Keowee Courier

President School Improvement Association, Visited Oconee Schools.

The first day we visited Fairfield, Picket Post, Flat Shoals and Salem schools. At Flat Shoals we found a live school and the improvement association organized and doing good work. Arriving at Salem just as the school was dismissed, we spent a short time with the teachers very pleasantly. Salem is just on the eve of erecting a new school house, which will greatly facilitate the work in this school. This is an ideal place for a central high school, and I hope to see Salem take the lead in establishing a central high school for the upper section of Oconee.

The second day we visited Oconee Creek, Keowee and Ebenezer schools and found the teachers very much interested in their work and getting on nicely. At Keowee and Ebenezer Miss Spigener organized a school improvement association, and we hope to get some good results from these associations.

The third day we visited Blue Ridge, Clearmont, Return and Providence schools. The trustees of Clearmont and Return are to be congratulated on their part in securing the services of teachers who are wide awake and have a keen insight and the ability to do good school work. We are expecting great results in these schools. An association was organized at Return and Clearmont. Reaching Providence very late we found that the school had been dismissed, but Miss Penola Thomas, the primary teacher, entertained us very nicely for a short while.

The fourth day we visited Earl's Grove, Fair Play, South Union and Oakway. Owing to the epidemic of influenza the school at Earl's Grove had been closed the day before we made our visit. At Fair Play we found the teachers "on their job" -- a parent teachers' association organized and every one ready and willing to do a full part to make the school go. There is a great work to do at Fair Play, and no teacher in the county is better able to do this work than Prof. J. P. Dendy. I wish to congratulate the trustees on securing the services of Prof. Dendy, and wish them success in their school work this year.

An association was organized at South Union and Oakway. Owing to the influenza epidemic the enrollment at South Union was very small, especially so in the higher grades. We found two able teachers, willing and ready to do anything for the improvement of their schools. I hope to see the children of this district in their new school house in the near future. I am glad to say that the trustees and patrons of South Union school district are awake to their duties and responsibilities in the education of their children.

The Oakway school is progressing very nicely under the supervision of Mrs. A. S. Rowell, who is an experienced and efficient teacher. We are expecting great results at Oakway.

School clubs and parent teachers' associations perform the greatest mission when they arouse parents to the responsibility that belongs to parents and cannot be shouldered upon teachers. Reference is made to habits of home study for the school-going members of the family; habits of sleeping, and sanitation in the home; and, in general, habits of mental and physical conservation in the school youth, which mean everything in satisfactory school work.

The improvement association can do much to restore healthful and satisfactory home-school conditions. And they are doing it. Such organizations are being formed in many cities, towns and villages. There should be one in every rural school district. Every corps of teachers should see to it that an association is organized and active. It means concentration of forces that upbuilds; it means a unified desire to strengthen the best and weaken the worst in the local educational system; it means a willingness to enter into the spirit of school administration.

We hope to remove illiteracy from Oconee county. I have been informed by some State officials that Oconee is leading the entire State in this work. I hope to see the night schools for adults continue in every school district until there is not in any district a man or a woman who cannot read and write.

Let's wipe illiteracy from Oconee county by 1920!

Thos. A. Smith,
Supt. Education, Oconee Co.