Last month’s illegal raid by law enforcement officers on a Kansas newspaper has made national news and will long have repercussions. I expect a steep price will be extracted from those who caused the raid.
In Nuckolls County, a visit to a Nelson newspaper office with illegal intentions was treated as a joke by the operator of the newspaper and his crew. But that doesn’t mean the participants didn’t have a price to pay.
Before sharing the story, I should perhaps share a bit of background. In 1903, aspiring teachers were not required to have the extensive education now required. At about that time, my Grandfather Wrench was hired to teach a rural Mitchell County, Kansas, school. He had only a 10th grade education and had boys in the classroom who were older than he was. Though no longer accepted, there was a time in Nebraska when a high school student enrolled in what was called normal training could go straight from high school to a rural school teaching position. That program ended only a few years before I enrolled in high school.
To make up for the formal training, the aspiring teachers were required to attend what was called institute. In those days it was held in Nelson. When I attended a rural Jewell County school, institute was a two-day affair held in a city, perhaps Hays. It was optional and most years the Pleasant Valley teacher chose to skip going to institute. That was okay by me for it meant school got out two days earlier in the spring. When I transferred into the Superior Schools, institute was required and we had a two day fall vacation. The two states held their institutes at different times. If a teacher really liked institute, it may have been possible to attend the sessions in both Kansas and Nebraska.
The reporter who wrote the story in 1903 agreed the participants paid a price. Here’s his story:
“Quite a joke was played on some of the teachers who were attending the institute held in Nelson.
“Some of the teachers intending to teach this winter, learned the Herald was to print the examination questions, so some of them decided to take a steal on the professors and make a raid on the Herald office while its force was busy at other work and swipe a few questions.
But it happened that the Herald did not print the questions. But never-the-less, the Herald had a few questions lying on the type cases which were composed especially for the expected “swipers.” While the printers were busy at other work the swipers copied the questions. The copied questions were taken home and studied all night before examination so the prospective teachers would be primted and ready for test. A few went so far as to call on the aid of there fathers to solve the “hard ones.” Lo and behold, when examination day rolled around, the questions given by the professors were entirely different.
Consequently the printers who were mixed up in the playing of the joke caught thunder from the “swipers.”
The questions they studied on agriculture follow.
1, Explain briefly the spiral-vibration vortext theory and show its relation to dairy farming.
2. What element in the soil gives tobacco its peculiar flavor.
3. When does a cow shed her milk teeth?
4. Define optimism, temperature, protoplasm, hygroscopic ptomaine.
5. Explain the process of budding a sunflower on a cornstalk.
6. Explain why cherries turn red instead of brown as grapes do.
7. Rust in small grain—can this be attributed to too much iron in the soil?
8. What practical use can be made of the cockle bur?
9. Discuss the relative merits of the following as forage plants: Yucca, Kentucky Blue Grass, Ambrosia, Taraxacum.
10. What are the necessary changes to make a wheat drill adapted to planting corn?”
I have a diploma which indicates I received a bachelor of science degree from the Kansas State University’s College of Agriculture, but I don’t think I could have passed that test. Could you?
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