Prairieland Heritage School Dedication
23 Sept 2005
John Anderson…Europe.. Mary “No matter what they tell you, Ken. Lookee there at the water marks on the bridge. This damn place is sinkin’. “ Constantly: What good did it do? Notre Dame in Paris, Westminster Abby in London, the Coliseum in Rome. “What good did it do?”
My Dad (out there today) once told me that he had trouble looking at the great monuments of Europe without thinking of the outrageous taxes and slave labor that built so many of them.
Today we’re here to dedicate a building that is symbolic of an American monument… the public school. And we’ll ask John’s question glady: “What good did it do?”
My mother attended a one-room school…. then went on to teach. Many here today either attended or had parents who attended a one-room schoolhouse.
1647 - HYPERLINK "http://www.extremeintellect.com/08EDUCATION/masslaw1647.htm" The Massachusetts Law of 1647, also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act, is passed. It decrees that every town of at least 50 families hire a schoolmaster who would teach the town's children to read and write and that all towns of at least 100 families should have a Latin grammar school master who will prepare students to attend Harvard College. And thus began the one-room school. In the Midwest the rule was simple. One-room schools were located just far enough apart so that every student could ride or walk there in less than two hours. Sadly many of these great institutions now hold hay or do not exist at all.
We’ve had at least a thousand new educational programs since we closed the one room school and we still haven’t been able to top the education children received there. No Child was Left Behind in the one room schoolhouse and it didn’t take a Federal Program to accomplish it. You would not believe the amount of paperwork that I must do in a single year’s time, none of which improves education one bit. Bill Gates did a study of American Education five years ago. An astounding conclusion: small school educate kids better. I teach in something very close to a one-room school. It’s called Triopia. I can attest to the fact that the principle of the one-room school… rigorous training and an emphasis on morality, is still alive and well in American education.
Each year I load up every 7th-grader in the school. (explain) It is the highlight of their year.
When I ask Triopia seniors about the best days of their school career, almost without exception they list their day in the one-room school as the highlight of their educational experience.
This is truly the missing piece in the Prairieland exhibit. Over the years.. how people made their living, then the church, how they worshipped. Today’s dedication is most appropriate as we honor education.
I’ve spent a great deal of time, as you have, touring the great monuments of the world.. but what great monument could anyone devise than to the places, large and small, that gave people their start in life…the schoolhouse.
The true American monuments are not cathedrals or museums or governmental buildings, but American schoolhouses.
My friend John Anderson is probably visiting his wife right now. He goes to her nursing home twice a day to see her the takes her out to eat each evening. He can no longer drive very far, but if he was at Prairieland this morning, he’d look at the one-room school and say, “What good did it do?” and we could all answer with pride… A lot, John. A whole lot.
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