sets forth in a numerical way certain phases of this unit of educational history. The three main items of the summary are:

1. A comparison of the district populations at the beginning and the close of the fifty-year period.

2. The present status of the entire list of four hundred thirtysix individuals who in the fifty years have attended the school, so far as their history can be followed.

3. Some figures dealing with the school attendance of those who, by their membership in the school, passed under its influence for a time, brief in some instances, longer in others.

In dealing with certain items under "present status" it has been possible, and was thought worth while, to make a three-fold