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between the thriving towns of Carroll and Randolph in an interesting little village bearing the name of Sholes?

     There has been a growing feeling for several years la not a few country communities of Nebraska that the boys and girls of those communities should have better educational advantages than were being afforded by the little one-room country school. Sherman township in Wayne county in one of these districts. Here a need has been felt for better school facilities though they were as good as the average Nebraska country communities allow. But how that need was to be satisfied was not evident till the year 1902 when a railroad switch was put In between Carroll and Randolph at the present site of Sholes. Consolidation was then agitated for several consecutive years in three districts In an effort for a centralized building at Sholes. Finally, the advisability and feasibility of consolidation of schools having been thoroughly discussed, in the spring of 1907, urged by the energetic county superintendent, A. E. Littell petitions for the consolidation of districts Nos. 30, 67, and 76, were circulated, and after considerable agitation the majority of voters of these districts signed a petition for consolidation.

     On December 16, 1907, school was begun in the new building with the following corps of teachers: Principal, Ben F. Robinson; intermediate room, Miss Clara Burson; primary room, Miss Mary Paweiski. Much credit is due Principal Robinson for his tireless efforts in the new work of classification and grading of pupils. The principal this year is C. O. Oline, a graduate of the Peru State Normal.

     The school is housed in a $6,000 two-and-a-half story frame building containing four recitation rooms, one laboratory, furnace room, and small shelved rooms for library and textbooks. The entire building is heated with a hot air blast furnace, and has a perfect system of ventilation.

     On the grounds is a barn which affords room for 24 horses. Each family furnishes its own conveyances, and is assigned a stall. The stalls are separated by a partition as high as the horse's head and are so arranged that the door opens from the outside into every stall at the rear. This arrangement entirely does away with kicking, so there Is no danger whatever of the pupils being kicked by other horses than their own.

     The grounds also furnish ample room for school-gardening which can be carried on with great success owing to the richness of the soil. The basement may be used as a 'hot-house" where plants may be started early in the spring to be set out in the garden later.

     As is the creed of the consolidated schools of Illinois, so is the creed of this consolidated district: "The country child is entitled to every whit as good an educational opportunity as that now enjoyed by the most favored city child attending an American public school. In order to have this equality of educational opportunity for the country child, the country people must spend more money on the country

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© 2003 for the NEGenWeb Project by Ted & Carole Miller