The Sunflower from Louisville, Kansas • 1

Thursday, January 25, 1917. Louisville Rural High School Volume 1 No. 5 a place of experiment for the boy. The study of agriculture is a scientific study of the home life. The manual training becomes a series of shop problems that aid the student in building or making certain articles for farm purposes, such as doubletrees, wagon boxes, etc.

While the domestic science and domestic art become a practical solution of the many problems in the keeping of the home. While the English, mathematics, history and the sciences properly fit the young man who desires for college entrance. Thus we find that the rural high school comes as the result of a desire to better the local conditions and in so doing becomes one of the greatest factors in our system of education. ness. And how.

may we rear the boys to the business of the farm is one of the problems that has had its place in the question of organizing the rural high school. The university and the normal schools are doing a most efficient work in turning out their finished products for the use of the state. The Agricultural college is also doing a very efficient work in dealing with the farm problems and in its effort to be of service in the solution of local rural problems, yet with all this effective system of education in Kansas, costing millions annually to carry it on, we find about one-fourth of the boys and girls of the seventh and eighth grades are enabled to take advantage of this higher education. Ihe other three-fourths drop out of school with little or no preparation for the struggle for existence which must follow and with this inadequate equipment they begin life's work only to find that the results of their labor must be measured by the equipment they have at hand. Their progress must necessarily be retarded and in the end they seem to have accomplished little.

show that the college graduate pays for a farm in about six years while the high school graduate pays for a farm in about nine to ten years, and the boys from the seventh and eighth grade pays for a farm in twenty to twenty-five years. Since this is true we readily see the real necessity for rural high school education of the boys and girls on the farm, and that there is of necessity some waste in our educational system when about 60 to 70 per cent of our boys and girls receive no benefit of our higher education. The question then arises, why do not these students continue their education work beyond the seventh or eighth grades? Because the work of the closing years of our rural schools do not appeal to the student but is mere drudgery, is not interesting and because the farm with its free open freedom appeals more 'to the boy and girl than the dull routine of study in the dingy, uninviting school room. On the farm he deals with real live prob The Rural High School It has a purpose in our educational system. In a recent issue of the Topeka Capital our governor expressed great hope for the future of the rural high rchool.

Since it would be the means of affording our boys, and girls on the farms of rural communities with a higher practical education in the business to which they were born and bred wilhout the necessity of leaving home to complete their higher education. This is certainly an advanced idea and one most valuable. Kansas is a great commonwealth of farmers. Even the great majority of our business and professional men own farms, and devote a part of their time and energy to the management of their farms. Kansas' greatest advancement as a state can be measured only by the steady and permanent growth of our rural educational and social activities.

The telephone places the farmer in close touch with all local matters, the rural free delivery brings the daily paper to his door, while the automobile places him in close communication with all activities, social and educational, at long distances from home. All these modern conveniences have educated the farmer to an appreciation of his real needs. Thus we find the rural high school has been organized not merely as an experiment, but to fill the demand of economic and social conditions existing in the rural centers of our state. And to note how popular the rural high school has become, already fifty-six have been organized while in one county every one of the five high schools are rural high schools. In the past it has too often been the case that the boy and girl have been educated away from the farm rather than to better farm conditions and yet our town or city high schools have struggled hard to overcome this weakness, but struggle as they may they have found themselves unable to cope with the situation for statistics show that there is a great movement from the farm to the town and that the farms are giving their best blood to upbuild the towns.

Among our best professional and business men you will find the great majority of them born and bred to the business. Our best physicians are among those who began their career in the office of their father. The strongest lawyers of Kansas today are those who began their profession in the offices of their fathers. In the future a man is soon to be considered a successful farmer not because he happened to be fit for nothing else, but because he has been born and properly bred to the busi Party Given By Faculty The faculty of L. H.

S. gave a post-final party Saturday night for the members of the high school. It was given in the second room of the "stone" school house. The room was beautifully decorated in the high school colors, brown and gold, and a variety of pennants. Mrs.

Landrum and Miss Edna Mun-ger, a friend of Miss Glenn, being the invited guests, helped to make the evening enjoyable for all, by rendering assistance to help entertain. The attendance was quite large in spite of the rain which prevented several from being present. The students arrived at about 8 o'clock and the evening began with much merriment and good will, the "bashful" boys being stationed in one corner and the girls in another. This was soon remedied by Miss Darby rendering her assistance and announcing the first game on the program which was a "stunt" put on by each month. Below is the one for JANUARY.

"Jimmy and the Circus." (Taken from the funny paper.) Mr. Thompson Mr. Landrum Mrs. Thompson Margaret Guilfoil Jimmy Myers Charles Burt Olgey Mae Homewood Baby Rag Doll Passersby Maud and Regina. The actors did their parts well and it was worthy of the much applause received.

MAY. Hanging May Baskets -Alta Snapp and Ef fie Shaw This little episode was very simple but very cunning. JUNE. "The Wedding." Maydie Klingensmith Groom Harrison Minister Glenn (Continued on first column of last page) lems he learns to do by doing and he little thinks ot or cares for any higher education because it seems to him dull and lifeless. He cannot enter college because of the breach between his preparation and the college requirement and it is here that the great economic waste comes in, not in dollars so much as in the permitting material to leave the school unfinished in its preparation.

The rural high school brings the higher education to the farm. It deals with the local rural problems. It continues his educational training along the lines to which he was born and reared. The farm then becomes.