The School on Wheels

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 276, 11 February 1928, Page 24

The School on Wheels

■ HEN the Department of Education in Ontario discovered that children in homes far from school facilities were growing up uneducated, the railroads were called upon, and they responded promptly and cheerfully, reports W. J. Fanning in “Transportation.” After a thorough survey had been made of the northern settlements, the Department of Education has evolved a plan which will take educational facilities to the children throughout Northern Ontario. To meet the peculiar requirements of these communities, travelling schools have been introduced. Says Mr. Fanning:— “Both the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways were requested to co-operate in making tljn plan a success, and they gladly and promptly did so. Under the direction of the railways, two eoaches were converted into a schoolroom and living quarters for the teachers combined, an& the department supplied all equipment and the teachers. In every way the educational facilities offered to the children will be the equal of that afforded by the highest type of rural school. By this unique method of instruction, every child, no matter how small the place wherein he lives, should be in the position eventually of obtaining all the educational advantages open to children in the more settled districts As in the case of all innovations, the experiment opened in a moderate way. For a beginnning only two cars have been constructed, one by each railway. “It is hoped that each car will stop at about six communities during the month, making brief visits of three to six days. During this time the children will spend a large percentage of their day in school, and upon leaving, the teacher will give them sufficient homework to assure an unbroken continuance of their studies until the car returns again in the course of about a month or five weeks. The various teachers who are employed have all been specially selected for

their knowledge of the north anl requirements. “At. the inspection of the can V the Press, Dr. J. B. McDougall, cut inspector of the Education DeJJf ment for the travelling scho« pointed out that a survey showed tic on the two subdivisions on which tw cars will operate there were apirtw rnately 85 children who never M” had any schooling, except those *** parents were in a position to •** them to boarding schools. _ ‘There are at present,’ Ilr. * Dougall said, ‘between 300 and other children stretched along 3,000 miles of steel which go* B make up the railway mileage a * Northland, who also suffer similar disadvantage. It is the aw of the department to see thel children secure a good, sound edtj <* tion, and it is with this end in . , that the experiment is being maoa “Both cars are very much the in construction. Approximately half is devoted to the schoolrc° in _‘*t per. A dozen desks of the «**T school type, grading from those, larger pupils down to the . ones in the first book, have stalled, while at the so-e.'dlec of the room stands the teachers with a blackboard behind. A large blackboard runs of the way along one side of Besides the ordinary school ment, including a regulation summon the scholars, there_ bookcases, one containing t“ school books, and the other lending library, including faworks for the adults, as■ juvenile reading. Behind th room is the bedroom of td i and in the rear of this agal °— thW kitchen equipped with ®v from stove to ice-box. _ 5 “The car library is made s few works of reference, a -gjjerv ber of works on subjects . je* interest, and several w ?, I I f £ c-buß* 1 and standard fiction, nggr authors predominating. . B for adults, and form less tnsn of the collection.”