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Visual Education Problems Common to Most Small Schools
THE announcement of the formation of the Society for Visual Education through the first number of Visual Education, created unusual interest on the part of school administrators. Many of these, particularly in the larger cities, had made the best of what was available in the form of slides and so-called educational films, and realized both the shortcomings and the possibilities awaiting proper development of the field.
The April bulletin and journal have pointed the way for the most hopeful educational policy since the establishment of the public school system. The personnel of the society insures the soundness of the project to the satisfaction of the school administrators; the announcement of the results accomplished in so short a time shows the remarkable executive capacity of its leaders, and presages the general introduction of visual education where none was hitherto possible. It is with the introduction of these opportunities in the smaller cities and towns that this article is chiefly concerned.
There are still about as many pupils in the smaller cities and villages as in the larger centers. In many of these, conditions similar to the following still obtain :
1. "Weak school spirit.
2. Parent-teacher association dead, or at best not reaching those whom it ought to reach most.
3. No school auditorium.
4. Chautauquas and lyceums financial failures and difficult to maintain.
5. Wholesome employment of leisure lacking for both youth and adults —
(a) Commercial movies trashy and unsanitary.
(b) High class spoken drama and opera equally beyond general reach.
6. School finances inadequate to even a fair compensation to teachers, causing generally a loss of enthusiasm and exercise of initiative as well as a desire to abide only temporarily in such towns.
7. No motion picture projector and lack of desirable slides.
8. Community co-operation poorly developed.
Most of these conditions existed last September in the writer's community — a clean enterprising town of 2,500 in a rich mining and farming country, only twenty-six miles from a metropolis. Similar conditions will still face many superintendents and high school principals next September. It is primarily with the intention of offering assistance to these in overcoming their particular difficulties that the details of the writer's experience are given.
In September, the guarantors of the local lyceum course, who were also the guarantors of the chautauquas which failed despite the efforts of the hustling commercial club of which all are members, decided to place the selling of season tickets in the hands of the superintendent and the high school, the excess over expenses to go to the school. In the presentation of the project to the pupils, the writer set the goal at the cost of a good projector. This was reached and passed
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