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+Project Gutenberg's New Ideals in Rural Schools, by George Herbert Betts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: New Ideals in Rural Schools
+
+Author: George Herbert Betts
+
+Release Date: April 24, 2007 [EBook #21213]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tom Roch, Marcia Brooks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images produced by Core Historical
+Literature in Agriculture (CHLA), Cornell University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Riverside Educational Monographs
+
+EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO
+
+PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
+TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
+
+NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, PH. D.
+
+PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY
+CORNELL COLLEGE, IOWA
+
+[Illustration]
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
+
+The Riverside Press Cambridge
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY GEORGE HERBERT BETTS
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION                               v
+
+     PREFACE                                            ix
+
+  I. THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM                    1
+
+ II. THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL        25
+
+III. THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL                 57
+
+ IV. THE TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL                   92
+
+     OUTLINE                                           121
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
+
+
+In presenting a second monograph on the rural school problem in this
+series we register our sense of the importance of rural education. Too
+long have the rural schools suffered from neglect. Both the local
+communities and the State have overlooked the needs of the rural school
+system. At the present hour there is an earnest awakening of interest in
+rural life and its institutions. Already there is a small but certain
+movement of people toward the country and the vocation of agriculture. A
+period of agricultural prosperity, the reaction of men and women against
+the artificialities of city life, the development of farming through the
+application of science, and numerous other factors have made country
+life more congenial and have focused attention upon its further needs.
+It is natural, therefore, that the rural school should receive an
+increased share of attention.
+
+Educational administrators, legislators, and publicists have become
+aware of their responsibility to provide the financial support and the
+efficient organization that is needed to develop country schools. The
+more progressive of them are striving earnestly to provide laws that
+will aid rather than hamper the rural school system. In his monograph on
+_The Improvement of the Rural School_, Professor Cubberley has done much
+to interpret current efforts of this type. From the standpoint of state
+administration he has contributed much definite information and
+constructive suggestion as to how the State shall respond to the
+fundamental need for (1) more money, (2) better organization, and (3)
+real supervision for rural schools.
+
+It is not so clear, however, that rural patrons, school directors, and
+teachers have become fully aware of their duty in the matter of rural
+school improvement. To be sure much has been done by way of experiment
+in many rural communities; but it can scarcely be said that rural
+communities in general are thoroughly awake to the importance of their
+schools. The evidence to the contrary is cumulative. The first immediate
+need is to reawaken interest in the school as a center of rural life,
+and to suggest ways and means of transmuting this communal interest into
+effective institutional methods. To this end, Professor Betts has been
+asked to treat the rural school problem from a standpoint somewhat
+different from that assumed by Professor Cubberley; that is, from the
+point of view of the local community immediately related to, and
+concerned with, the rural school. In consequence his presentation
+emphasizes the things that ought to be done by the local
+authorities,--parent, trustee, and teacher. Its soundness may well be
+judged by the pertinent order of his discussion. Having stated his
+problem, he initiates his discussion by suggesting how the social
+relations of the school are to be reorganized; only later does he pass
+to the detail of curricula and teaching methods. It is a clear
+recognition of the fact that the community is the crucial factor in the
+making of a school. The State by sound fiscal and legislative policies
+may do much to make possible a better country school; but only the local
+authorities can realize it. The trained teacher with modern notions of
+efficiency may attempt to enlarge the curriculum and to employ newer
+methods of teaching, but his talents are useless if he is hampered by a
+conservative, unappreciative, and indifferent community. When the school
+becomes a social center of the community's interest and life, there will
+be no difficulty in achieving any policy which the State permits or
+which a skilled teacher urges. Scattered schools will be consolidated,
+and isolated ungraded schools will be improved. Given an interested
+community, the modern teacher can vitalize every feature of the school,
+changing the formal curriculum into an interesting and liberalizing
+interpretation of country life and the pedantic drills and tasks of
+instruction into a skillful ministry to real and abiding human wants.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+No rural population has yet been able permanently to maintain itself
+against the lure of the town or the city. Each civilization at one stage
+of its development comprises a large proportion of rural people. But the
+urban movement soon begins, and continues until all are living in
+villages, towns, and cities. Such has been the movement of population in
+all the older countries of high industrial development, as England,
+France, and Germany. A similar movement is at present going on rapidly
+in the United States.
+
+No great social movement ever comes by chance; it is always to be
+explained by deep-seated and adequate causes. The causes lying back of
+the rapid growth of our cities at the expense of our rural districts are
+very far from simple. They involve a great complex of social,
+educational, and economic forces. As the spirit of adventure and
+pioneering finds less to stimulate it, the gregarious impulse, the
+tendency to flock together for our work and our play, gains in
+ascendancy. Growing out of the greater intellectual opportunities and
+demands of modern times, the standard of education has greatly
+advanced. And under the incentive of present-day economic success and
+luxury, comfortable circumstances and a moderate competence no longer
+satisfy our people. Hence they turn to the city, looking to find there
+the coveted social, educational, or economic opportunities.
+
+It is doubtful, therefore, whether, even with improved conditions of
+country life, the urbanization of our rural people can be wholly
+checked. But it can be greatly retarded if the right agencies are set at
+work. The rural school should be made and can be made one of the most
+important of these agencies, although at the present time its influence
+is chiefly negative. With the hope of offering some help, however
+slight, in adjusting the rural school to its problem, this little volume
+is written by one who himself belongs to the rural community by birth
+and early education and occupation.
+
+G. H. B.
+CORNELL COLLEGE, _February_, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM
+
+_The general problem of the rural school_
+
+
+The general problem of the rural school is the same as that of any other
+type of school--to render to the community the largest possible returns
+upon its investment in education with the least possible waste. Schools
+are great education factories set up at public expense. The raw material
+consists of the children of succeeding generations, helpless and
+inefficient because of ignorance and immaturity. The school is to turn
+out as its product men and women ready and able to take up their part in
+the great world of activities going on about them. It is in this way, in
+efficient education, that society gets its return for its investment in
+the schools.
+
+The word "education" has in recent years been taking on a new and more
+vital meaning. In earlier times the value of education was assumed, or
+vaguely taken on faith. Education was supposed to consist of so much
+"learning," or a given amount of "discipline," or a certain quantity of
+"culture." Under the newer definition, education may include all these
+things, but it must do more; it _must relate itself immediately and
+concretely to the business of living_. We no longer inquire of one how
+much he knows, or the degree to which his powers have been "cultivated";
+but rather to what extent his education has led to a more fruitful life
+in the home, the state, the church, and other social institutions; how
+largely it has helped him to more effective work in a worthy occupation;
+and whether it has resulted in greater enjoyment and appreciation of the
+finer values of personal experience,--in short, whether for him
+education spells _efficiency_.
+
+We are thus coming to see that education must enable the individual to
+meet the real problems of actual experience as they are confronted in
+the day's life. Nor can the help rendered be indefinite, intangible, or
+in any degree uncertain. It must definitely adjust one to his place, and
+cause him to grow in it, accomplishing the most for himself and for
+society; it must add to the largeness of his personal life, and at the
+same time increase his working efficiency.
+
+This is to say that one's education must (1) furnish him with the
+particular _knowledge_ required for the life that he is to live, whether
+it be in the shop, on the farm, or in the profession. For knowledge lies
+at the basis of all efficiency and success in whatever occupation.
+Education must (2) shape the _attitude_, so that the individual will
+confront his part of the world's work or its play in the right spirit.
+It must not leave him a parasite, whether from wealth or from poverty,
+ready to prey upon others; but must make him willing and glad to do his
+share. Education must (3) also give the individual training in
+_technique_, or the skill required in his different activities; not to
+do this is at best but to leave him a well-informed and well-intentioned
+bungler, falling far short of efficiency.
+
+The great function of the school, therefore, is to supply the means by
+which the requisite _knowledge_, _attitude_, and _skill_ can be
+developed. It is true that the child does not depend on the school alone
+for his knowledge, his attitude, and his skill. For the school is only
+one of many influences operating on his life. Much of the most vital
+knowledge is not taught in the school but picked up outside; a great
+part of the child's attitude toward life is formed through the
+relations of the home, the community, and the various other points of
+contact with society; and much of his skill in doing is developed in a
+thousand ways without being taught. Yet the fact remains that the school
+is organized and supported by society to make sure about these things,
+to see that the child does not lack in knowledge, attitude, or skill.
+They must not be left to chance; where the educative influences outside
+the school have not been sufficient, the school must take hold. Its part
+is to supplement and organize with conscious purpose what the other
+agencies have accomplished in the education of the child. The ultimate
+purpose of the school is _to make certain of efficiency_.
+
+The means by which the school is to accomplish these ends are (1) the
+_social organization_ of the school, or the life and activities that go
+on in the school from day to day; (2) the _curriculum_, or the
+subject-matter which the child is given to master; and (3) the
+_instruction_ or the work of the teacher in helping the pupils to master
+the subject-matter of the curriculum and adjust themselves to the
+organization of the school.
+
+These factors will of necessity differ, however, according to the
+particular type of school in question. It will therefore be necessary to
+inquire into the special problem of the rural school before entering
+into a discussion of the means by which it is to accomplish its aim.
+
+
+_The special problem of the rural school_
+
+Each type of school has not only its general problem which is common to
+all schools, but also its special problem which makes it different from
+every other class of schools. The special problem of any type of school
+grows out of the nature and needs of the community which supports the
+school. Thus the city school, whose pupils are to live the industrial
+and social life of an urban community, confronts a different problem
+from that of a rural school, whose pupils are to live in a farming
+community. Each type of school must suit its curriculum, its
+organization, and its instruction to the demands to be met by its
+pupils. The knowledge taught, the attitudes and tastes developed, and
+the skill acquired must be related to the life to be lived and the
+responsibilities to be undertaken.
+
+The rural school must therefore be different in many respects from the
+town and city school. In its organization, its curriculum, and its
+spirit, it must be adapted to the requirements of the rural community.
+For, while many pupils from the rural schools ultimately follow other
+occupations than farming, yet the primary function of the rural school
+is to educate for the life of the farm. It thus becomes evident that the
+only way to understand the problem of the rural school is first to
+understand the rural community. What are its industries, the character
+of its people, their economic status, their standards of living, their
+needs, their social life?
+
+The rural community is industrially homogeneous. There exists here no
+such a diversified mixture of industries as in the city. All are engaged
+in the same line of work. Agriculture is the sole occupation. Hence the
+economic interests and problems all center around this one line. The
+success or failure of crops, the introduction of a different method of
+cultivation or a new variety of grain, or the invention of an
+agricultural implement interests all alike. The farmer engaged in
+planting his corn knows that for miles around all other farmers are
+similarly employed; if he is cutting his hay or harvesting his grain,
+hundreds of other mowing machines and harvesters are at work on
+surrounding farms.
+
+This fund of common interest and experience tends to social as well as
+industrial homogeneity. Good-fellowship, social responsiveness and
+neighborliness rest on a basis of common labor, common problems, and
+common welfare. Like-mindedness and the spirit of cooeperation are after
+all more a matter of similar occupational interests than of nationality.
+
+Another factor tending to make the rural community socially more
+homogeneous than the city community is its relatively stable population,
+and the fact that the stream of immigration is slow in reaching the
+farm. It is true that the European nations are well represented among
+our agricultural population; but for the most part they are not
+foreigners of the first generation. They have assimilated the American
+spirit, and become familiar with American institutions. The great flood
+of raw immigrants fresh from widely diverse nations stops in the large
+centers of population, and does not reach the farm.
+
+The prevailing spirit of democracy is still another influence favoring
+homogeneity in the rural community. Much less of social stratification
+exists in the country than in the city. Social planes are not so clearly
+defined nor so rigidly maintained. Financial prosperity is more likely
+to take the direction of larger barns and more acres than of social
+ostentation and exclusiveness.
+
+America has no servile and ignorant peasantry. The agricultural class
+constituting our rural population represents a high grade of natural
+intelligence and integrity. Great political and moral reforms find more
+favorable soil in the rural regions than in the cities. The demagogue
+and the "boss" find farmers impossible to control to their selfish ends.
+Vagabonds and idlers are out of place among them. They are a
+hard-headed, capable, and industrious class. As a rule, American farmers
+are well-to-do, not only earning a good living for their families, but
+constantly extending their holdings. Their farms are increasingly well
+improved, stocked, and supplied with labor-saving and efficient
+machinery. Their land is constantly growing in value, and at the same
+time yielding larger returns for the money and labor invested in it.
+
+The standard of living is distinctly lower in farm homes than in town
+and city homes of the same financial status. The house is generally
+comfortable, but small. It is behind the times in many easily accessible
+modern conveniences possessed by the great majority of city dwellers.
+The bath, modern plumbing and heating, the refrigerator, and other
+kindred appliances can be had in the country home as well as the city.
+Their lack is a matter of standards rather than of necessity. They will
+be introduced into thousands of rural homes as soon as their need is
+realized.
+
+The possibilities for making the rural home beautiful and attractive are
+unequaled in the city for any except the very rich. It is not necessary
+that the farmhouse shall be crowded for space; its outlook and
+surroundings can be arranged to give it an aesthetic quality wholly
+impossible in the ordinary city home. That this is true is proved by
+many inexpensive farmhouses that are a delight to the eye. On the other
+hand, it must be admitted that a large proportion of farmhouses are
+lacking in both architectural attractiveness and environmental effect.
+Not infrequently the barns and sheds are so placed as to crowd the house
+into the background, and the yards for stock allowed to infringe upon
+the domain of the garden and the lawn. All this can be easily remedied
+and will be when the aesthetic taste of the dwellers on the farm comes to
+be offended by the incongruous and ugly.
+
+No stinting in the abundance of food is known on the farm. The farmer
+supplies the tables of the world, and can himself live off the fat of
+the land. Grains, vegetables, meats, eggs, butter, milk, and fruits are
+his stock in trade. If there is any lack in the farmer's table, it is
+due to carelessness in providing or preparing the food, and not to
+forced economy.
+
+While the farming population in general live well, yet many tables are
+lacking in variety, especially in fruit and vegetables. Time and
+interest are so taken up with the larger affairs of crops and stock,
+that the garden goes by default in many instances. There is no market
+readily at hand offering fruit and vegetables for sale as in the city,
+and hence the farm table loses in attractiveness to the appetite and in
+hygienic excellence. It is probable that the prosperous city workman
+sits down to a better table than does the farmer, in spite of the great
+advantage possessed by the latter.
+
+The population of rural communities is necessarily scattering. The
+nature of farming renders it impossible for people to herd together as
+is the case in many other industries. This has its good side, but also
+its bad. There are no rural slums for the breeding of poverty and crime;
+but on the other hand, there is an isolation and monotony that tend to
+become deadening in their effects on the individual. Stress and
+over-strain does not all come from excitement and the rush of
+competition; it may equally well originate in lack of variety and
+unrelieved routine. How true this is is seen in the fact that insanity,
+caused in this instance chiefly by the stress of monotony, prevails
+among the farming people of frontier communities out of all proportion
+to the normal ratio.
+
+Farming is naturally the most healthful of the industrial occupations.
+The work is for the greater part done in the open air and sunshine, and
+possesses sufficient variety to be interesting. The rural population
+constitutes the high vitality class of the nation, and must be
+constantly drawn upon to supply the brain, brawn, and nerve for the work
+of the city. The farmer is, on the whole, prosperous; he is therefore
+hopeful and cheerful, and labors in good spirit. That so many farmers
+and farmers' wives break down or age prematurely is due, not to the
+inherent nature of their work, but to a lack of balance in the life of
+the farm. It is not so much the work that kills, as the _continuity of
+the work_ unrelieved by periods of rest and recreation. With the
+opportunities highly favorable for the best type of healthful living, no
+inconsiderable proportion of our agricultural population are shortening
+their lives and lowering their efficiency by unnecessary over-strain and
+failure to conform to the most fundamental and elementary laws of
+hygienic living, especially with reference to the relief from labor that
+comes through change and recreation.
+
+The rural community affords few opportunities for social recreations and
+amusements. Not only are the people widely separated from each other by
+distance, but the work of the farm is exacting, and often requires all
+the hours of the day not demanded for sleep. While the city offers many
+opportunities for choice of recreation or amusement, the country affords
+almost none. The city worker has his evenings, usually Saturday
+afternoon, and all day Sunday free to use as he chooses. Such is not the
+case on the farm; for after the day in the field the chores must be
+done, and the stock cared for. And even on Sunday, the routine must be
+carried out. The work of the farm has a tendency, therefore, to become
+much of a grind, and certainly will become so unless some limit is set
+to the exactions of farm labor on the time and strength of the worker.
+It separates the individual from his fellows in the greater part of the
+farm work and gives him little opportunity for social recreations or
+play.
+
+One of the best evidences that the conditions of life and work on the
+farm need to be improved is the number of people who are leaving the
+farm for the city. This movement has been especially rapid during the
+last thirty years of our history, and has continued until approximately
+one half our people now live in towns or cities. Not only is this loss
+of agricultural population serious to farming itself, creating a
+shortage of labor for the work of the farm, but it results in crowding
+other occupations already too full. There is no doubt that we have too
+many lawyers, doctors, merchants, clerks, and the like for the number of
+workers engaged in fundamental productive vocations. Smaller farms,
+cultivated intensively, would be a great economic advantage to the
+country, and would take care of a far larger proportion of our people
+than are now engaged in agriculture.
+
+All students of social affairs agree that the movement of our people to
+towns and cities should be checked and the tide turned the other way. So
+important is the matter considered that a concerted national movement
+has recently been undertaken to study the conditions of rural life with
+a view to making it more attractive and so stopping the drain to the
+city.
+
+Middle-aged farmers move to the town or city for two principal reasons:
+to educate their children and to escape from the monotony of rural
+life. Young people desert the farm for the city for a variety of
+reasons, prominent among which are a desire for better education, escape
+from the monotony and grind of the farm life, and the opportunity for
+the social advantages and recreations of the city. That the retired
+farmer is usually disappointed and unhappy in his town home, and that
+the youth often finds the glamour of the city soon to fade, is true. But
+this does not solve the problem. The flux to the town or city still goes
+on, and will continue to do so until the natural desire for social and
+intellectual opportunities and for recreation and amusement is
+adequately met in rural life.
+
+Farming as an industry has already felt the effects of a new interest in
+rural life. Probably no other industrial occupation has undergone such
+rapid changes within the last generation as has agriculture. The rapid
+advance in the value of land, the introduction of new forms of farm
+machinery, and above all the application of science to the raising of
+crops and stock, have almost reconstructed the work of the farm within a
+decade.
+
+Special "corn trains" and "dairy trains" have traversed nearly every
+county in many States, teaching the farmers scientific methods.
+Lecturers on scientific agriculture have found their way into many
+communities. The Federal Government has encouraged in every way the
+spread of information and the development of enthusiasm in agriculture.
+The agricultural schools have given courses of instruction during the
+winter to farmers. Farmers' institutes have been organized; corn-judging
+and stock-judging contests have been held; prizes have been offered for
+the best results in the raising of grains, vegetables, or stock. New
+varieties of grains have been introduced, improved methods of
+cultivation discovered, and means of enriching and conserving the soil
+devised. Stock-breeding and the care of animals is rapidly becoming a
+science. Farming bids fair soon to become one of the skilled
+occupations.
+
+Such, then, is a brief view of the situation of which the rural school
+is a part. It ministers to the education of almost half of the American
+people. This industrial group are engaged in the most fundamental of all
+occupations, the one upon which all national welfare and progress
+depend. They control a large part of the wealth of the country, the
+capital invested in agriculture being more than double that invested in
+manufactures. Agricultural wealth is rapidly increasing, both through
+the rise in the value of land and through improved methods of farming.
+The conditions of life on the farm have greatly improved during the last
+decade. Rural telephones reach almost every home; free mail delivery is
+being rapidly extended in almost every section of the country; the
+automobile is coming to be a part of the equipment of many farms; and
+the trolley is rapidly pushing out along the country roads.
+
+Yet, in spite of these hopeful tendencies, the rural community shows
+signs of deterioration in many places. Rural population is steadily
+decreasing in proportion to the total aggregate of population. Interest
+in education is at a low ebb, the farm children having educational
+opportunities below those of any other class of our people. For, while
+town and city schools have been improving until they show a high type of
+efficiency, the rural school has barely held its own, or has, in many
+places, even gone backward. The rural community confronts a puzzling
+problem which is still far from solution.
+
+Certain points of attack upon this problem are, however, perfectly clear
+and obvious. _First_, educational facilities must be improved for rural
+children, and their education be better adapted to farm life; _second_,
+greater opportunities must be provided for recreation and social
+intercourse for both young and old; _third_, the program of farm work
+must be arranged to allow reasonable time for rest and recreation;
+_fourth_, books, pictures, lectures, concerts, and entertainments must
+be as accessible to the farm as to the town. These conditions must be
+met, not because of the dictum of any person, but because they are a
+fundamental demand of human nature, and must be reckoned with.
+
+What, then, is the relation of the rural school to these problems of the
+rural community? How can it be a factor in their solution? What are its
+opportunities and responsibilities?
+
+
+_The adjustment of the rural school to its problem_
+
+As has been already stated, the problem of any type of school is to
+serve its constituency. This is to be done through relating the
+curriculum, the organization, and the teaching of the school to the
+immediate interests and needs of the people dependent on the school for
+their education. That the rural school has not yet fully adjusted itself
+to its problem need hardly be argued.
+
+It has as good material to work upon in the boys and girls from the farm
+as any type of schools in the country. They come of good stock; they
+are healthy and vigorous; and they are early trained to serious work and
+responsibility. Yet a very large proportion of these children possess
+hardly the rudiments of an education when they quit the rural school.
+Many of them go to school for only a few months in the year, compulsory
+education laws either being laxly enforced or else altogether lacking. A
+very small percentage of the children of the farm ever complete eight
+grades of schooling, and not a large proportion finish more than half of
+this amount.
+
+This leaves the child who has to depend on the rural school greatly
+handicapped in education. He has but a doubtful proficiency in the
+mechanics of reading, and has read but little. He knows the elements of
+spelling, writing, and number, but has small skill in any of them. He
+knows little of history or literature, less of music, nothing of art,
+and has but a superficial smattering of science. Of matters relating to
+his life and activities on the farm he has heard almost nothing. The
+rural child is not illiterate, but he is too close to the border of
+illiteracy for the demands of a twentieth-century civilization; it is
+fair neither to the child nor to society.
+
+The rural school seems in some way relatively to have lost ground in
+our educational system. The grades of the town school have felt the
+stimulus of the high school for which they are preparing, and have had
+the care and supervision of competent administrators. The rural school
+is isolated and detached, and has had no adequate administrative system
+to care for its interests. No wonder, then, that certain grave faults in
+adjustment have grown up. A few of the most obvious of these faults may
+next claim our attention.
+
+_The rural school is inadequate in its scope._ The children of the farm
+have as much need for education and as much right to it as those who
+live in towns and cities. Yet the rural school as a rule never attempts
+to offer more than the eight grades of the elementary curriculum, and
+seldom reaches this amount. It not infrequently happens that no pupils
+are in attendance beyond the fifth or the sixth grade. This may be due
+either to the small number of children in the district, or, more often,
+to lack of interest to continue in school beyond the simplest elements
+of reading, writing, and number. It is true that certain States, such as
+Illinois and Wisconsin, have established a system of township high
+schools, where secondary education equal to that to be had in the
+cities is available to rural children. In other States a county high
+school is maintained for the benefit of rural school graduates. In still
+others, arrangements are made by which those who complete the eight
+grades of rural schools are received into the town high schools with the
+tuition paid by the rural school districts. The movement toward
+secondary education supplied by the rural community for its children is
+yet in its infancy, however, and has hardly touched the larger problem
+of affording adequate opportunities for the education of farm children.
+
+_The grading and organization of the rural school is haphazard and
+faulty._ This is partly because of the small enrollment and irregular
+attendance, and partly because of the inexperience and lack of
+supervision of the teacher. Children are often found pursuing studies in
+three or four different grades at the same time. And even more often
+they omit altogether certain fundamental studies because they or their
+parents have a notion that these studies are unnecessary. Sometimes,
+owing to the small number in attendance, or to the poor classification,
+several grades are entirely lacking, or else they are maintained for
+only one or two pupils. On the other hand, classes are often found
+following each other at an interval of only a few weeks, thereby
+multiplying classes until the teacher is frequently attempting the
+impossible task of teaching twenty-five or thirty classes a day.
+Children differing in age by five or six years, and possessing
+corresponding degrees of ability, are often found reciting in the same
+classes. That efficient work is impossible under these conditions is too
+obvious to require discussion.
+
+_The rural schools possess inadequate buildings and equipment._ The
+average rural schoolhouse consists of one room, with perhaps a small
+hallway. The building is constructed without reference to architectural
+effect, resembling nothing so much as a large box with a roof on it. It
+is barren and uninviting as to its interior. The walls are often of
+lumber painted some dull color, and dingy through years of use. The
+windows are frequently dirty, and covered only by worn and tattered
+shades. There is usually no attempt to decorate the room with pictures,
+or to relieve its ugliness and monotony in any way. The library consists
+of a few dozens of volumes, not always supplied with a case for their
+protection. Of apparatus there is almost none. The work of the farm is
+done with efficient modern equipment, the work of the farmer's school
+with inadequate and antiquated equipment.
+
+While the length of the school year is increasing in the rural
+districts, _the term is yet much shorter than in town and city schools_.
+Many communities have not more than six months of school, and few more
+than eight. This shortage is rendered all the more serious by the
+irregular attendance of the rural school children. A considerable amount
+of absence on the part of the younger ones is unavoidable under present
+conditions when the distance is great and the weather bad. After all
+allowance is made for this fact, however, there is still an immense
+amount of unnecessary waste of time through non-attendance. Many rural
+schools show an average attendance for the year of not more than sixty
+per cent of the enrollment. Going to school is not yet considered a
+serious business by many of the rural patrons, and truant officers are
+not so easily available in the country as in the city.
+
+_In financial support the rural school has of necessity been behind the
+city school._ Wealth is not piled up on a small area in agricultural
+communities as is the case in the city. It would often require square
+miles of land to equal in value certain city blocks. But making full
+allowance for this difference, the farmers have not supported their
+schools as well as is done by the patrons of town and city schools. The
+school taxes for rural districts are much lower than in city districts,
+in most instances not more than half as high. It is this conservatism in
+expenditure that is responsible for many of the defects in the rural
+school, and particularly for the relatively inefficient teaching that is
+done. The rural teachers are the least educated, the least experienced,
+and the most poorly paid of any class of our teachers. They consist
+almost wholly of girls, a large proportion of whom are under twenty
+years of age, and who continue teaching not more than a year or two. Not
+only is this the case, but effective supervision of the teaching is
+wholly impossible because of the large area assigned to the county or
+district superintendent of rural schools. In no great industrial project
+should we think of placing our youngest and most inexperienced workers
+in the hardest and most important positions, and this without
+supervision of their work.
+
+The rural school has not, therefore, yet been adjusted to its problem.
+It has a splendid field of work, but is not developing it. Our farming
+population have capacity for education and need it, but they are not
+securing it. There is plenty of money available for the support of the
+rural school, but the school is not getting it. Enough well-equipped
+teachers can be had for the rural schools, but the standards have not
+yet required adequate preparation, nor the pay been sufficient to
+warrant extensive expenditure for it.
+
+In the rural school is found the most important and puzzling educational
+problem of the present day. If our agricultural population are not to
+fall behind other favored classes of industrial workers in intelligence
+and preparation for the activities that are to engage them, the rural
+school must begin working out a better adjustment to its problem. Its
+curriculum must be broader and richer, and more closely related to the
+life and interests of the farm. The organization of the school, both on
+the intellectual and the social side, must bring it more closely into
+touch with the interests and needs of the rural community. The support
+and administration of rural education must be improved. Teachers for the
+rural schools must be better educated and better paid, and their
+teaching must be correspondingly more efficient. The following pages
+will be given to a discussion of these problems of adjustment.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
+
+
+Every school possesses two types of organization: (1) an _intellectual_
+organization involving the selection and arrangement of a curriculum,
+and its presentation through instruction; and (2) a _social_
+organization involving, on the one hand, the inter-relations of the
+school and the community, and on the other the relations of the pupils
+with each other and the teacher.
+
+
+_The rural school and the community_
+
+The rural school and community are not at present in vital touch with
+each other. The community is not getting enough from the school toward
+making life larger, happier, and more efficient; it is not giving enough
+to the school either in helpful cooeperation or financial support.
+
+In general, it must be said that most of our rural people, the patrons
+of the rural school, have not yet conceived education broadly. They
+think of the school as having fulfilled its function when it has
+supplied the simplest rudiments of reading, writing, and number. And,
+naturally enough, the rural school has conceived its function in the
+same narrow light; for it is controlled very completely by its patrons,
+and a stream cannot rise higher than its source.
+
+Because of its isolation, the pressing insistence of its toil, and the
+monotony of its environment, the rural community is in constant danger
+of intellectual and social stagnation. It has far more need that its
+school shall be a stimulating, organizing, socializing force than has
+the town or city. For the city has a dozen social centres entirely
+outside the school: its public parks, theatres, clubs, churches, and
+streets, even, serve to stimulate, entertain, and educate. But the rural
+community is wanting in all these social forces; it is lacking in both
+intellectual and social stimulus and variety.
+
+One of the most pressing needs of country districts is a common
+neighborhood center for both young and old, which shall stand as an
+organizing, welding, vitalizing force, uniting the community on a basis
+of common interests and activities. For while, as we have seen, the
+rural population as a whole are markedly homogeneous, there is after
+all but little of common acquaintanceship and mingling among them.
+Thousands of rural families live lives of almost complete social
+isolation and lack of contact with neighbors.
+
+This condition is one of the gravest drawbacks to farm life. The social
+impulse and the natural desire for recreation and amusement are as
+strong in country boys and girls as in their city cousins, yet the
+country offers young people few opportunities for satisfying these
+impulses and desires. The normal social tendencies of youth are
+altogether too strong to be crushed out by repression; they are too
+valuable to be neglected; and they are too dangerous to be left to take
+their own course wholly unguided. The rural community can never hope to
+hold its boys and girls permanently to the life of the farm until it has
+recognized the necessity for providing for the expression and
+development of the spontaneous social impulses of youth.
+
+Furthermore, the social monotony and lack of variety of the rural
+community is a grave moral danger to its young people. It is a common
+impression that the great city is strewn thick with snares and pitfalls
+threatening to morals, but that the country is free from such
+temptations. The public dance halls and cheap theaters of the city are
+beyond doubt a great and constant menace to youthful ideals and purity.
+But the country, going to the opposite extreme, with its almost utter
+lack of recreation and amusement places, offers temptations no less
+insidious and fatal.
+
+The great difficulty at this point is that young people in rural
+communities are thrown together almost wholly in isolated pairs instead
+of in social groups; and that there are no objective resources of
+amusement or entertainment to claim their interest and attention away
+from themselves. They are freed from all chaperonage and the restraints
+of the conventions obtaining in social groups at the very time in their
+lives when these are most needed as steadying and controlling forces.
+The result is that the country districts, which ought to be of all
+places in the world the freest from temptation and peril to the morals
+of our young people, are really more dangerous than the cities. The
+sequel is found in the fact that a larger proportion of country girls
+than of city girls go astray. Nor is the rural community more successful
+in the morals of its boys than its girls. In other words, the lack of
+opportunities for free and normal social experience, the consequent
+ignorance of social conventions, and the absence of healthful amusement
+and recreation, make the rural community a most unsafe place in which
+to rear a family.
+
+But the necessity for social recreation and amusement does not apply to
+the young people alone. Their fathers and mothers are suffering from the
+same limitations, though of course with entirely different results. The
+danger here is that of premature aging and stagnation. While the toil of
+the city worker is relieved by change and variety, his mind rested and
+his mood enlivened by the stimulus from many lines of diversion, the
+lives of the dwellers on the farm are constantly threatened by a deadly
+sameness and monotony.
+
+The indisputable tendency of farmers and their wives to age so rapidly,
+and so early to fall into the ranks of "fogyism," is due far more to
+lack of variety and recreation and to dearth of intellectual stimulus
+than to hard labor, severe as this often is. Age is more than the flight
+of the years, the stoop of the form, or the hardening of the arteries;
+it is also the atrophy of the intellect and the fading away of the
+emotions resulting from disuse. The farmer needs occasionally to have
+something more exciting than the alternation of the day's work with the
+nightly "chores." And his wife should now and then have an opportunity
+to meet people other than those for whom she cooks and sews.
+
+But what has all this to do with the social organization of the rural
+school? Much. The country cannot have its theaters, parks, and crowded
+thoroughfares like the city. But it needs and must have _some_ social
+center, where its people may assemble for recreation, entertainment, and
+intellectual growth and development. And what is more natural and
+feasible than that the public school should be this center? Here is an
+institution already belonging to the whole people, and set apart for the
+intellectual training of the young. Why should it not also be made to
+minister to the intellectual needs of their elders as well, and to the
+social needs of all? _Why should not the public school building, now in
+use but six hours a day for little more than half the year, be open at
+all times when it can be helpful to any portion of the community?_
+
+If young people are to develop naturally, if they are to make full use
+of their social as well as their intellectual powers, if they are to be
+satisfied with their surroundings, they must be provided with suitable
+opportunities for social mingling and recreation in groups. This is
+nature's way; there is no other way. The school might and should afford
+this opportunity. There is not the least reason why the school building,
+when it is adapted to this purpose, should not be the common
+neighborhood meeting place for all sorts of young people's parties,
+picnics, entertainments, athletic contests, and every other form of
+amusement approved in the community.
+
+Such a use of the school property would yield large returns to the
+community for the small additional expense required. It would serve to
+weld the school and community more closely together. It would vastly
+change the attitude of the young toward the school. It would save much
+of the dissatisfaction of young people with the life of the farm. It
+would prove a great safeguard to youthful morals. It would lead the
+community itself to a new sense of its duty toward the social life of
+the young, and to a new concept of the school as a part of the community
+organization. Finally, this broadened service of the school to its
+community would have a reflex influence on the school itself, vitalizing
+every department of its activities, and giving it a new vision of its
+opportunities.
+
+The first obstacle that will appear in the way of such a plan is the
+inadequacy of the present type of country schoolhouse. And this is a
+serious matter; for the barren, squalid little building of the present
+day would never fit into such a project. But this type of schoolhouse
+must go--is going. It is a hundred years behind our civilization, and
+wholly inadequate to present needs. Passing for later discussion the
+method by which these buildings are to be supplanted by better ones, let
+us consider further the details of the plan of making the school the
+neighborhood center.
+
+First of all, each school must supply a larger area and a greater number
+of people than at present. It is financially impossible to erect good
+buildings to the number of our present schools. Nor are there pupils
+enough in the small district as now organized to make a school, nor
+people enough successfully to use the school as a neighborhood center.
+
+Let each township, or perhaps somewhat smaller area, select a central,
+well-adapted site and thereon erect a modern, well-equipped school
+building. But this building must not be just the traditional schoolhouse
+with its classrooms and rows of desks. For it is to be more than a place
+where the children will study and recite lessons from books; it is to be
+the place where all the people of the neighborhood, _old and young_,
+will assemble for entertainment, amusement, and instruction. Here will
+be held community picnics, social entertainments, young people's
+parties, lectures, concerts, debating contests, agricultural courses for
+the farmers, school programs, spreads and banquets, and whatever else
+may belong to the common social and intellectual life of the community.
+
+The modern rural school building will therefore be home-like as well as
+school-like. In addition to its classrooms it will contain an assembly
+room capable of seating several hundred people. The seating of this room
+may be removable so that the floor can be cleared for social purposes or
+the room used for a dining-room. One or two smaller rooms will be needed
+for social functions, club and committee meetings. These rooms should be
+made attractive with good furniture, rugs, couches, and pictures. The
+building will contain well-equipped laboratories for manual training and
+domestic science, the latter of which will be found serviceable in
+connection with serving picnics, "spreads," and the like. The entire
+building should be architecturally attractive, well heated and
+ventilated, commodious, well furnished, and decorated with good
+pictures. In it should be housed a library containing several thousand
+well-selected books, besides magazines and newspapers. The laboratories
+and equipment should be fully equal to those found in the town schools,
+but should be adapted to the work of the rural school.
+
+The grounds surrounding the rural school building can easily be ample in
+area, and beautiful in outlook and decoration. Here will be the
+neighborhood athletic grounds for both boys and girls, shade trees for
+picnics, flowers and shrubs, and ground enough for a school garden
+connected with the instruction in agriculture. Nor is it too much to
+believe that the district will in the future erect on the school grounds
+a cottage for the principal of the school and his family, and thus offer
+an additional inducement for strong, able men to devote their energies
+to education in the rural communities.
+
+Now contrast this schoolhouse and equipment with the typical rural
+building of the present. Adjoining a prosperous farm, with its large
+house, its accompanying barns, silos, machine houses, and all the
+equipment necessary to modern farming, is the little schoolhouse. It is
+a dilapidated shell of a rectangular box, barren of every vestige of
+beauty or attractiveness both inside and out. At the rear are two
+outbuildings which are an offense to decency and a menace to morals.
+Within the schoolhouse the painted walls are dingy with smoke and grime.
+The windows are broken and dirty, no pictures adorn the walls. The floor
+is washed but once or twice a year. The room is heated by an ugly box of
+a stove, and ventilated only by means of windows which frequently are
+nailed shut. The grounds present a wilderness of weeds, rubbish, and
+piles of ashes. It is all an outrage against the rights of the country
+child, and an indictment of the intelligence and ideals of a large
+proportion of our people.
+
+If it is said that the plan proposed to remedy this situation is
+revolutionary, it will be admitted. What our rural schools of to-day
+need is _not improvement but reorganization_. For only in this radical
+way can they be made a factor in the vitalizing and conserving of the
+rural community which, unless some new leaven is introduced, is surely
+destined to disorganization and decay.
+
+
+_The consolidation of rural schools_
+
+The first step in reorganizing the rural schools is _consolidation_. Our
+rural school organization, buildings, and equipment are a full century
+behind our industrial and social advancement. The present plan of
+attempting to run a school on approximately every four square miles of
+territory originated at a time of poverty, and when the manufacturing
+industries were all carried on in the homes and small shops. Our rural
+people are now well-to-do, and manufacturing has moved over into a
+well-organized set of factories; but the isolated little school,
+shamefully housed, meagerly equipped, poorly attended, and unskillfully
+taught, still remains.
+
+Such a system of schools leaves our rural people educationally on a par
+with the days of cradling the grain and threshing it with a flail; of
+planting corn by hand and cultivating it with a hoe; of lighting the
+house with a tallow dip, and traveling by stage-coach.
+
+The well-meant attempts to "improve" the rural school as now organized
+are futile. The proposal to solve the problem by raising the standards
+for teachers, desirable as this is; by the raising of salaries; or by
+bettering the type of the little schoolhouse, are at best but temporary
+makeshifts, and do not touch the root of the problem. The first and most
+fundamental step is to eliminate the little shacks of houses that dot
+our prairies every two miles along the country roads.
+
+For not only is it impossible to supply adequate buildings so near
+together, but it is even more impossible to find children enough to
+constitute a real school in such small districts. There is no way of
+securing a full head of interest and enthusiasm with from five to ten or
+twelve pupils in a school. The classes are too small and the number of
+children too limited to permit the organization of proper games and
+plays, or a reasonable variety of association through mingling together.
+
+Furthermore, it will never be possible to pay adequate salaries to the
+teachers in these small schools. Nor will any ambitious and
+well-prepared teacher be willing to remain in such a position, where he
+is obliged to invest his time and influence with so few pupils, and
+where all conditions are so adverse.
+
+The chief barrier to the centralization of rural education has been
+local prejudice and pride. In many cases a true sentimental value has
+attached to "the little red schoolhouse." Its praises have been sung,
+and orator and writer have expanded upon the glories of our common
+schools, until it is no wonder that their pitiful inadequacy has been
+overlooked by many of their patrons.
+
+In other cases opposition has arisen to giving up the small local
+school because of the selfish fear that the loss of the school would
+lower the value of adjacent property. Still others have feared that
+consolidation would mean higher school taxes, and have opposed it upon
+this ground.
+
+But whatever the causes of the opposition to consolidation, this
+opposition must cease before the rural school can fulfill its function
+and before the rural child can have educational opportunities even
+approximating those given the town child. And until this is
+accomplished, the exodus from the farm will continue and ought to
+continue. Pride, prejudice, and penury must not be allowed to deprive
+the farm boys and girls of their right to education and normal
+development.
+
+The movement toward consolidation of rural schools and transportation of
+the children to a central school has already attained considerable
+headway in many regions of the country.[1] It is now a part of the rural
+school system in thirty-two States. Massachusetts, the leader in
+consolidation, began in 1869. The movement at first grew slowly in all
+the States, not only having local opposition to overcome, but also
+meeting the problem of bad country roads interfering with the
+transportation of pupils.
+
+During the past half-dozen years, however, consolidation has been
+gaining headway, and is now going on at least five times as fast as the
+average for the twenty-five years preceding 1906. Indiana is at present
+the banner State in the rapidity of consolidation, the expenditure for
+conveyance having considerably more than trebled since 1904. The broad
+and general sweep of the movement, together with the fact that it is
+practically unheard of for schools that have once tried consolidation to
+go back to the old system, seems to indicate that the rural education of
+the not distant future will, except in a few regions, be carried on in
+consolidated schools.
+
+The relative cost of maintaining district and consolidated schools is an
+important factor. Yet this factor must not be given undue prominence. It
+is true that the cost of education must be kept at a reasonable ratio
+with the standard of living of a community. But it is also true that the
+consolidated rural school must be looked upon as an indispensable
+country-life institution, and hence as having claim to a more generous
+basis of support than that accorded the district school.
+
+While it is impossible, owing to such widely varying conditions, to
+make an absolutely exact statement of the relative expense of the two
+types of schools, yet it has been shown in many different instances that
+the cost of schooling per day in consolidated schools is but slightly,
+if any, above that in most district schools.
+
+The aggregate annual cost is usually somewhat higher in the consolidated
+schools, owing to the fact of a greatly increased attendance. A
+comparison made between the cost per day's schooling in the smaller
+district schools and consolidated schools almost invariably shows a
+lower expenditure for the latter. For example, the fifteen districts in
+Hardin County, Iowa, having in 1908 an enrollment of nine or less,
+averaged a cost of 27.5 cents a day for each pupil.[2] At the same time
+the cost per day in the consolidated rural schools of northeastern Ohio
+was only 17.4 cents a day, the district schools being more than
+fifty-seven per cent higher than the consolidated. Similar comparisons
+show the same trend in many other localities. In a great many of the
+small district schools the cost per pupil is as high as in consolidated
+schools where a high school course is also provided. It has been found
+that the average cost per year of schooling a child in a consolidated
+school is but little above thirty dollars, while in practically all
+smaller district schools it far exceeds this amount, not infrequently
+going above fifty dollars. This means that average rural districts that
+are putting at least thirty dollars a year into the schooling of each
+child can, by consolidating their schools, secure greatly improved
+educational facilities with no heavier financial burden.
+
+Not the least important of the advantages growing out of rural school
+consolidation is the improved attendance. Experience has shown that
+fully twenty-five per cent more children of school age are enrolled
+under the consolidated than under the district system. The advantage of
+this one factor alone can hardly be over-estimated, but the increase in
+regularity of attendance is also as great. The average daily attendance
+of rural schools throughout the country is approximately sixty per cent
+of the enrollment, and in entire States falls below fifty per cent. It
+has been found that consolidation, with its attendant conveyance of
+pupils, commonly increases the average daily attendance by as much as
+twenty-five per cent.
+
+It is true that in many regions it may at present prove impossible to
+consolidate all the rural schools. In places where the population is so
+sparse as to require transportation for very long distances, or where
+the country roads are still in such a condition in wet seasons as to be
+practically impassable, consolidation must of necessity be delayed. In
+such communities, however, the rural school need not be completely at a
+standstill. Much can be done to make even the one-room schoolhouse
+attractive and hygienic. With almost no expense, the grounds can be set
+with shade trees, shrubs, and perennial flowering plants. The yard can
+be made into a lawn in front, and into an athletic ground at the sides
+or the rear. Enough ground can be added to provide for all these things,
+and a school garden besides. The building can be rendered more inviting
+through better architecture, and more attention to decoration and
+cleanliness. An adequate supply of books and other equipment can be
+provided. While the isolated rural school can never take the place of
+the consolidated school, while it should always be looked upon as only
+temporarily occupying a place later to be filled by a more efficient
+type of school, it can after all be rendered much more efficient than it
+is at present. And since the one-room school will without doubt for
+years to come be required as a supplement of the consolidated school,
+it should receive the same careful thought and effort toward its
+improvement that is being accorded the school of better type.
+
+
+_Financial support of the rural school_
+
+The rural school has never had adequate financial support. There has
+been good reason for this in many regions of the country where farm
+property was low in value, the land sparsely settled and not all
+improved, or else covered by heavy mortgages. As these conditions have
+gradually disappeared and the agricultural population become more
+prosperous, the school has in some degree shared the general prosperity.
+But not fully. A smaller proportion of the margin of wealth above living
+necessities is going into rural education now than in the earlier days
+of less prosperity. While the farmer has vastly "improved" his farm, he
+has improved his school but little. While he has been adding modern
+machinery and adopting scientific methods in caring for his grain and
+stock, his children have not had the advantage of an increasingly
+efficient school.
+
+The poverty of the rural school finds its explanation in two facts: (1)
+the relatively low value of the taxable property of the rural as
+compared with the town or city district, and (2) the lower rate of local
+school tax paid in country than in urban districts. The first of these
+disadvantages of the rural district cannot be remedied; but for the
+second, there seems to be no valid economic reason.
+
+The approximate difference in the local school-tax rate paid in urban
+and rural districts is shown in the following instances, which might be
+duplicated from other States:--
+
+In Kansas, the local school tax paid in 1910 by towns and cities was
+above eighty per cent more than that paid by country districts. In
+Missouri, the current report of the State Superintendent shows towns and
+cities seventy-five per cent higher than the country. In Minnesota,
+towns and cities average nearly three times the rate paid by rural
+districts. In Ohio, towns and cities are more than ten per cent higher
+than rural districts, even where the rural district maintains a full
+elementary and high school course. In Nebraska and Iowa, the town and
+city rate is about double that of country districts.
+
+When there is added to this difference the further fact that town and
+city property is commonly assessed at more nearly its full value than
+rural property, the discrepancy becomes all the greater.
+
+It is not meant, of course, that farmers should pay as high a school-tax
+rate for the elementary rural school as that paid by town patrons who
+also have a high school available. But, on the other hand, if better
+school facilities are to be furnished the country children, rural
+property should bear its full share of the taxes required. The farmer
+should be willing to pay as much for the education of his child as the
+city dweller pays for a similar education for his.
+
+During the last generation farmers have been increasing in wealth faster
+than any other class of industrial workers. Their land has doubled in
+value, barns have been built, machinery has been added, automobiles
+purchased, and large bank credits established. Yet very little of this
+increased prosperity has reached the school. Library, reference works,
+maps, charts, and other apparatus are usually lacking. In Iowa, as a
+fair example, a sum of not less than ten nor more than fifteen cents a
+year for each pupil of school age in the district is required by law to
+be expended for library books. Yet in not a few districts the law is a
+dead letter or the money grudgingly spent! In many rural schools the
+teacher has to depend on the proceeds of a "social," an "exhibition,"
+or a "box party" to secure a few dollars for books or pictures for the
+neighborhood school, and sometimes even buys brooms and dust pans from
+the fund secured in this way.
+
+This is all wrong. The school should be put on a business basis. It
+should have the necessary tools with which to accomplish its work, and
+not be forced to waste the time and opportunity of childhood for want of
+a few dollars expended for equipment. Its patrons should realize that
+just as it pays to supply factory, shop, or farm with the best of
+instruments for carrying on the work, so it pays in the school. Cheap
+economy is always wasteful, and never more wasteful than when it
+cripples the efficiency of education.
+
+State aid for rural schools has been proposed and in some instances
+tried, as a mode of solving their financial problem. Where this system
+has been given a fair trial, as for example in Minnesota, it has
+resulted in two great advantages: (1) it has encouraged the local
+community to freer expenditure of their own money for school purposes,
+since the contribution of the State is conditioned on the amount
+expended by the district. This is an important achievement, since it
+serves to train the community to the idea of more liberal local
+taxation for school purposes, and it is probable that the greater part
+of the support of our schools will continue to come from this source.
+Another advantage of state aid is (2) that it serves to equalize
+educational opportunities, and hence to maintain a true educational
+democracy. Wealthier localities are caused to contribute to the
+educational facilities of those less favored, and a common advancement
+thereby secured.
+
+While the theory of state aid to rural education is wholly defensible,
+and while it has worked well in practice, yet there is one safeguard
+that needs to be considered. It is manifestly unfair to ask the people
+of towns and cities to help pay for the support of the rural schools
+through the medium of the State treasury except on condition that the
+patrons of the rural schools themselves do their fair share. Mr. "A,"
+living in a town where he pays twenty mills school tax, ought not to be
+asked to help improve Mr. "B's" rural school, while Mr. "B" is himself
+paying but ten mills of school tax. The farmer is as able as any one
+else to pay a fair rate of taxation for his school, and should be
+willing to do so before asking for aid from other taxation sources.
+Rural education must not be placed on the basis of a missionary
+enterprise. State aid should be used to compensate for the difference
+in the economic _basis_ for taxation in different localities, and not
+for a difference in the _rates_ of taxation between localities equally
+able to pay the same rate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may conclude, then, that while neither the rural school nor the
+community has been fully aware of the possibilities for mutual
+helpfulness and cooeperation, yet there are many hopeful signs that both
+are awakening to a sense of responsibility. Federal and state
+commissions have been created to study the rural problem, national and
+state teachers' associations are seeking a solution of the rural school
+question, and, better still, the patrons of the rural schools are in
+many places alive to the pressing need for better educational facilities
+for their children.
+
+Growing out of these influences and the faithful work of many state and
+county superintendents, and not a few of the rural teachers themselves,
+a spirit of progress is gaining headway. Several thousand consolidated
+schools are now rendering excellent service to their patrons and at the
+same time acting as a stimulus to other communities to follow their
+example. State aid to rural education is no longer an experiment. The
+people are in many localities voluntarily and gladly increasing their
+taxes in order that they may improve their schools. Teachers' salaries
+are being increased, better equipment provided, and buildings rendered
+more habitable.
+
+The great educational problem of the immediate future will be to
+encourage and guide the movement which is now getting under way. For
+mistakes made now will handicap both community and school for years to
+come. The attempt to secure better schools by "improving" conditions in
+local districts should be definitely abandoned except in localities
+where conditions make consolidation impracticable for the present. The
+new consolidated school building should take definitely into account the
+fact that the school is to become the _neighborhood social center_, and
+the structure should be planned as much with this function in view as
+with its uses for school purposes. The new type of rural school is not
+to aim simply to give a better intellectual training, but is at the same
+time to relate this training to the conditions and needs of our
+agricultural population. And all who have to do with the rural schools
+in any way are to seek to make the school a true vitalizing factor in
+the community--a leaven, whose influence shall permeate every line of
+interest and activity of its patrons and lead to a fuller and richer
+life.
+
+
+_The rural school and its pupils_
+
+One of the surest tests of any school is the attitude of the pupils--the
+spirit of loyalty, cooeperation, and devotion they manifest with
+reference to their education. Do they, on the whole, look upon the
+school as an opportunity or an imposition? Do they consider it _their_
+school, and make its interests and welfare their concern, or do they
+think of it as the teacher's school, or the board's school or the
+district's school? These questions are of supreme importance, for the
+question of attitude, quite as much as that of ability, determines the
+use made of opportunity.
+
+It must be admitted that throughout our entire school system there
+remains something to be desired in the spirit of cooeperation between
+pupils and schools. The feeling of loyalty which the child has for his
+home does not extend commensurately to the school. Too often the school
+is looked upon as something forced upon the child, for his welfare,
+perhaps, but after all not as forming an interesting and vital part of
+his present experience. It is often rather a place where so much time
+and effort and inconvenience must be paid for so many grades and
+promotions, and where, incidentally, preparation is supposed to be made
+for some future demands very dimly conceived. At best, there is
+frequently a lack of feeling of full identity of interests between the
+child and the school.
+
+The youth, immaturity, and blindness of childhood make it impossible, of
+course, for children to conceive of their school in a spirit of full
+appreciation. On the other hand, the very nature of childhood is
+responsiveness and readiness of cooeperation in any form of interesting
+activity,--is loyalty of attitude toward what is felt to minister to
+personal happiness and well-being. In so far, therefore, as there exists
+any lack of loyalty and cooeperation of pupils toward their school, the
+reasons for such defection are to be sought first of all in the school,
+and not in the child.
+
+While this negative attitude of the pupils exists in some degree in all
+our schools, it is undoubtedly more marked in our rural schools than in
+others. In a negligible number of cases does this lack of cooeperation
+take the form of overt rebellion against the authority of the school. It
+is manifested in other ways, many of them wholly unconscious to the
+child, as, for example, lack of desire to attend school, and
+indifference to its activities when present.
+
+Attending school is the most important occupation that can engage the
+child. Yet the indifference of children and their parents alike to the
+necessity for schooling makes the small and irregular attendance of
+rural school pupils one of the most serious problems with which
+educators have to deal. County superintendents have in many places
+offered prizes and diplomas with the hope of bettering attendance, but
+such incentives do not reach the source of the difficulty. The remedy
+must finally lie in a fundamental change of attitude toward the school
+and its opportunities. Good attendance must spring from interest in the
+school work and a feeling of its value, rather than from any artificial
+incentives.
+
+How great a problem poor attendance at rural schools is, may be realized
+from the fact that, in spite of compulsory education laws, not more than
+seventy per cent of the children accessible to the rural school are
+enrolled, and of this number only about sixty per cent are in daily
+attendance. This is to say that under one half of our farm children are
+daily receiving the advantages of even the rural school. In some States
+this proportion will fall as low as three tenths instead of one half.
+In many rich agricultural counties of the Middle West, having a farming
+population of approximately ten thousand, not more than forty or fifty
+pupils per year complete the eight grades of the rural school.
+
+If the rural school is to be able to claim the regular attendance and
+spontaneous cooeperation of the children it must (1) be reasonably
+accessible to them, (2) be attractive and interesting in itself, and (3)
+offer work the value and application of which are evident.
+
+The inaccessibility of the rural school has always been one of its
+greatest disadvantages. In a large proportion of cases, a walk of from a
+mile to a mile and a half along country roads or across cultivated
+fields has been required to reach the schoolhouse. During inclement
+weather, or when deep snow covers the ground, this distance proves
+almost prohibitive for all the smaller children. Wet feet and drenched
+clothing have been followed by severe colds, coughs, bronchitis, or
+worse, and the children have not only suffered educationally, but been
+endangered physically as well.
+
+It has been found in all instances that public conveyance of pupils to
+the consolidated schools greatly increases rural school patronage. It
+makes the school accessible. The regular wagon service does away with
+the "hit-and-miss" method of determining for each succeeding day whether
+it is advisable for the child to start for school. So important is this
+factor in securing attendance, that a careful study by Knorr[3] of the
+attendance in Ohio district and consolidated schools shows twenty-seven
+per cent more of the total school population in school under the
+influence of public conveyance and other features peculiar to
+consolidation than under the district system. He concludes that, broadly
+speaking, by a system of consolidated schools with public conveyance,
+rural school attendance can be increased by at least one fourth.
+
+The life in the typical rural school is not sufficiently interesting and
+attractive to secure a strong hold upon the pupils. The dreary ugliness
+of the physical surroundings has already been referred to. And even in
+districts where the building and grounds have been made reasonably
+attractive, there is yet wanting a powerful factor--the influence of the
+social incentive that comes from numbers. In hundreds of our rural
+schools the daily attendance is less than a dozen pupils, frequently not
+representing more than three or four families. The classes can therefore
+contain not more than two or three pupils, and often only one. There is
+no possibility of organizing games, or having the fun and frolic
+possible to larger groups of children. Add to this the fact that the
+teaching is often spiritless and uninspiring, and the reason becomes
+still more plain why so many rural children drop out of school with
+scarcely the rudiments of an education.
+
+Here, again, the consolidated school, with its attractive building, its
+improved equipment, its larger body of pupils, and its better teaching,
+appears as a solution of the difficulty. For it does what the present
+type of district school can never do--it makes school life interesting
+and attractive to its pupils, and this brings to bear upon them one of
+the strongest incentives to continue in school and secure an education.
+
+Finally, much of the work of the school has not appealed to the pupils
+as interesting or valuable. This has not been altogether the fault of
+the curriculum, but often has come from the lack of adaptability of the
+work to the pupils studying it. Through frequent changes of teachers,
+poor classification, and irregularity of attendance, rural pupils have
+often been forced to go over and over the same ground, without any
+reference to whether they were ready to advance or not. In other cases,
+careless grading has placed children in studies for which they were
+utterly unprepared, and from which they could get nothing but
+discouragement and dislike for school. In still other instances the
+course pursued has been ill-balanced, and in no degree correlated. Often
+the whim of the child determines whether he will or will not study
+certain subjects, the teacher lacking either the knowledge or insistence
+to bring about a better organization of the work.
+
+The unskilled character of the rural school-teaching force, and the
+impossibility of securing any reasonable supervision as the system is at
+present organized, make us again turn to the consolidated school as the
+remedy for these adverse conditions. For with its improved attendance,
+its skilled teaching, and its better supervision, it easily and
+naturally renders such conditions impossible. Give the consolidated
+school, in addition, the greatly enriched curriculum which it will find
+possible to offer its pupils, and the vexing question of the relation of
+the rural school to its pupils will be far toward solution.
+
+Let us next consider somewhat in detail the curriculum of the rural
+school.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: See "Consolidated Rural Schools," Bulletin 232, U. S.
+Department of Agriculture.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Bulletin 232, U. S. Department of Agriculture, p. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Bulletin 232, U. S. Department of Agriculture, p. 51.]
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
+
+
+If we grant the economic ability to support good schools, then the
+curriculum offered by any type of school, the scope of subject-matter
+given the pupils to master, is a measure of the educational ideals of
+those maintaining and using the schools. If the curriculum is broad, and
+representative of the various great fields of human culture; if it
+relates itself to the life and needs of its patrons; if it is adapted to
+the interests and activities of its pupils, it may be said that the
+people believe in education as a right of the individual and as a
+preparation for successful living. But if, on the other hand, the
+curriculum is meager and narrow, consisting only of the rudiments of
+knowledge, and not related to the life of the people or the interests of
+the pupils, then it may well be concluded that education is not highly
+prized, that it is not understood, or that it is looked upon as an
+incidental.
+
+
+_The scope of the rural school curriculum_
+
+Modern conditions require a broader and more thorough education than
+that demanded by former times, and far more than the typical district
+rural school affords. The old-time school offered only the "three R's,"
+and this was thought sufficient for an education. But these times have
+passed. Not only has society greatly increased in wealth during the last
+half-century, but it has also grown much in intelligence. Many more
+people are being educated now than formerly, and they are also being
+vastly better educated. For the concept of what constitutes an education
+has changed, and the curriculum has grown correspondingly broader and
+richer.
+
+It is therefore no longer possible to express the educational status of
+a community in the percentage of people who can merely read and write.
+Educational progress has become a national ideal. The elementary schools
+in towns and cities have been greatly strengthened both in curriculum
+and teaching. High schools have been organized and splendidly equipped,
+and their attendance has rapidly increased.
+
+But all this development has hardly touched the rural school. The
+curriculum offered is pitifully narrow even for an elementary school,
+and very few high schools are supported by rural communities. In fact, a
+large proportion of our rural population are receiving an education but
+little in advance of that offered a hundred years ago in similar
+schools. This is not fair to the children born and reared on the farm;
+it is not fair to one of the greatest and most important industries of
+our country; and it cannot but result disastrously in the end.
+
+If the rural school is to meet its problem, it must extend the scope of
+its curriculum. It was formerly thought by many that education, except
+in its simplest elements, was only for those planning to enter the
+"learned professions." But this idea has given way before the onward
+sweep of the spirit of democracy, and we now conceive education as the
+right and duty of _all_. Nor by education do we mean the simple ability
+to read, write, and number.
+
+Our present-day civilization demands not only that the child shall be
+taught to read, but also that he shall be supplied with books and guided
+in his reading. Through reading as a tool he is to become familiar with
+the best in the world's literature and its history. He is not only to
+learn number, but is to be so educated that he may employ his number
+concepts in fruitful ways. He must not only be familiar with the
+mechanics of writing, but must have knowledge, interests, experience
+that will give him something to write about. The "three R's" are
+necessary tools, but they are only tools, and must be utilized in
+putting the child into possession of the best and most fruitful culture
+of the race. And, practically, they must put him into command of such
+phases of culture as touch his own life and experience and make him more
+efficient.
+
+The rural school cannot extend the scope of its curriculum simply by
+inserting in the present curriculum new studies related to the life and
+work of the farm. The modification must be deeper and more thoroughgoing
+than this. _A full elementary course of eight years and a high school
+course of four years should be easily accessible to every rural child._
+Less than this amount of education is inadequate to prepare for the life
+of the farm, and fails to put the individual into full possession of his
+powers. Nor, in most instances, should the high schooling be left to
+some adjacent town, which is to receive the rural pupils upon payment of
+tuition to the town district. Unless the town is small, and practically
+a part of the rural community, it cannot supply, either in the
+subject-matter of the curriculum or the spirit of the school, the type
+of education that the rural children should have. For in so far as the
+town or city high school leads to any specific vocation, it certainly
+does not lead toward industrial occupations, and least of all toward
+agriculture. It rather prepares for the professions, or for business
+careers. Its tendency is very strongly to draw the boys and girls away
+from the farm instead of preparing them for it.
+
+While the rural child, therefore, must be provided with a better and
+broader education, he should usually not be sent to town to get it. If
+he is, the chances are that he will stay in town and be lost to the
+farm. Indeed, this is precisely what has been happening; the town or
+city high school has been turning the country boy away from the farm.
+For not only does what one studies supply his knowledge; it also
+determines his _attitude_.
+
+If the curriculum contains no subject-matter related to the immediate
+experience and occupation of the pupil, his education is certain to
+entice him away from his old interests and activities. The farm boy
+whose studies lack all point of contact with his life and work will soon
+either lose interest in the curriculum or turn his back upon the farm.
+If the boys and girls born on the farm are to be retained in this form
+of industry, the rural school must be broadened to give them an
+education equal to that afforded by town or city for its youth. If the
+rural community cannot accomplish this end, it has no claim on the
+loyalty and service of its youth. Rural children have a right to a
+well-organized, well-equipped, and well-taught elementary school of
+eight years and a high school of four years, with a curriculum adapted
+especially to their interests and needs.
+
+It is not meant, of course, that the rural school, with its present
+organization and administration, can extend the scope of its curriculum
+to make it the equal of that offered in the grades of the town or city
+school. Radical changes, such as those discussed in the preceding
+chapter, will have to be made in the rural district system before this
+is possible. That these changes are being made and the full elementary
+and high school course offered in many consolidated rural schools,
+scattered from Florida to Idaho, is proof both of the feasibility of the
+plan and of an awakened public demand for better rural education.
+
+The broadened curriculum of the rural school must contain subject-matter
+especially related to the interests and activities of the farm; upon
+this all are agreed. But it must not stop with vocational subjects
+alone. For, while one's vocation is fundamental, it is not all of life.
+Education should help directly in making a living; it must also help to
+live. Broad and permanent lines of interest must be set up and trained
+to include many forms of experience. The child must come to know
+something of the great social institutions of his day and of the history
+leading to their development. He must become familiar with the marvelous
+scientific discoveries and inventions underlying our modern
+civilization. He must be led to feel appreciation for the beautiful in
+art, literature, and music; and must have nurtured in his life a love
+for goodness and truth in every form. In short, through the curriculum
+the latent powers constituting the life capital of every normal child
+are to be stimulated and developed to the end that his life shall be
+more than mere physical existence--to the end that it shall be crowned
+with fullness of knowledge, richness of feeling, and the victory of
+worthy achievement. This is the right of every child in these prosperous
+and enlightened times,--the right of the country child as well as the
+city child. And society will not have done its duty in providing for the
+education of its youth until the children of the farm have full
+opportunities for such development.
+
+
+_The rural elementary school curriculum_
+
+By the elementary school is meant the eight grades of work below the
+high school which the rural school is now meant to cover.
+
+Whatever is put into the curriculum of a nation's schools finally
+becomes a part of national character and achievement. What the children
+study in school comes to determine their attitudes and shape their
+aptitudes. The old Greek philosophers, becoming teachers of youth,
+turned the nation into a set of students and disputants over
+philosophical questions. Sparta taught her boys the arts of war, and
+became the chief military nation of her time. Germany introduces
+technological studies into her schools, and becomes the leading country
+in the world in the arts of manufacture. Let any people emphasize in
+their schools the studies that lead to commercial and professional
+interests, and neglect those that prepare for industrial vocations, and
+the industrial welfare of the nation is sure to suffer.
+
+The curriculum of the rural school must, therefore, contain the basic
+subjects that belong to all culture,--the studies that every normal,
+intelligent person should have just because he belongs to the
+twentieth-century civilization, and in addition must include the
+subjects that afford the knowledge and develop the attitude and
+technique belonging to the life of the farm. Let us now consider this
+curriculum somewhat more in detail.
+
+_The mother tongue._ Mastery of his mother tongue is the birthright of
+every child. He should first of all be able to speak it correctly and
+with ease. He should next be able to read it with comprehension and
+enjoyment, and should become familiar with the best in its literature.
+He should be able to write it with facility, both as to its spelling and
+its composition. Finally, he should know something of the structure, or
+grammar, of the language.
+
+This requirement suggests the content of the curriculum as to English.
+The child must be given opportunity to use the language orally; he must
+be led to talk. But this implies that he must have something to say, and
+be interested in saying it. Formal "language lessons," divorced from all
+the child's interests and activities, will not meet the purpose.
+Facility in speech grows out of enthusiasm in speaking. Every recitation
+is a lesson in English, and should be used for this purpose; nor should
+the aim be correctness only, but ease and fluency as well.
+
+The child must also learn to read; not alone to pronounce the printed
+words of a page, but to grasp the thought and feeling, and express them
+in oral reading. This presupposes a mastery of the mechanics of reading,
+the letters, words, and marks employed. The only way to learn to read is
+by reading. This is true whether we refer to learning the mechanics of
+reading, to learning the apprehension and expression of thought, or to
+learning the art of appreciating and enjoying good literature.
+
+Yet, trite and self-evident as this truism is, it is constantly violated
+in teaching reading in the rural school. For the course in reading
+usually consists of a series of five readers, expected to cover seven or
+eight years of study. These readers contain less than one hundred pages
+of reading matter to the year, or but little more than half a page a day
+for the time the child should be in school. The result is that the same
+reader is read over and over, to no purpose. With a rich literature
+available for each of the eight years of the elementary school,
+comparatively few of the rural schools have supplied either
+supplementary readers or other reading books for the use of the
+children.
+
+The result is that most rural school children learn to read but
+stumblingly, and seldom attain sufficient skill and taste in reading so
+that it becomes a pleasure. Such a situation as this indicates the same
+lack of wisdom that would be shown in employing willing and skillful
+workmen to garner a rich harvest, and then sending them into the fields
+with wholly insufficient and inadequate tools. The rural school must not
+only teach the child the mechanics of reading, but lead him to read and
+love good books. This can be done only _by supplying the books and
+giving the child an opportunity to read them_.
+
+Comparatively few people like to write. The pathway of expression finds
+its way out more easily through the tongue than through the hand. Yet it
+is highly necessary that every one should in this day be able to write.
+Nor does this mean merely the ability to form letters into words and put
+them down with a pen so that they are legible. This is a fundamental
+requisite, but the mastery of penmanship, spelling, and punctuation is,
+however, only a beginning. One must be able to formulate his thoughts
+easily, to construct his sentences correctly, and to make his writing
+effective; he must learn the art of composition.
+
+Here again the principle already stated applies. The way to learn to
+write is by writing; not just by the dreary treadmill of practicing
+upon formal "compositions," but by having something to write that one
+cares to express. The written language lessons should, therefore, always
+grow out of the real interests and activities of the child in the home,
+the school, or on the farm, and should include the art of
+letter-writing, argumentation and exposition, as well as narration and
+description.
+
+The subject of formal grammar has little or no place in the grades of
+the elementary school. The grammatical relations of the language are
+complicated and beyond the power of the child at an early age. Nor does
+the study of such relations result in efficiency in the use of language,
+as is commonly supposed. Children are compelled in many schools to waste
+weary years in the study of logical relations they are too young to
+comprehend, when they should be reading, speaking, and writing their
+mother tongue under the stimulus and guidance of a teacher who is
+himself a worthy and enthusiastic model in the use of speech. Only the
+simpler grammatical forms and relations should be taught in the grades,
+and these should have immediate application to oral and written speech.
+
+_Arithmetic._ Arithmetic has for more than two hundred years formed an
+important part of the elementary school curriculum. It has been taught
+with the double object of affording mental discipline for the child, and
+of putting him into possession of an important tool of practical
+knowledge. It is safe to say that a large proportion of the patrons of
+the rural schools of the present look upon arithmetic as the most
+important subject taught in the school after the simple mechanics of
+reading. Ability to "cipher" has been thought of as constituting a large
+and important part of the educational equipment of the practical man.
+
+Without doubt, number is an essential part of the education of the
+child. Yet there is nothing in the mere art of numbering things as we
+meet them in daily experience that should make arithmetic require so
+large a proportion of time as it has been receiving. The child is
+usually started in number in the first grade, and continues it the full
+eight years of the elementary course, finally devoting three or more
+years of the high school course to its continued study. Thus, nearly one
+fourth of the entire school time of the pupil is demanded by the various
+phases of the number concept.
+
+The only ground upon which the expenditure of this large proportion of
+time upon number can be defended is that of _discipline_. And modern
+psychology and experimental pedagogy have shown the folly and waste of
+setting up empty discipline as an educational aim. Education time is too
+short, and the amount of rich and valuable material waiting to be
+mastered too great, to devote golden years to a relatively barren grind.
+
+It is probable that at least half the time at present devoted to
+arithmetic in the elementary school could be given to other subjects
+with no loss to the child's ability in number, and with great gain to
+his education as a whole. Not that the child knows number any too well
+now. He does not. In fact, few children finishing the elementary school
+possess any considerable degree of ability in arithmetic. They can work
+rather hard problems, if they have a textbook, and the answers by which
+to test their results. But give them a practical problem from the home,
+the farm, or the shop, and the chances are two to one that they cannot
+secure a correct result. This is not the fault of the child, but the
+fault of the kind of arithmetic he has been given, and the way it has
+been taught. We have taught him the solution of various difficult,
+analytical problems not in the least typical of the concrete problems
+to be met daily outside of school; but we have not taught him to add,
+subtract, multiply, and divide with rapidity and accuracy. We have
+required him to solve problems containing fractions with large and
+irreducible denominators such as are never met in the business world,
+but he cannot readily and with certainty handle numbers expressed in
+halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, and eighths. He has been compelled to
+sacrifice practical business efficiency in number to an attempt to train
+his powers of logical analysis.
+
+The arithmetic of the district school should be greatly simplified and
+reduced in quantity. Its quality should be greatly improved both as to
+accuracy and speed in the fundamental operations and in the various
+concrete types of problems to be met in the home, on the farm, and in
+the shop. There need be no fear that the mental training will be less
+efficient with this type of arithmetic. For mental development comes
+only where there is mastery, and there is no mastery of the arithmetic
+as it is taught in the rural school to-day.
+
+_History and civics._ Every American child should know the history and
+mode of government of his country. This is true first of all because
+this knowledge is necessary to intelligent participation in the affairs
+of a republic; but it is also necessary to the right development of the
+individual that he shall realize something of the heroism and sacrifice
+required to produce the civilization which he enjoys. Every person needs
+to extend his thought and appreciation until it is large enough to
+include other peoples and times than his own. For only in this way can
+he come to feel kinship with the race at large, and thus save himself
+from provincialism and narrowness.
+
+This is equivalent to saying that the curriculum should afford ample
+opportunity for the study of history. Nor should the history given the
+child deal chiefly with the military and political activities of the
+nation. Many text books have been little more than an account of wars
+and politics. These are not the aspects of national life that most
+interest and concern the child, especially at the age when he is in the
+elementary school. He should at this time be told about the _people_ of
+his country,--their home life, their industries, their schools and
+churches, their bravery, their hardships, adventures, and achievements.
+He must come to know something of the great men and women of his Nation
+and State, the writers, inventors, explorers, scientists, artists, and
+musicians, as well as the soldiers and statesmen.
+
+Not only does this require that the child shall have suitable textbooks
+in history, but that he shall also have an adequate library of
+interesting histories, biographies, and historical fiction adapted to
+his age and interests. For it is not enough that the child shall learn
+the elementary facts of history while he is in the elementary school;
+more important still is it that he shall develop a real interest in
+history, and form the taste for reading historical matter.
+
+The course in history must, therefore, contain such matter as the child
+will love to read; for only then will it leave the desire to read. It
+must so put a premium upon patriotism, loyalty to country, and
+high-grade citizenship that the child shall feel the impulse to emulate
+the noble men and women who have contributed to our happiness and
+welfare. The study of history, even in the elementary school, should
+eventuate in loyal, efficient citizenship.
+
+The civics taught in the elementary school should be very practical and
+concrete. The age has not yet come for a study of the federal or state
+constitution. It is rather the _functional_ aspect of government that
+should be presented at this time--the points of contact of school
+district, township, county, state and federal government with the
+individual. How the school is supported and controlled; how the bridges
+are built and roads repaired; the work of township and county affairs;
+the powers and duties of boards of health; the right of franchise and
+the use of the ballot; the work of the postal system; the making and
+enforcing of laws,--these and similar topics suggest what the child
+should come to know from the study of civics. The great problem here is
+to influence conduct in the direction of upright citizenship, and to
+give such a knowledge of the machinery, especially of local government,
+as will lead to efficient participation in its activities.
+
+_Geography and nature study._ The rural school has a great advantage
+over the city school in the teaching of geography and nature study. For
+the country child is closer to the earth and its products than the city
+child. The broad expanse of nature is always before him; life in its
+multiple forms constantly appeals to his eye and ear. He watches the
+seeds planted, and sees the crops cultivated and harvested. He has a
+very concrete sense of the earth as the home of man, and possesses a
+basis of practical knowledge for understanding the resources and
+products of his own and other countries.
+
+Geography should, therefore, be one of the most vital and useful
+branches in the rural school. It is to begin wherever the life of the
+child touches nature in his immediate environment, and proceed from this
+on out to other parts of his home land, and finally to all lands.
+
+But the geography taught must not be of the old catechism type, which
+resulted in children committing to memory the definitions of
+geographical terms instead of studying the real objects ready at hand.
+It must not concern itself with the pupil's learning the names and
+locations of dozens of places and geographical forms of no particular
+importance, instead of coming into immediate touch with natural
+environment and with the earth in the larger sense as it bears upon his
+own life. The author has expressed this idea in another place as
+follows:--
+
+"The content of geography is, therefore, synonymous with the content of
+the experience of the child as related to his own interests and
+activities, in so far as they grow out of the earth as his home. Towns
+and cities begin with the ones nearest at hand. The concept of rivers
+has its rise in the one that flows past the child's home. Valleys,
+mountains, capes, and bays are but modifications of those that lie
+within the circle of personal experience. Generalizations must come to
+be made, but they must rest upon concrete and particular instances if
+they are to constitute a reality to the learner.
+
+"What kind of people live in a country, what they work at, what they
+eat, and how they live in their homes and their schools, what weather
+they have, and what they wear, how they travel and speak and
+read,--these are more vital questions to the child than the names and
+locations of unimportant streams, towns, capes, and bays. For they are
+the things that touch his own experience, and hence appeal to his
+interest. Only as geography is given this social background, and
+concerns itself with the earth as related to social activities, can it
+fulfill its function in the elementary school."[4]
+
+_Hygiene and health._ Since health is at the basis of all success and
+happiness, nothing can be more important in the education of the child
+than the subject of practical hygiene. It has been the custom in our
+schools until recently, however, to give the child a difficult and
+uninteresting text book dealing with physiology and anatomy, but
+containing almost nothing on hygiene and the laws of health.
+
+Not only should the course in physiology emphasize the laws of hygiene,
+but this hygiene should in part have particular bearing on right living
+under the conditions imposed by the farm. Food, its variety,
+adaptability, and preparation; clothing for the different seasons; work,
+recreation, and play; care of the eyes and teeth; bathing; the
+ventilation of the home, and especially of sleeping-rooms; the effects
+of tobacco and cigarettes in checking growth and reducing efficiency;
+the more simple and obvious facts bearing on the relation of bacteria to
+the growth, preparation, and spoiling of foods; the means to be taken to
+prevent bacterial contagion of diseases,--these are some of the
+practical matters that every child should know as a result of his study
+of physiology and hygiene.
+
+But we must go one step further still. It is not enough to teach these
+things as matters of abstract theory or truth. Plenty of people know
+better hygiene than they are practicing. The subject must be presented
+so concretely and effectively and be supported by such incentives that
+it will actually lead to better habits of living--that it will _result
+in higher physical efficiency_.
+
+_Agriculture._ Agriculture is of course preeminently a subject for the
+rural school. Not only is it of immediate and direct practical
+importance, but it is coming to be looked upon as so useful a cultural
+study that it is being introduced into many city schools.
+
+It has been objected that agriculture as a science cannot be taught in
+the elementary school because of the lack of age and development of the
+pupils. This is true, but neither can any other subject be taught to
+children of this age as a complete science. It is possible, however, to
+give children in the rural elementary school much useful information
+concerning agriculture. Perhaps better still, it is possible to develop
+a scientific attitude and interest that will lead to further study of
+the subject in the high school or agricultural college, and that will in
+the mean-time serve to attach the boys and girls to the farm.
+
+The rural school pupils can be made familiar with the best modes of
+planting and cultivating the various crops, and with the diseases and
+insect enemies which threaten them; the selection of seed; the rotation
+of crops, and many other practical things applying directly to their
+home life. School gardens of vegetables and flowers constitute another
+center of interest and information, and serve to unite the school and
+the home.
+
+Similarly the animal life of the farm can be studied, and a knowledge
+gained of the best varieties of farm stock, their breeding and care.
+Insects and bird life can be observed, and their part in the growth or
+destruction of crops understood. All this is not only practicable, but
+necessary as part of the rural school curriculum. Anything less than
+this amount of practical agriculture leaves the rural school in some
+degree short of fulfilling its function.
+
+_Domestic science and manual training._ In general what is true of
+agriculture is true of domestic science and manual training. They can be
+presented in the elementary school only in the most concrete and applied
+form. But they can be successfully presented in this form, and must be
+if the rural school child is to have an equal opportunity with the town
+and city child. The girls can be taught the art of sewing, cooking, and
+serving, if only the necessary equipment and instruction are available.
+They are ready to learn, the subject-matter is adapted to their age and
+understanding, and nothing could be more vital to their interests and
+welfare.
+
+Likewise the boys can be taught the use of tools, the value and
+finishing of different kinds of woods, and can develop no little skill
+with their hands, while they are at the same time receiving mental
+development and the cultivation of practical interests from this line of
+work. It is not in the least a question of the readiness of the boys to
+take up and profit by this subject, but is only a matter of equipment
+and teaching.
+
+_Music and art._ Nor should the finer aspects of culture be left out of
+the education of the country child. He will learn music as readily as
+the city child, and love it not less. Indeed, he needs it even more as a
+part of his schooling, since the opportunities to hear and enjoy music
+are always at hand in the city, and nearly always lacking in the
+country. The child should be taught to sing and at least to understand
+and appreciate music of worthy type.
+
+The same principle will apply to art. The great masterpieces of painting
+and sculpture have as much of beauty and inspiration in them as the
+great masterpieces of literature. Yet most rural children complete their
+schooling hardly having seen in the schoolroom a worthy copy of a great
+picture, and much less have they been taught the significance of great
+works of art or been led to appreciate and love them.
+
+_Physical training._ It has been argued by many that the rural child has
+enough exercise and hence does not need physical training. But this
+position entirely misconceives the purpose of physical training. One may
+have plenty of exercise, even too much exercise, without securing a
+well-balanced physical development. Indeed, certain forms of farm work
+done by children are often so severe a tax on their strength that a
+corrective exercise is necessary in order to save stooped forms, curved
+spines, and hollow chests. Furthermore, the farm child, lacking the
+opportunities of the city child for gaining social ease and control,
+needs the development that comes from physical training to give poise,
+ease of bearing, and grace of movement.
+
+Nor must the athletic phase of physical training be overlooked. While it
+is undoubtedly true that athletics have come to occupy too large a part
+of the time and absorb too great a proportion of the interest in many
+schools, yet this is no reason for omitting avocational training wholly
+from the rural school. Children require the training and development
+that come from games and play quite as much as they need that coming
+from work. The school owes a duty to the avocational side of life as
+well as to the vocational.
+
+The curriculum here proposed is so much broader and richer than that now
+offered in the rural district school that it will appear to many to be
+visionary and impossible. That it is impossible for the old type of
+rural school will be readily admitted. But it is entirely practicable
+and possible in the reorganized consolidated school, and is being
+successfully presented, in its general aspects, at least, in many of
+these schools. It is only such an education as every rural child is
+entitled to, and is no more than the urban child is already receiving in
+the better class of town and city elementary schools. If the rural
+school cannot give the farm child an elementary education approximating
+the one out-lined, it has no claim on his loyalty or time; and he should
+in justice to himself be taken where he can receive a worthy education,
+even if he is thereby lost to the farm.
+
+But the rural boy and girl need not only a good elementary education,
+but a high school education as well. Let us next consider the rural high
+school curriculum.
+
+
+_The rural high school curriculum_
+
+This section is presented in the full knowledge that comparatively few
+localities have as yet established the rural high school. It now forms,
+however, an integral part of the consolidated rural school in not a few
+places, and is abundantly justifying the expenditure made upon it. In
+other localities the tendency is growing to send the rural child to the
+town high school, or even for the family to move to town to secure high
+schooling for the children. In still other cases, and we are obliged to
+admit that these yet constitute the rule rather than the exception, the
+farm boy or girl has no opportunity for a high school education.
+
+If we succeed in working out the so-called rural problem of our country,
+in maintaining a high standard of agricultural population and rural
+life, the rural high school must be an important factor in our problem.
+For the children of our farms need and must have an education reaching
+beyond that of the elementary school. And this schooling must prepare
+them to find the most satisfactory and successful type of life on the
+farm, instead of drawing them away from the farm.
+
+It goes without saying that the rural high school should be an
+agricultural high school. This does not mean that it shall devote itself
+exclusively to teaching agriculture; but rather that, while it offers a
+broad range of culture and information, it shall emphasize those phases
+of subject-matter that will best fit into the interests and activities
+of farm life, instead of those phases that tend to lead toward the city
+or the market-place. Its four years of work must be fully equal to that
+of the best town or city high schools, but must in some degree be
+different work. It must result in _efficiency_, and efficiency here must
+relate itself to agricultural life and pursuits.
+
+A detailed discussion of the rural high school curriculum will not be
+required. The principles already suggested as applying to the elementary
+school will govern here as well. The studies must cultivate breadth of
+view and a wide range of interests, and must at the same time bear upon
+the immediate life and experience of the pupils. The lines of study
+begun in the elementary school will be continued, with the purpose of
+securing deeper insight, more detailed knowledge, and greater
+independence of judgment and action.
+
+English should form an important part of the curriculum, with the
+double aim of securing facility in the use of the mother tongue and of
+developing a love for its literature. The rural high school graduate
+should be able to write English correctly as to spelling, punctuation,
+and grammar; he should be able to express himself effectively, either in
+writing, conversation, or the more formal speech of the rostrum. Above
+all, he should be an enthusiastic and discriminating reader, with a
+catholicity of taste and interest that will lead him beyond the
+agricultural journal and newspaper, important as these are, to the works
+of fiction, material and social science, travel and biography, current
+magazines and journals, and whatever else belongs to the intellectual
+life of an intelligent, educated man of affairs.
+
+This is asking more than is being accomplished at present by the course
+in English in the town high school, but not more than is easily within
+the range of possibility. The average high school graduate of to-day
+cannot always spell and punctuate correctly, and commonly cannot write
+well even an ordinary business letter; nor, it must be feared, has his
+study of literature had a very great influence in developing him into a
+good reader of worthy books.
+
+But all this can be remedied by vitalizing the teaching of the mother
+tongue; by lessening the proportion of time and emphasis placed upon
+critical analysis and technical literary criticism, and increasing that
+given to the drill and practice that alone can make sure of the
+fundamentals of spelling, punctuation, and the common forms of
+composition emphasized by all; and by the sympathetic, enthusiastic
+teaching of good literature adapted to the age and interests of the
+pupils from the standpoint of synthetic appreciation and enjoyment,
+rather than from the standpoint of mechanical analysis.
+
+The rural high school course in social science should be broad and
+thorough. The course in history should not give an undue proportion of
+time to ancient and medieval history, nor to war and politics. Emphasis
+should be placed on the social, industrial, and economic phases of human
+development in modern times and in our own country.
+
+Political economy should form an important branch. Especially should it
+deal with the problems of production, distribution, and consumption as
+they relate to agriculture. Matters of finance, taxation, and
+investment, while resting on general principles, should be applied to
+the problems of the farm. Nor should the economic basis of support and
+expenditure in the home be overlooked.
+
+The course in civics should not only present the general theory of
+government, but should apply concretely to the civic relations and
+duties of a rural population. Especially should it appeal to the civic
+conscience and sense of responsibility which we need among our rural
+people to make the country an antidote to the political corruption of
+the city.
+
+Material science should constitute an important section of the rural
+high school curriculum. Not only does its study afford one of the best
+means of mental development, but the subject-matter of science has a
+very direct bearing on the life and industries of the farm. To achieve
+the best results, however, the science taught must be presented from the
+concrete and applied point of view rather than from the abstract and
+general. This does not mean that a hodge-podge of unrelated facts shall
+be taught in the place of science; indeed, such a method would defeat
+the whole purpose of the course. It means, however, that the general
+laws and principles of science shall be carried out to their practical
+bearing on the problems of the home and the farm, and not be left just
+as general laws or abstract principles unapplied.
+
+The botany and zooelogy of the rural high school will, of course, have a
+strong agricultural trend. It will sacrifice the old logical
+classifications and study of generic types of animals and plants for the
+more interesting and useful study of the fauna and flora of the
+locality. The various farm crops, their weed enemies, the helpful and
+harmful insects and birds, the animal life of the barnyard, horticulture
+and floriculture, and the elements of bacteriology, will constitute
+important elements in the course.
+
+The course in physics will develop the general principles of the
+subject, and will then apply these principles to the machinery of the
+farm, to the heating, lighting, and ventilation of houses, to the
+drainage of soil, the plumbing of buildings, and a hundred other
+practical problems bearing on the life of the farm. Chemistry will be
+taught as related to the home, foods, soils, and crops. A concrete
+geology will lead to a better understanding of soils, building
+materials, and drainage. Physiology and hygiene will seek as their aim
+longer life and higher personal efficiency.
+
+The course in agriculture, whether presented separately or in
+conjunction with botany and zooelogy, must be comprehensive and
+thorough. Not only should it give a complete and practical knowledge of
+the selection of seed; the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of
+crops; the improvement and conservation of the soil; the breeding and
+care of stock, etc., but it must serve to create and develop a
+scientific attitude toward farming. The farmer should come to look upon
+his work as offering the largest opportunities for the employment of
+technical knowledge, judgment, and skill. That such an attitude will
+yield large returns in success is attested by many farmers to-day who
+are applying scientific methods to their work.
+
+Manual training and domestic science should receive especial emphasis in
+the rural high school. Both subjects have undoubted educational value in
+themselves, and their practical value and importance to those looking
+forward to farm life can hardly be over-estimated. And in these as in
+other subjects, the course offered will need to be modified from that of
+the city school in order to meet the requirements of the particular
+problems to which the knowledge and training secured are to be applied.
+
+Mathematics should form a part of the rural high school curriculum, but
+the traditional courses in algebra and geometry do not meet the need.
+The ideal course would probably be a skillful combination of algebra,
+geometry, and trigonometry occupying the time of one or two years, and
+applied directly to the problems of mechanics, measurements, surveying,
+engineering, and building on the farm. Such an idea is not new, and
+textbooks are now under way providing material for such a course.
+
+In addition, there should be a thorough course in practical business
+arithmetic. By this is not meant the abstract, analytical matter so
+often taught as high school arithmetic, but concrete and applied
+commercial and industrial arithmetic, with particular reference to farm
+problems. In connection with this subject should be given a course in
+household accounts, and book-keeping, including commercial forms and
+commercial law.
+
+It is doubtful whether foreign language has any place in the rural high
+school. If offered at all, it should be only in high schools strong
+enough to offer parallel courses for election, and should never displace
+the subjects lying closer to the interests and needs of the students.
+
+The study of music and art begun in the elementary school should be
+continued in the high school, and a love for the beautiful cultivated
+not only by the matter taught, but also by the aesthetic qualities of the
+school buildings and grounds and their decoration. On the practical
+sides these subjects will reach out to the beautifying of the farm homes
+and the life they shelter.
+
+When a well-taught curriculum of some such scope of elementary and high
+school work as that suggested is as freely available to the farm child
+as his school is available to the city child, will the country boys and
+girls have a fair chance for education. And when this comes about, the
+greatest single obstacle to keeping our young people on the farm will
+have been removed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: _Social Principles of Education_, p. 264.]
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
+
+_The importance of teaching_
+
+
+Teaching is the fundamental purpose for which the school is run. Taxes
+are levied and collected, buildings erected and equipped, and curriculum
+organized solely that teaching may go on. Children are clothed and fed
+and sent to school instead of being put at work in order that they may
+be taught. The school is classified into grades, programs are arranged,
+and regulations are enforced only to make teaching possible. Normal
+schools are established, teachers are trained, and certificates required
+in order that teaching may be more efficient.
+
+The teacher confronts a great task. On the one hand are the children,
+ignorant, immature, and undeveloped. In them lie ready to be called
+forth all the powers and capacities that will characterize their fully
+ripened manhood and womanhood. Given the right stimulus and direction,
+these powers will grow into splendid strength and capacity; lacking
+this stimulus and guidance, the powers are left crippled and incomplete.
+
+On the other hand is the subject-matter of education, the heritage of
+culture which has been accumulating through the ages. In the slow
+process of human experience, running through countless generations, men
+have made their discoveries in the fields of mathematics and science;
+they have lived great events and achievements which have become history;
+they have developed the social institutions which we call the State, the
+church, the home, and the school; they have organized great industries
+and carried on complex vocations; they have crystallized their ideals,
+their hopes, and their aspirations in literature; and have with brush
+and chisel expressed in art their concepts of truth and beauty. The best
+of all this human experience we have collected in what we call a
+curriculum, and placed it before the child for him to master, as the
+generations before him have mastered it in their common lives. For only
+in this way can the child come into full possession of his powers, and
+set them at work in a fruitful way in accomplishing his own
+life-purpose.
+
+It is the function of the teacher, therefore, to stand as an
+intermediary, as an interpreter, between the child and this great mass
+of subject-matter that lies ready for him to learn. The race has lived
+its thousands or millions of years; the individual lives but a few
+score. What former generations took centuries to work out the child can
+spend only a few months or a few years upon. Hence he must waste no time
+and opportunity; he must make no false step in his learning, for he
+cannot in his short life retrieve his mistakes. It is the work of the
+teacher, through instruction and guidance, that is, through teaching, to
+save the child time in his learning and development, and to make sure
+that he does not lose his opportunity. And this is a great
+responsibility.
+
+Thus the teacher confronts a problem that has two great factors, the
+_child_ and the _subject-matter_. He must have a knowledge of both these
+factors if his work is to be effective; for he cannot teach matter that
+he does not know, and neither can he teach a person whose nature he does
+not understand. But in addition to a knowledge of these factors, the
+teacher must also master a technique of instruction, he must train
+himself in the art of teaching.
+
+_The teacher must know the child._ It has been a rather common
+impression that if one knows a certain field of subject-matter, he will
+surely be able to teach it to others. But nothing could be further from
+the truth than such an assumption. Indeed, it is proverbial that the
+great specialists are the most wretched teachers of their subjects. The
+nature of the child's mental powers, the order of their unfoldment, the
+evolution of his interests, the incentives that appeal to him, the
+danger points in both his intellectual and his moral development,--these
+and many other things about child nature the intelligent teacher must
+clearly understand.
+
+And the teacher of the younger children needs this knowledge even more
+than the teacher of older ones. For the earlier years of the child's
+schooling are the most important years. It is at this time that he lays
+the foundation for all later learning, that he forms his habits of study
+and his attitude toward education, and that his life is given the bent
+for all its later development. Nothing can be more irrational,
+therefore, than to put the most untrained and inexperienced teachers in
+charge of the younger children. The fallacious notion that "anyone can
+teach little children" has borne tragic fruit in the stagnation and
+mediocrity of many lives whose powers were capable of great
+achievements.
+
+_The teacher must know the subject-matter._ The blind cannot
+successfully lead the blind. One whose grasp of a subject extends only
+to the simplest rudiments cannot teach these rudiments. He who has never
+himself explored a field can hardly guide others through that field; at
+least, progress through the field will be at the cost of great waste of
+time and failure to grasp the significance or beauty of what the field
+contains.
+
+Expressed more concretely, it is impossible to transplant arithmetic, or
+geography, or history, or anything else that one would teach,
+immediately from the textbook into the mind of the child. The subject
+must first come to be very fully and completely a true possession of the
+teacher. The successful teacher must also know vastly more of a subject
+than he is required to teach. For only then has he freedom; only then
+has he outlook and perspective; only then can he teach the _subject_,
+and not some particular textbook; only then can he inspire others to
+effort and achievement through his own mastery and interest. Enthusiasm
+is _caught_ and not taught.
+
+_The teacher must know the technique of instruction._ For teaching is an
+art, based upon scientific principles and requiring practice to secure
+skill. One of the greatest tasks of the teacher is to _psychologize_ the
+subject-matter for his pupils,--that is, so to select, organize, and
+present it that the child's mind naturally and easily grasps and
+appropriates it. Teaching, when it has become an art, which is to say,
+when the teacher has become an artist, is one of the most highly skilled
+vocations. It is as much more difficult than medicine as the human mind
+is more baffling than the human body; it is as much more difficult than
+preaching as the child is harder to comprehend and guide than the adult;
+it is as much more difficult than the law as life is more complex than
+logic.
+
+Yet, while we require the highest type of preparation for medicine, the
+ministry, or the law, we require but little for teaching. We pay
+enormous salaries to trained experts to apply the principles of
+scientific management to our industries or our business, but we have
+been satisfied with inexpert service for the teaching of our children.
+We are making fortunes out of the stoppage of waste in our factories,
+but allowing enormous waste to continue in our schools. _If we were to
+put into practice in teaching the thoroughly demonstrated and accepted
+scientific principles of education as we know them, we could beyond
+doubt double the educational results attained by our children._
+
+
+_Teaching in the rural school_
+
+The criticisms just made on our standards of teaching will apply in some
+degree to all our schools from the kindergarten to the university; but
+they apply more strongly to the rural schools than to any other class.
+For the rural schools are the training-ground for young, inexperienced,
+and relatively unprepared teachers. Except for the comparatively small
+proportion of the town or city teachers who are normal school or college
+trained, nearly all have served an apprenticeship in the rural schools.
+Thus the rural school, besides its other handicaps, is called upon to
+train teachers for the more favored urban schools.
+
+Careful statistical studies[5] have shown that many rural teachers, both
+men and women, have had no training beyond that of the elementary
+school. And not infrequently this training has taken place in the rural
+school of the type in which they themselves take up teaching. The
+average schooling of the men teaching in the rural schools of the entire
+country is less than two years above the elementary school, and of
+women, slightly more than two years. This is to say that our rural
+schools are taught by those who have had only about half of a high
+school course.
+
+It is evident, therefore, that the rural teacher cannot meet the
+requirement urged above in the way of preparation. He does not know his
+subject-matter. Not only has he not gone far enough in his education to
+have a substantial foundation, breadth of view, and mental perspective,
+but he frequently lacks in the simplest rudiments of the immediate
+subject-matter which he is supposed to teach. The examination papers
+written by applicants for certificates to begin rural school teaching
+often betray a woful ignorance of the most fundamental knowledge.
+Inability to spell, punctuate, or effectively use the English language
+is common. The most elementary scientific truths are frequently unknown.
+A connected view of our nation's history and knowledge of current events
+are not always possessed. The great world of literature is too often a
+closed book. And not seldom the simple relations of arithmetical number
+are beyond the grasp of the applicant. In short, our rural schools, as
+they average, require no adequate preparation of the teacher, and do not
+represent as much education in their teaching force as that needed by
+the intelligent farmer, merchant, or tradesman.
+
+The rural teacher does not know the child. But little more than children
+themselves, and with little chance for observation or for experience in
+life, it would be strange if they did. They have had no opportunity for
+professional study, and psychology and the science of education are
+unknown to them. The attempts made to remedy this fatal weakness by the
+desultory reading of a volume or two in a voluntary reading-circle
+course do not serve the purpose. The teacher needs a thorough course of
+instruction in general and applied psychology, under the tutelage of an
+enthusiastic expert who not only knows his subject, but also understands
+the problems of the teacher.
+
+The rural teacher does not know the technique of the schoolroom. The
+organizing of a school, the proper classification of pupils, the
+assignment of studies, the arrangement of a program of studies and
+recitation, the applications of suitable regulations and rules for the
+running of the school, are all matters requiring expert knowledge and
+skill. Yet the rural teacher has to undertake them without instruction
+in their principles and without supervisory guidance or help. No wonder
+that the rural school is poorly organized and managed. It presents
+problems of administration more puzzling than the town school, and yet
+here is where we put out our novices, boys and girls not yet out of
+their "teens"--young people who themselves have no concept of the
+problems of the school, no knowledge of its complex machinery, and no
+experience to serve as a guide in confronting their work. No industrial
+enterprise could exist under such irrational conditions; and neither
+could the schools, except that mental waste and bankruptcy are harder to
+measure than economic.
+
+Nor does the rural teacher know the technique of instruction any better
+than that of organization and management. The skillful conducting of a
+recitation is at least as severe a test upon mental resourcefulness and
+skill as making a speech, preaching a sermon, or conducting a lawsuit.
+For not only must the subject-matter be organized for immature minds
+unused to the formal processes of learning, but the effects of
+instruction upon the child's mind must constantly be watched by the
+teacher and interpreted with reference to further instruction. This
+skill cannot be attained empirically, by the cut-and-dried method,
+except at a frightful cost to the children. It is as if we were to turn
+a set of intelligent but untrained men loose in the community with their
+scalpels and their medicine cases to learn to be surgeons and doctors
+by experimenting upon their fellows.
+
+As would naturally be expected, therefore, the teaching in the average
+rural school is a dreary round of inefficiency. Handicapped to begin
+with by classes too small to be interesting, the rural teacher is
+mechanically hearing the recitations of some twenty-five to thirty of
+these classes per day. Lacking at the beginning the breadth of education
+that would make teaching easy, he finds it impossible to prepare for so
+many different exercises daily. The result is that the recitations are
+dull, spiritless, uninteresting. The lessons are poorly prepared by the
+pupils, poorly recited, and hence very imperfectly mastered. The more
+advanced work cannot stand on such a foundation of sand, and so,
+discouraged, the child soon drops out of school.
+
+When it is also remembered that the tenure of service of the teacher is
+very short in the rural schools, the problem becomes all the more grave.
+The average term of service in the rural schools is probably not above
+two years, and in many States considerably below this amount. This
+requires that half of the rural teachers each year shall be beginners.
+It will be impossible, of course, as long as teaching is done so largely
+by girls, who naturally will, and should, soon quit teaching for
+marriage, to secure a long period of service in the vocation. Yet the
+rural school is, as we have seen, also constantly losing its trained
+teachers to the town and city, and hence breaking in more than its share
+of novices.
+
+Added to the disadvantage inevitably coming from the brief period of
+service in teaching is a similar one growing out of a faulty method of
+administration. In a large majority of our rural schools the contract is
+made for but one term of not more than three months. This leaves the
+teacher free to accept another school at the end of the term, and not
+infrequently a school will have two or even three different teachers
+within the same year. There is a great source of waste at this point,
+owing to a change of methods, repetition of work, and the necessity of
+starting a new system of school machinery. Industrial concerns would
+hardly find it profitable to change superintendents and foremen several
+times a year. We do this in our schools only because we have not yet
+learned that it pays to apply rational business methods to education.
+
+Nothing that has been said in criticism of rural teaching ought to be
+construed as a reflection on the rural teachers personally. The fact
+that they can succeed as well as they do under conditions that are so
+adverse is the best warrant for their intelligence and devotion. It is
+not their fault that they begin teaching with inadequate knowledge of
+subject-matter, with ignorance of the nature of childhood, and without
+skill in the technique of the schoolroom. The system, and not the
+individual, is at fault. The public demands a pitifully low standard of
+efficiency in rural teaching, and the excellence of the product offered
+is not likely greatly to surpass what society asks and is ready to pay
+for.
+
+Once again we must turn to the consolidated school as the solution of
+our difficulty. The isolated district school will not be able to demand
+and secure a worthy grade of preparation for teaching. The educational
+standards will not rise high enough under this system to create a public
+demand for skilled teachers. Nor can such salaries be paid as will
+encourage thorough and extensive study and preparation for teaching.
+And, finally, the professional incentives are not sufficiently strong in
+such schools to create a true craft spirit toward teaching.
+
+While it is impossible to measure the improved results in teaching
+coming from the consolidated school in the same objective way that we
+can measure increased attendance, yet there is no doubt that one of the
+strongest arguments for the consolidated school is its more skillful and
+inspiring teaching. The increased salaries, the possibility of
+professional association with other teachers, the improved equipment,
+the better supervision, and above all, the spirit of progress and
+enthusiasm in the school itself, all serve to transform teaching from a
+treadmill routine into a joyful opportunity for inspiration and service.
+
+
+_The training of rural teachers_
+
+The training of the rural teacher has never been given the same
+consideration as that of town or city teachers. It is true that normal
+schools are available to all alike, and that in a few States the rural
+schools secure a considerable number of teachers who have had some
+normal training. But this is the exception rather than the rule. In the
+Middle Western States, for example, where there is a rich agricultural
+population, whole counties can be found in which no rural teacher has
+ever had any special training for his work. Professional requirements
+have been on a par with the meager salaries paid, and other incentives
+have not been strong enough to insure adequate preparation.
+
+State normal schools have, therefore, been of comparatively little
+assistance in fitting teachers for the rural school. First of all the
+rural school teacher ordinarily does not go to the normal school, for it
+is not demanded of him. Again, if perchance a prospective rural teacher
+should attend a normal school, a town or city grade position is usually
+waiting for him when he graduates. For, in spite of the growth of our
+normal schools, they are as yet far from being able to supply all the
+teachers required for the urban grade positions, to say nothing about
+the rural schools. The colleges and universities are, of course, still
+further removed from the rural school, since the high schools stand
+ready to employ those of their graduates who enter upon teaching.
+
+In some States, as for example, Wisconsin, county normal schools have
+been established with the special aim of preparing teachers for the
+rural schools. While this movement has helped, it does not promise to
+secure wide acceptance as a method of dealing with the problem. Greater
+possibilities undoubtedly exist in the comparatively recent movement
+toward combining normal training with the regular high school course.
+Provision for such courses now exists in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
+Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and a number of other States.
+
+Combining normal training with high school education has first of all
+the advantage of bringing such training _to_ prospective teachers,
+instead of requiring the teachers to leave home and incur additional
+expense in seeking their training. From the standpoint of the public it
+has the merit of economy, in that it utilizes buildings, equipment, and
+organization already in existence instead of requiring new.
+
+But whatever may be the method employed, the rural teachers should
+receive better preparation for their work than they now have. This
+means, _first_, that the State must make adequate provision for the
+teacher to receive his training at a minimum of expense and trouble; and
+_second_, that the standard of requirement must be such that the teacher
+will be obliged to secure adequate preparation before being admitted to
+the school. Even with the present status of our rural schools it is not
+too much to require that every teacher shall have had _at least a
+four-year high school education_, and that _a reasonable amount of
+normal training_ be had either in conjunction with the high school
+course, or subsequent to its completion. Indiana, for example, has found
+this requirement entirely feasible, and a great influence in bettering
+the tone of the rural school.
+
+Wherever the rural teacher secures his training, however, one condition
+must obtain: this preparation must familiarize him with the spirit and
+needs of the agricultural community, and imbue him with enthusiasm for
+service in this field. It is not infrequently the case that town high
+school graduates, themselves never having lived in the country, possess
+neither the sympathy nor the understanding necessary to enable them to
+offer a high grade of service in the rural school. Not a few of them
+feel above the work of such a position, and look with contempt or pity
+upon the life of the farm. The successful rural teacher must be able to
+identify himself very completely with the interests and activities of
+the community; nor can this be done in any half-hearted, sentimental, or
+professional manner. It must be a spontaneous and natural response
+arising from a true interest in the people, a knowledge of their lives,
+and a sincere desire for their welfare. Any preparation that does not
+result in this spirit, and train in the ability to realize it in action,
+does not fit for the rural school.
+
+
+_Salaries of rural teachers_
+
+The salaries paid teachers in general in different types of schools are
+one measure, though not a perfect one, of their efficiency. Salary is
+not a perfect measure of efficiency, (1) because economic ability to pay
+is a modifying influence. When the early New England teacher was
+receiving ten or twelve dollars a month and "boarding round," he was
+probably getting all that the community could afford to pay him,
+although he was often a college student, and not infrequently a
+well-trained graduate. The salaries paid in the various occupations are
+not (2) based upon any definite standards of the value of service. For
+example, the _chef_ in a hotel may receive more than the superintendent
+of schools, and the football coach more than the college president; yet
+we would hardly want to conclude that the services of the cook and the
+athlete are worth more to society than the services of educators. And
+within the vocation of teaching itself there is (3) no fixed standard
+for judging teaching efficiency. Nevertheless, in general, teaching
+efficiency is in considerable degree measured by differences in salaries
+paid in different localities and in the various levels of school work.
+
+Based on the standard of salary as a measure, the teaching efficiency of
+rural teachers is, as we should expect from starting nearly all of our
+beginners here, considerably below that in towns or cities. A study by
+Coffman[6] of more than five thousand widely distributed teachers as to
+age, sex, salary, etc., shows that the average man in the rural school
+receives an annual salary of $390; in town schools, of $613; and in city
+schools, of $919. The average woman in the rural school receives an
+annual salary of $366; in town schools, of $492; and in city schools, of
+$591. Men in towns, therefore, receive one and one half times as much as
+men in the country, and in cities, two and one half times as much as in
+the country. Women in towns receive a little more than one and one third
+times as much as women in the country, and in the cities almost one and
+two thirds times as much as women in the country.
+
+The actual amount of salary paid rural teachers is perhaps more
+instructive than the comparative amounts. The income of the rural
+teacher is barely a living wage, and not even that if the teacher has no
+parental home, or a gainful occupation during vacation times. Out of an
+amount of less than four hundred dollars a year the teacher is expected
+to pay for a certificate, a few school journals and professional books,
+and attend teachers institutes or conventions, besides supporting
+himself as a teacher ought to live. It does not need argument to show
+that this meager salary forces a standard of living too low for
+efficiency. It would, therefore, be unfair to ask for efficiency with
+the present standard of salaries.
+
+Nor is it to be overlooked that efficiency and salaries must mount
+upward together. It would be as unjust to ask for higher salaries
+without increasing the grade of efficiency as to ask for efficiency on
+the present salary basis. It is probable that the eighteen- or
+nineteen-year-old boys and girls starting in to teach the rural school,
+with but little preparation above the elementary grades, are receiving
+all they are worth, at least as compared with what they could earn in
+other lines. The great point of difficulty is that they are not worth
+enough. The community cannot afford to buy the kind of educational
+service they are qualified to offer; it would be a vastly better
+investment for the public to buy higher teaching efficiency at larger
+salaries.
+
+No statistics are available to show the exact percentage of increase in
+rural teachers' salaries during recent years, but this increase has been
+considerable; and the tendency is still upward. In this as in other
+features of the rural school problem, however, it will be impossible to
+meet reasonable demands without forsaking the rural district system for
+a more centralized system of consolidated schools. To pay adequate
+salaries to the number of teachers now required for the thousands of
+small rural schools would be too heavy a drain on our economic
+resources. Under the consolidated system a considerably smaller number
+of teachers is required, and these can receive higher salaries without
+greatly increasing the amount expended for teaching. In this as in other
+phases of our educational problems, what is needed is rational business
+method, and a willingness to devote a fair proportion of our wealth to
+the education of the young.
+
+
+_Supervision of rural teaching_
+
+Our rural school teaching has never had efficient supervision. The very
+nature of rural school organization has rendered expert supervision
+impossible, no matter how able the supervising officer might be. With
+slight modifications, the office of _county superintendent_ is,
+throughout the country, typical of the attempt to provide supervision
+for the rural school. While such a system may have afforded all that
+could be expected in the pioneer days, its inadequacy to meet
+present-day demands is almost too patent to require discussion.
+
+First of all, it is physically impossible for a county superintendent to
+visit and supervise one hundred and fifty teachers at work in as many
+different schools scattered over four or five hundred square miles of
+territory. If he were to devote all his time to visiting country
+schools, he would have only one day to each school per year. When it is
+remembered that the county superintendent must also attend to an office
+that has a large amount of correspondence and clerical work, that he is
+usually commissioned with authority to oversee the building of all
+schoolhouses in his county, that he must act as judge in hearing appeals
+in school disputes, that he must conduct all teachers' examinations and
+in many instances grade the papers, and, finally, that country roads are
+often impassable, it is seen that his time for supervision is greatly
+curtailed. As a matter of fact some rural schools receive no visit from
+the county superintendent for several years at a time.
+
+A still further obstacle comes from the fact of the frequent changes of
+teachers among rural schools. A teacher visited by the county
+superintendent in a certain school this term, and advised as to how best
+to meet its problems, is likely to be in a different school next term,
+and required to meet an entirely new set of problems.
+
+This is all very different from the problem of supervision met by the
+town or city superintendent. For the town or city district is of small
+area, and the schools few and close together. If the number of teachers
+is large, the superintendent is assisted by principals of different
+schools, and by deputies. The teaching force is better prepared, and
+hence requires less close supervision. School standards are higher, and
+the cooeperation of patrons more easily secured. The course of study is
+better organized, the schools better graded and equipped, and all other
+conditions more favorable to efficient supervision. It would not,
+therefore, be just to compare the results of supervision in the country
+districts with those in urban schools without making full allowance for
+these fundamental differences.
+
+The county superintendent is in many States discriminated against in
+salary as compared with other county officers, and, as a rule, no
+provision is made to compensate for traveling expenses incurred in
+visiting schools. This, in effect, places a financial penalty on the
+work of supervision, as the superintendent can remain in his office with
+considerably less expense to himself than when he is out among the
+schools. In some instances, however, an allowance is made for traveling
+expenses in addition to the regular salary, thus encouraging the
+visiting of schools, or at least removing the handicap existing under
+the older system. An attempt has also been made in some States to
+relieve the county superintendent of the greater part of the clerical
+work of his office by employing for him at county expense a clerk for
+this purpose. These two provisions have proved of great help to the
+supervisory function of the county superintendent's work, but the task
+yet looms up in impossible magnitude.
+
+The county superintendency is throughout the country almost universally
+a political office. In some States, as, for example, in Indiana, it is
+appointive by a non-partisan board. But, in general, the candidate of
+the prevailing party, or the one who is the best "mixer," secures the
+office regardless of qualifications. Sharing the fortunes of other
+political offices, the county superintendency frequently has applied to
+it the unwritten party rule of "two terms and out," thus crippling the
+efficiency of the office by frequent changes of administration and
+uncertainty of tenure.
+
+No fixed educational or professional standard of preparation for the
+county superintendency exists in the different States. If some
+reasonably high standard were required, it would do much to lessen the
+mischievous effects of making it a political office. In a large
+proportion of cases the county superintendent is only required to hold a
+middle-class certificate, and has enjoyed no better educational
+facilities than dozens of the teachers he is to supervise. The author
+has conducted teachers' institutes in the Middle West for county
+superintendents who had never attended an institute or taught a term of
+school. The salary and professional opportunities of the office are not
+sufficiently attractive to draw men from the better school positions;
+hence the great majority of county superintendents come from the village
+principalships, the grades of town schools, or even from the rural
+schools.
+
+A marked tendency of recent years has been to elect women as county
+superintendents. In Iowa, for example, half of the present county
+superintendents are women, and the proportion is increasing. In not a
+few instances women have made exceptional records as county
+superintendents, and, as a whole, are loyally devoted to their work.
+They suffer one disadvantage in this office, however, which is hard to
+overcome: they find it impossible, without undue exposure, to travel
+about the county during the cold and stormy weather of winter or when
+the roads are soaked with the spring rains. Whether they will be able to
+effect the desired cooerdination between the rural school and the
+agricultural interests of the community is a question yet to be settled.
+
+In spite of the limitations of the office of county superintendent,
+however, it must not be thought that this office has played an
+unimportant part in our educational development. It has exerted a marked
+influence in the upbuilding of our schools, and accomplished this under
+the most unfavorable and discouraging circumstances. Among its occupants
+have been some of the most able and efficient men and women engaged in
+our school system. But the time has come in our educational advancement
+when the rural schools should have better supervision than they are now
+getting or can get under the present system.
+
+The first step in improving the supervision, as in improving so many
+other features of the rural schools, is the reorganization of the
+system through consolidation, and the consequent reduction in the number
+of schools to be supervised. The next step is to remove the supervising
+office as far as possible from "practical" politics by making it
+appointive by a non-partisan county board, who will be at liberty to go
+anywhere for a superintendent, who will be glad to pay a good salary,
+and who will seek to retain a superintendent in office as long as he is
+rendering acceptable service to the county. The third step is to raise
+the standard of fitness for the office so that the incumbent may be a
+true intellectual leader among the teachers and people of his county.
+Nor can this preparation be of the scholastic type alone, but must be of
+such character as to adapt its possessor to the spirit and ideals of an
+agricultural people.
+
+A wholly efficient system of supervision of rural teaching, then, would
+be possible only in a system of consolidated schools, each under the
+immediate direction of a principal, himself thoroughly educated and
+especially qualified to carry on the work of a school adapted to rural
+needs. Over these schools would be the supervision of the county
+superintendent, who will stand in the same relation to the principals as
+that of the city superintendent to his ward or high school principals.
+The county superintendent will serve to unify and correlate the work of
+the different consolidated schools, and to relate all to the life and
+work of the farm.
+
+If it is said that systems of superintendence for rural schools could be
+devised more effective than the county superintendency, this may be
+granted as a matter of theory; but as a practical working program, there
+is no doubt that the office of county superintendent is a permanent part
+of our rural school system, unless the system itself is very radically
+changed. All the States, except the New England group, Ohio, and Nevada,
+now have the office of county superintendent. It is likely, therefore,
+that the plan of district superintendence permissive under the laws of
+certain States will hardly secure wide acceptance. The county as the
+unit of school administration is growing in favor, and will probably
+ultimately come to characterize the rural school system. The most
+natural step lying next ahead would, therefore, seem to be to make the
+conditions surrounding the office of county superintendent as favorable
+as possible, and then give the superintendent a sufficient number of
+deputies to make the supervision effective. These deputies should be
+selected, of course, with reference to their fitness for supervising
+particular lines of teaching, such as primary, home economics,
+agriculture, etc. A beginning has already been made in the latter line
+by the employment in some counties, with the aid of the Federal
+Government, of an agricultural expert who not only instructs the farmers
+in their fields, but also correlates his work with the rural schools.
+This principle is capable of almost indefinite extension in our school
+system.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 5: See Coffman, _The Social Composition of the Teaching
+Force_.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _The Social Composition of the Teaching Population._]
+
+
+
+
+OUTLINE
+
+
+I. THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM
+
+
+=The General Problem of the Rural School=
+
+  1. The general problem of the rural school identical
+  with that of all schools                                        1
+
+  2. The newer concept measures education by efficiency           2
+
+  3. This efficiency involves (1) knowledge,(2) attitude,
+  (3) technique, or skill                                         3
+
+  4. The purpose of the school is to make sure of
+  these factors of efficiency                                     4
+
+
+=The Special Problem of the Rural School=
+
+  1. Each type of school has its special problem                  5
+
+  2. The rural school problem originates in the nature
+  of the rural community                                          5
+
+  3. Characteristics of the rural community                       6
+
+    _a._ Its industrial homogeneity                               6
+
+    _b._ Its social homogeneity                                   7
+
+    _c._ Fundamental intelligence of the rural population         8
+
+    _d._ Economic status and standards of living                 10
+
+    _e._ Rural isolation and its social effects                  10
+
+    _f._ Rural life and physical efficiency                      11
+
+    _g._ Lack of recreations and amusement                       12
+
+  4. Recent tendencies toward progress in agricultural
+  pursuits                                                       12
+
+  5. The loss of rural population to the cities                  13
+
+
+=The Adjustment of the Rural School to its Problem=
+
+  1. Failure in adjustment of the rural school to its problem    17
+
+  2. The rudimentary education received by rural children        17
+
+  3. Failure of the rural school to participate in recent
+  educational progress                                           18
+
+  4. The rural school inadequate in its scope                    19
+
+  5. Need of better organization in the rural school             20
+
+  6. Inadequacy of rural school buildings and equipment          21
+
+  7. The financial support of the rural school                   22
+
+  8. Summary and suggestions                                     23
+
+
+II. THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
+
+
+=The Rural School and the Community=
+
+  1. The fundamental relations of school and community           25
+
+  2. Low community standards of education                        25
+
+  3. The rural community's need of a social center               26
+
+    _a._ Its social isolation a serious drawback                 27
+
+    _b._ Grave moral dangers arising from social isolation       28
+
+    _c._ Rural environment more dangerous to youth
+    than city environment                                        29
+
+    _d._ Effects of monotony on adults                           30
+
+  4. The rural school as a social center                         30
+
+  5. The ideal rural school building and equipment               32
+
+  6. Social activities centering in the school                   33
+
+  7. Reorganization needed to make the rural school
+  effective as a social and intellectual center                  34
+
+
+=The Consolidation of Rural Schools=
+
+  1. Consolidation the first step toward rural school
+  efficiency                                                     35
+
+  2. Irrationality of present district system                    36
+
+  3. Obstacles in the way of consolidation                       37
+
+  4. The present movement toward consolidation                   38
+
+  5. Effects of consolidation                                    40
+
+    _a._ On attendance                                           41
+
+    _b._ On expense                                              41
+
+    _c._ On efficiency                                           42
+
+  6. The one-room school yet needed as a part of the
+  rural system                                                   42
+
+
+=Financial Support of the Rural School=
+
+  1. Lack of adequate financial support of rural schools         43
+
+  2. Difference in city and rural basis for taxation             44
+
+  3. Low school tax characteristic of rural communities          45
+
+  4. State aid for rural schools                                 46
+
+  5. Safeguards required where the principle of state
+  aid is supplied                                                47
+
+  6. Summary and conclusion                                      48
+
+
+=The Rural School and its Pupils=
+
+  1. The spirit of the pupils as a test of the school            50
+
+  2. The negative attitude of rural pupils toward their school   51
+
+  3. Causes of this defection to be sought in the school         51
+
+  4. The problem of poor rural school attendance                 52
+
+  5. The consolidated school as a cure for indifferent
+  attitude and poor attendance                                   53
+
+
+III. THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
+
+
+=The Scope of the Rural School Curriculum=
+
+  1. The modern demand for a broader education                   57
+
+  2. The meagerness of the rural school curriculum               58
+
+  3. The rural child requires full elementary and high
+  school course                                                  60
+
+  4. Disadvantages of sending rural child to town school         60
+
+  5. Necessary reorganization in rural school offering
+  broadened curriculum                                           62
+
+  6. General nature of the new curriculum                        62
+
+
+=The Rural Elementary School Curriculum=
+
+  1. Relation of the curriculum to social standards
+  and ideals                                                     64
+
+  2. The mother tongue                                           65
+
+    _a._ Necessity for its mastery                               65
+
+    _b._ Learning the mechanics of the language                  66
+
+    _c._ Developing the art of expression, oral and
+    written                                                      67
+
+    _d._ Creation of love for reading                            67
+
+    _e._ Formal grammar out of place in the elementary
+    school                                                       68
+
+  3. Number                                                      69
+
+    _a._ The prominent place occupied by arithmetic              69
+
+    _b._ Importance of development of the number concept         69
+
+    _c._ An undue proportion of time devoted to arithmetic       70
+
+    _d._ Desirable changes in the teaching of arithmetic         71
+
+  4. History and civics                                          71
+
+    _a._ The right and duty of every person to know
+    the history and government of his country                    72
+
+    _b._ History not to deal chiefly with war and
+    politics, but to emphasize the social and industrial side    72
+
+    _c._ The library of historical books                         73
+
+    _d._ Functional versus analytical civics                     73
+
+  5. Geography and nature study                                  74
+
+    _a._ Advantage of the rural school in this field             74
+
+    _b._ The social basis of geography                           75
+
+    _c._ Application of geography and nature study
+    to the farm                                                  75
+
+  6. Hygiene and health                                          76
+
+    _a._ Criticism of older concept of physiology for
+    the elementary school                                        76
+
+    _b._ Content of practical course in hygiene                  77
+
+    _c._ Application of hygiene to the child's health
+    and growth                                                   77
+
+  7. Agriculture                                                 78
+
+    _a._ Adaptability to the rural elementary school             78
+
+    _b._ Content of the elementary course in agriculture         79
+
+    _c._ Relation to farm life                                   79
+
+  8. Domestic science and manual training                        79
+
+    _a._ Place in elementary rural school                        80
+
+    _b._ What can be taught                                      80
+
+    _c._ Its practical application                               80
+
+  9. Music and art                                               81
+
+    _a._ Necessity in a well-balanced curriculum                 81
+
+    _b._ Appreciation rather than criticism the aim              81
+
+  10. Physical training                                          81
+
+    _a._ Need of physical training of rural children             82
+
+    _b._ Rural school athletics                                  82
+
+
+=The Rural High School Curriculum=
+
+  1. Rural high schools not yet common                           83
+
+  2. The functions of the rural high school                      84
+
+  3. English in the rural high school                            84
+
+    _a._ Its aim                                                 85
+
+    _b._ Points of difference from present high school
+    course                                                       86
+
+  4. Social science to have an applied trend                     86
+
+  5. The material sciences as related to the problems
+  of the farm                                                    87
+
+  6. Manual training and domestic science                        89
+
+  7. A modified course in high school mathematics                89
+
+  8. Foreign language not to occupy an important place           90
+
+  9. The high school course to include music and art             90
+
+
+IV. THE TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
+
+
+=The Importance of Teaching=
+
+  1. Teaching the fundamental purpose of the school              92
+
+  2. The child and the subject-matter                            92
+
+  3. The teacher as an intermediary between child
+  and subject-matter                                             93
+
+  4. Hence the teacher must know the nature of the child         94
+
+  5. The teacher must know the subject-matter of education       95
+
+  6. Failure to measure up to this requirement                   97
+
+
+=Teaching in the Rural School=
+
+  1. The degree of training of rural teachers in the
+  subject-matter                                                 98
+
+  2. Present lack of professional training                      100
+
+  3. The effects of inexperience                                101
+
+  4. Short tenure of service in rural schools                   102
+
+  5. Level of teaching efficiency low                           103
+
+  6. Improvement through consolidated schools                   104
+
+
+=The Training of Rural Teachers=
+
+  1. Inexperienced and untrained teachers begin in
+  the rural schools                                             105
+
+  2. Normal schools supply few teachers to rural schools        106
+
+  3. A reasonable demand for training of rural teachers         107
+
+  4. Rural teacher training in normal high schools              107
+
+  5. The rural teacher's training must be adapted to
+  spirit of rural school                                        108
+
+
+=Salaries of Rural Teachers=
+
+  1. Salary as a measure of efficiency                          109
+
+  2. Salaries of rural teachers compared with town
+  and city teachers                                             110
+
+  3. Necessity of increased salaries                            111
+
+  4. Increase in salary and in efficiency must go together      111
+
+  5. Salaries in consolidated schools                           112
+
+
+=Supervision of Rural Teaching=
+
+  1. Impossibility of giving district schools efficient
+  supervision                                                   112
+
+  2. Obstacle in number of schools and frequent
+  change of teachers                                            113
+
+  3. Comparison of work of county superintendent
+  with city superintendent                                      114
+
+  4. Political handicaps on county superintendent               115
+
+  5. The necessity of better educational standards
+  and better salary for the county superintendent               116
+
+  6. Women as county superintendents                            116
+
+  7. Efficient supervision possible only under a consolidated
+  system                                                        117
+
+
+
+
+RIVERSIDE EDUCATIONAL MONOGRAPHS
+
+_GENERAL EDUCATIONAL THEORY_
+
+
+DEWEY'S MORAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATION                      .35
+
+ELIOT'S EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY                           .35
+
+ELIOT'S TENDENCY TO THE CONCRETE AND PRACTICAL IN MODERN
+EDUCATION                                                  .35
+
+EMERSON'S EDUCATION                                        .35
+
+FISKE'S THE MEANING OF INFANCY                             .35
+
+HYDE'S THE TEACHER'S PHILOSOPHY                            .35
+
+PALMER'S THE IDEAL TEACHER                                 .35
+
+PROSSER'S THE TEACHER AND OLD AGE                          .60
+
+TERMAN'S THE TEACHER'S HEALTH                              .60
+
+THORNDIKE'S INDIVIDUALITY                                  .35
+
+
+
+_ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION OF SCHOOLS_
+
+
+BETTS'S NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS                        .60
+
+BLOOMFIELD'S VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE OF YOUTH                  .60
+
+CABOT'S VOLUNTEER HELP TO THE SCHOOLS                      .60
+
+COLE'S INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS          .35
+
+CUBBERLEY'S CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION              .35
+
+CUBBERLEY'S THE IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS               .35
+
+LEWIS'S DEMOCRACY'S HIGH SCHOOL                            .60
+
+PERRY'S STATUS OF THE TEACHER                              .35
+
+SNEDDEN'S THE PROBLEM OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION              .35
+
+TROWBRIDGE'S THE HOME SCHOOL                               .60
+
+WEEKS'S THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOL                                .60
+
+
+
+_METHODS OF TEACHING_
+
+
+BAILEY'S ART EDUCATION                                     .60
+
+BETTS'S THE RECITATION                                     .60
+
+CAMPAGNAC'S THE TEACHING OF COMPOSITION                    .35
+
+COOLEY'S LANGUAGE TEACHING IN THE GRADES                   .35
+
+DEWEY'S INTEREST AND EFFORT IN EDUCATION                   .60
+
+EARHART'S TEACHING CHILDREN TO STUDY                       .60
+
+EVANS'S TEACHING OF HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS                .35
+
+FAIRCHILD'S THE TEACHING OF POETRY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
+
+HALIBURTON AND SMITH'S TEACHING POETRY IN THE GRADES       .60
+
+HARTWELL'S THE TEACHING OF HISTORY                         .35
+
+HAYNES'S ECONOMICS IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL                 .60
+
+KILPATRICK'S THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM EXAMINED                .35
+
+PALMER'S ETHICAL AND MORAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS      .35
+
+PALMER'S SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH                       .35
+
+SUZZALLO'S THE TEACHING OF PRIMARY ARITHMETIC              .60
+
+SUZZALLO'S THE TEACHING OF SPELLING                        .60
+
+
+
+
+RIVERSIDE TEXTBOOKS IN EDUCATION
+
+Edited by ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY, Head of the Department of Education,
+Leland Stanford, Jr., University.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The editor and the publishers have most carefully planned this series to
+meet the needs of students of education in colleges and universities, in
+normal schools, and in teachers' training courses in high schools. The
+books will also be equally well adapted to teachers' reading circles and
+to the wide-awake, professionally ambitious superintendent and teacher.
+Each book presented in the series will embody the results of the latest
+research, and will be at the same time both scientifically accurate, and
+simple, clear, and interesting in style.
+
+The Riverside Textbooks in Education will eventually contain books on
+the following subjects:--
+
+1. History of Education.--2. Public Education in America.--3. Theory of
+Education.--4. Principles of Teaching.--5. School and Class
+Management.--6. School Hygiene.--7. School Administration.--8. Secondary
+Education.--9. Educational Psychology.--10. Educational Sociology.--11.
+The Curriculum.--12. Special Methods.
+
+
+Now Ready
+
+*RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION.
+
+     By ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY. $1.50 _net_. Postpaid. Illustrated.
+
+*THE HYGIENE OF THE SCHOOL CHILD.
+
+     By LEWIS M. TERMAN, Associate Professor of Education, Leland
+     Stanford Junior University. $1.65 _net_. Postpaid. Illustrated.
+
+*THE EVOLUTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL.
+
+     By MABEL IRENE EMERSON, First Assistant in Charge, George Bancroft
+     School, Boston. $1.00 _net_. Postpaid.
+
+*HEALTH WORK IN THE SCHOOLS.
+
+     By ERNEST B. HOAG, Medical Director, Long Beach City Schools,
+     California, and LEWIS M. TERMAN. Illustrated. $1.60 _net_.
+     Postpaid.
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+BOSTON   NEW YORK   CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+The HOUGHTON MIFFLIN PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY
+
+For Teachers and Students of Education
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_THEORY AND PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION_
+
+AMERICAN EDUCATION
+
+     By ANDREW S. DRAPER, Commissioner of Education of the State of New
+     York. With an Introduction by NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, President of
+     Columbia University. $2.00, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+GROWTH AND EDUCATION
+
+     By JOHN M. TYLER, Professor of Biology in Amherst College. $1.50,
+     _net_. Postpaid.
+
+SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION
+
+     By M. VINCENT O'SHEA, Professor of Education in the University of
+     Wisconsin. $2.00, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
+
+     By WILLIAM C. RUEDIGER, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of Educational
+     Psychology in the Teachers College of the George Washington
+     University. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE MAKING
+
+     By EDWIN A. KIRKPATRICK, Teacher of Psychology, Child Study and
+     School Laws, State Normal School, Fitchburg, Mass. $1.25, _net_.
+     Postpaid.
+
+A THEORY OF MOTIVES, IDEALS, AND VALUES IN EDUCATION
+
+     By WILLIAM E. CHANCELLOR, Superintendent of Schools, Norwalk, Conn.
+     $1.75, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+EDUCATION AND THE LARGER LIFE
+
+     By C. HANFORD HENDERSON. $1.30, _net_. Postage 13 cents.
+
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+
+     By FRANK MCMURRY, Professor of Elementary Education in Teachers
+     College, Columbia University. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+
+
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+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEGINNINGS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
+
+     By PAUL H. HANUS, Professor of the History and Art of Teaching in
+     Harvard University. $1.00, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+PRACTICAL ASPECTS AND PROBLEMS
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+ETHICS FOR CHILDREN. A Guide for Teachers and Parents
+
+     By ELLA LYMAN CABOT, Member of the Massachusetts Board of
+     Education. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+CHARACTER BUILDING IN SCHOOL
+
+     By JANE BROWNLEE, formerly Principal of Lagrange School, Toledo,
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+
+HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN
+
+     By SARA CONE BRYANT. $1.00, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+TALKS ON TEACHING LITERATURE
+
+     By ARLO BATES, Professor of English Literature in the Massachusetts
+     Institute of Technology. Professor Bates is also the author of
+     "Talks on the Study of Literature," "Talks on Writing English,"
+     etc. $1.30, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+LITERATURE AND LIFE IN SCHOOL
+
+     By J. ROSE COLBY, Professor of Literature in the Illinois State
+     Normal University. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
+
+THE KINDERGARTEN
+
+     By SUSAN BLOW, PATTY HILL, and ELIZABETH HARRISON, assisted by
+     other members of the Committee of Nineteen of the International
+     Kindergarten Union. With a Preface by LUCY WHEELOCK and an
+     Introduction by ANNIE LAWS, Chairman of the Committee. 16mo. $1.25
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of New Ideals in Rural Schools, by
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