How many of you can remember the Dirty 30s? I wasn’t very old but I can remember that the wind blew every day! That wasn’t so bad, but it was the dust. We had to dust in the house every day, which did not provide me with much inspiration. The roadside ditches had banks of dust instead of the usual snow. My father took me to school in the bobsled, as you couldn’t even see the ditches. With memories such as these, I haven’t been very impressed with all of the wind we have been having. So far we haven’t had the dust to contend with. There have been many improvements in our living as well as our weather in later years. I went to school in a one-room schoolhouse and our recreation was always outdoors, even in the winter. However, we all had many happy memories of our school days. I can remember a song which was titled "School Days." The words were "School days, school days, dear old golden rule days. Reading and writing and arithmetic, taught to the tune of a hickory stick. You were my queen in calico and I was your bashful barefoot beau. You wrote on my slate ‘I love you so’ when we were a couple of kids."There have been many changes in our lives since those years and especially in our school systems. Margaret and Orval Harberts, George, Iowa, were Saturday evening callers in the Henrietta Huenink home.Thursday evening supper guests in the Paul and Carole Aykens home in Orange City, Iowa, were Mildred Keunen and Joyce and Jo Aykens, who helped Paul celebrate his birthday. The high school academic and athletic awards were presented at the high school gym on Wednesday, May 18. Orrin and Bernice Aukes attended a birthday party for their granddaughter, Katie Lyn Aukes, who celebrated her first birthday at the Pizza Ranch in Brandon, S.D. Katie’s parents are Terry and Christy Aukes of Larchwood, Iowa. Tuff Memorial Home in Hills observed National Nursing Home week last Monday. It was hosted by the Red Hat Society. Residents of Tuff Home voted for a new king and queen last week. They are King Norbert Peters and Queen Laura Paulsen. Congratulations to them!The last day of school for H-BC students will be Thursday, May 26. The high school will dismiss at 11 a.m. and the elementary school will dismiss at 11:14 a.m. Karen Esselink was released from Sioux Valley Hospital on Thursday. Congratulations to Jack Esselink who will graduate from Iowa Lakes Technical College on Thursday, May 19, with a degree in childcare. Speaking of change, there have been many changes in all of our school systems. This article regarding these changes I thought rather pertinent to our problems of today. It provides us with many things to think about.About the Text: "In the late 18th century, Noah Webster, a lawyer, teacher and author of such educational books as the Blue-Backed Speller, was one of the earliest proponents of educational reform in America. At the time, the country was only beginning to develop its intellectual and social structures, and Webster recognized the young nation’s need for civic education to create a sense of national spirit and unity. It was dedication such as his that established America’s educational system, a system now enjoyed by millions of schoolchildren across the nation."On the Education of Youth in AmericaBy Noah Webster, 1788Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty, and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen who have wrought a revolution in her favor. … When I speak of the diffusion of knowledge, I do not mean merely a knowledge of spelling books, and the New Testament. An acquaintance with ethics, and with the general principles of law, commerce, money and government, it is necessary for the yeomanry of a republican state. This acquaintance they might obtain by means of books calculated for school, and read by the children, during the winter months, and by the circulation of public papers.Every small district should be furnished with a school, at least four months in a year. … This school should be kept by the most reputable and well informed man in the district. Here children should be taught the usual branches of learning; submission to superiors and to laws; the moral or social duties; the history and transactions of their own country; the principles of liberty and government. Here the rough manners of the wilderness should be softened, and the principles of virtue and good behaviors inculcated. The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head. Such a general system of education is neither impracticable nor difficult; and expecting the formation of a federal government that shall be efficient and permanent it demands the first attention of American patriots. Until such a system shall be adopted and pursued; until the Statesman and Divine shall unite their efforts in forming the human mind, rather than in loping its excrescences, after it has been neglected; until Legislators discover that the only way to make good citizens and subjects is to nourish them from infancy, and until parents shall be convinced that the worst of men are not the proper teachers to make the best: mankind cannot know to what a degree of perfection society and government may be carried. America affords the fairest opportunities for making the experiment, and opens the most encouraging prospect of success.