Mrs. Evans Solves a Problem

Like most U.S. schools last week, the high school at Warden, Wash, was understaffed. Its faculty had, in fact, been halved. The half that was left was Mrs. Jeannette Swain Evans. She was teaching English, history, mathematics, biology, music, handicrafts and bookkeeping. It was the epitome of the wartime teacher-shortage problem (TIME, March 29).

Warden is only a wheatfield flag stop on the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific, and its four-room brick-front school has only 13 high-school pupils. But the 13 would be plenty and the subjects too many if brisk Mrs. Evans did not have the right kind of kids in her classes. As it is, she teaches English to six while seven others study by themselves; she need only start off the typewriting class, let the students supervise themselves while she trains the school band.

Mrs. Evans' pupils are disciplined, diligent sons and daughters of parents who tolerate no foolishness. Descendants of German Protestant sects whom Catherine the Great invited to settle in the Ukraine, they inherited a native austerity that survived transplantation.

Like their pious forebears in Germany and Russia, they are hard-working and puritanical (cards and dancing are frowned on). But they long ago flagged and climbed aboard the U.S. train. Their German religion has given way to Congregationalism. Few of the young generation can speak a German word. Whenever a Warden boy leaves for the war there is a typical American party (coffee, food, Farmer in the Dell, Drop the Handkerchief) in the school basement. Their Americanization is ably abetted by the high-school faculty, which puts great emphasis on the history of the U.S. and the State of Washington.

The faculty got a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Washington, began teaching in 1929, likes country schools. In addition to her teaching job, she also serves as high-school principal and district school superintendent, supervises instruction in the elementary school, and collects semiprecious stones (on a $1,900 salary).

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