Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The delegates of the International Dry Farming Congress in Spokane were treated to a passionate speech about a little-known threat to farming life: City-bred girls who go to rural districts to teach school.

Why? Because they “implant city ideas of life into the minds of the farmer boy and girl,” said the superintendent of the South Dakota Farmer’s Institute.

“The school directors select a young woman with good looks, fuzzy hair and fluffy dresses, who does not know anything about farming and cares less,” fumed the superintendent. “She tells her pupils that things are not as good in the country as they are in the city, and before the end of the term she has the boys and girls full of ideas to leave the soil.”

He also pinned some blame on mothers.

“The mothers teach their daughters that no fellow is as good as a city fellow, and both set their caps to catch him,” he said. “To be in style, the farmer boy seeks a city girl. School teachers of this kind are a detriment and care should be used in the selections of teachers for the country districts.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1910: Portugal was proclaimed a republic following the abdication of King Manuel II in the face of a coup d’etat.