A Fillmore County School Playground

needs of better schools for their children and are giving more earnest support to the consolidated school movement as the time goes on.

     Standardization. The state department has been vigorously pushing the plan of standardization in the oneroom rural school. In many parts of the state physical conditions are such that it is impossible to consolidate. In these localities, the best conditions possible are being made and best opportunities given to the rural child. Any school meeting the requirements for standardization will be able to give the pupils an opportunity to master the common branches.

     Club Work: The boys' and girls' club work is getting stronger all the time. This work is done by all kinds of schools in Nebraska and sponsored by the State University Farm and State Department of Education. Hundreds of boys and girls are engaged in raising pigs, chickens, calves; making and taking care of gardens; raising corn, cooking, baking, sewing and making butter and learning the art of homemaking generally.

     Play Apparatus: The schools are rapidly establishing permanent playground apparatus and providing for supervised play periods. Such apparatus as basket, volley and baseball, tennis, croquet, giant stride, teeters, swings and other apparatus.

     Rural Life Conferences: The Kearney State Normal School led this year in holding the only rural life conference. At this conference, all phases of rural work were discussed by state and national leaders, and live city and county superintendents and rural teachers expressed their appreciation of the opportunity to get the best and latest ideas along rural educational lines. A Baby Contest was held in connection with the conference in which one hundred babies were examined and scored. The mothers were there and asked questions of expert physicians regarding the health of their babies and how to take care of them.

     War Work: Hon. G. W. Wattles reports that 210,000 Food Pledge Cards were signed and returned to his office and that the children of the public schools handled practically all of them. A flag was offered to all schools that succeeded in getting every family in the district to sign the cards. Six hundred schools won a flag. The last legislature made a law requiring a flag to float over every schoolhouse, whether public or parochial, and also have a flag inside the schoolroom. Practically all schools have either complied with the law or report that they have ordered flags and are expecting them.

     State Aid: Eight thousand nine hundred and forty-eight dollars was paid during 1917 to weak districts; three thousand one hundred dollars to consolidated schools, and five hundred dollars to rural schools affiliated with Shumway high schools.

     Federal Vocational Work: The Smith-Hughes Law, passed by Congress in February, 1917, is in operation in Nebraska. The legislature of 1917 voted to accept the privileges of this law and also voted the money required

Lake Alice School, Scottsbluff County

School District 33, Custer County

to subsidize the schools meeting requirements for receiving such subsidy. Three schools have been chosen as type schools for the present year under this Act, - Alvo Consolidated, Lincoln and Omaha -each coming under one of the three classes according to the Federal Law. A state director has been appointed and is working in co-operation with the Federal Board and the State Department of Education. This law will be the means of promoting consolidation since the subsidy is an incentive for districts to consolidate.

     Mastery of Common Branches: The state department of education is eagerly pushing forward the work of vocational and industrial work, especially in the rural schools, but more than all else, it is pushing the plan of securing a mastery of the common branches. After all, the young man or the young woman who is strong in the foundational subjects can master everything that follows. The rural school is the hope of the country today. Therefore the state department of education of the State of Nebraska through its rural and vocational departments supported by the strong hand of the state superintendent will see that the pupils of these rural schools master the common branches and become expert industrial workers.