Class U a IS(^/ Book Copyright li?_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS By GEORGE HERBERT BETTS M THE MIND AND ITS EDUCATION, THE RECITATION. ETC. OTIS EARLE HALL SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA ILLUSTRATED BY PHOTOGRAPHS AND CHARTS INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright 1914 The Bobbs-Merrill Company PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH Si CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. V. JAN 21 I8!4 (QCl,A3GiGV0 PREFACE The rural school presents the most important problem in American education. In it are more than six million children coming from one great industry, agriculture — the most fundamental and important of all industries. Under present conditions this occupation calls for an unusual degree of intelligence and skill. It demands the highest type of business management and industrial ability. And with the success of agriculture is linked the welfare of every American citizen, whatever be his status or vocation. Yet the rural school, the sole educational opportunity of most of our agricultural population, has been grossly neglected. In the midst of universal progress, it has been allowed to lag behind town and city schools. Abandoned to relative inefficiency, it has failed to hold the loyalty and support of its constituency. The victim of changing social and industrial conditions, it has dwindled in size, diminished in influence, and lost step with the spirit of the times. But the center of emphasis in education is changing — has changed. The great forces recently set at work to re- organize and vitalize country life have found the condi- tion of the rural school to be one of the chief causes of decay. In it they have also discovered one of the most promising instruments of reclamation and reform. The rural school will come into its own. The great educa- tional agencies of the country — national, state and pri- vate — are organizing to give it every help at their com- PREFACE trrand. Commercial interests are offering cooperation and support. Legislatures are shaping laws to its advan- tage and placing increased revenues at its disposal. Best of all, this accession of public interest is stimulating the patrons themselves to desire and demand better schools. This book is an attempt to interpret the rising tide of interest in the rural school, and to offer whatever help it may in guiding the energy in fruitful lines. It is written especially for rural teachers and administrators in their reading circles, normal schools and study classes. For, while others may plan and project, it is the teachers and their official guides who must finally put these plans and projects into execution. They are the ones who are in immediate contact with the rural school and its prob- lems ; they meet pupils and patrons face to face and know their attitudes and modes of thought. And reforms are not carried out by resolutions or legislative decrees, but by individual influence and personal effort. The book is simply written, that it may be easy and attractive reading. It contains much of illustration, inci- dent and application, that it may be immediately helpful. It touches on such questions as the teacher must daily meet, that it may be practical. It presents many pictures of school conditions, that certain lessons may be doubly enforced. The weaknesses of present rural schools have been frankly exposed, but not for the purpose of mere faultfinding. Criticisms are often sharp, but never in a carping spirit. The motive of the entire volume is con- structive. Faults are revealed only to show the means by which they may be remedied, and mistakes are con- demned only to suggest the way to rectify them. The scope of the book is broad. It shows how the call for higher efficiency in rural schools is a part of a universal demand upon education. It interprets the rela- PREFACE Uon of tHe curriculum to efficiency iii education, and shows the reorganization necessary in the rural-school tourse of study. Because the teacher is the central factor in the school, almost one-fourth of the chapters are given over to every-day problems that confront the teacher in the schoolroom. Consolidation is looked upon as the most important single factor in improving rural educa- tion, hence this subject is accorded detailed and extensive consideration. The administration of rural schools, in- cluding forms of supervision, financial support and social points of contact with the community, is fully treated. Schoolhouses and their equipment, the care of school buildings and the preparation and equipment of school playgrounds are discussed. The responsibility of the rural school for the health of its pupils and community is recognized. Finally, the outlook for rural education is examined in the light of present tendencies and oppor- tunities, and the teacher's part defined in the movement for better rural schools. George Herbert Betts, Mount Vernon, Iowa. Otis Earle Hall, Crawfordsville, Indiana, CONTENTS Part I THE DEMAND FOR BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS I The New Outlook 1 The rural school an important factor in American education — ■ Early school conditions — The social side of old-time schools — Environment of pioneer schools — Changes in industrial condi- tions — New standards demanded in schools — New standards in agriculture — Farm children's need of education — Can the rural school meet its demands — Rural and town schools compared — Present status of rural schools — Inadequate to the needs of rural life — The farmer can support better schools — The oppor- tunity of the rural school — Encouraging signs. II The Call for EpFiaENCY 16 Efficiency the demand of the age — Difficulty in measuring school efficiency — Drawing power a measure of efficiency — Rural school fails to draw and hold pupils — Influence of teacher in holding pupils — Rural-school year short — Attendance year shorter — Results of short-time attendance — The waste of time through poor attendance — The type of education as a measure of efficiency — Duty of the rural school to its patrons — The rural school and better farming — Education in agriculture through rural schools — The rural school and public health — Teaching of hygiene in rural schools — Loyalty as a measure of efficiency — ■ Support ready when returns are assured — The rural school as a social center — Changes demanded by new ideals. Part II THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL III The Old Curriculum 43 Need of a broader and richer curriculum — Mere literacy no longer a test — Things that should be known by rural boys and girls — ^Vital subjects lacking in rural schools — Old standards still prevail in many schools — Studies not related to life — Use- less versus useful knowledge — Time wasted upon senseless drill pn useless matter — Curriculum still meager and narrow — In- CONTENTS dustrial training in old-time home — Old-time training in domes- tic science — The boy and the old home workshop — Industrial changes in the modern home — The school must take over func- tions lost from home — The school must train the hand — Manual training, agriculture and domestic science to be added — Music and art to have a place — View-point of the old subjects to be changed — Changes in teaching reading, arithmetic and other subjects — How time is to be secured for new subjects. IV The Reorganized Curriculum 60 The new curriculum not to neglect fundamental subjects — Point of emphasis to be changed — School interests related to home interests — Core of new curriculum — Plan of new curricu- lum — ^Vocational subjects alone not enough — Difference between old and new curricula — Stupefying effects of old method — The new curriculum connects with home activities — Reading, language and number related to concrete subjects — Teaching of the fun- damentals vitalized — Not discipline but efficiency the aim — Nature study the child's starting-point — Geography and agri- culture have foundation in nature study — Home economics be- gun in the elementary school — Habits and hygiene of first importance — Manual training a part of the curriculum — Teaching of music and art — History to deal with life of people — Im- portance of concrete civics. V Correlation 11 Rapid growth of rural-school curriculum — Danger of over- working teacher and pupil — Principles underlying revision of curriculum — The principle of correlation — What is correlation — Correlation stimulates interest — Correlation must be natural — Immediate interests the natural basis of correlation — Saving time through correlation — Correlation leads to efficiency — Cor- relation with basis of nature study — Points of contact reached through nature study — A lesson on birds — Correlation with ag- riculture as a basis — Agriculture and arithmetic — Correlation with a basis of home economics — Geography and correlation — Correlation requires expert teaching. VI Vocational Training 93 Rural children dropping out of school too early — Remedy lies in vitalizing school — Difference in attitude of rural and city CONTENTS child — Growth of vocational education — Responsibility of rural school for vocational education — Rural school equal to the task — Vocational studies must be practical — Rural-school limita- tions in vocational training — Possibilities of one-room school — Community cooperation — "Home project" work — Types of home projects — The Massachusetts plan — Success attained — Home proj- ects without supervision — The Oregon plan— The agricultural- club movement — Department of Agriculture and clubs — Success of club movement — Club prize winners — Reflex influence on schools — Influence on pupils — Response to "special" schools — All rural schools to be vocational. Part III THE TEACHER AND THE RURAL SCHOOL VII The Spirit of the Teacher 1 15 The teacher chief factor in the school — Power to hinder or promote progress — The teacher must embody educational ideal — The spirit of the teacher — A teacher with the wrong attitude — Results accomplished by a devoted teacher — Difficult problems to be met — Meeting the "dare" of hard conditions — Rural school no place for half-hearted work — What enthusiasm can accom- plish — The teacher who feels above his work — An example of helpfulness — The reward of helpfulness — The teacher's attitude toward his people — A cure for impatience with the humdrum — Elementary grades the most important — Demand for choice qualities in rural teacher — The teacher's view of his vocation. VIII Scholastic Preparation 131 Need of scholastic preparation — ^The teacher must embody the truth he teaches — The blind attempting to lead the blind — The cost of ignorance — New demands upon teachers — A worthy example — Opportunities open to teachers — A high-school edu- cation the minimum — Scholastic requirements no hardship. IX Professional Training 140 Recent demand for professional training — Example of lack of professional training — Teaching an art — Growth of normal training — The function of the normal school — Need for obscr- CONTENTS vation work — Training to teach newer subjects — Advantages to the professionally trained teacher — Professional training in- cludes the child — The unkind teacher who did not understand children — Teaching children instead of subjects — Influence of the strong teacher. X Teacher and Community 152 The community feeling of ownership in the teacher — The teacher owes full service — Knowledge of community essential — Failures from lack of knowing community — An incident of two famous educators — The teacher must identify himself with the community — Interests must include the farm — The teacher must know farm children — Teachers must expect limitations — City methods not adapted to country — Method of approach — True friendship sure to meet response — A practical test of helpful- ness — The teacher's standards of conduct — The teacher should not offend community standards — The social versus the legal point of view. XI Organization 165 The three problems of the rural teacher — The rural teacher meets difficulties alone — What it is to organize a school — What organization must accomplish — Importance of right beginnings — Preparation for the opening day — Work preliminary to organi- zation — Importance of the daily program — The initiation of a definite policy — The school routine — The regulations to be adopted — The use of rules — Principles of rural-school classifica- tion — The standard classification now in use — The basis of classi- fication — Knowledge of classification demanded of the teacher — Questions to be met in classification — Principles underlying the program — The sequence of studies — The distribution of time — Classes crowded out — Causes producing too many classes — Cor- relation a remedy for multiplicity of classes. XII Management 181 The teacher measured by his management— Rural teacher's sole responsibility in management— What managing a school means — Spirit of cooperation necessary — Cooperation refers to the method of control — Principles of control to come from the school— The futility of scolding — Good management secures obedience — Disobedience begets contempt for law — Obedience CONTENTS learned only by obeying — Good management requires uniform- ity — Tendency of schools to run down — Self-control necessary to management — An example of hasty judgment — Control with reference to complaints — Danger points in management — Bois- terous play in schoolroom — Play should be out-of-doors — Whis- pering about the lessons — No truce with note-writing — Unneces- sary confusion indicates poor management — A cure for ques- tions — Injury to public property to be made good — American tendency toward vandalism — Children's morals to be guarded. XIII Good Teaching 197 Teaching the highest function of the school — Meeting the child on his own plane — Need of teaching how to study — The German method — Good teaching encourages the child — The value of good cheer — The contagion of interest — The point of contact with the child — Effects of point of view — Principles governing the recitation — The recitation must have life — Every pupil must take part — Each to receive his share of attention — The question as a method of teaching — Questioning a fine art — Principles of good questioning — The recitation demands high standards — Distractions fatal to the recitation — Physical conditions a fac- tor — Importance of teacher's attitude — Good teaching requires careful assignment. Part IV CONSOLIDATION AND RURAL-SCHOOL EFFICIENCY XIV The Movement Toward Consolidation 215 Changes necessitating consolidation — Loss in efficiency through small schools — Origin and extent of consolidation — Hopeful signs — Leading educators support the movement — Not a fad — Present status — Methods of changing to consolidated system — Legislation bearing on it — Consolidated and union schools — Consolidation not limited by locality — Not a panacea — One-room schools not to be neglected. XV The Consolidated Rural School 228 The three types of rural schools — Place of district schools — Union schools not the highest type — Looking forward to con- CONTENTS solidated type — Consolidation allows grading — Grading provides goal for pupils — The waste in very small classes — Better dis- tribution of teaching time — Consolidation allows extension of curriculum — Better buildings and equipment — Additional facil- ities required by new subjects — Consolidated schools demand better teachers — Better supervision in these schools — Consoli- dated schools keep pupils longer — Economy not the reason for consolidation — A comparison of relative cost — Cost not the true measure — Response of patrons to advantages of consolidation — Valid criticisms — Universal loyalty. XVI The Consolidated School and the Community 246 Danger from social stagnation — Little meeting in social groups — Social opportunities lacking for young people — Social lure of the city — Moral dangers growing out of social stagna- tion — Lapses due to lack of social meeting places — The school the natural social center — Only the consolidated school equal to social demands — Ready response of the people — Illinois play festivals — Social center in an Indiana consolidated school — The John Swaney school as a neighborhood center — To supply a social center a chief function of consolidated school. XVII The Rural High School 258 Growth of the American high school — The high school still rare in rural communities — High-school training necessary for farm children — Free high schools not generally accessible — Rural high schools follow consolidation — The township high school not the solution — The county high school not accessible — The curri- culum of the rural high school — Louisiana agricultural high- school course — Curriculum of Colebrook Academy — Disciplinary subjects omitted — Equipment of the rural high school — Exam- ples of successful rural high schools — The Farragut, Tennessee, high school — The Manassas, Virginia, high school — Outlook for the rural high school. XVIII The Consolidated Building and Equipment 272 'I Consolidation is improving buildings — Many still too small^ The high school to be anticipated in building — Necessity for ample grounds — Building to be of permanent material — Mistake of economizing in equipment — The three-teacher building — The basement — Heating — Water supply — Lighting system — Larger CONTENTS buildings — ^^Gymnasium — School buildings more costly — The newer branches increase the expense — Taxation burden not over- heavy — The site for a consolidated school — Donations not to influence selection of site — Value to community. XIX How TO Effect Consolidation 291 Factors interfering with consolidation — Dollars versus edu- cation — False virtues ascribed to district school — Failure to see that times have changed — Leaders misunderstood and mis- judged — Conditions fundamental to consolidation — Mistake of attempting the impossible — The necessary financial foundation — County or township better unit than local district — A prelim- inary campaign necessary — County superintendant natural leader of campaign — Three important groups of influences — Teachers most powerful influence for consolidation — Teachers enthusiastic once they understand it — Arguments to be used in the cam- paign — Fundamental weaknesses in district school — Consolidated schools also hold pupils better — One-room school does not lead to more education — Campaign must be suited to local condi- tions — Value of public meetings — Important influence of the first consolidated school — Selecting the right superintendent. XX The Transportation of Pupils 308 Success of consolidation dependent on public transportation — Public distrust of transportation not well founded — Four im- portant factors — Difficulty of mapping routes — Unreasonable pa- trons — The length of the route — Good roads a factor in length of route — Transportation largely dependent on good roads — Present tendency to improve roads — Better methods of road building — The automobile as a means of transportation — Qualifications required of any conveyance — The care of school wagons — School wagons to be owned by the corporation — Qualifications of the driver — The driver and his schedule — Typi- cal schedules made by drivers — Driver's contract and bond. Part V RURAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION XXI The Supervision of Rural Schools 329 Waste from lack of supervision — Rural schools especially need supervision — County superintendent and supervision — Too CONTENTS great a territory to cover — Lack of clerical help; many duties- Low salary a handicap — Discrimination against county superin- tendent on salary — County superintendent chosen by political methods — Length of term too short — Office should be freed from limitations — Appointment by non-partisan board — Qualifica- tions for the office to be advanced — Scholastic training — Sym- pathy virith country life — Opportunities ahead of the county superintendent — County superintendent must be given assist- ance — Beginnings of industrial supervision — Success of the plan — Growth of industrial supervision — New subjects make closer supervision necessary — The state superintendent an im- portant factor in supervision — Special state supervisors — Hope- ful outlook for rural supervision. XXII Financial Support 347 Willingness to pay a test of appreciation — Present rural pros- perity — The rural school has not shared prosperity — The poverty of the rural school — Unsuitable equipment and salaries — Humil- iating comparisons — Efficiency dependent on salary — Signs of improvement — Economic basis not lacking — Methods of levying school tax — Local taxation — Larger taxing unit desirable — State aid to schools — A combined county and state system best — Taxes depend on public sentiment — Need of an educational revival. XXIII The Care of Buildings and Grounds 364 Factors demanding change of methods — Rural teachers and janitor service — Whole of teacher's time and energy belong to teaching — Time required for preparation or recreation — Teach- ing an unhealthful occupation at best — Better hygienic standards require additional janitor service — Modern buildings demand more care — Care required by school grounds — Loss of efficiency through teacher-janitors — Health endangered by neglect — Other defects from lack of oversight — Equipment and apparatus out of order — Need of expert care of heating apparatus — Employing the janitor — Provisions of janitor's contract. XXIV The One-Room School 379 The one-room school still a necessity — Capable of improve- ment — Need for a standard of efficiency — Standardizing rural schools — The Illinois plan — Requirements of a standard school — Standards in the school — Standards for superior schools — CONTENTS School equipment — ^The curriculum — Possibilities of the one- room school — Requirements of buildings — The floor — Black- boards — School furniture — Schoolroom heating — Need of a base- ment — Decorating the schoolroom — Care of school belongings — The school library — Hygienic conditions — The water supply — • Necessary equipment — Attractive surroundings — School yard, trees and shrubs — School gardens — The playground — The school as a social center — These demands both reasonable and feasible. XXV School Hygiene 400 New interest in public health — Medical inspection of schools — Rural school to set health standard — Low hygienic standards — Duty of school toward health — The air of the schoolroom — Effects of open-air schools — Air space required — Ventilation and disease — Effects of temperature — Hygiene and cleanliness — Dusting — Water and drinking utensils — The hygiene of light- ing — Attention to commonplace things — Indiana State Board of Health requirements. XXVI Personal Hygiene 415 Personal nature of hygiene — Theory versus practise — Health the right of the child — As the twig is bent — Hygiene of the mouth — Adenoids — Diseased tonsils — Hygiene of bathing — Hy- giene of food — Hygiene of the eye — Bodily postures — Making instruction effective — The teacher's health — Teacher's liability to disease — Conditions of physical strain — The teacher's eye de- fects — Nutrition and the teacher's health — The teacher's margin of safety — Health and efficiency. XXVII The Playground 428 Country life and play — Rural children do not know how to play — Why play is so necessary — Play a moral safeguard — Evils resulting from lack of play — Children should be taught to play — The school playground — Grounds necessary for rural schools — Placing of the school building — Preparation of the play- grounds — Play apparatus — The sand bin — School swings — The see-saw — The slide — Installation of the slide — The horizontal bar — Equipment for games — Indoor baseball — Volley ball — The running track — Jumping pits — Cost of apparatus and how met — The teacher must know plays and games. CONTENTS Part VI THE OUTLOOK FOR RURAL EDUCATION XXVIII The New Education 447 Greatness of American enterprise — Magnitude of our school system — Origin of our public schools — Early educational prog- ress — Profound changes now under way — ^A new interest in education — Present need of leadership — The teacher's need of vision — Vital questions demanding answer — Why we must an- swer such questions — What is the new education — Crucial ques- tions asked of education — Changing meaning of education — Dawn of present concept of education — Influence of democracy on education — New demand for efficiency — Education the road to efficiency — Practical meaning of efficiency — Education and vo- cations — An increased amount of education demanded — Effects upon the rural school — Practical subjects winning place — New standards of teaching — The teacher's position of power. XXIX The Promising Future 463 Future of rural education promising — Rural schools the means of progress — Rural schools now the center of interest — Recent legislation promoting rural education — Farmers awakening to opportunity of rural schools — Education for farm must be had in rural schools — Rural school of future to attract boys and girls — Consolidated school to be the typical rural school — Rural school to conserve health — Future school to promote good housing — Dress to receive attention — Rural school to aid farm- ing — Rural school to minister to art and recreation — To culti- vate the esthetic impulse — The rural school to become a center — Rural schools to secure better teachers — Rural schools a good investment. XXX Present Opportunities 476 Need of wise action — All forces needed — ^Dangers from dis- couragement — Dangers from taking success for granted — All objections to be met fairly — Teachers the most powerful fac- tor — The public require information — Teachers must themselves be informed — ICnowledge of school buildings — Knowledge of new legislation — Knowledge of consolidation — Importance of CONTENTS county superintendent in rural progress — No place for tHe ultra- conservative — The part of the state superintendent and his super- visors — Influence of the press for rural education — Part taken by the federal government — The outlook. Bibliography « 491 Index 501 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The Consolidated Rural School .... Frontispiece The Wheat Cradle of Earlier Days 4 The Twentieth-Century Reaper at Work .... 6 Modern Farming in the Middle West 10 A Department That Should be Represented in Every Rural School 54 New Center of Correlation in Rural-School Curriculum 64 A Practical Lesson in Agriculture 70 A Manual Training Class and What It Made . . 96 A High School Class in an Agricultural Laboratory . 96 Judging Poultry at a Rural School 100 Coop and Brooder Made by Boys of a Consolidated School 100 Lester Bryant, Champion Boy Corn Grower . . . 106 District School Building 216 State Superintendents Leaving Crawfordsville, Indiana 218 An Old Log Schoolhouse 218 Consolidated School at Twin Falls, Idaho . . . 230 Indiana State Champion Basket Ball Team . . . 250 Rural High-School Orchestra 250 A Hurdle Race by Rural Schoolboys 252 A Consolidated Building 256 A Rural Community Center 256 The Farm Boy 258 Judging Cattle at a Rural School 260 Judging Horses at a Rural School 260 The Way the Old District School Sends Its Pupils Home 308 One of the Best Types of School Hacks .... 308 The Bad Road 314 Changing Bad Roads into Good 314 A Model District School 384 Modern District Schoolroom 390 Getting a Drink 408 The Modern Way 408 The Whiting School Playground 438 Transportation by Trolley 468 Farmers and Farmers' Boys Judging Corn .... 470 School Children and Progressive Farmers Meeting Corn Extension Train 470 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS PART I THE DEMAND FOR BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS CHAPTER I THE NEW OUTLOOK Almost three centuries have passed since the American common-school system had its birth. During all this time the rural school has been an important part of that school system and a significant factor in our country's history. From the beginning our people have deeply be- lieved in education, and have often sacrificed much to obtain its advantages. When the pioneers have pushed out to occupy new territory, they have never failed to take the school with them. Hardly have the cabin homes been erected before the rural schoolhouse has appeared. Born in the travail of poverty, and nourished not infre- quently through sacrifice almost of the very necessities of life, it is no wonder that the rural school has secured such a hold on our affections. In the early rural school were taught the "three R's" of the older day — the reading, writing and arithmetic that Early school con- constituted the school training of the *^*^°^s pioneers. The education received was meager enough, but it served its day. For the life to be met in those times demanded a rugged muscular endurance and the physical daring to be developed in the actual strug- gle for a livelihood rather than in schools. And few of that generation outside the learned professions possessed I 2 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS an education extending beyond the simple rudiments ob- tained in the rural school or the scarcely more advanced schools of the villages. All honor to these hardy pio- neers, the fearless men and women who, lacking many of the educational opportunities which their children and grandchildren have had, were still able to lay so deep and sure the foundations of our nation ! The old-time rural school occupied a large place in the social as well as the intellectual life of the entire com- The social side of munity. For it was the center of old-time schools much truly educational activity be- sides the formal exercises of the school. Here were held the neighborhood spelling schools, attended and enjoyed by old and young for miles around. Here the neighbor- hood debating society held its fortnightly meetings dur- ing the long winter periods, and discussed the great so- cial and political questions that were agitating the young nation. School "exhibitions" afforded opportunity for training the oratorical powers of the ambitious youth who was later to win renown in the legislature or in the halls of congress. The "singing school" was organized for the lovers of music, and the "ciphering" match was held for such as were ambitious to display their mathe- matical prowess. Here both old and young assembled to the jingling tune of the winter sleigh-bells and, amid song and speech and laughter, joined in a merry time. Here new acquaintances were made, old friendships renewed, courtships begun, and a thousand other advantages at- tained which are impossible without a common neighbor- hood meeting-place and social center. The memory of the "little red schoolhouse" will rightly long be cherished among us as one of our dearest possessions from the earlier days. THE NEW OUTLOOK 3 But the age and conditions that gave birth to the old- time rural school have passed away never to return. The Environment of rural school had its origin at a time pioneer schools when the nation wsls small and strug- gling, and when poverty stared almost every family in the face. It grew up while the battle was yet being waged to wrest a living from the untamed forest or the reluctant virgin prairies. The early rural schoolhouse not infre- quently looked out on roving bands of Indians bent on no peaceful errands. And its echoes were now and then awakened by the howl of the wolf and the cry of the panther. It was built of logs cut from the near-by forest ; its windows were of greased paper, for no glass was to be had. The benches were made of ax-hewn slabs rest- ing on wooden posts, and were innocent of backs. The room was heated by a fireplace occupying the rear of the building. A rough desk and chair for the master, a bunch of quills for the making of pens, and the omnipresent birch within his easy reach completed the equipment of the school. Truly a primitive school, but it belonged to a pioneer day and was a worthy representative of the rugged life of its times. Since those times, however, our nation has gone through a marvelous social and industrial transforma- Changes in indus- tion. The farmer, who, in the earlier trial conditions days, toiled and sacrificed to send his son to the little district school, himself traveled in the lumbering stage-coach when he made a journey; to-day he rides in his automobile, on the interurban, or on the limited express, enjoying every comfort found in his own home. At that day he broke his ground with a wooden- share plow, planted his corn by hand and cultivated it with a hoe ; now, he has the gang-plow, the check-rower 4 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS ■ and the riding cultivator. Then, he cut his grain with a cradle and threshed it with a flail; now, he drives the self-binder and has his threshing done by the steam- driven self-feed, automatic-stacker thresher. At that time, his house was built of logs, heated by a fireplace and lighted with tallow candles ; to-day, his home is roomy and modern, heated by furnace or steam, well lighted, well furnished and abreast of the times. Then, when the season was not too busy, he could meet and talk with his neighbor perhaps once a fortnight or once a month ; now, his telephone connects him not only with all his neighbors, but with all the great world outside. Then, if perchance he found time to go to the post-office, he received a small local paper once a week; now, the daily papers, the farm journals and other magazines are delivered each morning at his door. In those days he had the family Bible and a scant half-dozen other books to read; now, he has a library in his home. Then, the little rural school to which he sent his son would furnish him with an education equal to that possessed by others of his day ; but now, such a school leaves him far below the average of present-day education, and not adequately equipped for his life and work on the farm. It is evident, then, that schools which served the pur- pose well during the last century will not now suffice. Times have changed. The world is on the move. New standards have arisen, and new demands are in force. We no longer go to war with the old flint-lock or the Springfield, but with an automatic machine that will shoot several times a second for hours without ceasing. Physicians are yet practising who were able to enter on their professions with no schooling worthy of the name. One such doctor has just died, after thirty years* THE NEW OUTLOOK 5 practise of medicine. His sole preparation was a few months' study of veterinary medicine. He found it more profitable to practise on people than horses, and there was no law to prevent. Before he could enter on the practise of medicine to-day he would be required in most states to have four years at high school ; and in some states in addition to spend from two to four years in college; and finally three or four years in the medical school. Similar changes have come about in the require- ments for law, the ministry and commercial occupations. And the trades and other industrial vocations also de- mand a correspondingly increased degree of preparation and skill. But perhaps the greatest changes of all have come in the field of agriculture. It means much more to be a New standards in farmer now than even a generation agriculture ago. The difference is at least as great as in the case of the doctor, the lawyer, or the worker in a technical trade. Land has doubled, trebled, or quad- rupled in value, while at the same time losing something of its original productivity. It must therefore be so farmed as to overcome this loss, and return a fair interest or rent on a valuation of from one hundred to two hun- dred dollars an acre. The successful farmer must be something of a scientist. He must master the principles underlying the rotation of crops. He must know the nature of the different soils and their adaptability to the various plant products. He must understand the cultivation and growth of the differ- ent grains, grasses and vegetables. He must be familiar with the weeds and the insects that prey on his fields. He must have a knowledge of the breeding and the care of stock. He must be a business man, and understand the 6 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS markets for his grain and his stock. He should also be a mechanic, and understand the building, draining and other improvements necessary to the farm. The old type of rural school can not prepare for the problems of the modern farm. It has therefore had its Farm children's day. It belongs with the period of need of education home-made shoes, the scythe and the stone churn. It is not capable of supplying the educa- tion required by the twentieth-century rural boy or girl. They need, and have a right to, a better education than their parents or grandparents had. They require a prep- aration that will fit them to understand and carry out all the problems of successful present-day farming. They should also have their interests broadened and their minds developed through a knowledge of the world's great literature, its science, its history, its art and its music. Given material surroundings and equipment al- most infinitely in advance of those possessed by the former generation, they must also be given the mental training to match, else they will find themselves handi- capped in the presence of the new conditions, and will desert the farms for other lines of occupation. The farmer's school has always been, and should con- tinue to be, the rural school. But it must be a rural school that is abreast with the times, and not one on the level of a former century. It must keep step with the progress that is taking place in other lines, and with the new demands being made on agriculture. It must be able to educate the children of to-day for the farms of to-day. The rural school must be able to offer the farm child as good an education as that available to the town or city child, though this education will of necessity be in part a different education. THE NEW OUTLOOK 7 Can the rural schools as they average over our country now measure up to the new requirements being placed Can the rural °" *^^"^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^P^ P^^^ ^^^^ school meet its de- other lines of social and industrial "^^"*^^' progress? Is the education afforded the farm boy and girl in our present rural schools as much better than that given their parents or grandparents as the present demands on education are greater than the former demands ? Is the rural child now receiving rela- tively as good an education as the rural child of the earlier day ? Has he provided for him as good an educa- tion as the town child receives? Is the rural school as good as the rural community can afford ? It is to be feared that such questions will in the main have to be answered in the negative. It is true that in Rural and town some regions of the country the rural schools compared schools have been improved and de- veloped until they now afford at least the rudiments of an excellent education for the children of the farm. But this is the exception rather than the rule. The old type of rural school is altogether too common in most parts of the country. While the town and city schools have been advancing in efficiency, the rural school has in too many cases stood where it was a lifetime ago. The town schools of the present day are generally housed in excel- lent buildings, planned both for architectural beauty and adaptability to the work of the school. The equipment is modern and efficient. The rooms are well decorated, and made attractive and homelike. Libraries are stocked with books, and laboratories adequately supplied with apparatus and material. The schools are well graded and managed, trained and efficient teachers are employed, and fair salaries paid. 8 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS But it is not so in the rural school. Too many rural schools are still sheltered in the pitiful little one-roomed Present status of building, ugly in appearance, heated by rural schools an unprotected stove in the middle of the room, lighted by opposite rows of shadeless win- dows, and ventilated hardly at all. The grounds are usually as desolate as the building, covered with un- mown grass and weeds, and destitute of shade trees. The interior of the room is often dingy and dirty, the windows and floor are unwashed, and the walls are without decorations. There are but few books, often no apparatus, and not infrequently a shortage of all supple- mental supplies necessary to teaching. The school is of necessity poorly classified, since the one teacher has all the grades under her charge. The teacher is usually overworked, often undertaking to hear as many as thirty recitations a day. She has, as a rule, had but little ex- perience, and no special training for her work. Too often she comes from a town or city home with no knowl- edge of farm life or conditions, and little interest in coun- try boys and girls. Thus the gap between the farm home and the school is still further increased. If the whole truth be told, thousands of our rural schools are not far- ing as well as they did fifty years ago. For then there were fewer graded schools and high schools to tempt the best teachers away from the district school. Hence a good teacher could often be kept for years in the same rural school ; now he is soon called to the town or city, and the rural school must take a young and an in- experienced teacher, or be satisfied with those who re- main after the city has had its pick. Nor is the actual amount of education received by the rural child to-day greatly in advance of that of the THE NEW OUTLOOK 9 earlier day. Except in the more favored regions it is the exception rather than the rule for children to complete the eight grades of the rural schools. It is much more common for pupils to drop out of school somewhere from the third to the fifth grade, having mastered little more than the "three R's" of the old-time district school. They have learned to read, but have not yet read enough to develop an interest in good reading. They know almost nothing of their country's history, or its form of govern- ment. In this age of science, they are ignorant of the great scientific inventions and discoveries. They have learned but little concerning their bodies, and the hy- gienic laws on which their own health and happiness de- pend. They have received little or no instruction bear- ing directly on the work of the farm or the care of the farm home. With splendid powers of mind awaiting de- velopment, these powers are allowed to go relatively un- developed through lack of education. These children are not making the most of themselves. Visit your old home school of twenty-five or fifty years ago. Too often you will find the same old build- ing, ugly and small and weathered and inhospitable. There you will see the same old battered door whose latch you could then hardly reach ; the same rickety and carved desks where you sat with feet not touching the floor; the same cramped and barren room, ceiled with boards painted a dismal drab ; the same diminutive patch of blackboard, cracked, uneven and shiny ; the same ab- sence of books and apparatus for the school; the same meager and overcrowded program, but now poorly taught by an inexperienced and unprepared girl from a city school. The stumbling recitations, the listless study and the futile waste of precious time and opportunity are 10 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS pitifully out of accord with the spirit of efficiency and progress of the present day. All this is below the standards of our times, and a grave injustice to the children of the farm. These boys Farm children ^"^ ^ir^s have a right to as good an have a right to education as that given to the chil- better education ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^j^j^g^ ^^f^y not? Are they less intelligent than the town boy and girl? Are they less interested in their work or less in- dustrious in their studies? Do they not make as good use of their education? Are they not entitled to their share of the happiness and success which only a good education can give them ? There are no brighter or more responsive children in our whole school system than those coming from the farm homes. Yet they are too com- monly found in a little, insufficient rural school that has had its day, and that should pass into history along with the log cabin, the wooden plow and the ox cart. These rural boys and girls represent the best blood, brawn and brain of any group of American people. They are not afraid to work. They are earnest and sincere. They greatly profit by a good education, and are seriously handicapped without it. The nation owes them a more efficient and practical education than they are receiving. This better service in the public schools can be had for our rural children, and it will be given to them. For the The farmer can farmer is prosperous and abundantly support better able to educate his children. And he schools jg ambitious to do so when he sees the necessity, and understands the directions that improve- ment in education should take. Let the farmer but fully comprehend how far his child is from having educational opportunities equal to those provided for town and city THE NEW OUTLOOK ii children; let him but see how greatly his child is handi- capped by lack of training with reference to the life and work of the farm ; let him but understand how far the old type of district school is behind the times ; and he will be the first to seek a remedy for these conditions. The farmer has the wealth, and will not hesitate to see it taxed for the education of his children ; he has the intel- ligence rightly to value true education ; he will finally be the most potent factor in the reconstruction of the rural school when he has come to see its great possibilities. Indeed the farmer is already awakening to the new necessities for education for his children. This is seen in the alarming tendency of farmers to move in increas- ingly larger numbers to the towns in order to obtain bet- ter educational facilities. A recent investigation among a large number of families who had deserted farm life for the town showed that more than four out of five gave the inefficiency of the rural school as the chief reason for the change. These farmers felt the obligation to give their children an education equal to the demands soon to be placed on them, and saw no way to accomplish it in the present rural school as it exists in their community. Grave social and industrial dangers lurk in the move- ment now going on from the farms to the towns Social and indus- and cities. Not the least of these trial dangers jg the effect on the middle-aged parents who, long accustomed to the life and work of the farm, are asked suddenly to change all their habits of life. Older people do not, at best, adapt themselves to new conditions so easily as younger ones, and in this case the new conditions place the father and mother at a de- cided disadvantage. The farmer misses the interests, the life, the activities to which he is accustomed. There is 12 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS nothing for him to do, and trained to a life of work, he does not know how to employ his new-found leisure. Hence, leisure soon degenerates into idleness and discon- tent. The zest is gone from life, and health and longevity are threatened. The farm mother, moving to the town, misses the old environment hardly less. True, she still has her household to look after, but the old duties con- nected with the farm home are gone, and new pathways have to be blocked out. The old neighbors, friends of a score of years, are no longer at hand, and the clubs and social organizations of the town are strange and unfamil- iar. Arduous and trying as was her work in the old home, something of happiness and tranquillity was lost in the change to the new. A second great disadvantage coming from the urbani- zation of our people is the irreparable loss to the farm itself. When the farmer moves to town with his family, not only does the farm lose the services of the heads of the family — the father and mother who are usually still in the working prime of life — but in too many cases it also permanently loses the boys and girls who are taken to town for their education. For the education of the tozvn school does not lead to the farm, but away from it. That this is true even of the smaller towns and villages is abundantly proved by the relatively small proportion of its farm-born pupils who return to an agricultural career. The drain from the farm is so great that for the present generation it has amounted to about one per cent, a year. Need of more and And this has been going on at a time better farmers when the country has been urgently in need of more and better farmers, that through their in- creased numbers and efficiency the cost of living might THE NEW OUTLOOK 13 be reduced ; it has been going on at a time when the pro- fessions have been greatly overcrowded, and do not need an accession of numbers; it has been going on at a time when we already have too large a proportion of our people in the towns and cities seeking to make a living through selling commodities instead of producing them; it has been going on at a time when the vocation of farm- ing has been offering greater opportunities and larger re- wards than ever before in our history. And when it is remembered that those who leave for the purpose of edu- cation are, on the average, the more enterprising and intelligent of our rural people, it also becomes evident that there must be some lowering of our farming popu- lation in quality, as well as numbers, through the move- ment. It is true that there are many other factors than a de- sire for education responsible for the agricultural exodus Other factors lead- to the towns. Many of the very in- ing from the farm fluences that have made the life of the farm broader and more interesting have had a tendency to foster a spirit of discontent with farm life and a desire for a more varied experience. The daily papers make the farm youth familiar with the life of the city. Magazines and journals familiarize him with the daring and re- Avards of great commercial enterprises. Books broaden the mind and extend the interests beyond the routine of the daily farm life. The automobile and the train give him a glimpse of the world of recreation and pleasure. Natural social impulses cause him to shrink from isola- tion and seek association with the people daily brought to his mind through reading or imagination. Yet most of these tendencies are very closely related to 14 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS a broader education, and to the functions rightly belonging to the rural school. The rural school can, at its best, do The opportunity rnuch to remove the false glamour of the rural school from the city by making the country more attractive. It can open up the way to and prepare for a career in agriculture in every way comparable with the commercial careers open in the cities. It can unlock to the farm youth the treasures of literature, history, sci- ence and art. It can afford opportunities for recreation, amusement, and social mingling with others so necessary to the development and happiness of the young. In short, the rural school occupies a strategic position in the life and welfare of our rural communities. It will be the greatest factor in advancing the agricultural movement now gathering headway in the nation, or else, failing to grasp its opportunity, will prove a stumbling-block, and be supplanted by town and village schools. It is left for the rural school to join hands with the farmer and offer the farm boy and girl a better education Encouraging than the town can give them — better signs in that it is adapted to their needs and prepares them for their duties. And the rural school will rise to its opportunities. It is already rising; indeed, it has risen in many places. Som.e of the most marvelous educational advances made in our generation have taken place in the rural schools. It will be our purpose in the following chapters to describe some of these lines of prog- ress, and show how they can be extended to still other rural schools. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY I. Why is the rural school used so much less as a social center now than formerly ? Will it be possible for THE NEW OUTLOOK 15 the school again to take up this function ? If so, how can it be brought about ? 2. Why has the rural school fallen so far behind urban schools in recent educational progress ? 3. Is there any validity in the seeming assumption that rural children can not be expected to have so good an education as town children? (Economic and social fac- tors.) 4. To what extent do you think that the failure of the rural school to measure up to its responsibilities is ac- countable for the present drift from the farms to the towns and cities ? How can the rural school be used as a force to hold young people to the country instead of driving them from it? 5. Do you know the percentage of illiteracy among those over ten years of age in your school district? Township ? County ? State ? 6. Make a comparison of the school improvements effected in the town and country schools of your county during the last fifteen or twenty years : (a) in buildings and equipment; (b) in curriculum; (c) in requirement for teachers, and salaries paid. Has not rural prosperity increased at least as fast as town prosperity? 7. How many farmers of your township have moved from their farms to town during the last five years? What are they now doing in town? In how many in- stances did they go to town for better school facilities? Is it in general true that those who have been leaving their farms average a higher and more progressive type than those who remain? 8. Do you think that country schools can be made as efficient as town schools ? That country life can be made as attractive as town life? If so, what factors are re- quired in each case to accomplish such a result ? CHAPTER II THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY Efficiency is the demand of the age. This demand has been slow in reaching the rural schools, but it is now making itself felt. The pressure for better facilities for the education of farm boys and girls is becoming insistent in nearly every section of the country. Marvelous ad- vance has already been made in many communities, and large plans are now under way in others. Owing to the problems arising from this reconstruction, it is worth while to ask ourselves what constitutes efficiency in the rural schools, how it is to be measured, and how obtained. How are we to tell whether a particular rural school, or type of schools, is yielding the highest possible returns? How shall we go to work to increase the efficiency of all our rural schools ? If it were as easy to measure the efficiency of a school as that of an engine or a factory, the problem would be Difficulty in meas- simple. But such is not the case. For uring school effi- the final outcome of the education of "®""^^ a child can not be told until years have passed. And even then, many factors besides his schooling have entered into his success or failure. It is therefore impossible to fix the exact proportion of re- sponsibility which the school must bear in determining the results of a life. But there are, nevertheless, some i6 THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 17 measures that we can apply to the efficiency of a school without depending on the more remote and uncertain ones. There are certain accepted business principles as immediately applicable to the running of schools as to the operation of factories or farms. One of the first measures of the efficiency of a school is its drazving pozver — the proportion of those of school Drawing power a ^^e in the community who are found measure of effi- within its walls. Do the children at- "^"^y tend school, or do they drop out at the third, fourth or fifth grade, not having developed an in- terest in education or discovered its relation to their wel- fare and success? Is the school running with half the attendance it should have, while the other half of the boys and girls are entering on life handicapped from the lack of what the school should be able to give them ? An- other phase of the same question has to do with the regu- larity of attendance of those who are enrolled. It costs as much to run the school when half or two-thirds of the pupils belonging are present as when all are. And the school itself will run much more satisfactorily and smoothly when all are present than when only a part are in attendance. Here then is an important test of school efficiency — is the school able to command the full time of its pupils, or do they remain out unnecessarily or for trivial reasons ? Are they and their parents ready to sacrifice if need be that the children may be at school every day, or is absence taken lightly and as a matter of course? Is school-going a serious business looked upon seriously, or is it largely incidental ? Let us seek answers to these questions. The full elementary course of eight years occupies about nine months of the child's time each year from the tS BETTER RURAU SCHOOLS ' age of five or six to thirteen or fourteen. And if tHe high school is also included, a corresponding amount of Time required for time each year will be required up to school course the age of seventeen or eighteen. The proportion of children between these ages who are in the schools will therefore afford one measure of the rural school's efficiency in attracting and holding its con- stituency. There are no statistics available showing the exact pro- portion of rural children of certain ages who are enrolled in school, yet the approximate facts are known. Count- ing all schools, both rural and town or city, one-quarter of the states have at least eighty-five per cent, of all chil- dren between five and eighteen registered in school; an- other quarter have at least eighty per cent, between five and eighteen in school; a third quarter, about seventy- five per cent. ; and the remaining quarter, less than sev- enty per cent. When it is remembered that these statistics include all town and city schools as well as rural schools, and that the proportion of country children in school is frequently less than half that of town children, it is seen that we greatly need to increase the drawing power of the rural school. Counties may be found in many rich and intelligent states where hardly a score of children in the whole county annually complete the work of the eighth grade of the rural school, and consequently where very few rural pupils are to be found in high school. It is probably safe to say that our rural children are on the average quitting school with not more than four out of the eight years of elementary school work. This amount ^" of education must in the long run spell industrial and social inferiority for our agricultural people. Efficiency demands, therefore, that the rural school shall be able to THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 19 1. VERMONT 2. MAINE 3. CONNECTICUT C 4. COLOFIADO 5. IOWA 6 MONTANA 7. OHIO a MASSACHusrrrs a WASHINGTON 10. IDAHO 11. N. HAMPSHIRE 12. N.DAKOTA »3. ARIZONA 14. ILLINOIS 15. FLORIDA 16. OKLAHOMA 17. NEW yORK 18. KANSAS 19. RHODE I5LANDI 2Q NEBRASKA 21. UTAH 22. INDIANA 23. TENNESSEE 24. WYOMING [ 25. MICHIGAN 2e. NEW JERSEY Z7. N.CAROLINA 28. W. VIRGINIA 29. MISSISSIPPI 50. PENN5YLVANI 51. MISSOURI 3Z S.DAKOTA 53. MINNESOTA 34. ARKANSAS 35. WISCONSIN «56. CALIFORNIA 37. OREGON 38. DELAWARE 39. KENTUCKY 40. N.MEXICO 41. MARYLAND 42. GEORGIA 45 S. CAROLINA [ 44. VIRGINIA 45. ALABAMA 46. TEXAS 47. NEVADA 4-a LOUISIANA SO 90 too Per cent, of the school population enrolled in 1910. White indicates children :n public schools, shaded in private schools, and black not in any ^"^ °°'" —Courtesy of Russell Sage Foundation. i20 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS command a greater supply of the raw material of educS-' tion — the boys and girls who are within reach of these schools and suffering for the want of what the school should be able to give them. A larger proportion of the farm children must be brought to enroll in the rural school, and held for a longer time under its influence. To obtain this result will require both new ideals in the organization and work of the school, and the personal in- Influence of fluence of capable and devoted teach- teacher in holding ers. Possibilities in these directions pupils in school ^j.g suggested by a typical incident oc- curring in a western rural school. A young man was en- gaged to teach in a certain district where there were two brothers, fifteen and seventeen years of age, who had dropped out of school in the third and fourth grades re- spectively. Their parents could barely read and write, and the boys were but little more advanced. Of course they had no notion of ever again entering school, but were settling down in sullen doggedness to the work of the old farm, which showed the effects of low standards and poor methods of cultivation. Our young teacher visited this home a week before the opening of the term. He imderstood the boys, and wanted to help them. He invited them to enter the school. The boys were not en- thusiastic. Our young teacher called again a few days later. He had thought of a new idea. He talked to the boys about the new studies now taught in the rural school. He described the work in agriculture and manual train- ing which they could enter, and its relation to their suc- cess on the farm. They became interested; and they liked the young teacher who cared enough about them to want to help them. These boys enrolled in his school on the opening day, and are now among his most en- THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 21 RHOflE ISLANO NEW YORK MA5SACVIU3ETT31 MARYLAND CONNECTICUT MONTANA NEW JERSEY CAUFORNIA WISCONSIN NEBRASKA OEXAWARE WASHlNeTON IOWA MICHIGAM ILLINOIS Ohio PENNSYLVANIA! a DAKOTA UTAH hi HAMP5HIRE KANSAS VERMONT MAINC C0U5RAD0 MISSOURI MINNESOTA N. DAKOTA INDIANA NEVADA GEORGIA WYOMING OKLAHOMA VIRGINIA OREGON IDAHO LOUISIANA ARIZONA W VIRGINIA TEXAS TENNE53EC '' KENTUCKY MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA ARKANSAS FLORIDA S CAROLINA N. CAROLINA I N MEXICO Length of school year and average attendance in each state in 1910, Each small square represents one day schools are kept open. Shaded por- tions indicate average attendance. — Courtesy of Russell Sage Foundation. 22 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS thusiastic pupils, leading their classes in agriculture and manual training, and making rapid progress in their other studies. This case, with varying details, of course, could be duplicated in thousands of other rural com- munities where boys and girls have become discouraged and quit school too soon. Given the right kind of teach- ers and right conditions within the school, it would not be difficult to double the enrollment of the rural schools. But increasing the enrollment in rural schools is not all. Efficiency also demands that the school year be made Length of school longer in many schools. To complete y^^^ the elementary school course requires for the average child approximately eight years of one hundred and eighty days each. But comparatively few rural schools have one hundred and eighty days of school a year. Even counting in the town and city schools, there are only nine of our forty-eight states that keep their schools open for an average of nine months each year, and half of them average less than seven months. The rural schools in general average a school year not more than two-thirds to three-fourths as long as that of towns and cities ; hence we find the rural school year running from about four months in certain states to eight months in others, and probably averaging not more than six months for all. What would we think of the efficiency of a factory which had available the plant and raw ma- terial for steady employment, but which shut down for a half of each year, leaving its patronage wanting in the product it was to supply? Yet that is what the rural school is doing in altogether too many instances. Not only is the rural school year short, but the real attendance year is shorter still. For the attendance in many schools is very irregular, with from a third to a .THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 2Z half of the pupils absent every day. In not more than half of the states will the average daily attendance in rural schools reach two-thirds of those enrolled ; in other states the daily attendance is barely more than half the enrollment. This means, of course, that, on the whole, the children enrolled in the rural schools come to school only every other day, or at best but two days out of three. It will manifestly not solve the problem to increase the length of the school year, without at the same time improving the regularity of attendance. For this would but cause additional expense without commensurate re- turns. The combined result of the short school year together with the short attendance year is rather appalling. For, Results of short ^^^ ^^ assume that each rural child is time attendance to complete the full eight-year ele- mentary course ; because of the short year and irregular attendance, however, it will take him much more than eight years to finish the course. In fact, in at least one- fourth of our states, it would require fully tzventy years to complete the elementary course at the rate of attend- ance now obtaining. Even in such typical agricultural states as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, sixteen years would he necessary to complete the eight-year course with the rural-school attendance year what it now is. This is to say that, on such a basis, an average pupil entering the rural school at the age of six, would receive his eighth- grade certificate at the age of twenty-two years. If he should go on through a high school at the same rate, he would have earned his high-school diploma by the time he was thirty. Of course this is preposterous, and ob- viates the necessity of further argument to show the necessity for reform^ 24 BETTER RURAL! SCHOOLS So much for our first measure of efficiency. It reveals one of the greatest weaknesses of our rural-school sys- tem — the waste of money, time and The waste of time opportunity through failure of the school to gather its pupils and hold them a sufficiently long time in attendance. The situation finds its analogy in agriculture, where time and attention have recently been given to obtain a more perfect stand of corn. We have come to see the folly of plowing, planting and culti- vating a field that has only two-thirds of the stalks it should have. For this means a waste of land, of labor and of returns. So with the rural schools. They do not have a sufficiently large "stand." We supply buildings and equipment, and employ teachers for approximately half the pupils that should he in attendance. What a lamentable waste! No commercial business could run on this basis without ending in bankruptcy. Nor can we aflford to conduct our schools on so low a scale of ef- ficiency. A second great measure of school efficiency is the type of education afforded. Is the training given what the The type of educa- community most needs for its own tion and efficiency interests and welfare ? Does the school serve to fit the pupils into the concrete activi- ties and obligations of later life? Specifically, does the rural school make better farmers, citizens and keep- ers of homes? Does it not only supply the broad and general foundations of knowledge which all must have, but does it help the boy in the problems of agriculture, stock raising, and the mechanical work of the farm ? Does it train the girl to understand and care for the farm home, making it comfortable, hygienic and artistic? Does it serve to attract its pupils to farm life, instead of driv- THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 25 5 HAitMMViini Pupils in high schools and colleges for each 1,000 enrolled in elementary schools in 1910. — Courtesy of Russell Sage Foundation. 26 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS ing them from it? Here again we may seek answers to our questions from actual facts and conditions. The rural school should help the farmer to obtain greater returns from the labor he expends, and at the Duty of the rural ^ame time aid him in providing a school to its pa- larger supply of food for the millions *^°"^ who are dependent on the yield of the soil for their daily bread. The farmers are perhaps the hardest-working and most frugal of all our industrial classes, but much of their labor goes for naught through lack of the knowledge and skill required for the largest returns from their work. It is safe to say that they could double the profits from the farms with little addi- tional labor, if they would but put into practise as good methods of farming and stock raising as are now known and easily available to all. And the most natural and ef- fective way to put the farmer into possession of the sci- entific knowledge and skill required is through the rural school. Many rural schools have awakened to their opportu- nity, and are adding to the wealth of their communities Lines of opportun- ^^ introducing better methods of ity open to rural farming. The great need for further schools work along these lines is seen in a few illustrations. It was estimated by experts that the farmers of Indiana, in the season of 19 ii averaged sev- enty per cent, of a perfect stand of corn; and that ap- proximately a perfect stand could have been had through two additional expedients, the testing of the seed and better preparation of the soil for planting. The farmers of Indiana planted 5,000,000 acres of corn for that sea- son's crop. But a seventy per cent, stand means that only 3,500,000 acres actually grew corn. Thus the farm- THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 27 " . O' *. je rcrORK A CALIFORNIA 5 CONNECTICUT b OHIO 7 NE.W JiRSVr e ILLINOIS 9 COLORADO 10 IfMDIANA 1 1 RHODt ISLAND 12 V£R^1CNT 13 NtW riAMRJHIRE 14 UTAH 15 ORLGON 16 MONTANA 17 MICrilQAN 18 N DAKOTA 19 IDAHO ta MINNESOTA l\ IOWA tZ MAINE. ^3 PENNSYLVAKIIA LA KAN5AS ZS NEBRA&KA 26 5 DAK.OTA ^7 Nt-VADA 26 WlSCON^ilM ^9 WYOMING 50 ARIZONA 31 OKLAHOMA 52 MISSOURI 3J W. VIRGINIA M FLORIDA 35 DELAWARE 56 MARYLAND 37 TtNNE5StE 58 TEXAS 39 LOUISIANA 40 NEW MEXICO 41 VIRGINIA 42 KENTUCKY 4i ARKANSAS 44 GEORGIA 45 Ml^iS6\ppi £t> N CAROLINA Al 6. CAROLINA ^ ALABAMA Chil- dren IN SCHOOL EXPENSE PER cmtD iCdOOL- DAYJ P£R cm ID AT TENC- ANCE tXPENB ITURE AHO WEALTH ftftlUf cosr HIGH hoioou iAL- ARIL$ r>;,',v:'ii lEZ iyy;;^^%^<-^^L MBewp'^ |[^;';:V:^J IZIZII v^;?^jr;/;^7r t^;" /;;;/ii I • ir^'"'"i[- — -w — :;—' ^^■■v-^\ --•iry ■II IZ^^M. ^2n W/////AV/////A\- \Y///y//A T '""11 l^.'.. .'.'j V/////AV:. ZT 1 \y//4yAV///)7 ^^Z^7P. V///////. r ^ • vmrmxyjiUK'X - :' " xw/mmmm^ \':i!Mm\mmfWjii^yyj^mmm\: ^-mmm^ \mMmmmmmmm\ Chart by states showing the rank of each state in ten educational fea- tures. — Courtesy of Russell Sage Foundation. 36 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS enough not only to pay for the manual-training outfit, but also greatly to increase it. But best of all was the new interest aroused in the school throughout the com- munity. Here was something tangible, a very definite link between the work of the school and the interests of the farm. The result has been a fully equipped school, with a broader and better curriculum, and loyal support on the part of an increased patronage. And this greater efficiency, which all originated with a hen coop, has ex- tended until it has included a finer school spirit, and bet- ter work in all the studies. The experience of a young teacher in a Minnesota rural school illustrates the same point. When he entered on Support ready ^^^ duties he found the school poorly when returns are equipped, the interest of the pupils assured ^^ ^ j^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ almost total lack of educational spirit in the community. The district was situated in the midst of a dairying region. The young man struck an idea. He prevailed on a local creamery to give the school a cream tester. Then he taught both the boys and the girls how to use it. Samples of cream were brought from all the homes. Reports of the tests were sent back with the children. Farmers awoke to the fact that there is a great difference in the cream pro- ducing qualities of cows. They were astonished to find that they were keeping certain cows at an actual loss. On the strength of the school tests one man disposed of ten out of his herd. The farmers all grew interested, and conducted tests for themselves, the result being greatly increased earnings on many farms. But more marked than all was the changed attitude toward the school. Loyalty took the place of indifference, the tone of the work improved and finally a new and modern building THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 37 supplanted the old one. The school had convinced its constituency of its value in the community, and the com- munity immediately responded by giving the school both moral and financial support. This principle could be similarly illustrated in thou- sands of other rural schools scattered throughout the Industrial subjects ^^^^t^^" ^or need it be feared that a help to other the new emphasis bemg placed on studies industrial lines of work in the school will lower its efficiency in other subjects. The opposite is the case. The universal experience is that the new life and greater interest coming to the school through these practical subjects have reacted on the older branches much to their good. Another fruitful direction in which the rural school is extending its efficiency is that of supplying the com- The rural school munity with a general neighborhood, as a social center or social center. The dearth of amusement and the poverty of social meeting places in the country is one of its great drawbacks, and a source of discontent tending to draw people from the farm. The rural school can do much to remedy this lack, and at the same time increase its own efficiency. The last few years have seen scores of rural schoolhouses and grounds reconstructed with a view to making them avail- able for social as well as intellectual purposes. This movement is being rapidly extended in many states, and is one of the most promising forms of service opening up to the rural school. It may be said that these new ideals of efficiency will demand radical changes in many of our rural schools. Changes demanded That is true ; and many of them need by new ideals radical changes. But the changes re- 38 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS quired are all a practical and possible kind, and only such as have already been carried out in many of the more progressive rural schools. Nothing has been pro- posed that is not now in use in various schools widely scattered in different states. We shall need to change the rural school curriculum; many of the rural schools will need to be consolidated; better buildings must be supplied; better trained teachers must be provided, and they must receive larger salaries. These things are the price of efficiency. They can be had by such rural schools as are able through their present hold on the community to claim them ; the school gets only as it gives in return. How large numbers of rural schools increased their ef- ficiency, and how others may follow their example, will be more fully outlined in the following pages. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. What chief factors other than those of the school are operating to educate the child: (home activities, community, church, press, etc.) ? 2. What percentage of those between the ages of six and eighteen in your district who have not completed a full elementary course of eight years are not enrolled in school? What causes led to their dropping out? How many of them could still be induced to go to school if conditions were right ? 3. What is the average percentage attendance in your school ? In your county ? In your state ? Based on the number of days your school is open each year, and assum- ing that eight years of one hundred and eighty days each are required to complete the country school, how long would it require for the average of your school to finish the course? How long for your pupil with the highesl^ THE CALL FOR EFFICIENCY 39 average attendance? For the one with the lowest aver- age attendance? 4. Consider making for your county a chart by town- ships similar to the one on page thirty-five for the differ- ent states. 5. After studying the chart, decide in which of the tests of efficiency your state ought to rank higher than it does. (Note that the number of children in school and the value of the school depend in part on population and the size of the state.) What means would be required to bring about the improvement you suggest? 6. What have the rural schools of your region done in any direct and immediate attempt to relate their work more closely to the farm ? What are the next steps to be taken ? 7. It has been argued by some that instruction in agri- culture can not be made effective below the high school. What is your judgment on this question? 8. Make a careful analysis of the loyalty and interest and the disloyalty and indifference toward the school pre- vailing in your district : What percentage can you count as loyal and interested? As disloyal and indifferent? Can you suggest what is required to improve conditions ? PART II THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL CHAPTER III THE OLD CURRICULUM The modern rural school must have a broader and more practical curriculum than the old type of school. While it is a justifiable boast that our nation has a very low percentage of illiteracy, and while certain agricul- tural states where rural schools prevail have the lowest percentage of all, yet such a test for education will no longer serve. It is well worth while to have the advan- tages of education so well distributed that every citi- zen is able to read for himself concerning the world in which he lives ; and this is a great advantage over former centuries. But bare literacy is too low a standard to be taken in our day as a measure of education. The op- portunities are too great, and the demands too pressing for this to be adequate. Our quest must now go farther and ask to what extent education has prepared for the highest degree of efficiency. We must not be satisfied that most of our people possess a little educa- tion, but must make sure that they possess an education equal to the opportunities and demands of the age. It should therefore be assumed that every rural boy and girl of to-day is to learn the simple elements of Mere literacy no reading and writing. It is a crime longer a test against childhood and against civili- zation where it is otherwise. But we must next ask to what extent they have entered into the waiting heritage 43 44 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS of the world's great literature; do they like to read, and do they know what and how to read ? How far are they acquainted with the great lessons of civilization as re- vealed in history, and as shown in the development of their own country? How familiar are they with the machinery of government of their country, state and nation, and how ready patriotically to share its respon- sibilities? How well do they know the fruitful fields of modern science, especially as it relates to their own lives and bears upon their line of work? Have they secure in their possession the easily available knowledge of the science of agriculture and stock raising which will enable them to make highly successful farmers? Do they understand the economic principles underlying the successful business management of the modern farm and home? Do the girls know not only the routine of house- keeping as learned in their homes, but also the science that should guide in the selection and preparation of foods, and the hygienic care of their households? Have they had an opportunity to study the arts that will enable them to make their homes beautiful, as well as comfortable and healthful? Have both boys and girls trained their hands as well as their heads to work skil- fully, so that they have not only learned the dignity of labor, but have established high standards of excellence for all that their hands find to do? Are they grounded in the laws underlying physical health, and do they prize the purity and health of their bodies above rubies and diamonds? Is their education not only sufficient in amount, but also of the right kind to prepare them for the real experiences that await them in the estate of man- hood and womanhood on which they soon will enter? THE OLD CURRICULUM 45 In short, are these rural boys and girls equipped with an education that will give them a fair chance for success- ful living under the stress of twentieth-century condi- tions? All these questions must in some way be affirmatively answered by the rural schools ; for our farm children Vital subjects lack- must be supplied with these f unda- ing in rural school mental aspects of education. But such questions can not be so answered by the old type of rural school with its meager and narrow course of study. Most of these things can not be learned in our rural schools, for they are not taught there. These lines of study have been excluded from the rural schools partly because the one-room school can not teach so many things at once; partly because the place which some of these studies should take is occupied by sub- jects that might well give way for more useful ones; and partly because the need for them has not been fully realized. How many rural schools still teach essentially what the parents of the present generation studied in theii Old standards rural school-days ! Who of us can still prevail forget those early school experiences ! First we began on our "letters," our spelling and num- bers. We soon advanced to the dignity of reading and arithmetic, to which later geography, grammar, physiology and a small text in history were added. But the narrow and futile emptiness of the grind ! We went over the First Reader, and then over it again, until we knew it by heart. — "Do we go up ? We do go up. Will he go up ? He will go up." These and such like striking tales were our unvarying mental diet day after day for a whole year of reading. Then we attacked the Second 46 BETTER RURAU SCHOOLS Reader after the same fashion, and proceeded to weaf it out, both Hterally and figuratively, as we had done with its predecessor. So we advanced to the wonderful Third Reader and, if we continued in school beyond this grade, to the fourth, or finally, even to the fifth of the series. We read them all through from beginning to end. We reviewed them. Then we read them by selections made by the class ; finally, by selections made by the teacher. Thus for eight mortal years our thought and imagination were confined within the limits of a few piti- ful little collections of stories which we read threadbare, and finally exhausted, while all this time a great store- house full of beautiful things to read was waiting ready at hand. If only some one had unlocked the door for us, who can tell how much richer and more fruitful our lives might have been ! Why were we not allowed to explore these rich literary fields, instead of being compelled thus to mark time at their entrance? With like results we spent golden hours in grinding out the senseless tangles of impossible mathematical prob- Lack of practical lems never to be met outside the cov- value cf studies ers of our dog-eared arithmetics, while at the same time we would have been unable to solve the simplest problems of home or shop or farm. How we puzzled our small heads over the mysteries of partial payments, especially arranged for the torment of the small boy; over all sorts of discounts never used in business ; over profit and loss under conditions that would astonish merchant or banker ; over compound proportion of truly appalling proportions; over the reduction of all but irreducible fractions ; or over problems of imaginary hounds chasing imaginary hares for so many leaps of so many improbable lengths for such and such a distance, THE OLD CURRICULUM 47 and so on ad infinitum, until we were lost in the maze. But did it not, after all, train our powers of thought? Perhaps in some degree it did, but think of the oppor- tunity we lost of learning how to solve the real problems growing out of our actual life and work on the farm ! And, besides, these would not only have given us equally good mental training, but would at the same time have attracted interest to our study of arithmetic, and shown us the relation of our school work to the work outside. Education might then have appealed more strongly to us as the road to efficiency, and more of us might have taken it. And so also with much of the work in grammar. We learned that a sentence is "a thought expressed in words." Studies that do not ^^t we really came to believe that a relate to life sentence is a thing to be analyzed and diagrammed whenever and wherever met. That these sentences from the pages of the grammar belonged to the same world with the simple speech we were daily using, never entered our heads. We puzzled over the rules for indirect objects, and tried to understand the fine shades of difference between the object and the objective complement. We wondered at the distinctions causing one word to be classified as an adjective pronoun, and another as a pronominal adjective ; and took on faith the statement that a noun which expresses amount, dis- tance, time or direction has a right to be treated as an adverb. These things, all of which may be right and true enough, are perhaps of value to the advanced high- school student ; but they were fed to helpless children in the rural school when they were no more suited to our minds than beefsteak to the diet of a babe. There we were, at the age best adapted to learning the use of our 48 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS mother-tongue, compelled to spend our time on its logical structure. When we might have been storing our minds with beautiful stories and poems, thus learning perfect speech by example and imitation, we were studying the barren rules of grammar. When we ought to have been busy with oral and written speech used to express the real experiences and vital interests of our immediate lives, we were employed in the deadening process of ana- lyzing and diagramming the speech of other people. Un- consciously to our benighted minds we were begging for bread, but were given stones. It was not far different with the remainder of the studies. In the study of physiology we were treated as Useless versus use- embryo medical students, and made ful knowledge to commit to memory the names of all the bones of our bodies, and not a few of the muscles as well. We were expected to be able to trace the course of a particle of food from the time it was taken into the mouth until it had passed through all the marvelous trans- formations involved in digestion, absorption and assimi- lation, and become muscle, or bone, or other tissue. But little did we learn about the kind of food we should eat, or the manner of its eating. Little did we study con- cerning the really important things connected with the health and development of our bodies. We accepted toothache as one of the woes of childhood, and were taught nothing of the care of our teeth. If we had bad colds, these were but a part of the inconvenience of the winter season, and we did not discover that they are only the result of unhygienic living. Contagious diseases were to be shunned and dreaded, but we did not know that they could be prevented. We ought to have been taught how to develop strong, healthy and beautiful bodies, but ± THE OLD CURRICULUM 49 were instructed in meaningless facts beyond our compre- hension and unrelated to our physical needs. Hour after hour in the geography class we droned the names of unimportant capes, bays, straits, gulfs and Time wasted upon peninsulas, which, though we may senseless drill since have read and traveled much, we have yet to meet outside the old geography. We de- veloped great skill in "bounding" all the countries of Europe and Asia, but we actually knew very little of people or products outside the boundaries of our own township. We could glibly tell the names of the rivers, large and small, in many states, but had no notion whence the little creek that flowed past our playground came or whither it went. History meant to us chiefly a suc- cession of dates to be "committed," of wars to be traced, and of kings and presidents to be learned in chronolog- ical order. Great would have been our surprise had it dawned on us that there were real people like ourselves living and working at the times referred to by our dates, our wars, Our kings and presidents. But we will not further multiply illustrations. Indeed this account of the dreary waste of the precious oppor- Curriculum still tunities of childhood in the old dis- meager and narrow trict school would have no place at all in our present discussion except for the fact that the old conditions come so near representing the conditions that still exist in many of our rural schools. For the cur- riculum that has just been described is that of not a small proportion of the district schools of to-day, and the methods employed in teaching the subjects are not so different in some of them as they might be. But the change has begun. It is well under way in many places, and not a few of the most progressive rural schools have ■50 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS a range of studies affording an excellent education for the rural child. In planning the curriculum for the present-day rural school, it must not be forgotten that at least two great factors are calling for its enlargement and enrichment. First, most of the industrial lines of work formerly car- ried on in the home, and affording an excellent course in the practical phases of manual training and domestic science, have dropped out of the modern home, and must be given in the school if the child is not to be deprived of them. Second, under our newer ideal of education, as we have already seen, we are demanding a more practical training, with the aim of affording our children more immediate and concrete assistance in the every-day af- fairs of their lives ; and particularly must the education given in the rural schools relate itself closely to the life and work of the farm. The old-time home was the center of a varied group of industries in which each member of the family, from Industrial training the youngest child to the grandparent, in old-time home had a part. The flax for the linen of the household, and the wool for the clothing were raised on the farm, and every phase of their manufacture was carried out in the home. The children had a part in the clipping, carding, spinning and weaving of the wool. Did the son need a suit of clothes, the mother, without the help of a fashion-plate, shrunk and pressed the home- made cloth, cut it after a generous pattern treasured as an heirloom in the family, and made it by hand into the garments required. The style may not have been equal to that of the present day, but the suit represented a home industry from the time the wool was growing on the backs of the sheep in the field until it covered the back THE OLD CURRICULUM 51 of the lamb of the household. If a dress was required for the baby, or a trousseau for a bride, the process was the same ; the farm supplied the materials, and the home did the work. So it was with what went on the table. The fall "butch- ering day" was a great event. There was the bustle of Training in do- preparation, the heating of the cal- mestic science drons of water, the coming of the neighbors to help, and the little thrills of sorrow and anticipation with which the children paid a last visit to the pens of the victims. There was the he-o-he of the men as they soused the porkers in the barrel of hot water, the frantic haste of the scraping, and the smooth and shiny white skins of the pigs as they hung, nose down, from the chains out by the shed. And then the cutting up and the salting down in barrels, the making of wurst and headcheese, and the smoking of the hams out in the old smoke-house ! There was also the dairy-house, through which the trough ran from the spring, and the rows of shining pans for the milk. The cream was put into Lessons in cooking , , if,., the great stone churn, and the chil- dren took turns in working the plunger until the cream "broke," and the butter came. The pantry was laden with the great loaves of flaky home-made bread, rows of pies, jars of cookies fresh from the oven, plates of doughnuts and golden cakes. Rows on rows of dried apples and peaches hung in festoons from the rafters with brave disregard of the whole tribe of bacteria and mi- crobes. Great bags of dried sweet corn were suspended from the beams of the ceiling. And shelves full of pre- served plums, apples and berries were stored against the winter season. 52 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS Nor must we forget the workshop with its motley array of tools, and its treasure boxes full of odds and ends The boy and the suitable for mending anything from home workshop the fiddle to the hayrack. In this shop was made or repaired much of the furniture for the home, and most of the machinery for the farm. And the rainy days, which were the busiest of all! It was then that the well-worn shoes were half-soled, the har- ness oiled and patched, the rakes mended, and the scythes and cradles sharpened. In this old-time home every one was busy from morn- ing till night, week in and week out, with only the rare holiday as a relief from the steady toil. And in all the industry, the children had a responsible and important part. They early learned to use their hands, and to take pride in their manual skill ; they learned to work, and not to flinch before their tasks. They received an in- valuable course in manual training and domestic science, which in some of its aspects can never be duplicated in the schools no matter how good their equipment or how skilful their instruction. For these home industries possessed a concreteness hard to simulate in the work of the school. Here the incentives were real, the interests immediate, and the necessities pressing. But these days are gone. The factories have come and robbed the home of its varied industries. It is no one's Industrial changes ^^^^^ ; it could not be helped. The de- in the modern mon of enterprise came among us, "^® and we were obliged to change our manner of living. The mail carrier brings our mail, and the telephone runs our errands. There is little wood to cut, and the grocer supplies our fruit and vegetables. THE OLD CURRICULUM ^53 The pigs are now whirled to the city in a train of palace cars, passed through a packing-house and returned to us at astonishing prices as ham and bacon. And mother and the family no longer make the suits of clothes. Per- ish the thought ! With the help of a tape measure and a printed blank we may obtain the services of the city tailor, and you can not tell from the cut of our clothes whether we belong to Prairieville or Broadway. The baby's dress comes from the catalogue house, and the bride's trousseau from the city modiste. Tomatoes and sweet corn now grow in tin cans, and apples are picked from barrels instead of from the orchard. The steam laundry is asking for our washing, and the baker stands ready to stock our pantry. Nearly all the old-time in- dustries have gone from the home except cooking and cleaning, and with modern methods these are very differ- ent from what they were in earlier days. All this is a grave loss to the education of the child. That there are many compensations is true, and no one is longing for the "good old days." Far from it; these are the best times the world has ever seen in which to live a happy and successful life, whether in the town or on the farm. But this does not change the fact that education is incomplete without careful training of the haiid as well as the head. For the work that lies ahead requires both. And the school must undertake to sup- ply to the child's education what has been lost out of the home. That is what the school is for — to make sure that our children do not lack necessary training that the home and the community, without the help of the school, are unable to give. The school has taken over many functions that origi- 54 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS nally belonged to the home. In fact, among primitive peoples, the home gives the child all the education he The school must receives, for they have no schools, take over functions Schools first came into being when it lost from home ^^^g ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^j^^^.^ ^^^.^ ^^^^ things required in the child's education that the home could not give. In our own colonial days the home was responsible for teaching the child the elements of reading and number before he was sent to school. And the old records of the New England town meetings contain many accounts of complaints made by the schoolmaster because neglectful parents had started their children to school "unprepared in their letters and numbers." In such cases the child was dismissed from the school until he had made up the deficiency. But in our later day the school assumes full responsibility for the child's education from the first, and does not expect the home to give any in- struction. We have even gone so far that the kinder- garten takes the child when he is too young to instruct in books and teaches him to play ! And the school must now take over the training of the hand, which the home, with its widely-varied industries The school must was formerly able to supply. This train the hand is the only way, if this vital part of education is not to be lost ; for the home can no longer accomplish it. If we are not to become a nation of mere readers of books in our education, the schools must pro- vide for industrial education fitting our youth for the occupations awaiting them. The increased amount of schooling we are now giving our children has even led them farther and farther away from work with their hands ; for the child who formerly worked in the home or on the farm for nine months of the year and spent < THE OLD CURRICULUM 55 three months in the school studying books, now spends from six to nine months in the study of books, and a cor- respondingly less time in work. And one who has de- voted the greater part of his youth to books, and never learned to use his hands, will hardly seek an industry when he chooses his vocation. Nor is the remedy to have him spend less time in school and more in labor. That will not solve the problem. What is needed is for the school to provide such work as will train both hand and head, and lead to an appreciation of the value and dignity of industrial labor. This point of view, together with the demand that the school shall fit more directly for the life and work of the . . farm, calls for the addition of certain Manual training, , 1 , ,1 111 agriculture and do- branches to the rural-school curric- mestic science to ulum. Manual training and domes- be added . . 11.1 r tic science are needed to make up for their partial loss from the home, and also to give a more scientific and complete preparation in these subjects than any home is able to afford. Agriculture must also be taught, because that is to be the occupation of most of the pupils of the rural school, and because the school can greatly increase their efficiency as workers on the farm. The new movement throughout the country toward scien- tific agriculture makes it all the more imperative that the rural school should enter on this line of instruction. The introduction of agriculture into the rural schools has al- ready doubled or trebled their efficiency in many places. It has resulted in increased attendance, in better work in all subjects, and in a spirit of loyalty toward the school on the part of the community. Through the agency of instruction in agriculture, the rural schools have been instrumental in adding millions of dollars to the wealth 56 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS of the country by increasing the yield of corn, oats and other crops. There is almost no limit to the service that can be rendered by the rural schools in educating the boys and girls to modern methods of farming. If the children of the farms are to have opportunities for education equal to those of the town and city child, Music and art to the rural schools can not stop vv^ith have a place the subjects that are related to the vi^ork-life alone, though these may be the foundation of all the others. Personal attainments that have for their object the giving of greater satisfaction and happi- ness to their possessor belong to the rural child as much as to the child of the town. The rural school should make music and art a regular part of the course of study as is done in the town and city schools. Indeed there is much more need for these subjects in the country than in the city school, for the reason that the city child constantly has opportunities to hear music and to see pictures outside the school which the rural child does not have. And it is precisely these cultural phases of edu- cation that must not be left out of the rural school as the curriculum is being reconstructed in the direction of making it more practical, effective and inter- esting. For, while making a living is the first great neces- sity in the lives of most of us, life is, after all, more than making a living; and the finer joys, and the satisfaction that comes from an appreciation of the beautiful round about us, are among the most desirable attainments. The changes needed in the rural school curriculum, however, are not all to be accomplished by the addition of Standpoint and certain studies. The need is fully as attitude great that the standpoint and attitude toward many of the branches already in the curriculum THE OLD CURRICULUM 57 shall be changed. Almost every subject needs to be vital- ized by bringing it closer to the interest and needs of the pupils. Instead of the dreary set of school readers read over and over, we must open up to the child the great store- ^, . . t. house of inspiring books, and train Changes in teach- ... r & > ing, reading, arith- his mterests so that he will care to luetic and other j-ead them. This means that the rural subjects school must provide a generous library especially selected to fit the development and interests of children. It must have historical novels, and well-writ- ten histories. It must have simple books on science, in- troducing the child to the rich field of modern scientific discoveries and inventions, and especially such as relate most closely to the life of the farm. The teaching of arithmetic must omit the tangled logical problems dealing with impractical conditions, and em- phasize the arithmetic of the farm, the shop and the home. Let the arithmetic taught be correlated directly with the lessons in agriculture, manual training, domestic science, the practical measurements employed on the farm, and the accounts of the household, and it will prove both practical and interesting in a degree hitherto un- known. Similarly, the physiology will need to be related more directly to questions of the health and development of the children. Not so much a course in anatomy and technical physiology is needed as training in hygiene. Geography can be made vastly more valuable and inter- esting by eliminating the trivial and unnecessary, and putting in its place matter dealing with peoples, places, products and industries closely related to the life of our own people and times. And so on with every line of 58 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS study. Let the aim no longer be to train a more or less mythical set of powers of the child by a senseless grind over meaningless exercises supposed to develop mental strength. But let everything that we teach start with some present interest or activity of the child, and lead as directly as possible to efficiency in meeting the actual problems that lie ahead. If it be objected that there is not time or place in the rural school for all these things that are proposed, it may iHow time is to be ^e answered that if the unnecessary secured for new from the old curriculum is left out, subjects ^^^ ^i^g remainder correlated with the newer subjects as it can and should be, the course of study will be even less crowded than it is at the present time. It will also be vastly more interesting to those who study and teach it, and of infinitely greater value to all our people. It will be the purpose in the following chapter to outline and discuss such a reorganized curric- ulum for the rural school as we have proposed. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. What are the educational standards in your schooi community ? Do the patrons desire a broad education for their children, or do they think the school which they themselves attended is good enough for their children? 2. The first thing necessary in carrying out any line of progress or reform is to make people want the im- provements you seek to promote. How can you make the constituency of the rural school want a broader and richer curriculum ? 3. How far does the picture drawn of the studies as taught in the old-time school apply to the rural school of THE OLD CURRICULUM 59 your locality? (For example, in arithmetic, geography, grammar, physiology.) 4. Compare the work and the play of an average country boy of to-day with the work and play of his father or his grandfather at the same age ; make a similar comparison of the country girl's life with that of her mother or grandmother, 5. Trace the actual number of vocations outside the home now required to set the table for a family meal and compare with conditions a generation ago. 6. Make a list of all the farm boys you can discover who have gone through a town high school. How many of them returned to farming for a permanent vocation ? 7. How many books suitable for the reading of chil- dren are contained in your school library ? Can you form an accurate estimate of how many are available in each home represented in your school ? Make a list of all the books each of your pupils can remember having read. What do the results suggest? 8. Could your school district afford to spend several hundred dollars in a school library and regularly appro- priate fifty dollars a year for additions? How can the patrons be made to feel the need of such a step? CHAPTER IV THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM What, then, shall be taught in the rural schools ? Shall we desert the time-honored fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic ? Shall we teach the child how to test seed-corn, judge stock, garden and make boxes, but leave him helpless in the matter of spelling, geog- raphy and history? Is there danger that we shall be- come so enamored of the new that we shall forget the old? There are many earnest people who fear these very things. But their fears are founded on an imperfect un- Valuable in old derstanding of the spirit of the new conserved education. No one who is intelligently seeking to reorganize the rural-school curriculum is will- ing to let go the fundamentals of education, the tools of knowledge which all must have. On the contrary, one of the great aims of the new ideal of the curriculum is to vitalize and make more perfect and usable the I "three R's" — to fortify the work of reading that it may mean much more to the learner than it has meant under the older plan; to make the subject of arithmetic a thou- sand times more practical and useful than it has ever been before, and to increase the efficiency in its operations beyond what has obtained in the old type of schools. It is the purpose to put such interest into the matter of writ- 60 THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 6i ing that the child will desire to write well because he has something that he wants to write; and in the subject of geography to make its dry bones live because clothed with subject-matter of vital interest and importance. The method by which this is to be done is by first of all changing the method of organization within the curric- Point of emphasis ulum— by changing the center of to be changed emphasis, in order that the matter to be learned may be approached more easily and naturally, and be related more closely to the life of the learner. Every one, old and young, knows from his experience, that we are more interested in the things that lie closest to our lives, — the activities in our home, the occupation that claims our attention, the vocation that we mean ul- timately to enter on, than we are in mere abstractions. For example, with what zeal one will study even a rail- way time-table if he is about to make a journey! And, those who are planning a trip to Europe enter on a mas- tery of its geography and history far more thorough than they would ever attain if studying them as an assigned task. The boy who needs to learn the new rules of the ball game does not require some one to compel him to get his lesson ; the necessity of his interest compels him. The great thing, therefore, is to connect the work of the school so closely with the interests and activities of School interests ^^^ home, its work and its play, that related to home in- the incentives to study may be imme- diate and real. It is this imme- diate vital interest that saves the boy from becoming dull and disinterested, and the girl from becoming listless and inefficient in her work. Many a child has quit school before completing the course of study, not because he was compelled to stay out to work, 62 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS but because interest failed, owing to the lack of connection between his school work and his outside inter- ests and activities. Many others have continued in school until they have obtained a smattering of what it had to teach, and later found little immediate use for what they had learned. The aim, therefore, in reorganizing the rural school cur- riculum is to get a foundation of actual interest on which to build a mastery of the fundamentals of knowledge; and then to go on and add certain vital matter to the training of rural children which they have heretofore lacked. The purpose is to find in the daily lives and ac- tivities of the pupils the incentives that will lead to a better and more complete learning of the elementary branches, and in addition, so attach the pupils to the school and its work that they will desire to remain for a much more extended and helpful education than they are now receiving. This fundamental basis of interest is easily found in the lives of the rural school pupils. For they all come Rural life homo- from homes founded on the same geneous type of occupation, and interested in the same industrial problems. In the town or city school, the pupils represent ten or twenty different oc- cupations ; but in the rural school they represent only the one industry of agriculture with its supplemental occu- pations. The homes are agricultural homes, the interests on the vocational side are agricultural interests. There- fore what will appeal to one group of pupils as an in- centive to effort will appeal to all the others of the same community. Knowledge or skill adapted to use on one farm, will be adapted to use on the other farms of the locality. THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 63 These important facts make it possible to organize the carricukim of the rural school on a much more simple Core of new ^nd practical basis than that of a town curriculum school. Nature study as related to the open country, agriculture adapted to the local needs and conditions, manual training of the type most related to the needs of the farm, home economics suited to the conditions of the farm home, — these are the basis of the rural-school curriculum, the core around which the other subjects are to be grouped. In these will be found the sources of the interests and incentives that will lead to the mastery of the branches constituting the tools of edu- cation. It is not, therefore, that these latter branches are to be omitted or neglected ; they are only to be set in their proper relation to the interests and experience of the pupil. Only those parts of the old subjects that should plainly give way to more useful material are to be supplanted by the new. Not annihilation, but reor-_ <^amaation is what is proposed. What shall be the plan of the reorganized rural-school curriculum? How shall it differ from the old curric- Plan of the new ulum on the one hand, and from the curriculum curriculum of town and city schools on the other? For it is clear that the old curriculum was faulty both in the meagerness of the material it of- fered, and the emphasis it put on the technical and theo- retical as against the practical and concrete. And it is also evident that the curriculum best adapted for the city school is not the one for the rural school, where the inter- ests and activities outside the school are entirely dif- ferent. While the interests related to the life and work of the farm or agriculture — nature study, stock raising, the 64 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS practical handicrafts and domestic science — will consti- tute the basis of the curriculum, this does not mean that „ . , , the work of the school is to be lim- Vocational sub- jects alone not ited to these subjects. It rather sig- enough j^jfigg that they shall constitute the point of departure, the foundation of incentive, for the other studies. The country boy and girl can no more stop with these vocational subjects alone than the youth preparing for a trade can afford to study solely the mechanics of that trade without any knowledge of other things. It is to be remembered that the workers on the farm are men and women before they are farmers, and as such have a right to the help and inspiration that grow from a knowledge of the world's history, its literature, music and art; they demand and have a right to the broadening influence that comes from contact with the field of science and invention. In short, the men and women of the farm need as good an education as any other class of American citizens. What, then, is to be the organization of the new curric- ulum? On what shall the child begin when he first enters school? How shall he proceed, and what shall he study from grade to grade ? Let us first answer in general, that under the reorgan- ized curriculum the pupil will primarily study things. Difference between ^"^ ^^^y secondarily will he study old and new cur- books; and that he will actually do ^^^ his lessons, in field or shop or home or garden, as well as sit at a desk and learn them. The new curriculum will change the point of emphasis from cramming the head with information, to applying the knowledge learned to one's actual life and work. For the only true way to learn a thing is to live it. 4? % '<^ ;m^; # y f \:^i •%/^ /#• ^^ '%ii^#*:>''' ■^ ■im-. i^ci ii'^ ^' ^#c...^- ^^s.^^^^^^'.;, ^^.r^^'^ /' ^^, .'iviriEiS\ a^ The new centre of correlation in the rural school curriculum consists of practical subjects THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 65 And this point of view will first of all influence the child's starting-point as he begins school. The old plan was to take him fresh from play and the activities of the home and the field, and placing him in a stiff seat with the admonition to "be quiet," set him at work learning symbols. His muscles, aching for the activity to which they are accustomed, cry out against the torture of their imprisonment. His mind, used to the stimulus of real problems and living interests, protests against the empti- ness of the task which it is given. But regardless of the danger to his physical development from the incarcer- ation in his prison-seat, and in spite of the equal danger to the development of his mental powers, he is required to submit ; for he must "learn to read," and must study his "numbers" and his "language." The result of this irrational method of introducing a child to his education is known to every observant Stupefying effects teacher. At first the average child is of old method alert and interested. The sheer novelty of the change from home to school stimulates him. His mind must be active on something, so it busies itself on the lessons prescribed, and he learns to read and num- ber. This stage lasts a year or two and then comes the change. The novelty has worn off, school is no longer new, the teacher has ceased to be infallible, and the books have become a bore. The child loses interest in his work. He ceases to be bright and alert. If he is just an avera^ child he becomes dull and fails to master his lessons ; he does not like school and stays out on the smallest excuse. After a year or two more of desultory attend- ance he drops out of school for good, having reached about the fourth grade. If he is an exceptional child — one in ten or twenty — he survives the process we have (£ BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS thrust on him and goes on until he completes the course. But the average child, and the child who is below the average, loses out; they become educational castaways. The tragedy of it ! Dante says a tragedy is "a bad ending of a good beginning." And how many bad endings of good beginnings are we responsible for with our un- natural and senseless methods ! Under the reorganized curriculum the child will enter on the field of learning by a different pathway. Instead The new curricu- ^f centering all his energies on the lum connects with symbols of reading and number as if home activities ^j^^y ^^^.^ ^^e "chief end of man," he will simply continue the lines of activity already begun in the farm home. He will continue to observe nature, but with this difference ; his observation will now be under the guidance and direction of a teacher and will therefore be nature study. He will continue his interest in the crops and animals of the farm ; but because he is now under skilled instruction, he will be studying agri- culture. He will continue to use his hands in the con- struction of objects or their pictures, but because he is now being taught how to make them, he is learning manual training or drawing. The girl will go on with her sewing, her cooking and her housekeeping, but she will be taught such methods and developed in such stand- ards of doing these things that she will be studying do- mestic science. Not that the names agriculture, manual training and domestic science, will at the beginning be needed to describe what the children are taught, but the foundations of these very important subjects are being laid. And the reading and the number and the language? We now come to them — the child now comes to them. In- THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 67 deed he may start these things from the first, but they supplement the real and concrete activities instead of Reading, language monopohzing all the child's time and and number follow effort. Nor will he learn to read any less rapidly than under the old system, for now he has an interest and an enthusiasm in his work that extends to all his studies. Besides, he now feels that he needs to know how to read, and write, and number. For there are the interesting things to be read about — the stories of the birds and the flowers and the people concerning whom he is learning ; there are interesting things to write and tell about — things that he is doing in his nature study, his gardening, and all the rest. Here he naturally comes to enter on his language work; and there are the real necessities for numbering things — counting and add- ing and multiplying in the actual problems being met in his manual work, his concrete geography, his instruction in agriculture or the other real studies of the school. All this is not to say that the child will learn to read without any care being given to reading, or that he will Teaching of the not need to be taught arithmetic or in- fundamentals vital- , . , - , t^. ized structed m the use of language. It is entirely certain that he will need the best of teaching in all these things, but the point is, that the teaching can be better, and that the child's interest in these formal studies will be stronger and more effective when they rest on a foundation of subjects that fit directly into the actual life and experience of the pupil. Not only is this truth in accord with the principles of good psychology, but it is being tested and proved in hundreds of schools which have dared step out of the well-known path of tra- dition into the highway of greater freedom and common sense in the reorganizing of their curricula. 68 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS Further, much valuable time is lost and interest de- stroyed by undertaking to teach the young child what he is not yet ready for, and what, at the proper time, he will apprehend easily and quickly, or even learn for him- self. Think of all the time devoted to teaching six-year- old children the "number combinations," while the child's brain is yet undeveloped for the association processes re- quired in such work! Let the boy or girl grow a little older, and find need for these "combinations," and they are learned as if by magic. If the teaching of number during the first two years in school is made incidental to other subjects, not neglecting it, but making it grow naturally out of the branches where it is needed, it is safe to say that the mastery of arithmetic will not suffer in the least. And such is the case also with formal language instruction, which should be an outgrowth of the work being done in nature study, geography, industrial work and the other concrete subjects of the school course, and not, at least in its earlier stages, a formal study in itself at all. The principles just stated for first initiating a child into the work of the school will hold throughout the course. Not discipline but The immediate occupational interests, efficiency the aim taken in connection with the activities later to be entered on, should be the controlling factor. Not arithmetical tangles or grammatical complexities for the purpose of mental gymnastics, but living subjects that give the knowledge, develop the attitude and lead to the skill required by intelligent progressive men and women, must dominate the curriculum. For not an intangible veneer of culture nor a doubtful amount of discipline, but efficiency in occupation is the fundamental aim of the rural school. And on this foundation of efficiency a bet- THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 69 ter culture and a truer discipline than we have yet known will be built. The most practical and natural starting-point for work in the rural school is nature study. For at the age when Nature study the ^he child first enters school he is most child's starting- fully alive to his environment. His P°^^^ senses are at their best, his mind in- quisitive, his interest keen in all that touches his life and its activities. He is an explorer, ready to enter on adven- tures of discovery in the rich world of nature that lies about him. Now is the time to lay the foundation for later work in geography, in agriculture, in hygiene, in science. Here is the basis for training in language, and here an endless number of rich themes for stories to be told or read or written, and for pictures to be drawn or painted. In nature study also is the opportunity to teach an appreciation for the life of the open country. Because those who give their lives to agriculture must live in direct and immediate contact with the great out-of-doors, the rural school should especially seek to cultivate in the child a deep and reverent appreciation for nature in all her moods. The love of field and flower, joy in the songs of birds and the hum of bees, and delight in the waving green of corn and the gold of wheat, may not directly affect the yield of crops or the price of products. Yet they are one of the great compensations belonging to the worker of the soil and will add riches to any life. One of the causes of desertion of the farm for the life of the city is the monotony and sameness of the work of The penalty of the farm. How greatly could this be blindness to beauty relieved if every boy and girl could learn to be interested in every changing phase of nature, 70 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS and come to enjoy its companionship! But to many of those who spend their lives in the country, the beauties of which the city dweller dreams and for which he longs while imprisoned in his narrow shop or office, have be- come a mere commonplace and possess no significance. The teeming hills are often looked on as but so many acres to be plowed or harvested ; the sun setting in a blaze of glory only suggests milking time; and the multiform life around us is regarded solely in the light of its market value. Let the rural school teach the children of the farms to see beauty as well as profit in their environment, and much will have been done to cure the farm of its lack of attractiveness, and a great source of satisfaction and joy will have been added to the daily toil. More concretely, the teaching of nature study will center about such aims as : ( i ) to give a first-hand knowledge of nature, that the child may come to under- stand and love it, and more fully obey its laws and claim its rewards; (2) to learn the useful and harmful in nature, as a guide to better hygienic living, and more successful farming; (3) to establish the basis for subse- quent study of the natural sciences, including geography and agriculture, and to obtain a point of departure for the study of language. Nature study is the basis for all the other branches that deal with our physical environment. Out of nature . . study geography gradually emerges — riculture have ^0^ the catechetical geography of the foundation in na- older day, but the geography that tells of the earth as the home of man. Be- ginning wherever the experience of the pupils touches nature in their immediate environment, geography will proceed out to other parts of the home land and to other THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 71 lands. What people live in each country, what they raise and eat and wear, the language they speak, the homes and schools they have, how they travel and work and play, what they send us for our use, and what we return to them — these are some of the topics the new geography will include. Agriculture is a natural outgrowth of nature study. Indeed, a great part of nature study is agriculture under another guise. It has been objected that the elementary school can not hope to teach agriculture, but must per- j force leave it for the high school. Of agriculture as an 1 organized science this is true, but much valuable agricul- ture can be taught without a full mastery of its science. Said that great apostle of agriculture. Doctor Seaman; A. Knapp, "Agriculture consists of one-eighth science, ■ three-eighths art, and one-half business methods." The best proof, however, of what the rural school can do in \ agriculture is what it is now accomplishing in scores of J schools scattered through many states. The children are learning the best modes of planting and cultivating crops, how to select seed, the rotation of crops, the harmful insects and weeds, the art of gardening, the raising of poultry, the care of stock and many other useful things. Practical agriculture is already an accomplished fact in the rural schools that have reorganized their curricula. Home economics as a science is also beyond the age and grasp of the child in the elementary school. But, as in the TT . subject of agriculture, there is much Home economics •• ° ' begun in the ele- concrete and useful matter that can mentary school ^^ better taught at this age than any other. The beginning of the art of sewing, the selection and care of foods, plain cooking, serving, the routine care of the home, nursing, the principles of decorating. 72 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS cleaning and keeping the house — these are more art than science and are wholly adapted to the work of the ele- mentary school. Girls from the fifth to the eighth grades are at the stage of development when interest in the duties of the home should be taking root, and when girls should become a real help to their mothers in the care of the household. The time is therefore ripe for instruc- tion along the line of these interests, and the opportunity is present for thus coordinating the work of the school and the home. Personal habits and standards, one's attitude toward the care of the body, rules of living, methods of eating Habits and hygi- ^"^ sleeping and resting, are devel- ene of first im- oped early in life. James tells us that portance ^^^^ habits are well "set" by the time we have reached our middle teens. This fact gives one great reason, therefore, for making practical hygiene an important subject in the curriculum. And this instruc- ( tion should have particular bearing on right living under \ the conditions imposed by the farm. Food, its different I qualities and adaptability to seasons and the types of labor ; the purity of drinking water ; the hygiene of cloth- ing, and its seasonal varieties; the relations of work, recreation and play ; the care of the skin, nails, teeth and hair ; the effects of tobacco in reducing physical efficiency ; the more obvious facts bearing on the relation of bacteria to food and to disease ; the means to be taken to protect against the common ailments or the spread of contagious diseases, — these are practical matters which every child can be taught without waiting for mastery of technical science as a foundation. Manual training in its more technical aspects is not a THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 73 subject for the earlier grades of the elementary school, but should be left for the last two years, or even for the , , . . hidi school, where the latter is avail- Manual training a'' ^^ ' ,,,i 11 part of the cur- able. Much valuable knowledge can, riculum however, be given as early even as the fifth grade. Boys can be taught the care and use of tools, the making of simpler articles for the farm or the home, the nature of the different woods, their avail- ability for various uses, their finish and protection, and many other useful lines of information. The handling of tools in the school should result in every boy being sup- plied with a bench and a full complement of tools in the home shop, together with the different varieties of lumber needed for miscellaneous work about the house and barns. Music should constitute a part of the rural-school program. The country child has a full right to the finer Music and art to aspects of culture. He will learn be included music as readily as the city child and enjoy it not less. Every schoolhouse should have a piano or an organ as a part of its equipment, and singing should be as carefully taught as any other subject. A practical method for the cultivation of appreciation for music is through the use of the "talking-machine," which can now be had at a very reasonable price, and which repro- duces good music with artistic excellence. Nor should the study of art be neglected, — not a study of the technical rules of painting, but training in the ap- preciation of good pictures. The great masterpieces are now available in excellent copies at very small prices, and should form a part of the course of study for every pupil. The result will be not only a love of art, but the in- troduction of worthy pictures into the home. In one west- 74 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS ern district where such study was taken up in the school, more than one hundred good pictures were framed in the school manual-training shop and hung in the homes of the pupils within one year. The reorganized curriculum must give ample oppor- tunity for the study of history. The man or woman of History to deal to-day is a part of the great civiliza- with life of people tion that had its beginnings in the far- away past and leads on to a limitless future. It is a part of education to come into close and vital relation with this civilization, to feel a kinship with great personages, to enter into great movements and events and feel one's self a part of the whole. This is to be done through a study of history. Nor should the history be of wars and politics alone, but should reveal the life and spirit of peoples, the growth of institutions, the rise of inventions, the devel- opment of wealth and industries. It should bring before us the lives of the great men and women of all times, the deeds they have done, the books they have written, the machines they have made, or the laws they have enacted. In short, history should unroll before the child a pan- orama of life, at its noblest and best, to serve as a stimu- lus to his ambition and a guide to his acts. Practical civics should constitute an important part of the school course. This does not mean that the elemen- Importance of tary pupil shall be required to study concrete civics the state and federal constitutions, or master the intricacies of the governmental machinery. Too much of this kind of matter has already been imposed on our children. The study of civics should begin at the points where the township, county, state or federal gov- ernment touches the interests of the pupil. How the school is supported and controlled; how the bridges and THE REORGANIZED CURRICULUM 75 roads are built and repaired ; the responsibility and duties of township and county officers; the work of health officers; quarantine regulations and their need; postal rules and regulations ; the school law as related to pupils and patrons, — these and similar topics suggest what may well be taught the child in civics. Such, then, is the basis of the reorganized curriculum, the core around which other work will center. Reading, language and arithmetic will not be neglected. Indeed, they will be more efficiently taught and better learned than in the old type of school, for the spirit and the mo- tives will be changed. And what has been largely a mechanical task will become pregnant with interest and value. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. Is there any danger that we shall become so inter- ested in the newer subjects of agriculture, manual train- ing and home economics that we shall neglect other sub- jects? How may we guard against such a result? 2. Make a list of all the occupations represented by the pupils of a rural school, and compare with a list of the occupations represented by the pupils of a town school. What bearing has the result on the possibility of voca- tional training in each type of school? 3. Have you known children who seemed bright and capable when they first entered school to become dull and listless after a year or two of attendance? How far is the school responsible for all such laggards ? 4. Make a study of the reorganized curriculum as shown in the drawing of the tree. Then make another similar drawing representing the curriculum as is exists ']6 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS in the old type of school. Compare the efficiency of the two methods of education. 5. Suppose a teacher agrees that nature study is the best point of departure in teaching the child but does not know enough about nature himself to make this method effective; what are the dangers to be guarded against? What is the remedy ? 6. What use can be made of music to render the rural school and the life of the rural home more attractive? What percentage of children can with proper instruction be made fair singers ? Would a piano be a good invest- ment for a rural school ? How many of your pupils have one in their homes ? 7. Do you believe that good pictures can be made as educative as good literature? If you were asked to recommend pictures suitable for schoolroom decoration and study, what ones would you select? How would your list differ if you were recommending for the home? 8. Is it possible to lead children to like history? Do you count any teaching of history or literature a success that does not result in an interest in the subject? How much bearing has the teacher's own interest in any branch to do with the pupil's attitude toward it? CHAPTER V CORRELATION The curriculum has in recent years grown not only vastly richer and more interesting, but much fuller, as well. The broadening of education and the demand for studies of a more practical type have thus placed an in- creasing burden on both pupil and teacher. So much material has been added that the elementary course of study now includes a greater variety and amount of sub- ject-matter than was required for admission to college several generations ago. And the high-school graduate of to-day has certainly been forced to cover more ground than was demanded to graduate from Harvard at the time when Longfellow was a member of the faculty. The rural school has also felt the effect of this change. To the reading, arithmetic and writing of the earlier Growth of rural- schools, geography was added, and school curriculum then grammar. History soon found its way in, and was followed by physiology and that by language lessons. Then came nature study. Music and drawing next added their claims. And now come the formidable trio, agriculture, manual training and do- mestic science, each of which offers almost limitless op- portunities for extension and subdivision. It is evident therefore that we have greatly enriched the curriculum and made it vastly more helpful; but we have also doubled and trebled the amount to be learned and taught. 17 78 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS It requires no argument to show that this expansion of the curriculum, which represents a true social demand Danger o£ over- ^^^ "°^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^"^ ^''^^P °^ working teacher educators, can not go on indefinitely. and pupil There are those who say that we are already asking too much of the child, to the danger of his physical health and development. Certain it is, at least, that we have overwhelmed the rural teacher with the amount and variety of the work we have thrust on him. It is doubtful whether the rural child has been over- worked; he does not go to school regularly enough, and the school year is not long enough to injure his health. But there is grave danger in another direction: namely, that we shall attempt to teach him so much in so short a time that he will learn nothing well. It is possible to hurry pupils over so great an amount of matter that none of it is mastered. They may get a smattering of many fields of knowledge and still not know much about any particular field. They may learn to do a great variety of things indifferently, but fail to do anything well. Nor is the remedy for this unfortunate situation to re- fuse the newer subjects admittance to the course of study. Principles under- ^^^r this is in effect saying that the lying revision of old school was good enough for our curriculum parents, therefore it is good enough for our children. Some are inclined to cry "fad" when- ever anything new is proposed ; but this is the essence of stagnation and fogyism. The better plan is to examine the curriculum with two questions in mind : ( i ) whether it contains any matter that might well give way to the new subjects proposed; and (2) whether by improving the organization of the curriculum we can not find a place CORRELATION 79 for the new without adding to the burdens of either learner or teacher. To put the matter concretely, agri- culture, manual training and domestic science are in- sistently demanding a place in the rural-school curricu- lum of the present day. How can we find a place for them without injustice to pupil or teacher or to other necessary subjects? The first phase of the question has already been an- swered in part in the foregoing chapter on the reorgan- The principle of ^^^^ curriculum, where the possibility correlation of eliminating much relatively useless matter was shown. Hence this topic need not again be discussed. But a not less important factor in the matter is that of introducing better organization into the cur- riculum through correlation. Without concerning ourselves about a technical defi- nition, we may say that correlation means the combining What correla- ^^ bringing together of different sub- tioi^ is jects, or parts of subjects, that are naturally related. Thus certain parts of geography and history are most naturally and easily taught together. Language is usually better learned in connection with other subjects than when studied separately. Arithmetic naturally finds its most practical and helpful exercises in connection with agriculture, manual training, or some other concrete subject. Such subjects as are thus related can be taught to- gether, not only with great saving of time, but also with enormous increase of efficiency. A language exercise growing out of a lesson in cooking, a nature study ex- cursion, or the testing of seed-corn performs the double service of training in expression while at the same time it 8o BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS helps to carry out the work in domestic science, agricul- ture, or whatever else is under consideration. Similarly, a large part of the arithmetic required in the elementary school can best be taught in connection with the problems of the farm, the shop, the kitchen, or the school garden. And this method is both natural and right; for in the actual affairs outside the school the child never has the necessity of language exercises separated from the im- mediate necessity of expressing something that needs to be said ; nor does he meet the need of working arithmetic problems of a fanciful and unreal sort, but rather those immediately connected with what he is doing on the farm or in the shop. The closer, therefore, we can keep lan- guage and number tied up with the real and concrete ex- periences of the child, the more efficient and useful will be his knowledge of them. How great an incentive the concrete interests may be- come in leading to mastery was discovered by a manual- Correlation stimu- training teacher in a consolidated lates interest school. In the manual-training class was a boy of some thirteen years who was skilled in the use of his fingers but indifferent to arithmetic and me- chanical drawing. One day Joe came to his teacher, all excitement. If Joe would make the body of a runabout in the manual-training shop, his father would purchase the running gear and engine and give him the machine. But the teacher demurred at the request that he start at once on the work. He said to Joe, "You know you can not do the required drawing and computations for this job. You don't know your arithmetic well enough, and you are careless in your drawing." Joe was disappointed, but not discouraged. So he made this tentative proposi- tion to his teacher: "Suppose I do get my arithmetic CORRELATION 8i and drawing?" "When you have done that satisfacto- rily," promised the teacher, "I will see you through the construction." That was enough ; Joe now needed these branches in his business, and he went to work at them. He made arithmetic and drawing the great aim of his life ; he figured constructions, drew to scale, and kept on figuring and drawing until he was fully master of all that was required for the work in hand. Then his teacher started him upon the automobile, and Joe is to-day driv- ing it with great pride. But better still, Joe has kept up his interest in arithmetic and drawing, and is now leader of his class in both of these subjects. What Joe needed, and what many another boy needs, is an immediate in- centive for his work growing out of some interesting activities of his daily life; this is to say that he needs better correlation in his work. Correlation can not be forced. The subjects or topics put together must naturally belong together, and must Correlation must grow clearer and more interesting and be natural practical for their union. The actual life and experience of the child is really the basis of all true correlation ; things that the child finds belonging to- gether in his activities can well be put together in teach- ing him. But no amount of combining or relating ex- cept as these relations are clearly seen by the pupil and felt by him to be natural and right will serve ; for false correlation may be as artificial as the method that ignores all correlation, and therefore only result in jumble and confusion. An amusing illustration of an attempt at forced corre- lation was heard in a school where the teacher had come to know just enough of correlation to make it a fad, but not enough fully to comprehend it. She had learned that 82 BETTER RUR.\L SCHOOLS nature study is a good basis for correlation, but did not understand how to use it for this purpose. On a certain day the class was to study the grasshopper ; so everything in the school from morning till night concerned grass- hoppers. The morning scripture-lesson was chosen from the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, in which the writer, drawing a picture of the weakness of age says, "And the grasshopper shall be a burden." Special emphasis was placed on this statement, and the weight of a grasshopper estimated. The arithmetic lesson consisted of the solu- tion of problems having to do with the number of legs so many grasshoppers would have, and the number of jumps required for a grasshopper to travel such and such a distance. The spelling lesson dealt wholly with the names of the parts of the grasshopper. The language lesson was made up of grasshopper stories. The drawing lesson consisted of pictures of grasshoppers. For general exercises the teacher told a story of great plagues of grasshoppers visiting different sections of the country. And for a geography lesson, the grasshopper region of early days in the Middle West was considered. In fact this was a grasshopper day in the school. The children read grasshoppers, talked grasshoppers and thought grasshoppers from morning until night. The teacher prided herself that she was using the "method of correla- tion," whereas she was only wasting time on a ridiculous device possessing neither value nor sense. The trouble was that grasshoppers were not naturally related in any way to the experience of the pupils, but were forced on them. There was no natural basis for the correlations made. Attempts at correlation just as fruitless, if not so ludicrous, are not uncommon. The reason why nature study, gardening, cooking, corn- CORRELATION 83 judging, the handicrafts and school excursions are the best basis for correlation is that they involve practical T J- . • ^ and immediate interests, and supply Immediate mter- . ' ^^ -^ ests the natural the necessity for language, spelling, basis of correlation arithmetic, drawing, etc. The boy who is interested in an experiment in corn raising, or the girl who is interested in cooking a new kind of dish, will naturally desire to tell about it ; here, then, is the oppor- tunity for a language lesson. For the first thing neces- sary in learning either to write or speak is to have some^ thing to say that one really wants to express to others. Similarly, if the pupils are at work in manual training or domestic science, there will be mathematical relations to solve ; this gives the best basis for the teaching of a practical and concrete arithmetic. If the child is making a box he needs arithmetic and drawing; his own ex- perience and desire will demand them. Therefore arith- metic and drawing naturally and easily correlate with these subjects. If he is testing seed-corn or computing the waste in uncleaned clover-seed, he must know frac- tions and percentage in order to solve and state his prac- tical problem ; the best teaching of fractions and per- centage that he can possibly have, therefore, is that con- nected with these real experiences. And so we might go on multiplying illustrations of this principle among the other school subjects ; much of geography and history are vitally related and can be best taught and understood by having this relation made clear and explicit; and not a small proportion of our literature is closely connected with historical events, with the forms of nature round about us, or with experiences common to daily life. It is at such points as these that correlation '"« both natu<*al and necessary. 84 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS Two great reasons, then, for making use of the princi- ple of correlation in the rural school are: (i) correla- tion saves time, and (2) it makes the matter learned both more useful and more interesting. The amount of time that can be saved by skilfully cor- relating language, spelling and arithmetic with nature Savins- time study, domestic science and agricul- through correla- ture is an important factor in making *^°" use of the modern curriculum. Time must be saved somewhere if we are to take advantage of many new things now available for the education of our children; and it can be saved in this way, not only without loss, but with positive gain. If the skilful nature- study teacher makes a part of the lesson a written or oral description of what the child sees or does in the lesson, and at the same time gives attention to the form of ex- pression, there will be little need for a formal language lesson on this day. Two birds have been killed with the one stone ; the description helped in the nature lesson and it was also in the truest sense a language lesson, since it was based on real experience. Similarly, language can be taught in connection with geography, history, or any other subject, providing the teacher does not become care- less and neglect the matter of expression while teaching the facts involved in the lesson. Likewise most of the spelling classes could well be dispensed with, and not a few of the arithmetic lessons combined with the prac- tical work of agriculture, manual training and domestic science. And this would all result in a saving of time for both teacher and pupil. This method also greatly increases the efficiency of the pupil by making his knowledge more practical and usable. CORRELATION 85 It is so easy to learn a set of facts divorced from any immediate need for them, and then when the need arises, Correlation leads not know how to apply the facts. In to efficiency proof of this, how many children there are who can work the hard problems of the arith- metic text, but can not solve the practical problems of the household accounts or compute the value of the farm crops ! The arithmetic they learned lacked correlation with actual affairs. There are many who can spell well from the spelling-book, but who strew misspelled words thickly over their written pages; their spelling failed of correlation with the practical needs of spelling. There are many who can glibly recite the rules for grammar and punctuation, but who violate them freely in actual usage ; they need to learn the rules, not as so much sepa- rate information, but in connection with the necessity for putting them into practise in every-day speech and writing. It is manifestly impossible in the space available to outline any complete plan of correlation. A few sugges- tions taken from the work of successful rural teachers will, however, show some of the practical applications of correlation that can be made in the rural school : The nature-study lesson was on birds, and pictures in natural colors of several birds native to the region, such Correlation with ^^ *^^^ bluebird, the robin, the barn basis of nature swallow and the woodpecker, were ^*"^ brought before the class and studied and discussed. An observation lesson was then assigned, each child seeking to discover one or more of the birds described, and to study its appearance, flight, habits, and, if possible, nesting place. Besides affording excellent training in observation this supplied the basis for both; 86 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS oral and written language lessons of the most interesting kind. The next thing taken up was the range or area of country each family of birds appropriates for its home. The bluebird was found to range over the whole United States west as far as Colorado, and to winter in the southern part of North America; it was discovered that the robin inhabits all the United States except the gulf states, and so on. This phase of the study at once brought in the necessity for geography, and the map came into use to find where the birds live. The climate naturally required discussion to determine why the barn swallow is not found in the South Atlantic states, nor the bluebird in the western states. The study of the food of the birds showed that sixty per cent, of tTie bluebird's diet is made up of grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars and the like, and that thirty-two per cent, is vegetable food, chiefly wild berries ; that the robin's food is about half worms and insects, many of which are harmful; that the barn swallow's tireless darting flight is a relentless war on winged insects, more than one- third of which are flies ; and that the woodpecker lives chiefly on a diet of harmful orchard insects. So seemingly simple a series of nature-study lessons as these, touched a marvelously wide range of interests Points of contact ^^^h in and out of school. The birds reached through themselves were worth studying as a nature study p^^.^ q£ ^-^^ ^^^^^ world of nature, but their study at once led into other fields, and language, both oral and written, geography, agriculture and draw- ing were all naturally reached from this starting-point. For several days the children vied with one another in giving interesting descriptions and narrations based on CORRELATION 87 their observations or study. Geographical locations, distances and directions were learned. Climatic condi- tions in different parts of the country were noticed, and the insect life and vegetation of various regions investi- gated. The relation to crops was made clear, and the pupils were taught to protect the birds instead of destroy- ing them. A further study of birds revealed the astonishing fact that the stomachs of flickers have been found to contain , . , at one time from three thousand to A lesson on birds ,- , , , , , five thousand ants ; that one cuckoo s stomach has been the receptacle for two hundred and fifty American tent caterpillars, and another's stomach for two hundred and seventeen fall webworms ; that one day's feeding of a nest of four young chipping sparrows dis- posed of two hundred and thirty-eight insects, nearly all of which were harmful. Where accurate or approximate figures such as these are available, there is no end of ma- terial for practical arithmetic as related to agriculture, thus naturally correlating number work with nature study, while showing the economic value of birds. Another teacher of seventh or eighth grade boys was discussing with them in the agriculture class the best type Correlation with °^ corn-cribs for the farm. Each boy agriculture as a was asked to make careful measure- ments of the home cribs, and also to bring drawings of them. The drawings were compared and discussed, and the faulty constructions criticized. Growing out of this, naturally arose the question of the capacity of the different cribs, and some very valuable lessons in farm arithmetic followed. Before this work ended every boy in the class knew the shortest and most practical methods of computing the capacity of com- 88 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS cribs and could easily and quickly measure any crit) and tell how many bushels it contained. One farmer was about to build a new crib. He became interested in the work being done by the boys, and came over to the school to seek suggestions and advice, and finally de- cided to put up a crib of the new and approved type. The class, under the direction of the teacher, made the estimate of lumber for his crib, figured the cost, and told him just how many bushels it would hold. When the crib was under construction, the class made several visits of inspection to study the details. Three things were accomplished : the boys learned how to build corn- cribs ; they mastered more really valuable arithmetic than is sometimes learned in a whole term ; and they gained a strong friend for the school by being able to offer prac- tical help to the farmer. With the many concrete problems necessarily arising in connection with the practical work in agriculture, in Agriculture and manual training and in home econom- arithmetic ics, there is small use for systema- tically plodding through all the problems and the ordinary text-book in arithmetic. Most texts in arithmetic are con- structed with other occupations than farming in mind, and the problems have little relation to matters that the pupils know about or will ever have to meet. But even if we had a practical farm arithmetic, with the problems based on the computations relating to crops, stock, barns, ditches, fences and the like, it would still be better to make the greater part of the work grow immediately out of the concrete activities being carried on by the pupils themselves in the home and the school. In a class in home economics in a consolidated school the matter of artistic designs in wall-paper was under CORRELATION 89 discussion. It was discovered that nearly every girl in the class came from a home where papering was soon to Correlation with a ^e done. Here, then, was the oppor- basis of home eco- tunity to correlate the work m home "°"^^^^ economics, art and arithmetic. De- signs for the paper of different rooms, such as bedrooms, living-rooms and parlors, were made as a part of the study in drawing and art, and sent to a near-by dealer, who supplied samples as nearly like the designs as pos- sible, to be studied at the school. Rooms were measured, the required amount of paper was computed, and the cost of papering each different room was found. The class worked at the problems involved with great inter- est, and soon found themselves able, not only to de- termine the types of paper best suited for various rooms, but also to find the cost accurately and quickly. This line of study naturally led to the question of paints and varnishes, and much useful information was gathered concerning the composition and value of different brands. Color schemes for individual rooms were worked out, and suitable carpets, rugs and curtains decided on. In each case materials and cost were taken into account, the girls learning many new facts concerning textiles and coloring stuffs, and developing ability in household arith- metic. One county in Indiana has for several years used no regular text-book in geography below the seventh grade. Geography and Yet under the direction of a wise su- correlation perintendent, this subject has been taught with unusual success. The children have been systematically set at work to discover the geographical data of their vicinities. Fields, forests, rivers, hills and ravines have been explored. Springs have been investi- 90 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS gated, marshes surveyed, and clay beds and stone-quar- ries located and examined. The nature of the soil has been determined and the topography of the county studied. The different agricultural products have been analyzed and a comparison made v^ith the output of the factories. All the various sources of wealth have been considered, and a list made of the leading industries. A census of the people of the county has been undertaken by nationalities and occupations. In short, the study of geography has been made so immediate and concrete that it has become a source of inspiration and delight in the schools. And w^hen the text-books are taken up for the study of other regions and peoples, the descriptions pos- sess a reality and interest v^^hich, without the practical correlation of geography with life, they could never have had. The entire subject has taken on a new meaning be- cause it is connected with life and experience. Out of this new geography also have come scores of themes for lessons in language and composition, and countless prob- lems in concrete arithmetic, besides many fruitful topics for the study of local history and civics. Teachers who have adopted a practical sane system of correlation for the work of their schools have every- where remarked on the vitality and enthusiasm that have followed in the school. Especially has it relieved the deadness and drudgery of language study. Says the Hon- orable A. B. Martin, of the United States Department of Agriculture : "Some of the best essays I have ever read and some of the best speeches I have ever heard have been by the corn-club boys on the subject: 'How I grew my acre of corn.' " An Arkansas corn-club boy wrote an essay that the professors in the state agricultural col- lege pronounced one of the best papers on corn produc- CORRELATION 91 tion they had ever seen. This paper, written by a school- boy, was printed by thousands and distributed as a guide to corn growing. The great trouble in most composi- tion work is not lack of knowledge of language forms, but poverty of ideas to express, and the absence of motives prompting expression. It must be understood, however, that a helpful corre- lation of school and home work such as we have de- Correlation re- scribed can be accomplished only by quires expert the teacher who possesses a wide teaching range of practical knowledge, and un- tiring zeal and industry. The teacher must have mas- tered the whole field of study covered by the school cur- riculum, and have a broad background of information be- sides. He must also know the industries and activities of the farm, and the special interests and needs of his particular community. He must be at home in the great out-of-doors, and not a mere master of text-books ; and he must be willing to devote time, thought and energy to the upbuilding of his work. Such a teacher will find rare satisfaction and compensation in the opportunities for larger helpfulness offered through the rational corre- lation of school studies. FOR TEACHERS DISCUSSION AND STUDY 1. Departmental teaching such as is now the rule in the high school is being extended into the upper grades of the town school. Will not the multiplication of subjects soon make this necessary in the rural schools as well ? Is there any possibility of bringing such an arrangement about except by means of consolidated schools ? 2. How will the actual basis for correlation in the 92 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS curriculum vary in different parts of the country? (Oc- cupation, home interests, etc.) 3. Have you ever known a boy who lacked interest in his home work suddenly to become enthusiastic in it when given some personal share in the returns? How may this principle be applied in the work of the school ? 4. The term "learned ignoramus" was recently used in describing a certain person who had received much schooling, but lacked practical ability. How is the situa- tion involved in this case related to this chapter? 5. Is there danger in seeking to correlate the different studies that some important subjects will be neglected? How can such danger be avoided ? 6. Try working out a plan for a week's lessons, using nature study as a basis. Using agriculture as a basis. Using domestic science as a basis. Using manual train- ing as a basis. Which subject has the largest number of points of contact with other studies ? 7. Consider your own school program and determine whether you could reduce the number of daily recitations by means of better correlation. What subjects will be the first to drop out? 8. Similarly consider the probable increase in the in- terest and value of the school work that would follow effective correlation. CHAPTER VI VOCATIONAL TRAINING Rural children have almost everywhere been quitting school as soon as compulsory education laws would per- mit, and in thousands of cases have dropped out in de- fiance of the law. Educators and public-spirited people are gravely concerned over this exodus, as they may well be. But is it surprising that the children should drop out ? What with inexperienced teaching and poor equipment, the conditions in the rural school have not been inspiring at best; but added to this, the curriculum has been at fault; the studies have been such that the pupils have failed to see any close relation between the lessons studied in their books and what life required of them outside of school. Reared in the freedom of the country, they have felt the call of the open, but they have been wholly tied down in their school work within the four walls of a dingy and uninviting building. Interested in growing things, in crops and cattle and horses, they have been given a mental pabulum of conjugations and declensions, of dates and definitions, of rules and classifications. Feeling the pressure of real problems and duties resting on them, they have been put off with empty drill in mental gymnastics, in the dim hope that in some way this process might help them to meet their responsibilities. Small wonder that they have rebelled against the school and sought relief 93 94 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS from such irksome tasks in the real affairs of every-day life. The attitude resulting in the desertion of the rural school before completing its course can never be changed Remedy lies in hy lecturing to the children on the ad- vitalizing school vantages of an education. The remedy is deeper than this ; it lies in making the school work an actual part of the pupils' lives, and its lessons so valuable that they can not afford to miss them. In other words, the rural school should be made into a vocational school, and thus related immediately to the activities of the farm. This does not mean that nothing but agriculture and the industrial arts shall be taught in the rural school ; but rather that these things shall afford the point of contact between the school work and the home life and interests of the pupils, and shall shape the mode of approach to all other subjects of study. This close relation between the study interests and the home interests is especially necessary in the rural school. Difference in atti- ^or the children of the farm begin tude of rural and work at a relatively early age, and city child have come to realize its value and feel its responsibilities long before the city child thinks of engaging in any occupation outside of school hours. The result is that the rural child develops a practical turn of mind, and has a tendency to look on education if its prac- • tical trend is not evident with an impatience that is not felt by his urban cousin. The city child is not engaged on anything in particular outside the school, and hence has no definite measure of the immediate interest and value of his education; the country child is doing real things, and confronting actual problems, and hence has a constant tendency to compare the worth of the time spent VOCATIONAL TRAINING 95 in school with the time spent outside of school. Without being wholly conscious of it himself, he demands prac- tical results from his education. The movement for vocational education in this country is now in full swing. Six states — Massachusetts, New Growth of voca- York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Wis- tional education consin and Indiana — now have more or less complete systems of vocational instruction. The newer education which they are so successfully intro- ducing is not meant to replace the old, but to supplement it, by giving training for a specific employment in addi- tion to the regular school studies. Elementary instruc- tion in agriculture is now required in the schools of nearly half the states, and the movement is extending with every session of the legislatures. It is safe to conclude that the next few years will see vocational training a part of the regular education of a very large proportion of all our industrial workers. The rural school has an exceptional responsibility in carrying out its share of this new problem. Until recent Responsibility of years agricultural production has been rural school able to keep pace with the increased food demands of our growing cities. As the hungry mouths multiplied in number, new areas were put under the plow, and more corn and wheat raised. Modern ma- chines made it easy to cultivate the added acres, which the government supplied ; so there was no reason to hus- band the resources of the soil. It was natural that much waste should occur under such a system ; the only thought was immediate returns, and these were not always intelli- gently sought. But with much of the most fertile land greatly exhausted by improper methods of cultivation, and with the free public lands all gone, conditions have 96 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS greatly changed. The value of land has constantly mounted, and the price of produce has steadily risen. The old wasteful methods will no longer do. An im- portant part of the conservation of our resources is the education of the boys of the farms for the great indus- try on which they are to engage. They must be trained for their vocation, and not left to learn by costly mis- takes what they may easily be taught by simple instruc- tion in the course of their education. The rural schools must prepare for the vocation of agriculture. It is argued by many that the rural schools are not equal to this additional burden. It is said that the Rural school equal teachers are not prepared to teach to the task these subjects, nor are the schools equipped for teaching them. This is all too true of a large proportion of the rural schools of the present ; but it is not true of them all, and the conditions are rapidly changing for the better. Thousands of teachers are studying the new subjects in summer schools, or taking time off to master them; and other thousands about to enter on teaching are now having an opportunity to pre- pare in the vocational subjects as a part of their own education. Many rural schools are equipping for the teaching of the newer branches and others stand ready to act whenever conditions are ripe for the introduction of the vocational lines of work. The question is no longer whether we shall introduce the vocational subjects into rural education, but how can it best be done. One point is clear with reference to the introduction of agriculture and allied subjects into the rural schools : Vocational studies these branches must be taught as prac- must be practical tical, applied subjects, and not as so many detached facts or so much class-room theory. The A manual training class and what it made. At the left is the teacher, next to him is the janitor. What this class made out of school hours could have been sold for one hundred dollars A high school class at work in an Agricultural Laborator}- VOCATIONAL TRAINING 97 work in agriculture must involve real practise with the planting and growing of crops, the care and breeding of stock, and the understanding and handling of soil. The course must not be merely a text-book course, but must make the text-book a means of studying and interpreting plants and animals under actual farm conditions. Simi- larly, work in manual training must not deal with abstrac- tions, nor must the shop exercises bear chiefly on lines of construction foreign to the farm and its surroundings. (Skill with tools can be obtained from work on articles required on the farm, as well as from the making of • bric-a-brac. The course in domestic science must keep in mind the farmhouse and rural conditions, and adapt its work to meet these needs. For only in such ways can the new branches from which so much is expected toward revitalizing the rural schools accomplish what is demanded of them. Agriculture, manual training and do- mestic science are not a panacea for the ills of rural edu- cation. There is no magic in any one of these branches except as it is related directly to the life and needs of the pupils. Agriculture taught from a text-book in the hands of a teacher unacquainted with living plants and animals might easily become as dead and uninteresting as a list of conjugations or a column of historical dates. Domestic science presented as a set of rules and ab- stract principles is not superior to scientific classifications or linguistic inflections as a subject of study. It finds its true value only when immediately related to the ex- perience and problems of the learner. Some have considered practical agriculture an impos- sible subject in rural schools because of lack of ground Rural school limi- ^^^ ^^^ planting and raising of crops tations and absence of facilities for the study- 98 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS ing of farm animals. In addition, the school runs not more than eight or nine months a year, and leaves the school agricultural projects without care at the very time when attention is most needed and when observation would be most instructive. There is much force in this argument, and the difficul- ties of conducting demonstration and experimental work at the school are not exaggerated. Yet this does not mean that the whole project must fall through. For there are different ways of arriving at the same re- sults. In the first place, some phases of instruction can be easily and effectively carried on in the school itself, even Possibilities of '^^ the one-room district school with one-room school jts meager equipment. The selection and care of seed-corn, and the methods of testing it, re- quire very little apparatus, almost no expense, and prac- tically no additional room. Similarly the testing of clover and timothy seed for freedom from noxious weeds, the method of treating seed oats to prevent rust, etc., can easily be accomplished. Soils can be examined and com- pared and tested and their suitability to different crops determined. With the cooperation of the farmers of the community and experts from the agricultural schools, special stock-and-grain-judging contests can be held. All these things and many others which lie at the very founda- tion of successful farming, require not special laboratories and equipment, but only knowledge, determination and willingness to work on the part of the teacher. They are wholly within the reach of the humblest district school, and need be hardly less effective and thorough there than in the larger school. VOCATIONAL TRAINING 99 The range of agricultural instruction possible to the rural school is not limited, however, to the resources of the school premises. The adjoining farms, fields and flocks vastly extend the scope of the school laboratory. The seed-corn being planted on a neighboring field ; the stand of corn on the farms along the road; the history of the rotation of crops in the neighborhood; the rust on Farmer Smith's oats and the smut on Farmer Brown's corn; the farm animals in adjacent pastures or barn- yards — these are all as easily available for study as if they were a part of the equipment of the school, and have the advantage of being entirely real and concrete problems. Once the neighborhood becomes interested in the school's work in agriculture, there is no end to the as- Community sistance that will be willingly and cooperation gladly rendered by the patrons. Va- rious rural schools in Minnesota have found it possible to install Babcock milk-testers, the children bringing samples of milk from the farm for the purpose of the test, and taking the results of the test home as measures of the different cows of the herd. In another community each of several families gladly contributed a sitting hen for experimental study of chicken-raising at the school. The hens were set in coops made in the manual-training shop of the school according to models supplied by the state agricultural college. When the chicks were hatched the entire school day by day studied their growth. Each brood was fed a different ration prescribed by agricul- tural experts for a test of feeding. Other details of care and management were varied, and a comparison of results was made. The outcome of these experiments was the doubling of the poultry industry in the community, and 100 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS the application of methods that greatly increased the profits. Better still, the children were scientifically in- structed in a paying industry, their interest in both the school and the farm was strengthened, and the school and the home were more closely related. One of the most promising fields for the development of rural vocational training is what is coming to be known "Home project" ^s home project study. The aim is to work interest the pupil in home industrial work, for which, when satisfactorily completed, school credit is given. There are two distinct plans in opera- tion, the difference being chiefly with reference (i) to the character of the home work for which school credit is given, and (2) the relation of the school to the direc- tion or oversight of the work carried on at home. Under the first plan, which originated in Massachu- setts and has now been widely adopted by individual schools throughout the country, each pupil, with the ad- vice of his teacher, selects some definite piece of work to be done at home, in part under the direction and super- vision of the school. The work selected must be of such character that it can be carried through from beginning to completion by the pupil, who is required to pursue supplementary reading and study on his home project as a part of the school work. The teacher or a special su- pervisor occasionally visits the home, inspects the pupil's work, and gives necessary suggestions or directions. The consent of the parents for the pupil to take up the pro- ject must be obtained, and their hearty cooperation as- sured. In Massachusetts the work on the project, to- gether with the reading and study necessary to carry it out, requires about one-half of the pupil's time. Among the home projects being successfully under- Judging poultry at a Rural School Coop and brooder made by boys of the Manua' Training Department of a Consolidated School VOCATIONAL TRAINING loi taken by either boys or girls are the following : The rais- ing and care of a pen of poultry ; planting and cultivating Types of home ^ section of a vegetable garden ; car- projects ing for and picking the fruit from a part of an orchard ; setting out and cultivating a patch of berries; preparing the ground for, planting, cultivating and harvesting a specified crop of potatoes or corn ; caring for one or two cows, including the feeding of a specified ration, cleaning, milking and testing the milk ; the feeding of a pen of pigs ; the building of a chicken house, porch or sidewalk; the canning of a crop of tomatoes, berries, or fruit; the doing of a specific phase of household work, such as setting the table, serving the meals, making beds, cleaning and dusting ; planning, cutting and making gar- ments, etc. The coordination of school and home work has proved effective wherever it has been fairly tried. True, . , it entails additional work on the Success attained , , , • i i i ^i teacher, particularly where there are no special supervisors to have general oversight of the home work; for it requires that the teacher shall occasionally visit the home for the inspection of the pupil's work. The advantages arising from the better spirit of cooperation and study in the school, and from the loyal support of the school by the homes, however, far outweigh the added requirements placed on the teacher. Work of this nature can be instituted in almost any rural school in the United States, providing the teacher is fully prepared for his part in the project, and enters into the spirit of the work with enthusiasm and tact. It need hardly be said that such a plan would be worse than a failure where the teacher lacks the knowl- edge, interest or tact requisite for so delicate an under- 102 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS taking as to supervise work done by the child at his home, and credit it as a part of his school requirement. The second plan differs from the first in not requir- ing oversight of the home work by the school, in not Home projects demanding reading and study along without super- the line of home work being carried ^^^^°" out, and in allowing a perfectly free range of choice of the home work to be done. The aim under this plan is to encourage the pupil to help in the regular work, doing his part faithfully and well. There is no direct attempt to make the work educative, except as all work well performed is educative, or as the child may receive instruction from the parent. Hence no at- tempt is made to correlate the home work with the work of the school. The parents are given the responsibility of judging the quantity and quality of the work done, and must report their judgment to the teacher, who as- signs proper credit to the pupil toward completing his course in the school. This plan is in successful operation in many sections throughout the United States, but has been more fully _,, -, , developed and followed in the state 1 he Uregon plan r ^ i 11 o of Oregon than elsewhere. State Superintendent L. R. Alderman says of the project: "The plan costs no money, will take but little school time, and can be put into operation in every part of the state at once. It will create a demand for expert instruction later on. It is to give school-credit for industrial work done at home. The mother and father are to be recog- nized as teachers, and the school-teacher put into the position of one who cares about the habits and tastes of the whole child. Then the teacher and the parents will have much in common." ' - VOCATIONAL TRAINING 103 ' Among the home duties for which school credit is given to boys on the report of the parent are: Building the _ . , .- morning fires, feeding stock, milking, Rating the pupil - . , . . . cleanmg horses, carmg for poultry, providing fuel. Credit work for girls includes sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, serving or setting the table, bread or cake making, sewing and ironing. Other sub- jects may be added by the parents if the work is regularly done by the pupil. In rating the pupil for the term or year, the industrial work carried on in the home is usually counted the equivalent of one subject pursued by the pupil in school, and credit is given on this basis. Perhaps the most important factor recently introduced into rural vocational education is the agricultural club The "agricultural movement, which is becoming more club" movement closely affiliated with the work of the rural schools every year. It is safe to say that club work will become a definite part of the school program in thousands of rural schools within the next few years. The growth of agricultural clubs throughout the United States has been more rapid during the last year than at any former time, and the promise for the future is even more encouraging. The first agricultural clubs were those established some sixteen years ago in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa and other middle western states. These were not definitely connected with the schools, and existed as district, county or state clubs, usually organized under the auspices of a state agricultural college. The national club organization began in 1907 in Mississippi, under W. H. Smith, now state supervisor of rural schools of that state. The first clubs organized were corn clubs for boys ten to eighteen years of age. They enrolled one hundred and sixty-two 104 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS members the first year. This number had grown to one hundred thousand boys in corn clubs in the southern states in 1912. Girls' garden and canning clubs were first organized in 1910 in South Carolina and Virginia. There were three hundred and twenty-five girls enrolled the first year, the number increasing to thirty thousand in 19 12. In addition to the corn and garden clubs in the South, cotton clubs, potato clubs, poultry clubs, etc., have also been established and are rapidly growing. The United States Department of Agriculture has now definitely taken up boys' and girls' club work as one of Department of ag- its activities, and almost a million dol- riculture and clubs lars a year is being spent to promote agricultural education through this agency. Club work, so successful in the South, has been extended into the northern states. Sixteen states are now organized for national club work in cooperation with the Office of Farm Management of the Department of Agriculture. The work of the club is usually initiated through the schools, and is being made a definite part of the school program in many places. Special instructions are fur- nished all members in accordance with the nature of the work, lectures are given under the auspices of the club by agricultural experts, contests are held and prizes awarded. The national club organization under the direction of O. H. Benson, specialist in charge, is at present affiliating with it the various state and local clubs, and the movement will be extended until it has embraced every state. There are already some sixty specialists and agents now giving all or the greater portion of their time to this work. The cooperation of rural schools is everywhere being sought and encouraged, and valuable assistance rendered to make the work a success as a part of rural education. VOCATIONAL TRAINING 105 Boys and girls in all parts of the country have re- sponded enthusiastically to the club idea, and have shown Success of the marvelous results from their experi- olub movement ments and work. In states where the average yield of corn on the farm is from twenty to forty bushels the corn clubs have succeeded in producing from seventy-five to over two hundred bushels from an acre. Garden clubs, chicken clubs, canning clubs, cotton clubs and various other kinds of clubs have shown the same enterprise and ability to produce results through the use of the better methods learned in connection with the club work. The following table shows the list of prize winners in the corn club of the northern and western states for 1912, with the results obtained from one acre of ground. Each of the boys was given a free trip to Washington as a prize, the expenses being paid by various interested individuals, bankers' as- sociations, chambers of commerce, congressmen, senators and others : Club prize winners State Name Address Yield Bushels Cost Per Bushel Maryland Kentucky Iowa West Virginia. Massachusetts Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Illinois Leroy Nichols .. Lester Bryant .. Earl Zeller Ethan Allen Ernest Russell . Hosea Cornwall. Herman Rucker Ivan Houser.. .. Leon Kelley.. .. Wm. Southward Leo Miller Robert Reeder.. Ivan Goble Glen H. Gordon Robert Michael. Bert Waggoner. John S. Lane...., Ralph Wooters. Wilson Francis. Wilbur Corbin,. James P. Brown Highland Rockfield Cooper Morgantown. South Hadley Newman Decatur , Farmer City. Monticello..., Kinmundy.... Springfield,.., Mendota Charleston.. ., Urbana Assumption.., Gays Lacon , Moweaqua... . McNabb Wheeler Raymond 150. CO 148.55 141.45 140.20 68.90 150.45 145-4^ 122.60 119.25 117.75 112.48 III. 50 108.59 107.50 106. II 105.80 100.40 96.97 94.50 82.00 59.00 • 1333 .1275 .0975 .2500 .70C0 .2940 .1241 .3000 .2030 .2265 .1233 .2689 .2288 io6 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS The results for 1912 from the twelve southern states whose club work is under the direction of the Office of Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work is even better than the showing for the northern and western states : State Name Address Yield Bushels Cost Per Bushel Venters 207 . 18 206.60 198.25 196.27 177. 184. I67. 159. 156. 134.20 131-50 129.29 122.50 117.67 101.08 83. $ .400 .136 .165 Mississippi Carious Reddock Willie Atchison J. P. Deach Summerland McCalla Alabama Union Grove .lO'? Georgia Byron Bolton George E. West Frank Brockman Herbert McKibbon... Walter Bridges Lester Carrard lohnM. Cobb Richard Miller Ear le Davis .135 Virginia Tennessee Amherst .225 Culleoka Georgia • 3125 Magnolia Louisiana Florida VowellsMill Baker .150 .260 Texas Grapelaad Mena .094 Robert Connally Elston Coleman Herbert Allen North Carolina Pungo .142 If all the farm boys now in rural schools could be in- terested in club and home project work, thus get- Possibilities in ag- ting the information and developing ricultural work the standards of farming required of members of the present clubs, the resultant increase in agricultural wealth in the nation would be almost beyond computation. The productivity of the soil would be far more than doubled and its natural strength would be much better conserved than under present conditions. And corresponding results are possible in the breeding and raising of stock, in the care and use of improved farm machinery, in the planning and erection of farm build- ings, including farmhouses, and in all that goes to make farming a profitable and worthy career. Let the rural school show its value by making an im- mediate and practical contribution to the welfare and Reflex influence success of its community, and there upon schools -will be no lack of financial or moral Lester Bryant, champion boy corn grower of Ken- tucky (1912). He grew 148 bushels and 5=; pounds of corn on his one acre VOCATIONAL TRAINING 107 support on the part of its patrons. Rural schools that have earnestly and effectively taken up vocational train- ing have uniformly found ready cooperation and enthusi- astic appreciation. Schoolhouses have been improved or new ones erected, apparatus and other equipment have been supplied, and teachers' salaries have been increased as an evidence of awakened public interest in practical education. One Illinois rural district paid the teacher one hundred and ten dollars a month, nine hundred and ninety dollars a year, in 1913, for teaching a one-room school in which the vocational ideal dominates ; and many other districts in widely scattered regions are offering teachers who are capable of successfully introducing vocational subjects fully fifty per cent, more salary than the average for their vicinity. Nor does the vocational rural school lose its grip on its pupils, as is the case with the old type of school, and Influence upon allow them to drift into their life- P^pils work without preparation, and defi- cient in education. One of the most marked results of introducing vocational studies into the school has been larger enrollment and more regular attendance and greatly increased interest. The actual attendance in the modernized school is not infrequently doubled and oc- casionally trebled as compared with the former school. Not only do boys and girls who ordinarily would drop out of school at the third, fourth or fifth grade con- tinue to the end of the elementary course, but many of them are later found in the high school. Especially is this true where the high school also offers the vocational subjects. The experience of Superintendent Kate R. Logan, of Cherokee County, Iowa, forcefully demonstrates the io8 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS power of a rural school of practical type to attract the young people of the farm. In traveling up and down Response to "spa- her county, Miss Logan noted many cial" schools boys and girls from fifteen to twenty years of age who were not in school, and who possessed but a meager education. These were the boys and girls who had dropped out from the district school, lost step educationally with those of their age, and now felt that the school had nothing for them. Miss Logan presented the case of these young people to her township school boards all over the county. As a result, a number of "special" schools were established, two of them in new buildings, to provide for this class of students. These schools open in the early autumn, and run until late spring. They employ the best teachers available. The course of study includes a review of the "three R's," agri- culture, manual training, domestic science, music, history, civics, literature, etc. The instruction is as concrete and inspiring as it can be made and is directly connected with the life of the pupils wherever possible. Needless to say, these "special" schools have been a success. They have been so great a success as almost to embarrass the school officials by the number who sought admission. For boys and girls have come from far and near to the schools, walking where possible, and supply- ing their own conveyances where the distance was great. The attendance has been regular; the work has been thorough and effective ; the spirit of loyalty and enthusi- asm in the school has been noteworthy. A number of young men from these "special" schools have now gone to agricultural colleges, and others of both sexes are planning to continue their education in high schools and colleges. VOCATIONAL TRAINING 109 It is not likely that "special" schools, like those set up by Miss Logan will be widely adopted. They ought not All rural schools to be necessary. The work and oppor- to be vocational tunities they offer ought to be available in every rural school. Then the boys and girls will not drop out of school and require special schools in which to continue their education. The superintendent and people of Cherokee County are to be congratulated on their wis- dom and enterprise in providing for the neglected group of their youth who attend these special schools. But the next step is to make all the schools of their county "spe- cial" schools. And what is true of this county holds for all rural schools throughout the land; their work must be made so much a part of the life-equipment of the pu- pils that their appeal will be irresistible and the help they render invaluable — they must in a true and broad sense be made vocational. Whatever may be the method taken by the individual school, therefore, to work out its problem, we may con- Vocational move- ^^"de that our rural schools are about ment bound to to enter on a system of practical vo- succeed cational training for the farm boys and girls. No doubt there will be here and there a school, and perhaps here and there a whole county, where in- dustrial education will for a time be looked on as a fad, or as impossible in the smaller type of schools. No doubt vocational instruction will here and there be undertaken by teachers who are unprepared in either knowledge or sympathy for such work, and harm will be done to the movement and its progress delayed. Yet the movement is under way, and its success is but a question of time. The logic of the age demands that the rural schools shall be made vocational, the leadership is organizing to conduct no BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS a nation-wide campaign for such a result, and the patrons of the schools are everywhere loyal supporters of a vo- cational program once it is established. It is inevitable that our rural schools shall come to supply vocational training for the farm. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. It has been conceded for generations that training must be supplied by the state for those who are to enter professional pursuits. Should not the state likewise provide training for those who are to enter industrial pursuits? 2. Suppose it would cost your state two million dollars a year more than it now pays for its schools to introduce vocational training into its rural schools ; also suppose as a result of such studies taught in the schools the yield of corn is increased by five bushels to the acre (which would be easily possible). How would the state come out financially on the investment? 3. A great many rural school-teachers are graduates of town high schools and have never lived on a farm. The majority of them are girls. Can these teachers hope to make efficient instructors in the vocational subjects? If so, how must they prepare? 4. Has your school made any preparation for teaching agriculture? If so, is the equipment of it adequate? If no provision has yet been made would you know just where to begin, and what to do in furthering the project? 5. In some localities the farmers have little faith in the agriculture taught in the schools. Can you suggest meth- ods by which this indifference or antagonism can be over- come? 6. What "home projects" for boys would you find it possible to introduce into your school work? For girls? Do you foresee that an untactful teacher might defeat all VOCATIONAL TRAINING iii such plans for work by failing to gain the cooperation of parents ? 7. Do you think that school gardens could be made a success in connection with your school (i) for teaching nature study and agriculture ; (2) for purposes of decora- tion? 8. What club work would be best adapted to your school conditions? Do you know how to proceed in or- ganizing and conducting a corn club? A canning club? If not, do you know where to write for instructions (ask your superintendent) ? PART III THE TEACHER AND THE RURAL SCHOOL CHAPTER VII THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER The chief factor in increasing the efficiency of the rural school is, after all, the teacher. For on the teacher all the rest depends. No matter how perfect the curriculum, or how excellent the buildings and equipment, these things all go for naught except as they are employed by de- voted, inspiring and efficient teachers. More than this, the teacher is the most potent influence in awakening interest, shaping public sentiment and winning from the patrons of the rural schools the support necessary for the success of the new movement. The key to educational progress is largely in the teachers' hands. It is only as they comprehend the situation and lend their support to the new ideals that results will be possible. If the teachers are able to enter enthusiastically into the spirit of the new movement, if they are willing to prepare themselves fully for leadership in their communities ; and if they are ready to devote their best powers to the school and the community, then there can be no doubt of the successful outcome of the reforms now taking shape in the rural schools. But if, on the other hand, the teachers should fail to catch the spirit of the new movement, to comprehend its Power to hinder or significance, or to prepare themselves promote progress to be its exponents, then the movement could not succeed. For it is the teacher who comes into 115 ii6 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS immediate contact with the patrons of the schools. County superintendents may be ever so efficient and have their plans ever so well laid, but it must finally be the rural teacher who carries these plans into execution. School boards may be ever so loyal to the educational interests of their districts and desirous of offering the children the best opportunities available, but they need the inspiration and guidance that alone can come from a thoroughly informed and highly enthusiastic leader such as the rural teacher must be under the new order. The teacher must be the concrete embodiment of the educational ideal. It is for him to reveal the new mean- The teacher must ^"^ °^ education— to show how educa- embody educa- tion can be made the instrument of tional ideal efficiency and success in the life and work of the farm. It lies with him to attract the rural boys and girls to the school and by his effective teaching hold them there until they complete the course it offers. The teacher must be the source of inspiration and enthusi- asm capable of leading the pupils to desire an education because they see its advantages. The rural teacher occu- pies a strategic position in the greatest educational move- ment of modern times, — the movement to bring the rural schools up to the degree of efficiency necessary if the life and standards of our rural communities are not to deteriorate. This is a great responsibility and at the same time a magnificent opportunity. The spirit which the rural teacher brings to his work becomes, therefore, an all-important matter. For the at- The spirit of the titude with which one confronts one's teacher task is the first measure of his suc- cess. Battles have often been won against great odds through an invincible spirit of loyalty and de- THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 117 votion on the part of the soldiers; and battles have as often been lost because devotion and loyalty were lacking. Half-hear*-ed service always fails of its purpose, for it never calls forth the full powers of him who serves, nor the full response and appreciation of those who receive the service. The indifferent or spirit- less teacher would do well to remember Emerson's re- mark, that "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." Nor is anything worthy ever accomplished without sincerity of purpose. A great work greatly per- formed reflects its greatness on the worker ; but it dwarfs him who slights it or uses it as a plaything. A spirit of cooperation begets its kind, but an attitude of selfishness or indifference is fatal to community of interests or efforts. The teacher must give what he expects to get back. He will find that the world is a great mirror which returns to him the image he brings to it. How, then, shall the rural teacher look on his work? Is it to him an opportunity or an imposition? Is the school simply a place where so many school-days of so many hours each can be traded for a ^iven number of pay checks? Or is it an opportunity for investing the best powers of his mind and heart in the lives and welfare of those with whom he works? The pay? — Ah, yes, the teacher must have his oay. Would that it were twice what it is ! But, having once arranged the matter of the pay, that need not again enter into his reckoning. The true teacher will feel his best powers placed under tribute by the need and the opportunity that confront him, and will not measure the service he renders, nor in any degree check it up in a balance against dollars and cents. One rural teacher was taught this lesson by a school director to whom he applied for a school. The board had ii8 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS fixed tHe salary at the pitiful sum of thirty dollars a month for a term of three months. The teacher remon- A teacher with the strated at the meagerness of the sal- wrong attitude ary, but the director replied that, though he was sorry it was not more, yet this was the amount decided on by the board, and was therefore all he could offer. The teacher finally said, 'T will accept the school at thirty dollars a month, but I warn you now that I shall not teach so good a school for thirty dollars as I would for forty dollars a month." The farmer looked at him a moment in astonishment and then administered a well-merited rebuke: "Sir, you are lacking in the true spirit of the teacher; you could not have this school at any price !" Only as personal hand-to-hand work by sincere teach- ers is done in the rural communities will the new spirit in Results accom- education permeate the patronage of plished by a de- the rural schools and finally serve to voted teacher reconstruct their attitude toward the school. The influence that may be exerted by an en- thusiastic and capable rural teacher is illustrated in the case of one girl in a western state who entered a rural community in which the school spirit and standards were low, the building unsuitable and out of repair, and equip- ment almost wholly lacking. This teacher set resolutely at work to remedy these conditions. She gave herself completely to her work, and became in a true sense one of the community. Within three years she had revolution- ized educational affairs in this district, being responsible for the erection of a modern school building with the latest and most sanitary equipment, and with apparatus and supplies wholly adequate for the needs of the dis- trict. She had more than doubled the attendance of the THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 119 school, had had her own pay largely increased, and had made the school the central feature both intellectually and socially in this community. What was accomplished by this one rural teacher can be accomplished by others if they but possess the right spirit and equipment for their work. Indeed just such work as this is being accom- plished by thousands of teachers in our rural schools. The rural school has long been looked on as the lowest and most unattractive teaching position in our whole Difficult problems school system. Here most of us had to be met to begin, young, inexperienced and relatively unprepared for our work. The school is usually small in numbers, the pupils are poorly classified, the building is diminutive and uninviting, and the equipment insufficient. The salary is inadequate, the school spirit at a low ebb, and all conditions are less inviting than in the town or city school. The rural school has frequently been viewed by men as a stepping-stone to better posi- tions, and by girls as a convenient opportunity to earn a little money against the expenses of approaching mar- riage. It has too often been considered as a place of mere drudgery, a position to be endured if it could not be escaped. Yet the very difficulty and hardness of the adverse con- ditions constitute a challenge to the heroic element in Meeting the dare choice natures. The obstacles act as a of hard conditions dare to the spirit of conquest inherent in youth. They call for sacrifice, yet offer the opportunity for the testing of one's powers and for the winning of hard-earned victories. Man at his best is not afraid of hardship, and does not look for an easy task. The spirit of conflict deeply rooted in human nature, and the impulse to try to the utmost all our powers, prompt us to measure 120 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS our strength against difficulties that appear all but insu- perable. It is this spirit that explains the measure of suc- cess that has attended our rural schools even under such discouraging conditions. That the rural school has proved as efficient as it has, is a high testimony to the intelligence and resourcefulness of our young men and women who have begun their careers as rural school-teachers. Only the teacher who is willing to accept the dare of hard and trying work has any business in the rural school. Rural school no ^^ '^ "° P^^^^ ^°' *^^ ^^^^^'"^ ^^ ^^^ place for half- weak-hearted, or for one who is not hearted work willing to lose himself completely in his work ; for to him it will mean but time-serving and in- efficiency. One such teacher, entering on a two months' term, said at the close of the first day of school, "Only thirty-nine more days left !" And so he kept on checking the days off until the end of the term released him from his slavery. For no work followed in such a spirit as this can be other than slavery to the worker. Another, a girl just graduated from a high school and a resident of a town, when asked how she liked her country school, said : "Oh, if I can go out to my school each week on Monday morning just in time for school, have a chance to get back to town once or twice during the week, and always escape in time to be at home for supper on Friday night, I think I can stand it." There is no possibility of high-grade success with such an attitude as this toward one's work; for interest and J, 't f enthusiasm are lacking, and the whole-hearted choicest powers of both mind and service heart lag far below their best. The teacher of the rural school, even though reared in the town or city, must be able to identify himself fully with THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 121 the life and interests of the rural community in which he works. He can not come into the country community as a foreigner, and do his best work. He must be fully naturalized to the conditions and the people in his sphere of work. Nor can this be any half-hearted or profes- sional identification of himself with the farming commu- nity. He must go the whole distance, and really come to take a deep and permanent interest in the people and their life. The career of a young man — ^David Hammond — teach- ing in a western rural school well illustrates this fine What enthusiasm spirit of service. David graduated can accomplish from a town high school where he had an opportunity to study a course in agriculture and learn manual training. He then attended a normal school for a year, studying especially the problems of rural educa- tion. He spent the next summer on a farm. The follow- ing September, at the age of nineteen, he became teacher of a rural school noted only for its meager attendance and lack of vitality. But here was David Hammond's oppor- tunity. He was not looking for an easy place ; he wanted to try what he could do. He became so completely one of the community that they laughingly said they had adopted him. At least they raised his salary, and the second year he was drawing sixty dollars a month. Better still, the school had undergone a marvelous change. The house was now in repair, equipment was plentiful, and a happy throng of children double in number those he found when he began the school were coming regularly. But other districts had heard of David Hammond's success ; such fame is sure to spread. David was offered ninety dollars a month in another school, an increase of one-half in his salary. David's old district could not afford to pay more 122 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS than sixty. But David stayed. He said that there were still many things he wanted to do for that district before he left. And he is there carrying out his plans. Some may scoff at David's choice. But the world is on the lookout for men who are great enough to make such choices, and some day David Hammond will be wanted to fill a position of large responsibility to which the scoffer could never aspire. The teacher who has a tendency to feel that his time and powers are in some sense wasted or poorly employed The teacher who ^^^^^ expended on the backward feels above his and plainly clad children of the farms ^ should either change his attitude or his occupation. For these children are not to be slighted or patronized. They are at least the equals of the chil- dren of the towns and cities when given an equal chance. And the true teacher will feel that here is the most fruit- ful ground in which to sow the seeds of helpfulness and influence. If the teacher is worthy to stand at the head of a school, this school, though small and poorly housed, will command the last measure of his energy and effort. It will call forth the finest of his powers, and receive his richest sympathy and helpfulness. This is to say that the teacher, and particularly the rural teacher of the present day, should be equipped with An example of ^ passion for helpfulness — an un- helpfulness quenchable impulse to service. Domi- nant in his life should be the spirit of sympathy which actuated the teacher in the following incident : Annola Wright was a teacher of music. She has since become a noted singer in a great city. While she was still a teacher in the school of a Michigan town she had developed a beautiful voice, and people loved to hear her sing. But THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 123 they admired Miss Wright fully as much for herself as for her voice. For she was buoyantly happy in her work, and radiated cheer and helpfulness to all about her. Miss Wright's fame as a singer grew, and she was asked many times to sing at social gatherings and entertainments. These invitations became so frequent and her work as a teacher was so heavy that she was obliged to decline many requests to sing. But there was one place where she never failed to go and sing each week. This was the home of a boy who had been a pupil in the school, but was now crippled and helpless. His mother was a widow and washed to support her home. The boy could no longer go to school to hear Miss Wright sing, so she came and sang her most beautiful songs to him. One day the crippled boy sickened of a contagious disease, and the house was quarantined. Miss Wright came and stood outside the fence and sang to the sick boy as he smiled out of the window. She came each day until he died. Be- cause of the contagious disease there could be no funeral service. But on the day when they were to carry the body of the boy from the house, Miss Wright came again and standing by the gate, sang for his funeral the old songs the boy had loved. Soon after this Miss Wright resigned her position as teacher of music and went to the city to study. Success The reward of came to her, and her old friends in the helpfulness Michigan town desired to hear her sing again. They were proud of her success. They sent her an invitation to give a concert in the town. Seats were sold at city prices and the concert hall was crowded. When Miss Wright came before the audience to sing, the people wondered at a little pause before she began, and a strange note of emotion in her voice in the first 124 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS song. They did not know that this was caused by seeing the mother of the crippled boy, who earned her Hving by washing, occupying one of the seats, that she might show her appreciation of Annola Wright's kindness to her boy. The teacher, especially the one who comes from the city high school, must not assume that because the patrons The teacher's atti- ^"^ pupils of his school are dressed tude toward his in working clothes they are therefore P®°P of a different order of beings from himself. He must not allow himself to think that because they work with their hands and have to do with the soil, their vocation is of a lower order than that of the city worker in store or office or shop. He must be able to sense the rugged and virile manhood and the strong womanhood to be found among the rural people and respond to it with the best that is within himself. Not to be able to approach the problems and oppor- tunities of the rural school in this spirit, far from pro- claiming any native superiority inherent in the disdainful teacher, only proves his own narrowness and provincial- ism. What he needs first of all is to broaden his own out- look on life, and to increase the range of his own knowl- edge and sympathies. He needs to look beyond the small circle of his few acquaintances or intimates, and become able to meet those in different walks of life, recognizing their true worth and acknowledging their contribution to the common welfare. He needs to cultivate in himself an appreciation of interests and values hitherto unknown to him. The true teacher will, then, enter fully and completely into his work in the rural school, and will withhold noth- ing of interest, enthusiasm or effort in his desire to be helpful to his community. If he is from the town or city. THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 125 he will earnestly seek to inform himself on the problems and activities of the rural community. He will, in sympathy and appreciation, at least, become a farmer, and will become able to think and feel as farmers do. He will understand the children of the farm, and will bring to them many things that will brighten and enrich their lives, while at the same time he leads their ambitions and inclinations to choose the farm as an occupation. Such a teacher will never hold himself aloof from or above his pupils and patrons, but will expand his own personality until it is large enough to include them all, with their interests and problems. And he will find this fully as much to his own advantage and growth as to theirs. The teacher of the rural school sometimes feels that because the school is small, and the pupils young and . , . backward in their studies, the work is A cure tor impa- ' tience with the therefore less worthy than in higher humdrum grades and larger schools. It is a tendency common to human nature to long for other en- vironment and conditions than those in which we work, and to think that if we could only occupy the position that some one else has, we should be much happier and more successful. Work becomes humdrum, and the sur- roundings commonplace, and we long for a change. While this attitude is natural enough, it is well to remem- ber that all labor becomes routine, and must do so before we can become proficient in it. It is only the teacher who can invest the common duties of the school-day with in- terest and newness who can escape the deadness of routine. While the lessons may be familiar and the sub- ject-matter old, the children are always new, the human element in our work is always changing. Each child is different from any other, and every one worthy the genius 126 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS and devotion of a Pestalozzi in his teacher. We all need to learn the lesson that Sill teaches in his lines : "Forenoon, and afternoon, and night ; — Forenoon, And afternoon, and night ; Forenoon, and — what ? The empty song repeats itself. No more? Yea, that is life ; make this forenoon sublime, This afternoon a psalm, and this night a prayer, And time is conquered, and thy crown is won." Still further is it to be remembered that the elementary work of the grades is not the least important work of the Elementary grades school. It is often thought that the the most important high-school teacher is engaged in more dignified and significant teaching because it is more advanced. Such a view overlooks the fact that the most important years of the child's education are the earliest years. Before the child goes to school at all he has been learning faster than he ever learns afterward. The first years of his schooling are more important by far than the later years. If a child is compelled to have a poor teacher anywhere in the course of his schooling, far better that this should be in the higher grades or in the high school than in the first years. This is true not only because the first years set the standard and give the bent for the later years, but also because the teacher plays relatively a larger part in the learning of the child when he first goes to school than after he has fully learned to use books as a tool in his education. It is high time that all teachers, superintendents and school boards come to realize that the grades of the ele- Best ability re- mentary school require quite as good quired for children ability and as complete training as the THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 127 high school, and that the pay should be fully as great. The failure to recognize this truth has come from the mis- taken notion that the difficult and important thing about teaching is the subject-matter to be taught. Because the subject-matter of the lower grades is simple, it has been assumed that the teaching must be as easy. But the sub- ject-matter is the easy part in any grade of teaching. Any one can learn his arithmetic, geometry or history. The really difficult factor in teaching is the child; and the younger child, who has not yet learned the art of master- ing books, and who still lacks the foundations on which to build in his study, is the hardest problem for the teacher to master. The rural teacher has need at the present time to be the most devoted and progressive of any class of American T^ . r , • teachers. This is true from the fact Demand for choice qualities in rural that the needs of the rural schools are teacher j^g^ j^^^ ^^^ most pressing and the opportunities the greatest of those in any class of schools. The rural school has been left stranded behind all others in recent educational progress. But the advance is begin- ning, and reconstruction is rapidly taking place. In this advance, the rural teacher must be able to take an im- portant part, — must be able, under the direction of county superintendents and other administrative officers, to as- sume leadership in carrying out lines of policy for the improvement of the rural schools. Only devoted and progressive teachers can measure up to the responsibilities now presenting themselves. Only the teacher who has fully entered into the spirit of prog- ress beginning to actuate our agricultural industries and the rural schools can be of any great service in the newer type of rural school. Indeed the unprogressive teacher, 128 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS the teacher who is not able or willing to advance, or the teacher who has fallen into the rut of mechanical teach- ing, would be of far more use in a school of the old type than in the more efficient rural school of the present and the future. The rural teacher* must therefore be willing to grow; must be willing to come into the full spirit of progress and to master the knowledge required to lead in the new curriculum and new methods of to-day. He must be willing and able to cooperate with superintend- ents and other educators in formulating and carrying out a progressive program for the reorganization of rural education. The rural teacher must take teaching seriously. This does not mean that he must be long-faced and solemn. The teacher's view weighted down by a sense of responsi- of his vocation bility. The teacher should of all per- sons be possessed of a ready sense of humor, and be able to see the lighter side of things. But he should also be able to take serious things seriously, and know that it means something to be commissioned by society as the leader and director of children. He must comprehend the wide-spread social movement toward efficiency as the out- come of all true education. He must recognize that fail- ure on his part can but result in depriving childhood of its right to full preparation for the duties and opportunities that lie ahead. No thinking person will therefore enter on such responsibility lightly, or pursue the occupation of teaching frivolously. He will never feel, as one thoughtless teacher expressed his own attitude, that "it is a great joke to be teaching the kids." He will give himself unstintedly to his work, withholding nothing of time, personality or effort in the service of his school. He who can not do this has no moral right to take upon THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 129 himself the obHgations of the teacher, — especially the rural teacher. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. Have you observed cases where one teacher failed and another succeeded in a school owing to a difference in the spirit brought to the work ? Is there any cure for the indifferent teacher, and if so, what ? 2. Is a teacher justified in withholding something of his best effort if he feels that the salary is insufficient to compensate for the work demanded? Explain the para- dox, "He who does not earn more than he receives, re- ceives more than he earns." 3. A pessimistic writer recently said, "Any person, no matter how much he professes to love his work, will leave this work if you offer him twenty per cent, higher salary somewhere else." Do you believe this? Is it not a per- son's duty to command the highest salary his powers will justify? 4. Account for the fact that educational service is paid less than service in commercial lines. For example, the president of one of our largest universities receives ten thousand dollars a year ; the president of an insurance company receives twenty-five thousand dollars a year. 5. Do you believe that Miss Wright, whose story is told in the chapter, received personal rewards in satisfac- tion and development equivalent to the sacrifice required ? Is there any danger of being miserly with one's powers as well as with one's money? 6. Have you known persons whose qualities of char- acter seemed to be brought out through service? Is it necessary that the service be in some conspicuous position in order to produce such a result ? 7. Have you known teachers who seemed to feel above the work they were doing ? Were they successful teach- ers? 8. Which is the better position so far as investment of 130 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS one's influence is concerned, the elementary school or the high school ? What is meant by the paradox that the best teacher is the one who renders himself unnecessary to his pupils ? CHAPTER VIII SCHOLASTIC PREPARATION We have seen how the spirit brought by the teacher to his work is the first proof of his fitness. But this spirit is a matter of growth and development. Attitude arises not by chance, but out of environment and training. The teacher can not create a certain spirit toward his work by mere compulsion of will or by determination. However good his intentions, he can not teach that which he does not himself know. He can not enter fully and sympa- thetically into the life and interests of those whose expe- riences are wholly different from his. He must have some point of contact with the people he serves, some common basis of thought, feeling and knowledge. The rural teacher must therefore be educated, so that he can lead and inspire ; he must be trained, so that he can teach ; he must be at heart one of his people, so that he can enter into their lives as a friend and leader. His spirit and attitude must be shaped to this end by his preparation and training. For it is only as the teacher has made concrete in his own life and experience the standpoints and methods he The teacher must fishes to impress on others^ that he embody the truth will find his instruction effective. The he teac es world is never either formed or re- formed by abstract truth or general theory. It requires the stimulus of actual lives ; for it is, after all, the lives of 131 132 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS leaders that we follow, and not their words. This truth has not always been recognized in teaching. Not infre- quently teachers have been employed who had not mas- tered for themselves what they were attempting to teach. And we have therefore had the spectacle of a teacher trying to transplant arithmetic, grammar or geography directly from the pages of the text-book into the minds of the pupils. It is needless to say this process is always a failure. The subject-matter taught must have first be- come an integral part of the knowledge of the teacher. One can not teach what does not come from within ; one can not pick matter up and hand it on to others without first partaking of it one's self. Knowledge, standpoints, ideals, and all other values must first be so thoroughly assimilated that they are a real part of us before we can impart them to others. The rural teacher must be well educated. For if the blind undertake to lead the blind shall not both fall into The blind attempt- ^^^ ^^^ch? The public demand does ing to lead the not, in all parts of the country, yet in- ^^^^^ sist on adequate scholastic training for teachers. Even in some very rich and highly intelligent states, hardly the simplest rudiments of knowledge in the fundamental branches are required of rural teachers. Thousands of schools are yet taught by those who have had little or no schooling in advance of that given in the rural schools themselves. In a middle western state one girl who failed in the examinations for passing from the eighth grade into the high school of her home town, took the teachers' examination, obtained a certificate and be- came a teacher in the rural schools! In many parts of the South the conditions are as bad. Such a situation is a shame and a disgrace. Where standards of such low SCHOLASTIC PREPARATION 133 grade are tolerated by the public, the teachers themselves ought out of self-respect to arise and demand adequate scholastic preparation as a condition of entrance to their professional ranks. Teachers must be willing to do this if they expect to stand high in public regard ; if they hope to increase their salaries ; if they wish to be laborers worthy of their hire. All efforts, therefore, such as are sometimes made by teachers to lower the scholastic re- quirements for certificates, or to avoid the necessity for professional growth and development as a condition to promotions or advancement in the grade of certificates, are not only hostile to public welfare, but inimical to the best interests of the teachers themselves. These are days of high prices — high cost of living, high priced land, and highly paid labor. The most expensive The cost of commodity of the present age, how- ignorance ever, is ignorance. Nor can the farmer, any more than those in any other vocation, afford to tolerate it. The rural teacher and the rural school are coming more and more to be two of the most valuable assets in any rural community. But the rural teacher must be able to fulfil his part of the contract ; he must be prepared for the greater educational demands recently being placed on him. Indeed, teachers are in these days being selected for the rural schools on a new and different basis from that New demands which has too often prevailed. The upon teachers time is now past for choosing a teacher because of his physical stature, or because he has a reputation for "cleaning out" some neighboring school. He is no longer favored because he happens to belong to a particular political party. And even the fact of his being a relative of ^n influential member of the school 134 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS board is coming to lose its coercive power. The newer and more hopeful type of question is, What is your edu- cation? What has been your type of training? What do you know about agriculture and life on the farm ? What have you already accomplished? What can you do for this school and community? Are you really prepared to teach school, and do you knozv how, or are you only seeking a convenient place to earn a little money? Laws have been enacted in a number of states requir- ing a full high-school education and a certain amount of normal training before a teacher's certificate can be granted. This is well ; and the movement will spread as fast as the false economy of employing unprepared teachers is fully realized. But this is, after all, only an initial step. We must go farther, and also insist that the education received shall be of the type to fit for the special problems of the rural school. The rural teacher should have had practical training on the farm itself, and should, if possible, have had at least a part of his educa- tion in the rural school. For only in this way can he have a concrete and first-hand knowledge of the problems to be solved through his teaching. This is to say that the scholastic training of the rural teacher must include a knowledge of farm life and its problems as well as of books. A scholastic training in a city school, with no opportunity for acquaintance with rural people and con- ditions, is far from an adequate preparation for teaching a rural school. Not until we have well-equipped and highly efficient rural high schools, as well as elementary schools, shall we be able to offer the best type of fitting for the rural teacher. It is true that we have, especially among our older rural teachers, many who have not had the advantage of a high- SCHOLASTIC PREPARATION 135 school education, and yet are doing excellent work. Some of these began when high schools were not so common as Old standards they are now, and when the certifi- not adequate cate requirements were less exacting than at present. Yet these teachers with limited training, who have so often felt the need of better preparation, will be the first to advise every young teacher to acquire a thorough education before entering on his work. And not a few of the more mature and successful teachers have found it worth while to drop out of teaching for a time in order to go to school and make up for the earlier lack of opportunity. Many teachers could learn a valuable lesson from the experience of John Ricketts, one of the best rural- school teachers of his state. In the spring of 1908, when at the end of the term John Ricketts closed his schoolhouse for the vacation, he had completed his thirty-third year of teaching in rural schools. He had had only the scanty training of an old- time district school supplemented by his own experi- ence and study. He was of the growing progressive type, and ranked as a successful teacher. But John Ricketts had caught the spirit of the times and felt that he owed his school and community greater efficiency than he possessed. The following September found him enrolled in one of the best normal schools of his state, broadening his grasp of the subjects he had been teaching so many years, and studying the new industrial subjects and prac- tical agriculture. He even took a course in sewing. After a year of study he returned to the school he had left. He was received with open arms and an increase of salary. He introduced agriculture, manual training, drawing and sewing into his school. He taught the old subjects with 136 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS a new enthusiasm and efficiency. The following summer found him again in the normal school, spending his entire vacation in study. Again he returned to his rural school, this time with his efficiency and usefulness so increased that his services were in demand throughout the entire township. So John Ricketts went on. Each summer he spent in study and each year he taught better for this growth and knowledge. To-day he is receiving in salary almost double what he was receiving five years ago when he decided to strengthen his scholarship and broaden his knowledge. Half a dozen different school corporations are seeking to engage him for their schools. Both his responsibilities and his salary have been increased, and he is now supervisor of music, drawing and industrial work for all the schools of his township. John Ricketts' own view of the matter is as follows : "I taught for over thirty years before I was prepared to teach. I did not grow as a teacher A worthy example . . ... ,. and advance m position because I started on too narrow a basis of education and reached my limit soon after I had begun. I taught all I knew, and did the best I could, but I was unable to do really effective teaching, for I did not have the preparation. It is my intention to spend my summers at some good school where I can replenish my fund of knowledge and keep in- creasing my efficiency." The example set by John Ricketts thirty years after he began to teach should be followed by many teachers who Opportunities open are yet young in the work. It should to teachers be followed by still others who are just beginning. And this can be accomplished in many in- stances without the expense of leaving home to attend a distant school, Good high schools are available in every SCHOLASTIC PREPARATION 137 county. Many of them are recently coming to offer nor- mal-training courses especially for rural teachers. Almost every county also has its summer training school for teachers. There is no longer any excuse on the part of the teacher for lack of education except want of ambition, or unwillingness to spend the time and money in prepara- tion. And either of these causes proclaims the candidate unworthy of the high office of teacher. No person should take on himself the responsibilities of a teacher in the rural schools without the equal of at , , . , , , J least a raod high-school education. A high-school edu- , . , , , . ,r 1 cation the min- He owes this both to himself and to ^'"""^ the schools. For one can not teach all one knows. One must have some background of knowledge and experience beyond that daily drawn on. Otherwise one's teaching will lack aim, balance and precision. It will be wanting in power and ef- fectiveness, for these come from the reserve force of the teacher. It will fail to arouse and inspire, for in- spiration and enthusiasm have their roots in the deeper levels of the mind, and not in the mere surface cur- rents. Nor can one himself fully profit from experi- ence, and grow under the stimulus of responsibility ex- cept as he has a reasonable foundation to build on. Thou- sands of teachers are finding themselves hindered, baffled and discouraged by problems and responsibilities which they could easily meet had they adequate preparation for their duties. Difficulties that ought to serve as stepping- stones to greater efficiency become stumbling-blocks in the way of progress and advancement. Powers and capaci- ties that should develop with the experience of the school- room fail to advance because of not having had sufficient opportunities for growth. Such teachers, having in them 138 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS the possibilities of great service, are rendering mediocre or poor service ; possessing the capacity for great personal success and achievement, they accomplish small results. And all this because of lack of sufficient education and training for their work. Nor should the requirement of adequate scholastic preparation be looked on b}'- teachers as a hardship. It is Scholastic require- a false system of pedagogical book- ments no hardship keeping that leads some teachers to place on the debit side of their accounts all the time, effort and money expended in preparing for their work, and on the credit side only the salary they receive in return. For all that is required of a teacher in the way of scholastic preparation for his work is valuable and necessary just as education. No intelligent, ambitious American youth should be satisfied to enter on his career in any vocation to-day with less than a good high-school education. We are asking no more education of our teachers, therefore, than twentieth-century conditions demand of all who covet success and happiness. And every earnest teacher will be willing and glad to meet these new demands, even at the cost of personal effort and sacrifice. FOR TEACHERS DISCUSSION AND STUDY 1. Regardless of requirements in your own state, what do you think is the least amount of schooling that should admit one to teaching? Do you approve of the require- ment in certain states that does not admit candidates to first examination for a teacher's certificate without gradu- ation from a four-year high school ? 2. In some states the teachers' examination papers are all graded by the state department of education instead of by the county superintendent. What advantage has such a plan ? SCHOLASTIC PREPARATION 139 3. Do you think that, in general, it pays teachers to attend summer schools ? Is there danger of one actually losing ground while teaching if he does no special study ? 4. In some states even low-grade certificates are re- newable for life when once obtained. Do you believe this plan is best for the schools? 5. Does the statement, "Knowledge is power," hold in teaching? Amplify your answer to explain just what you mean. 6. When one is meeting the requirements for teaching is one not adding to one's own education, so that there is no real hardship involved ? Do we in general ask more education of our rural teachers than all American citizens should have ? 7. Suppose that you are teaching, but have never studied agriculture, and that this subject is now to be added in your school. What course should you pursue? Is there danger of defeating the whole purpose of the new education by allowing unprepared teachers to at- tempt to teach what they do not know ? 8. Suppose a girl expects to teach but two or three years, and then to marry. What should be her attitude toward scholastic preparation? CHAPTER IX PROFESSIONAL TRAINING Knowledge of subject-matter, while the first requisite in the training o£ the teacher, is not all. It is one thing to possess certain knowledge, and quite another thing to be able to teach it to others. The older supposition was that scholastic training is all that is necessary in order to become a successful teacher. But we have discovered that this is not true. The great specialist is often the poorest teacher. President Butler says that the worst of all teaching is being done in the colleges and universities. The professors are noted scholars, but many of them are not teachers. They are masters of their subjects, but they do not know how to present these subjects to students. But the possession of knowledge coupled with inability to teach it is not confined to college specialists. The most Example of lack dismal failure in a certain county in of professional a western state noted for its high training scholastic requirements was a rural teacher who held a degree from the justly celebrated uni- versity of her state. She began teaching when normal training was not considered essential; she did not know children, nor how to teach them. She seemed to assume that children learn just as she herself learned, and made no effort to meet them on their own level. Finding the elementary branches of the rural school easy for her own 140 PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 141 mind to grasp, she failed to understand the difficulties they presented to the minds of her pupils. This woman has now taught for fifteen years, but no two of these years in the same school. She is recognized as a mediocre teacher in some schools, as a failure in others. In no school is she called a success. She has failed and, it is to be feared, always will fail, because she lacks knowledge of children, of method, of school organization and man- agement. The chances are that if this well-educated teacher had at the right time been given proper instruc- tion and help in the practical problems of the schoolroom, she would have developed into an excellent teacher. But she quickly found her poor methods crystallizing into bad schoolroom habits ; she early fell into a rut of inefficiency, and has now been too long in that rut to seek a better way. She has lost confidence in herself, and no longer expects success, even with her splendid academic equipment. This is no argument against thorough scholastic train- ing. Far from it. It rather shows the necessity for „ , . adding to one's knowledge of subject- Teachins an art o j matter the further knowledge of how to teach it. For teaching is an art. It rests on certain scientific principles, and has to be learned, the same as any other art. We say that some persons are "born" teach- ers ; but this only means that they more clearly and easily seize the fundamental principles underlying instruction, and more skilfully put them into practise. But even "born" teachers need to be trained in the principles of their art. For such training will save them from many mistakes ; and a teacher's mistakes are always made at the expense of some child's growth and development. His acquisition of skill as a teacher has cost his pupils dear. We do not place tools in the hands of an untrained work- 142 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS man and set him at work on expensive rosewood and ma- hogany. We first train him in the use of his tools, so that he will not waste costly material. Yet the rosewood and mahogany are, after all, but wood. If a piece is spoiled it does not so much matter ; a few dollars will replace it. But the teacher works, not on material that can be re- placed if injured or destroyed, but on lives whose success and happiness depend on the teacher's skill. A mistake made in the education of a child can never be wholly com- pensated for. "Art is long and time is fleeting." Educa- tion-time is all too short at best, and time lost through poor methods or lack of skill on the part of the teacher is irretrievably gone. There can be no making up for the past; the present is too full of its own demands and op- portunities. It is more than probable that if teachers were able to put into practise in their instruction the best pedagogical principles now available to them, at least double the educational progress could he made by our children. Think of the time and opportunity that would then be saved ! Think of the greater efficiency that would result from our schools, and the greater achievement that would be wrought by our people ! The necessity for training in the art of teaching is now coming to be recognized everywhere. None doubt this Growth of normal necessity except the ignorant. Hence training ^e find normal schools springing up in every state, while in some states there are more than a score such schools. A more recent movement has been the development of normal-training courses for rural teachers in the high schools. Arkansas, Maine, New York, Michigan, North Carolina, Vermont, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Virginia and Wisconsin are in the process of developing PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 143 systems of normal-training high schools, where the pros- pective rural teacher can acquire scholastic and profes- sional training at the same time. There is little doubt that the movement will soon spread to other states. Thus the opportunities are multiplying for professional as well as scholastic training, and thousands of teachers will soon hardly need to leave their own homes, and certainly not their own counties, in order to obtain normal prepara- tion for their teaching. These schools are not all of equal worth to the teacher. There is a great difference in the value of the training The function of the offered in normal schools. In fact normal school some so-called normal schools are lit- tle more than schools for additional scholastic training. They seek chiefly to teach the prospective teacher a little more history, to lead him to study a few more literary classics, to enable him to solve more difficult problems in algebra or arithmetic. They ask him to familiarize him- self with additional scientific classifications, and to learn still deeper and more technical truths concerning analyt- ical psychology. These things are all abundantly worth while as a part of the academic education of the teacher. But it is not the chief function of the normal school to teach them. The normal school will need, of course, to teach a certain amount of scholastic material. For method and principles can not be separated from the mat- ter to which they apply. The great work of the normal school, however, is to teach how to teach. And all mat- ter taught to prospective teachers in normal schools should be taught them primarily as teachers instead oi as learners. If the teacher is ready to take up the work of the normal school, it is not more grammar that he needs to study, but how to teach the grammar he knows. It 144 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS is not more skill in arithmetic that he requires, but more skill in teaching arithmetic to children. And so on with all the remainder of the subjects. The practical con- crete problems of the class and the schoolroom should constitute the center of attention and effort in normal training. To this end the normal school must be able to demon- strate in actual operation among children in school the Need for "observa- theories and methods presented. This tion work" is to say that normal-training schools, whether public normal schools or normal high schools, must afford an opportunity for prospective teachers to watch the instruction of children, or to take part in it themselves under the direction of a training teacher. How different might have been the result if the university graduate mentioned had taught her first school fresh from the influence of a helpful critic teacher! It is safe to say that she would not have been a failure, but pos- sibly even a marked success. She could have observed how a skilful teacher manages and teaches children. She would have discovered the necessity of meeting children on their own mental plane, and not expecting them to be grown-up in their grasp and understanding. She would have learned that scolding and bickering and faultfinding are not the best way of controlling a school, and that lec- turing is a poor method of instruction. And having been thus started right in her career, her chance of be- coming a successful teacher would have been greatly in- creased. Rural teachers of the present day need especially to be taught how to present the newer and more practical sub- Training to teach j^cts, such as agriculture, manual newer subjects training and domestic science. Nor- PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 145 mal training should therefore include a strong labora- tory course in these branches, with especial emphasis on how to correlate them with other school subjects and teach them to children. It is not enough that the rural teacher may have had much practical experience on the farm, or with tools. One may know a great deal about agriculture, and yet be ignorant of the art of teaching it to children. Many a good farmer makes a very poor instructor to his boys. John Ricketts knew much about farming, carpentry, sewing and cooking before he attended the normal school ; but he did not know just what of these things to teach or how best to present them to children. A high school which has recently introduced manual training thought to make the work very practical by employing as instruc- tor a skilled mechanic of the town. But he proved a lamentable failure. The man had handled tools all his life, but he could not teach others to use them. So great is the difference between knowing a thing, and knowing how to cause others to learn it. The fate of the new branches now being introduced into the rural schools will depend in large degree on the skill and effectiveness with which they are taught. If the teacher presents agriculture in an impractical way, revealing his own lack of knowledge of the subject or his inability to teach it, both the pupils and their parents will doubt the value of its study. If manual training is looked upon chiefly as play, and useful only in making bric-a- brac and fragile ornaments, the school board may well hesitate to invest money in tools and equipment. If do- mestic science is conceived only as an opportunity to do some interesting puttering around while cooking fudge or preparing fancy desserts, it will be sure to fail in awakening enthusiasm among the practical housewives <146 BETTER RURAL! SCHOOLS of the school community. Each of these great lines of study must be understood in its fundamental and deeply practical bearings. The teacher needs to comprehend their relation to the most vital interests and welfare of his people. And he must know how to teach them that they may accomplish the ends sought through placing them in the rural school, — the better fitting of the boys and girls into the practical life and duties of farm and home. The rural teacher who to-day possesses a good educa- tion and a practical normal training has a great advantage Advantages to the ^^^^ ^^^ untrained teacher. Many of professionally these better-prepared teachers are be- trained teacher ginning their first schools with more helpful knowledge of school work than older teachers had after teaching several years in a hit-and-miss fashion with no one to show them how. School officials who visit the schools now taught by these inexperienced but well-trained teachers can hardly believe that such excel- lent work can come from one who has taught so little. Their success is the result of education and training, the proof that it pays to take time for preparation. These teachers are receiving immediate and substantial rewards for their more efficient service. They are chosen for promotion, the better positions are open to them, and they are the first to receive increased salaries. Above all they have the satisfaction of knowing that they are doing their work well, and thus contributing to the efficiency and welfare of their pupils. The professional training of the teacher includes a knowledge of child life. This, like other phases of train- ing, is partly a matter of books, but it is also a matter of intelligent and sympathetic observation. Here, too. PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 147 the spirit of the teacher is an all-important factor. Chil- dren are often not understood simply because the teacher ^ , . , . . has not taken the trouble to under- Professional tram- , , -rx , r 1 • ing includes the stand them. He has forgotten his <^^^^^ own childhood, and does not remem- ber that when he was a child he spoke as a child, he un- derstood as a child, he thought as a child. And now that he has become a man, he has put away childish things so completely that he no longer knows childhood or enters into its spirit. One teacher describes an incident that illustrates the lack of a sympathetic understanding of children. She, as principal of her building, stepped into a schoolroom where some forty bright-eyed boys and girls of nine and ten were sitting. Outside the haze was gathering, and the dull gray clouds hung low. Suddenly it began to snow, first slowly, and then in great flurries. It was the first snow of winter. The children turned to look out of the window, happiness on every face. One small boy in his enthusiasm forgot where he was, and said in a loud whisper, "Look, it's snowing!" The teacher had been annoyed by the wandering eyes. "We all know it's snowing," she said in a cold level voice; "we have seen it snow before. We are drawing maps now." So the children went back to their maps with a sigh, and the gap widened a little between them and their teacher. "Ah me!" concludes our principal; "She has forgotten the first snow when one is ten and just before Christmas."^ Another teacher, by no means heartless, surely failed to comprehend that heartache may be as real and cause as The unkind much suffering in the child as in the teacher adult. A certain day had been trying ^ In Living Teachers. 148 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS and the children were restless. Small, freckle-faced Mary had twisted and turned about more than once during the long afternoon. Finally the last straw came, and the teacher said in a voice that cut, "Mary, if I had a face lik^ yours, I would not turn around so often and show it to others." Poor Mary's freckles were buried in a flood of scarlet, her eyes slowly filled until they overflowed, and she at last dropped her disgraced head on her arms and sobbed until her small form shook and her breath came in broken gasps. And all because her teacher failed to keep close to the heart of childhood. Nor is the sequel of this incident without its lesson. For, when the back of the thoughtless teacher was turned, a small red-haired- knight across the aisle leaned over and whispered in Mary's ear: "Never mind, Mary; she's none too good looking herself!" — Ah, could we all as teachers but measure up to van Dyke's challenge when he cries out for "a friend whose heart has eyes to see" ! One who understands childhood is able to meet his pupils on their own intellectual ground. He does not at- Teaching children tempt to teach dry and formal rules' instead of subjects instead of living interesting matter. Meaningless definitions are not foisted on the children as knowledge. Tangled and meaningless problems in arith- metic give way to problems dealing with matters of ex- perience and interest. Points at which the child's mind is' puzzled are foreseen by the teacher and help is given. Explanations are couched in terms understood by the, pupil. In fact, such a teacher teaches the child and not the subject. A teacher who failed to understand the working of a child's mind answered the raised hand of a boy sitting puzzled over a problem in arithnietic. The class had just PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 149 begun the study of interest, and Dan knew nothing con- cerning the borrowing of money, the giving of notes, and pay for the use of the money. For this teacher was of the kind who teach just what they find in the text-book, nothing more and nothing less. Dan said to the teacher, "I don't understand this example, and don't know how to work it." The teacher looked her annoyance as she answered, "O Dan! can't you understand anything? Didn't I tell you that the principal times the rate times the time equals the interest?" — ^pause. Dan sulkily nods his head. The teacher's face shows relief. She concludes her explanation: "Well, that's all there is to it ; the principal times the rate times the time equals the interest. Now you see!" Poor Dan! The blind was leading the blind and both were falling into the ditch — Dan, into the ditch of despondency and dislike for school ; the teacher into the ditch of inefficiency and uselessness." The teacher who is able to enter fully into the lives of his pupils becomes a very potent influence in their de- Influence of the velopment. Most of us can now look strong teacher back to our own school-days and recall one or more teachers who stand out in our memory as a great source of inspiration and helpfulness. This ideal teacher was a sort of hero or heroine in our eyes, partly idealized in our imagination, it is true, and yet a very real and powerful factor in our growth. Perhaps the great- est secret of this teacher's power over us was his com- plete understanding of us. He knew where our benighted minds would be puzzled in our studies, he entered into our childish interests and enthusiasms, he remembered that we were dust, and therefore could not be paragons of perfection. Happy is the teacher who thus understands, the secret I50 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS springs of ambition in the heart of youth. Professor James tells us that there is a moment in the life of every normal boy which, if seized on when the time is ripe, can be utilized to make out of him poet, philosopher, artist, artisan, or whatever it is his to be. But if this moment is let go by, if the smoldering spark of ambition is not fanned into flame, the occasion is lost and ambition and aspiration may die. An eminent statesman and brilliant lawyer was recently asked what was the secret of his success. He answered: "A school-teacher who under- stood the hunger in the heart of a boy. One day he found me, a bitter and discontented youth with scanty education and no prospects, following a rude plow across a stony and exhausted field. He sat down beside me on the old wooden plow beam, and found his way into my life. He read me like a book, for he understood me. After he had gone I was astonished at the strange fire of ambition that was burning in my soul. That was all I needed; time and work have accomplished the rest. But I do not like to think what might have been the outcome of my life if that teacher had not understood me, and talked to me there by the plow." FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. Have you observed teachers whose knowledge of subject-matter seemed sufficient, but who failed because of not understanding how to teach it to others ? 2. Do you think a teacher is morally justified in learn- ing to teach through "experience" gained by experiment- ing on children, when opportunities are at hand for pro- fessional study, practise teaching and observation work in normal schools ? 3. We are at present much concerned over securing PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 151 but one-half the crop our soil is capable of producing. Apply this same principle to our schools in the light of the estimate that double the progress could be made by the children if they were taught by correct methods. What are your conclusions ? 4. We occasionally hear it said that any one who knows a subject well can teach it. Is this true? It is also rather commonly assumed that almost any one can teach young children. Why should young children have the choicest and best prepared teachers ? 5. Outline what you think the necessary education, both academic and professional, for one about to take up teaching in the rural schools. 6. Does professional training pay financially? (Make a comparison of the salaries of teachers in your county who have had professional training and those who have not. Also, take into account the better opportunities for promotion.) 7. Have you known teachers to fail because of failure to understand children? Were such teachers usually lacking in sympathy for people in general ? Can you rec- ommend a remedy? (Study of psychology and cultiva- tion of interest in others.) 8. Are children more or less sensitive than adults? Are they usually treated with as much consideration as to their real rights as are adults? Does treating a child with consideration mean weakness or lack of control? CHAPTER X TEACHER AND COMMUNITY The teacHer, like all other employees of the state, is in some sense a public personage. His duties and relations do not terminate with the school, but extend to every individual and home in the community. The teacher can not say, I am employed by the district only for the time from nine o'clock until four on five days each week ; and it is no one's business what I do outside of this time. No public servant can take this position, much less can the teacher. Having employed a teacher, the rural com- munity feels a species of general proprietorship in him and all his affairs. He is freely discussed, and openly blamed or praised. Nothing he does escapes notice and judgment. His conduct, his speech, or his clothing, is equally a subject for comment or criticism. Nor should the teacher blame the community or feel any resentment over what at first thought may seem an The teacher owes unwarranted assumption of the right full service to appropriate him completely, once the community has paid for a fraction of his time. For one in a public position such as teaching can not sell a certain portion of his time, or powers, or influence. It is true the teacher may not be compelled to work in the schoolroom seven days a week instead of five, or ten hours a day in place of six. But his interests, his thought 152 TEACHER AND COMMUNITY 153 and plans, his sympathy and cooperation, his uprightness and good example are placed wholly under tribute to the community when the contract is entered into. There can be no reservations, no withholding of service or influence, no feeling that the teacher belongs to the community during the school hours but not outside of school hours. For however true this may be in a legal sense, from a higher point of view such an attitude is impossible for the true teacher; it contradicts the very idea of whole- hearted service, and shows the teacher lacking in the spirit necessary to the highest success. But even the willingness to give himself wholly to his work does not insure the teacher's success. Many teach- Knowledge of ^^^ ^^^^' "°^ because they withhold community essen- their effort, but because they do not know their communities, and hence do not understand their needs, standards and attitudes. They look on the school as a thing in itself, apart from the community, and finally discover that the school is but one part of the larger community life, and can be under- stood and successfully carried on only in connection with this larger whole. One such teacher had recently completed a very suc- cessful term in a community which she knew well. She took a new school in a distant part of the same county in a community wholly unknown to her. On the Saturday preceding the opening of the new term she ar- rived in the neighborhood, not knowing where she was to board. Some one suggested the home of Samuel Dwight. She became a member of the Dwight family, attending church with them on the following day, and being introduced to many of the neighbors as the "new teacher." On Monday the new teacher noticed that she 154 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS was received by the school less cordially than was the custom in former schools. By the middle of the week she began to hear whispers of criticism. Before the first week had ended she knew something was wrong. On the next Sunday, the school trustee explained to her the trouble : The community was divided by a bitter factional fight, and Samuel Dwight was leader of an unpopular mi- nority. She had chosen the wrong boarding-place. This new teacher had blundered innocently, but she had blundered. If she had known her community before en- gaging her boarding-place or opening the school, she could have avoided the mistake, and saved herself much unhappiness and worry. For, try hard as she might, this excellent teacher found it impossible to regain her stand- ing in that community, and was obliged to leave the school, an acknowledged failure. The school had failed in efficiency to the community, and she failed in render- ing her best service in the school. In striking contrast with this case was that of another teacher who, in the earlier days, was employed to teach the winter term in a rural school in northern Missouri. This young man, a mere stripling, had heard something of the difficulties to be encountered in his school. The former teachers had been turned out each winter for the three preceding years. Our young stripling looked like an easy mark, for he was small and slender, and not skilled in the rougher arts of self-defense. He went over to the district a full week before the school was to open, to see if perchance he could better prepare for the opening day. He went about the neighborhood and be- came acquainted with the patrons and the pupils. Espe- cially did he look up one particular boy called Bill. He desired to become acquainted with Bill, for two reasons : TEACHER AND COMMUNITY 155 Bill was something of a hunter, and the teacher liked to hunt. But Bill was also a leader of the gang that had turned the previous teachers out, and the teacher wanted to win Bill to his side. The teacher and Bill went coon hunting together ; they shucked corn into the same wagon. Before the end of the week they had become friends. Monday morning came, and the young teacher was at the school early. The boys began to assemble on the "Bill" becomes a school ground. The teacher heard friend them talking as he worked by an open window. They were planning how they would begin on the new teacher, and were laying wagers as to how long he would last. Suddenly the teacher heard a new voice enter the conference. It was Bill. "What's up, boys?" said Bill. They told him, expecting Bill to suggest a bolder and more effective plan than they had conceived, and then to take the lead in its execution. But imagine their astonishment when Bill answered : "It's all off, boys. Nobody is going to interfere with the new teacher. I've got acquainted with him and he's the right kind. He's square ; he'll be fair. I'm his friend, and anybody that puts up trouble for him has got me to lick — See?" They saw. This incident was related in introducing the two prin- cipal speakers before a great educational convention a Two famous number of years ago. These speak- educators ers were Bill and his former teacher, still fast friends and now famous educa- tors. They were introduced as "the Honorable William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education," and "the Honorable Henry Sabin, State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Iowa." The young stripling of a teacher, by his willingness to make himself one of his 156 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS school community, had been instrumental in giving to his country one of the greatest educators of modern times, and had foreshadowed his own highly honorable and use- ful educational career. Besides this, he had won out in his winter's school. The teacher who is to take a helpful part in arousing a sentiment for better education and in promoting higher The teachermust efficiency in rural schools must be- become part of come an integral part of the commu- the community j^j^y_ jj^j^ influence can not be exerted by an outsider; it must come from one who, in interest and sympathies, is closely united with his people. Nor can this attitude of cooperation on the part of the teacher have anything of the artificial or professional in it. Make- believe will not serve. The interest manifested in the life of the community must be deep-seated and true. The shallow and false is easily detected, and people resent nothing more quickly than being patronized. The teacher who feels, however, that he is wanting in this broader and deeper interest in the welfare of the whole com- munity need not excuse himself on this ground from tak- ing any part in the community life. The remedy for a spirit of indifference is service. We are always deeply interested in those we are seeking to help, and there is no cure like disinterested service for narrowness and provincialism. Even a small self-centered nature can take a small circle of intimates into his thought and sympathy ; but it requires a broad generous nature to in- clude the many. And more than one teacher has found his own personality expanding and his interest in human- ity growing stronger and more inclusive because he has forgotten himself in unselfish work for his school and its people. TEACHER AND COMMUNITY 157 Ability to enter fully into the spirit and activities of the rural community depends in large degree on familiarity with rural life. A large proportion of our rural teachers are girls and boys from the town schools who have never lived on a farm. Not a few of these young people have a feeling of superiority over country people, and a tend- ency to pity every one who is obliged to live outside a town or city. It is hardly necessary to say that this attitude arises chiefly from ignorance of the possibilities of country life, and from lack of acquaintance with rural people. No teacher can render the maximum of service in a rural school or be the element of strength he should be in Interests must in- the community unless his knowledge, elude the farm j^jg interests and his experience extend beyond the boundary lines of towns or cities or school- room walls. His horizon must reach out into the open fields of rural life. If the teacher would become a true leader of rural children along pathways that lead to the farms instead of to the towns, he must know thoroughly both the pathway and its goal. Necessary as text-book knowledge and normal training are, these are but the foundation. The teacher must know rural life and needs so well that he can relate all the work of the school to their problems and conditions. David Starr Jordan says, "The knowledge which is of most worth to most people is that which can be most The teacher must directly wrought into the fabric of know farm chil- their lives. And the discipline which is of most value to most people is that which can best serve in the unfolding of their individual- ities." If this be true the teacher must know the fabric of the daily life of his pupils, and the direction which the 158 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS unfolding o£ their individualities should take. And he can not know these things and remain ignorant of the farm and its possibilities. Not a few teachers coming from the towns to teach in rural schools are unhappy and below their best in effi- Teachers must ex- ciency because they can not accustom pect limitations themselves to the isolation and certain privations of the country. In place of well-paved and electric-lighted streets, they find dark and muddy roads. They miss the street-cars, the fine shops and stores, the theaters and picture shows. The country appears to them dead and monotonous without the glare and the glamour and the crowds of the city. But rural life is not made up of these things, and the teacher who is not able to work contentedly without them should stay out of the rural schools. Or, better still, he should seek until he finds the compensations in rural life that render the city no longer necessary to his contentment and happiness. One teacher lost the best of her influence and the greater part of her usefulness in a rural school because City methods not ^^^ attempted to force on the school adapted to country the methods to which she had been accustomed in the town high school. As a high-school pupil she had been required to prepare certain lessons and do assigned reading in the evening at home. This looked reasonable enough, so she placed the same require- ments on the farm boys and girls during the busy season of the year, not realizing the amount of work expected of these children around the house and the garden and in the barnyard chores. Of course there was criticism, then objection, and finally remonstrance and rebellion. This teacher would have been saved her mistake had she known that most of her pupils were up and at work in the TEACHER AND COMMUNITY 159 morning full two hours before her own day began, and that they closed their day and were asleep in the evening at the time she would be settling down to her reading. She was ignorant of rural life and work. We are inclined in these modern days to smile at the old pioneer custom of "boarding 'round" as a means of -, . caring: for the teacher. Under this Becoming ac- ° quainted with the plan the teacher was expected to stay community ^ week at a time at the home of each of the patrons of the school. In this way he shared in the collective life of the community and came to know in a very practical way the duties and responsibilities of his pupils and their parents. Of course no one would advo- cate a return to such a system, yet it had its advantages. And our problem to-day is to gain that intimate knowl- edge of the actual daily life and thought of our pupils that the old-time teacher was able to get from becoming temporarily a member of their families. It is sometimes objected that rural people do not de- sire the teacher to visit their homes, or to assume the Method of ap- position of leadership among them, proach It is said that the teacher is employed to teach the school and that there his functions end. This question will depend almost wholly on the teacher's spirit, tact and judgment. Many farm homes would no doubt find it something of a burden to entertain the teacher, especially during the busy season of the year, as formal "company." It is probable that even a fashionable "call" from the teacher, just when the chores are to be done or the supper prepared, would not be highly welcome. Nor would any community submit to being "led" or "re- formed" in any professional or high-handed way. The teacher whose tact and judgment will not save him from i6o BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS making such blunders as these would better confine his activities strictly to the school. But it should not be forgotten that people everywhere, and nowhere more than among those on the farms, re- -, - . ... spond to true friendliness and the True friendship ^. . sure to meet spirit of comradeship. Let the teacher response approach the homes of his patrons, not in the spirit of professionalism but in the spirit of true friendship and the desire to get and give on the common level of coworkers for the upbuilding of the school and community ; there will then be no lack of cordiality. Let him really become a member of the community in spirit and deed, showing a knowledge of its needs and condi- tions ; there will then be no trouble about his position of leadership. For this will be granted to him by common consent, and will be accompanied by quick responsiveness and ready appreciation. A teacher in an Iowa rural district put this principle to test in a very concrete way. She had recently begun her A practical test school in a new community, and had of helpfulness her boarding-place near the home of three of her pupils, whose mother had the care of a large household. No help was to be had in this home and the mother was often overworked. One evening threshers came, and the mother sighed as she thought of the break- fast to get and the children to prepare for school. Imag- ine her surprise the next morning when, as she entered the kitchen before it was yet light, to take up the day's work, a knock came at the door, and a young woman decked in a large kitchen apron said, "I am the new teacher. I knew you had threshers and wondered whether you wouldn't let me help start the day's work. I know how to cook." When the teacher left three hours TEACHER AND COMMUNITY i6i later to prepare for school, the day's work was well under way, and she had won for herself a secure place in the friendship and regard of that household. This is a commonplace incident it is true, and would be unimportant were it not for the suggestion and promise -,, , , it contains. This teacher has now comes one of the been for several years in the same community school, and is a welcome guest and friend in every home in the community. She is invited, even during the summer vacation time, to the various so- cial functions of the neighborhood, and often comes from her own home some distance away to visit among her friends of the school community. Her influence has been felt in every home she has entered, and is to be seen in the greatly increased efficiency of the school. And, inciden- tally, her own salary has been greatly advanced. What this one teacher has accomplished in winning her way into the hearts and lives of her school people can be done by all other teachers, who are willing to take the trouble, and who know how. Responsiveness and cooperation are ready waiting for every rural teacher who is able to com- mand it by worthy qualities of leadership in himself. The relations which every teacher sustains to the public extend also to his standards of conduct. And whatever -,, , , may be the convictions of the teacher standards of on social or moral questions, the judg- conduct ment of the community is to be taken into account. In some communities, attending dances and card parties is looked on as highly questionable or even wholly immoral. In other places these things are consid- ered unobjectionable, or at least permissible. Some com- munities expect the teacher to attend the local church and take some part in its activities, while others have no such i62 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS custom. It is manifestly impossible to lay down any fixed rule for teachers to follow in such matters. The prin- ciple, however, is clear that the teacher should not violate the community's sense of propriety on social or moral questions. This is to say, that the teacher, no matter what his own convictions, should not do things which the people believe and teach their children are wrong. For, as we have already seen, the teacher can not separate his private life from his public influence. And he has no right to offend the convictions of his patrons. Par- ticularly should the teacher set no example which may not safely be followed by his pupils. Where there is the least question of right and wrong involved, the decision should always fall on the safe side. Certainly boys will be de- prived of no advantage if they are not led by the teacher's exarnple to play cards and smoke, and girls will suffer no loss of accomplishment if they are not led through imi- tation of a teacher to attend public dances. None will ob- ject if the teacher refrains from doing the things that are questioned, while some may be offended or led astray if he does them. All this does not mean that the teacher should cater to every whim of the community, and have no convictions _, ^ , t. ij of his own. It rather means that he The teacher should not offend commu- should conform to the community nity standards standard where no question of con- viction is involved, or where the community standard is higher than his standard. It need hardly be argued that a teacher should never lower his standards or violate his convictions in order to meet standards beneath his own. The point of view presented in this chapter may be ob- jected to by some who say that teaching is a business proposition, and that the teacher is paid simply for in- TEACHER AND COMMUNITY 163 struction in the schoolroom. He can not be expected, it may be argued, to extend his service and influence to the community outside the school. From the legal point of view this claim will be frankly granted. Whether one shall take the legal point of view instead of the one here presented will depend wholly on his philosophy of life. H the idea of service and the investment of influence does not appeal to one, he will be unconvinced, and believe _, , , that the teacher owes the community The legal versus the social point only the work of the schoolroom. °f ^^^^ If he does not believe that every great work well done reflects its greatness on the worker, he will differ from our conclusions. If his social code is that one should do only what one is paid for doing, then he will combat our position. But if one be- lieves that no worker can afford to put less than his best powers into his work ; if he looks on the chance for help- ful service as one of the opportunities of life ; if he is convinced that the richest rewards and fullest develop- ment come from the most complete giving of self to its task, then he can not be satisfied with the mere legal view of the teacher's relations to the school. Which is the better philosophy of life? On which would the teacher better plan his career ? FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. How far and in what sense does the teacher belong to the community outside of school hours ? 2. Should a teacher ordinarily participate in neighbor- hood social affairs that take his time and keep him up late during the school week? A teacher once remarked that she thought one ought not to be required to teach i64 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS next day after attending a dance. What do you think about it ? 3. Is there any danger from a teacher going into a community as a "reformer," instead of as a friend and helper? (Do not most people resent being "reformed" and "elevated" ?) 4. Have you ever known teachers to lose their Influ- ence by being drawn into a neighborhood feud? How Can such difficulty be avoided? 5. Do you believe that teachers should visit the homes of the pupils when not especially invited ? What caution need be observed in such a procedure? If "home project" work is being carried out, does this open the way for the teacher ? 6. Is the teacher under any obligations to use time prior to the opening of the term in familiarizing himself with conditions in the community? Do you think, that in general, the chapter makes of the teacher too much of a missionary? If so, make a statement of your own thought of what should constitute the teacher's relation to the community. 7. How far is the teacher to assume responsibility for the standards and social conduct of his pupils outside the school ? 8. Will you attempt to formulate what you think should be a teacher's "philosophy of life," as mentioned near the close of the chapter? CHAPTER XI ORGANIZATION The rural teacher has three great problems confronting him, while the town or city teacher has but two. For every school, no matter whether large or small, whether in city or country, requires that three things shall be done for it: it must (i) be organized, (2) managed, and (3) taught. The rural teacher has all three of these prob- lems to meet; the town teacher has but the last two. For in the town school the superintendent and principal assume full responsibility for the organization of the school. The teacher has but to see to the management and teaching of his room. And, indeed, the city teacher is not fully responsible even for the management and teaching of his school. For The rural teacher *^^ superintendent and principal are meets difficulties always at hand to offer suggestions ^^°"® and advice, and to them the more difficult problems can be referred. The rural teacher has only himself to depend on. For the help that can be rendered by the board is negligible, and the county superintendent is too far away and his visits are too rare to be of immediate assistance when needed. In the consolidated rural school the difficulties of organiza- tion are, of course, greatly reduced. But the daily prob- i6a i66 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS lems of the district school must all be met by the rural teacher as they arise, and on the basis of his own judg- ment. To be successful the rural teacher must therefore have a ready and accurate knowledge of the principles underlying the three great fields of problems connected with his work — he must understand clearly the organiza- tion, the management and the teaching of the rural school. In general it may be said that to organise a school is to make it ready to run ; that is, to prepare it to do its work. What it is to or- When the pupils assemble on the first ganize a school day of the term, they do not constitute a school, but are rather a crowd — so many individuals, each waiting to be assigned to his proper place and work. They are like the wheels and pinions of a watch which have not yet been fitted together. Each pupil must be made a member of a grade and certain classes, have studies assigned, be fitted into a certain routine and regu- lations, and have definite portions of the day set apart for study and recitations. When this all has been suc- cessfully accomplished, the school is organized ; it is ready to run. Every wheel is in its place, and the whole ma- chine can be set in motion. ' Stated more in detail, it may be said that in organizing a school it (i) must be divided into grades and classes What organization suited to the age and advancement of must accomplish the pupils; (2) it must be determined what studies each pupil shall take, and the order in which they shall be pursued; (3) a program of daily recitation and study must be formulated ; (4) a routine for calling, dismissing classes, moving the school, etc., must be de- cided on and put into operation; (5) the regulations, or rules under which the school is to run must be determined ORGANIZATION 167 and put into effect. When all this has been successfully worked out, the remaining problems will have to do chiefly with the management and teaching of the school. But until the important questions of organization are suc- cessfully solved, there is no possibility of success in the other lines of the teacher's work. The first day of the term is the most important day in matters of school organization. This is true because first Importance of impressions are the most lasting ones, right beginnings The children come to school on the opening day alert and curious, highly susceptible to im- pressions from the teacher and the school. All is antici- pation and speculation. Every movement made by the new teacher is watched and every word noted. At inter- missions and on the way home the teacher and his methods are discussed ; at the farm supper-table the new teacher and the school are the sole topic of conversation, and the impressions formed by the children and carried to their homes soon become neighborhood property. Bad impressions given out the first day will require weeks or months of high-grade service to overcome them, while good impressions at once become to the teacher a source of power and influence both in the school and the com- munity. The teacher must come to the first day, therefore, with as full information as possible of the problems to be met. Preparation for the ^^^ ^^^^ plans carefully matured for opening day the organization and management of the school. The first day must be a success. Nothing must be left to chance. The teacher must show no inde- cision, hesitancy or doubt in forming the classes, assign- ing the work, initiating the program, or doing any of the i68 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS many other things necessary in starting the school. He must be fully in command of the situation from the first moment, and neither falter nor blunder. This will require thought, planning and preparation. A recent visit to the principal of a large high school a week before the opening of the fall term found him busy at work in his office. He said, "I shall need to work here every day all this week in arranging the organization of my school. But by the time we have been in session for fifteen minutes on next Monday morning, no one could tell that we had not been running a month." This man was able to hold so large and responsible a position because he was willing to give time and thought in plan- ning and carrying out his work. Prior to the opening of the term the rural teacher should get the records of the school, and familiarize him- Work preliminary ^^^^ '^^^^ ^^^ names of the pupils last to organization in attendance, with what classes they were in, what texts they studied, how far they were ad- vanced in each branch, and any other facts that will be helpful. In addition to this, the names of the probable new pupils should be obtained, and an approximation made of where they will rank. If the former teacher can be consulted, much light can usually be gained on the matter of the school's organization. Only by such care and foresight can the teacher be ready for the opening day, and make it a success. A matter not less important than these questions of classification is that of the daily program. Work is the Importance of the ^^^^ preventive of mischief and dis- daily program order. Idle brains and idle hands are sure to make trouble. Definitely assigned lessons should be under way very soon after the first session opens. ORGANIZATION 169 Classes should be called and brief recitations carried out in a regular sequence. The efficient teacher will go to his first day of school with a definite program of recitations in view. This program will probably have to be modified somewhat, but it is vastly better than no program, or one devised at random and on the spur of the moment. While probably the same program will not serve for any two consecutive terms, yet the program of the preceding term is usually the best basis on which to start, making whatever changes are necessary the first day, and con- tinuing these modifications until the program fits the new school. With such preparation for the first day, brief opening exercises can be had, the names of the pupils taken, a tentative classification effected, lessons assigned, and reci- tations begun within the first half-hour. This is as it should be. To take half a day to get started is not only a waste of time, but is demoralizing to the school, and shows the teacher to be lacking either in ability to organ- ize and manage, or devoid of the interest in his work which should prompt better preparation for the opening of the term. It is easier to form than reform. The pupils come to school on the first day expecting that the new teacher will The initiation of a have some plans of his own to intro- definite policy duce and they are usually very ready to cooperate. Anything that is reasonable in the way of a school routine or regulations can be put into effect at the beginning without difficulty. But let the teacher come without definite plans for these things, let the movement of classes and the calling and dismissing of school be haphazard, let the regulations be indefinite or poorly car- ried out for a few days or a week, and the habits and 170 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS standards of the school have become more or less set in the wrong direction. And it then often causes friction and requires punishment to accomplish what would have been taken as a matter of course at the beginning of the term. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and a little effective organization is better than much re- organization. The school routine is one of the most important matters connected with organization. By school routine is meant the various movements and activities in which the entire school or classes participate together. Illustrations of routine are, calling and dismissing the school, the passing of classes, the dis- tribution of wraps, materials, etc. All these things should follow a set routine, be done in the same way over and over until they become thoroughly automatic on the part of the pupils. They must become a part of the school habit, so well fixed that they "do themselves." To this end the routine adopted should be simple and natural. A complicated series of signals for calling a class to recite is unnecessary, wastes time, and is difficult to follow. A cumbersome system of signals, together with lack of executive ability was responsible for the following state An impossible ^^ affairs in one school. The teacher routine called, ''Third reader class!" One alert boy turned with his feet out in the aisle. The teacher continued, "Ready!" The boy stood up; several others turned ready to rise. "Stand!" Several started to the recitation seat. "Pass!" Those who started first had by this time reached their places, and the rest came straggling toward the front. "Be seated!" concluded the teacher, but nearly all had dropped down on the benches as they came up, and only a few were left to obey the order. ORGANIZATION 171 What folly! And what injustice to a school! The sig- nals given for moving classes and the like should be the fewest and simplest possible, and then should be obeyed to the letter until obedience has become a habit. Com- mands that are disregarded are a constant training in carelessness and disobedience to duty, and always weaken the teacher's authority. The regulations of the school are not less important than its routine. No set of rules can be made to cover The regulations to ^^^ ^^^ questions of conduct that will be adopted arise in the school. Indeed an arbi- trary list of rules made and announced at the opening of a term is worse than useless, for it tends to antagonize the pupils and even to suggest misdemeanors that, otherwise, they might not think of. A list of the rules devised by an old New England schoolmaster contained seventy-five specific prohibitions or commands. The story is told that, on looking about the grounds one day, he discovered a pile of old bricks that had lain undisturbed for no one knew how long. But the schoolmaster, desiring to make sure that he had omitted nothing, went back to the list of rules and wrote as the seventy-sixth, "It is strictly for- bidden that any boy shall throw bricks at the chimney." And tradition tells that the chimney, which had stood un- molested during many years, was battered down within a week. In spite of the possible misuse of rules, however, it is necessary to have some regulations understood and obeyed in the school. It is probably The use of rules , ^ , 1 , 1 j best to have only a general under- standing at the opening of the term, like Nelson's famous, "England expects every man to do his duty !" Similarly the school expects every pupil to do his part toward 172 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS making the school a success. From this platform as a standpoint, various regulations can be made and the ne- cessity for them shown as occasion arises. For example, the question of whispering is sure to arise early in the term, but better to take up the question when it does arise than to start out with rules on it. The matter of leaving the seats on various errands about the room will need to be decided, but it should be decided when it presents itself. The only danger at this point is in letting such questions get the start before they are taken up. The abuse of a privilege will rapidly grow into a habit, and misused privilege comes to be looked on as a right. No school is well organized until the matter of classifi- cation has been carefully worked out. To classify a Principles o£ rural- ^^^°°^ is to place the pupils in their school classifi- proper divisions, grades and classes. *^^*^°" It is impossible to lay down fixed rules for the classifying of rural schools, since they vary so greatly in size, advancement and curriculum. Yet a general outline may be given which will serve as a basis to be modified as required by each individual school. One-room rural schools can never be classified as rig- idly as town or consolidated schools. This arises first of all from the fact that in very few district schools are all the different grades represented. Particularly is this true in the smaller schools, which often consist of not more than eight or ten pupils. In consolidated schools the classification will be worked out much as in towns and cities. In the average district school of small size, not more than four or five of the eight grades constituting the full rural-school course will usually be represented. Proper classification is also rendered difficult because of the lax methods of promotion obtaining in most of the ORGANIZATION 173 rural schools. Pupils are allowed to become very irregu- lar in their studies, far ahead in some and behind in others. Further, irregular attendance often makes it a hard matter to keep the classification even and regular after it has once been properly arranged. A school of the usual type which has all the eight years represented would, of course, consist of eight grades, one -,, J , for each year. The classification of school classifi- the school together with the studies to •^^^^^^ be pursued, would then be somewhat as follows : First school year — Primer and First Reader. Language, numbers, nature study, music taught orally. Hand- work, drawing, writing. Second school year — Second Reader. Other first year studies continued orally, with increasing emphasis on hand-work and nature study. Third school year — Third Reader (first half) with sup- plementary readings. Elementary arithmetic text, music reader. Pen and ink. Language and nature study, including hygiene, continued orally, hand-work. Fourth school year — Third Reader (second half) with supplementary readings. Elementary arithmetic, ele- mentary geography, including nature study, spelling- book, music reader, elementary language book, writing and drawing, hand-work. Fifth school year — Fourth Reader (first half) with sup- plementary readings. Elementary arithmetic (com- pleted), elementary geography (completed) including elements of agriculture, oral hygiene, language book, music reader, writing and drawing, spelling-book, hand-work. 'Sixth school year — Fourth Reader (second half) with 174 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS supplementary readings. Advanced geography, history stories, complete arithmetic, elementary physiology language book, spelling-book, music, writing and draw- ing, hand-work, elementary agriculture. Seventh school year — Fifth Reader (first half) with sup- plementary readings. Complete arithmetic, language and composition, geography, history, physiology, spell- ing-book, elementary agriculture, manual training, domestic science, music, drawing. Eighth school year — Fifth Reader (completed) with sup- plementary readings. Supplementary classics, arithme- tic, history, geography, elementary grammar and com- position, agriculture, manual training, domestic science, music, drawing. As the rural schools are at present organized, reading is probably the branch most commonly taken as a basis of The basis o£ classification. Upon this basis, if a pu- classification pil comes to school ready to begin the Fourth Reader, he should be entering on his fifth year at school, and should be pursuing the other studies listed for the fifth year, providing that he is even in his classification. Similarly, if he comes ready to begin the Third Reader, he is to be classified in the third year, and should regularly have the studies belonging to this year. If he is not even in his classification, as is often the case, it will, of course, be necessary to allow him to have studies belonging in two or more years. The course of study must not be al- lowed to hamper the pupil's development. It should, however, be the constant endeavor of the teacher to bring up the subjects that are behind, even at the expense of moving more slowly in those that are ahead, and in this way even up the classification. ORGANIZATION I75 The classification here presented is, with slight modifi- cations, that in general use. But every teacher should become thoroughly familiar with the classification de- course of study and system of classifi- manded of the cation in his county or state. He should know offhand such points as the following whenever he requires to use them in classi- fying his particular school : (i) The studies, books and material for each school year. (2) The studies to be carried together at the same time. (3) How long each study is to be pursued, and when it is to be completed. (4) When the elementary and when the advanced text in each subject is to be introduced. (5) How many classes are to be formed in each gen- eral subject, such as arithmetic, language or reading. Only when the teacher is able to answer these questions accurately and quickly is he capable of classifying the -^ . . school correctly, or of telling what is met in classifi- wrong when a pupil is irregular in his *^^**°" classification. For example, if John Smith appears on the opening day with an advanced arithmetic in which he has reached square root, a Fifth Reader which he has not yet begun, an elementary lan- guage book, and a history that he has been over, but no geography or physiology, manifestly he is irregular in his classification. The teacher must know precisely in what this irregularity consists, and how to set at work to rem- edy it. Likewise if Susan Jones brings a new Third Reader, and along with this an elementary geography and an elementary arithmetic, but no language book, the 176 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS teacher must know at once whether these are the right books to go together. It is ignorance of just such ques- tions as these that accounts for the poor classification found in many rural schools, and for much of the poor work that results. Closely related to the classification of the school is the matter of the daily program. This is one of the rural teacher's most puzzling problems, and a large measure of his success depends on his ability to make and follow a good program. The school in which the pupils do not know precisely what work is to be done and what recita- tions are heard at every hour of the day is a poorly organ- ized school and its slipshod methods show lack of execu- tive ability in the teacher. The program of the district school can not be organized as definitely and closely as that of the graded school, yet Principles under- there are certain principles underlying lying the program the making of the program that will hold for all schools. And the fact that the rural teacher is so crowded for time makes it all the more necessary that the program be well devised. It is evident that the hardest or most important studies should be placed in the best parts of the day, that is early in the forenoon and afternoon sessions. As most of our schools are now organized, the most important branch for the lower grades is reading. This should therefore be placed at the beginning of the session, or as near the be- ginning as possible. For the more advanced classes, arithmetic or language may be taken as the hardest study, and hence be given the best position. Other studies should be arranged in order of difficulty in gaining atten- tion and interest. ORGANIZATION 177 It is difficult in a school which is irregular in its classi- fication to arrange a program so that every pupil may The sequence have time to prepare for each suc- of studies cessive recitation. The program should, if possible, provide for an alternation of study and recitation in such a way that the pupil studies each lesson shortly before he recites it. This is not so necessary in the higher grades; the seventh and eighth grades may even prepare for an early morning recitation before the close of school the preceding day, or in the evening at home. Care needs to be exercised that certain lines of study, such as arithmetic, geography, agriculture, or any other The distribution subject, do not receive more than their of time just share of time. A teacher who has a fad for number work, nature study, or any other branch, has a tendency to emphasize this subject at the ex- pense of others. Also, poor classification may sometimes result in more classes in some subjects than they deserve. One school of fourteen pupils had seven classes in spell- ing, when it ought to have had but two. Another had five classes in arithmetic, when there should have been but three. If a school is poorly classified in, say, its higher grades, this has a tendency to multiply the number of classes for Classes crowded these grades, and so give them more out than their just proportion of time. Likewise if a teacher enjoys better the work of either the higher grades or the lower grades, there is a temptation to give more than its rightful share of time to the more pleasant work to the injury of the other. Sometimes the program has so many classes that some of them get shut ^78 BETTER RURAL' SCHOOLS out occasionally. In case this should occur it is usually best to leave out some of the more advanced virork rather than that of the beginners. A still better plan if the program is too badly crowded is to hear some of the more advanced classes on alternate days. Most rural schools have too many recitations. The average in many counties reaches nearly thirty a day. Of course it is utterly impossible to teach this number of classes and do them justice. The largest number of classes that should be attempted in any school is about twenty a day. Some of the chief causes producing the multiplicity of classes are as follows: (i) Poor correlation and classi- Causes producing hcation. Not infrequently separate too many classes classes in spelling could just as well be put together. Separate classes in arithmetic are often allowed when their work is only a few weeks or a month or two apart. And so with the other studies. The teacher should know how many years are to be put on a given text, and then try to arrange the distance between the classes on this basis ; e. g., three years are usually to be devoted to the complete arithmetic. Classes in arith- metic should not therefore be nearer together than one- third of the text, even when all grades are represented in the school. (2) Irregular attendance. Not infre- quently children are kept out of school to work for a few weeks, and then it is expected that new classes shall be formed for them on their return. This is unfair and should not be allowed. Parents should be urged to keep their children in school regularly, but in no case should the interests of the whole school be made to suffer through starting new classes for the irregular pupils. (3) Attendance of children below school age. Many states ORGANIZATION 179 allow their children to enter school at five years of age. This is probably a full year too early. In spite of this fact, however, there is hardly a rural district in most states in which children are not sent to school before reaching the minimum age. This should never be allowed. It is bad for the child, and usually results in the necessity for or- ganizing new classes for these beginners. If the board will not exclude children under age, the teacher should at once report to the county superintendent, whose duty it is to see that the school laws are obeyed in his county. The proper correlation of subjects in teaching will do much to render unnecessary the multiplicity of classes Correlation a rem- ^°^"^ ^" "^^"^ ^^^^^ '^^°°^^- ^P^"" cdy for multiplicity ing can often be taught more effect- of classes j^gjy jj^ ^^^ regular work of other classes than in any other way. Language work and com- position find their best basis in nature study, geography, hygiene, agriculture, and similar practical subjects of the course, and can be so combined with them as to render the teaching of both more effective. The arithmetic les- son may often be based on the work going on in manual training or domestic science, and time saved for other work. Indeed, the principle of correlation, already sug- gested in a former chapter, will, if properly applied, re- lieve the overcrowding of the program and increase the efficiency of the teaching. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY I. Is it reasonably safe to concede that a teacher who has made a success of a country school will be successful in the same grade of work in a town school? Is there l8o BETTER RURAL' SCHOOLS any difference in standards to be taken into account ? In methods ? 2. Have you observed schools that were unsuccessful because of faulty organization ? Can you point out where the difficulty lay? 3. Have you observed differences in "first days" il- lustrating the points made in the chapter? What is your own plan for opening day ? How much time do you spend familiarizing yourself with the school records before the terms open. 4. Have you ever found the records left by a former teacher so faulty as to be of little service in organizing the new term ? What is your opinion of the professional ethics of a teacher who will leave defective records? 5. Make a full statement of what you consider the best routine for a one-room rural school ; that is, a plan for calling and dismissing school, passing classes, hand- ling wraps and supplies, and all else that should be in- cluded under the term routine. Also, discuss what regu- lations should be adopted to govern the conduct in the school. 6. Have you observed that certain forms of disorder, such as whispering, leaving the seats on errands, etc., have a tendency to grow ? What is to be done to prevent them from becoming school nuisances? 7. Can you name, offhand, the studies and texts to be used in each grade of your school? If not, do you know where to go for such information? 8. What measures have you ever tried to reduce the number of recitations in your school ? Can this be done in many rural schools without injustice? Or is it an in- justice to all for the teacher to attempt to teach twenty- five or more classes a day? CHAPTER XII MANAGEMENT This is the day of scientific management. Executive capacity, or the ability to manage, is at a premium in every line of occupation. In the business world almost fabulous salaries are paid to those who are able success- fully to direct the activities of important commercial en- terprises. These men do not themselves make or sell goods; it is their part to supply the best possible condi- tions under which goods may be produced and sold ; they are managers. Likewise, in the educational system, the highest honors and salaries go to those who are able to act as managers of a system of schools. And here, as in the commercial world, it is the business of the manager to supply favorable conditions under which the work of the organization shall go on. In the rural schools, as we have already seen, the teacher is the sole manager of the school. The school T» , ^ , , board can not well take part in this Rural teacher s . ^ . sole responsibility function, and the county supermtend- in management ^^t is unable to be of material assist- ance. The responsibility is on the teacher alone, and the problems are many and difficult. The reputation and suc- cess of the teacher as measured by the general public are gaged largely by his ability to manage. This counts with most patrons for more than even the matter of organiza- i8i i82 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS tion or teaching, for it is more easily understood and judged. The classification and grading of a school may be faulty, its program poorly planned, or the methods employed in instruction ineffective, and the public know little about it. But let the management of the school prove weak, let the teacher fail properly to control the school, or let his methods of government be such as to produce friction, and the whole community soon know of the trouble. If the school machine creaks in its running, the creaking is sure to be heard and to attract unfavorable attention. We may organize a school once for all at the beginning of a term, but the school must be managed day after day What managing a ^s long as it runs. For no school, be school means it ever so well organized, or the teach- ing ever so good, will manage itself. This requires great skill and constant alertness on the part of the teacher. Managing a school means much more than governing it, in the sense of keeping order. To manage a school is so to direct it as to obtain the largest educational returns with the least possible friction and waste of time and effort. In a well managed school each pupil will be doing his work in such a way as to gain the greatest good for himself, without interfering with the work or welfare of others. It is the business of the teacher, as manager of the school, to provide such conditions that these results are obtained. This is not easy. A great part of the proverbial weari- ness and fag of teachers comes from the strain of man- aging the school. It is not the strain of actual teaching, but the worry arising from responsibility, tension, or conflict in management that results in frayed nerves and exhausted bodies. For the sake of efficiency in the work '- MANAGEMENT 183 of the school, therefore, and for his own welfare and happiness, as well, the teacher needs to master and put into practise the principles of good management. Lying at the basis of all successful management is the spirit of cooperation. A school can not be forced or Spirit of coopera- driven against its will without great tion necessary loss in efficiency. Energy and thought which the teacher should devote to instruction must be expended in compulsion. Effort and attention which should be given by the pupils to their studies are directed to misdemeanors or resistance. It is impossible to gain good results while thus working at cross-purposes. A spirit of antagonism is fatal to progress on the part of the pupils and to growth and efficiency on the part of the teacher. This does not mean that the control of the school must be lax and that discipline and order shall fail in order to keep the good-will of the pupils. On the con- trary, nothing is more certain to forfeit the pupils' respect and good-will for a teacher than weakness and uncer- tainty in government. Children expect the teacher to control the school, and hold him in contempt if he does not. But there is a great difference in the way this control is manifested. One teacher, in governing the school, causes friction, hard feeling and Cooperation refers antagonism; another teacher, by a control different method, not only obtains better control of the school, but also holds the good-will and respect of the pupils. The dif- ference lies largely in the ability of the second teacher to win the cooperation of the school, whereas the first teacher has to depend on the force of authority. i84 BETTER RURAL! SCHOOLS The foundation of cooperation is the realization on the part of both the teacher and the pupils that the school is really the pupils' school, and not the teacher's school nor the board's school. When once they come to see that poor work or wrong behavior in the school is harm- ing their school, and not the teacher, their interest in the school will increase and their attitude toward it will change. The children can not be made to feel an ownership in the school merely by lecturing to them about it, nor n . . , , by explaining to them their loss when Principles of con- •'. ^ ° . , trol to come from thmgs go wrong m the school. They the school must arrive at this idea in a very con- crete and practical way. For example, the teacher feels that certain regulations should be adopted. In putting these regulations into operation, he must avoid giving the impression that such regulations are made because of any whim or notion of the teacher himself. He should rather seek to show that such regulations are made be- cause the work and success of the school demand them. Likewise, corrections, rebukes, punishments, are not to gratify any love of the teacher for these things, but be- cause the success of the school requires them. One of the greatest foes of cooperation in the school is scolding. The teacher is subject to many trials and The futility of provocations, and is often worn and scolding fagged. And, says President Henry Churchill King, "It is hard to be decent when we are fagged." The result is, that many teachers are scolders, growing into the habit gradually, and finding themselves in its grip before they are aware. There are two bad things about scolding: one is that it arouses antagonism and renders a spirit of cooperation impossible ; the other MANAGEMENT 185 is, that it ultimately does no good. For children easily be- come hardened to faultfinding and criticism, or they be- come sullen under their sting, and accept them like any other disagreeable thing of life, without taking them too seriously. Said one schoolgirl, "We would rather have Miss White scold us for half an hour than to have Miss Gray look displeased." It is a great accomplishment to be able to correct, re- buke or reprove in a spirit of entire friendliness. Many can not do this. There are those who are unable to dif- fer with us even on matters of opinion or belief without bearing a personal grudge because of these differences. Two neighbors of this type, one an ardent Democrat and the other as strong a Republican, were good friends ex- cept at the time of election campaigns, when they ceased all neighboring together and would hardly speak to each other. The teacher needs to cultivate that breadth of personality and warmth of sympathy that will enable him to correct a wayward child, even with great severity if necessary, keeping his heart so warm toward the cul- prit all the time that no tinge of antagonism creeps in. One may learn to abhor an offense while he loves the offender. One of the most valuable lessons the school has for the child is the lesson of obedience. If the spirit of co- Good management operation obtains in the school, secures obedience the child's obedience is to the needs and demands of the school itself. These needs and demands are expressed in the rules and regulations set forth by the teacher, but they come no less from the necessities of school. The term obedience is here used not alone to signify tonformity to the wishes or requirements of the teacher, i86 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS but also to the regulations and routine of the school. If a certain set of signals has been agreed on for the pass- ing of classes, for calling and dismissing school, then this routine is to be followed absolutely and exactly. If cer- tain regulations have been adopted relative to v\^hisper- ing, leaving the seats, or other privileges, then these regulations should be obeyed both in spirit and in letter. Rules that are not obeyed are far worse than no rules at all, for they beget contempt for law and authority. -v. , ,. , Better a thousand times a few simple Disobedience be- . ,...,, gets contempt regulations well complied with than for law ^ complex set which can not be en- forced. The child who has learned in the school the les- son of obedience to authority and the rights of others has been given one of the most valuable elements of edu- cation. The child who has had his schooling in a school where the lessons of obedience were not learned, has incorporated in his education an element of weakness and danger. The only way to learn lessons of obedience is to obey, just as the only way to learn moral truths is to live them. Obedience learned and the only way to learn pa- only by obeying triotism is to live and act patri- otically. The difference between theory and prac- tise in these things was well illustrated in an incident that recently occurred in a certain rural school. The morning opening exercises were being conducted. As the roll was called, each child responded with a patriotic verse or se- lection. A patriotic song was sung, and then all stood and together saluted the flag that hung at the front of the room. It was a beautiful exercise, well performed. But the trouble was, that within the next half-hour an- archy prevailed in this room in the presence of the flag MANAGEMENT 187 that had so recently been sahited. Law was violated, the rights of others were disregarded, and authority was trampled upon. The lesson in patriotism was negatived by the conduct of the school. These children needed, more than they needed anything else, to learn the lesson of obedience to authority. Good school management requires that the teacher shall be uniform in requirement from day to day. He must Good management "O^ ^o-^ay tolerate or take lightly an requires uniformity offense that yesterday he took seri- ously and punished. He must not be subject to moods and whims, making the control of the school grow chiefly out of his own attitude and feeling. He must himself obey constantly from day to day the standards he has set up for the control of the school, and should no more suffer himself to be lax in requiring obedience to rules, regulations and standards, than he would suffer his pupils to disobey in these things. This is a very severe demand to place on the teacher, but it is well worth striving for. It is worth while to be able to live above one's whims and moods, to be equable and pleasant no matter how one feels, and to be kindly insistent when one would prefer to let the wrong act go by. Such heroic training of one's self will give poise and balance to the character as will few other things, and will prove an acquisition well worth having outside the schoolroom. The necessity for persistence and uniformity on the part of the teacher has been demonstrated to every ^ , c teacher in the tendency of schools to schools to "run "run down" if given a chance. On ^^^ starting a new term, the teacher be- gins with certain ideals of management and control. For i88 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS a little time all goes well, but soon the teacher sees an increasing laxness in certain matters. Whispering is growing, obedience to signals is less prompt, playing roughly in the schoolroom at intermissions begins. It is just at this point that the strong teacher wins and the weak teacher fails. The strong teacher calmly and firmly insists on the school's living up to the require- ments ; and the school comes back to them. The weak teacher does not know how, or has not the force to check the downward tendency, and things go from bad to worse. Eternal vigilance, and an immovable kindly steadfastness of purpose are the price of uniformity of control in the school. No personal quality is more in demand in the school- room than self-control on the part of the teacher. He « ,, , who can not control himself should Self-control neces- sary to manage- not expect to control others. Every ^^^^ exhibition of uncontrolled temper is a confession of weakness, and lowers the teacher in the respect of the school. Fits of anger indulged in by the teacher engender a feeling akin to contempt on the part of the pupils. A group of girls just graduated from high school were discussing their teachers, and commenting on their characteristics. One of the group remarked: "Now there is our principal; maybe you think we didn't make things interesting for him! We girls used to meet to- gether evenings to devise ways to torment him." On being asked why they had a pick at this particular teacher, she replied: "Oh, we really had nothing against him; we only wanted to see him 'perform,' and he never dis- appointed us. We were willing to take any sort of scolding just to get him started upon a tirade." MANAGEMENT 189 This man had no right to occupy the position of teacher. One who can be led to "perform" at the beck of a group of mischievous pupils lacks the self-control necessary to the respect and cooperation of his school. Further, the heat of anger clouds the judgment and makes fairness and justice impossible. What teacher who is subject to fits of temper has not said or done things under the spur of anger which seemed perfectly justi- fiable and right at the moment, but which caused regret and shame when later looked back on! Or what such teacher has not, when he has had opportunity for calm thought, been obliged to reverse some rule, demand or threat voiced in a moment when self-control was lost ! Nor are teachers possessing this lack of poise and judgment always fair enough to take back a hasty rule An example of °^ demand even when convinced of hasty judgment its injustice. A teacher in a western rural school who was accustomed to "perform" on slight provocation had been annoyed by caricatures of herself drawn on the blackboard during her absence from the room. One day a worse drawing than usual appeared. The teacher angrily turned to the school and demanded, "Who did that?" No one replied. Again the teacher asked for the culprit, and was met with silence. This angered her still more and she issued her ultimatum : "This school will get no more recesses until some one tells me who drew that picture." Of course no one would tell, so recesses were cut off, and the school grew sullen from injustice. Neither side would give in, and friction developed into rebellion. The upshot of it was that the school board ordered the teacher to grant the school its recesses, and the teacher quit the school in humiliation and defeat. I90 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS Self-control on the part of the teacher must also ex- tend to his dealing with the patrons of the school. Pa- Control with refer- rents are not always wise or just in ence to complaints matters concerning their children. Happy is the teacher who is not now and then visited by irate fathers and mothers who claim that their per- fectly peaceable child has been assaulted on the way to school, or that his dinner has been stolen, or his books or pencils appropriated by other children. When such a situation arises, the teacher possessing tact or self-con- trol will satisfy the parent, and bring the interview to an end in friendship and good-will. The teacher who lacks control will be likely to bring on a stormy inter- view that decides nothing, and which leaves bitter feel- ings to rankle after the trivial cause of the interview is long forgotten. No discussion on school management can point out all the problems that will arise in the course of a term, "Danger points'* ^^^ ^^^ unexpected is likely to appear in management at any moment. There are, however, certain problems that present themselves in most schools, and may therefore be called the "constant" problems, or the "danger points" in school management. One of these is boisterous play in the schoolroom dur- ing intermissions. There are many reasons why children Boisterous play in should not be rough and noisy in the the schoolroom schoolroom at intermissions. The first of these reasons relates to the effects of what the psychologist calls suggestion. Any part of our environ- ment comes to suggest to us the activities that we per- form in connection with this environment. The dining- room suggests eating ; the church, reverence and worship ; our study table, concentration and effort; and so on MANAGEMENT 191 throughout the whole circle of the objects and places with which we are most familiar. Now if the schoolroom is used solely as a study place and as a workshop for our lessons, it will come to sug- _, ,, . „ p-est these things to us and make it The "suggestion" ^ . . , 1 ,1 • ^u- carries over into easy to study and work when m this study hours environment. If, on the other hand, the schoolroom is used as a playground or a gymnasium, a place where noisy play, shouting and hilarious laugh- ter are the rule, it will come to suggest these things to us, and make it harder to settle down to serious be- havior and sober study. In many schools no talking except in a conversational tone is permitted during in- termissions, and no moving about except in a quiet or- derly way. This regulation is a hardship on no one, and tends to make the government of the school much easier. A second reason why children should not play in the schoolroom at intermissions is, that they should be out- Play should be of-doors in the fresh air. They out-of-doors should also have the greater freedom and opportunity for exercise given by the playground. In very stormy weather it may be impossible to play out- of-doors. It is then that the resourceful teacher will propose and help carry through some of the more quiet games, which are suited to the indoor play hour. In this way he can not only teach new games to the children, but can himself come to know them better and win more fully their confidence and friendship. Whispering and note-writing are another schoolroom danger. Communicating with others by means of oral or written speech is so natural and harmless an impulse that at first thought it seems strange that it should need 192 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS to be classed as a schoolroom misdemeanor. Yet even very harmless impulses sometimes require restraint. Bookkeepers at adjoining desks do not converse as they add columns of figures; telegraph operators do not talk while they are sending messages ; the musician does not whisper to a friend as he plays. These things all require individual attention. So with the work of the school. Lessons must be learned through application and concen- tration. Constant interruption is a serious and unneces- sary waste of time. And besides this, the child needs to learn self-control ; he needs to learn to be quiet and keep his thoughts to himself, as well as to express them. Nor does it help matters if children are permitted to whisper "about the lesson." This is precisely what they Whispering "about should not need to do if the assign- the lessons" ment has been properly made and the child has given attention to the teacher's directions. In addition, such a plan is sure to lead the child to lack of frankness. Other things than the lesson will be discussed, and the moral sense of the child be dulled by this de- ception. Whispering during study time should be re- duced to the lowest possible minimum. Note-writing is even a more insidious danger in the school than whispering, for it is harder to detect, and it No truce with ' ^^^ greater possibilities of evil. Notes note-writing can be passed slyly from desk to desk, or left in books, or delivered personally on the pre- text of some errand, and even the alert teacher finds it hard to discover the culprit. Not infrequently, also, school notes contain improper language or suggestion which the writer would not dare to convey in oral speech. Note-writing is so unnecessary to the work of the school MANAGEMENT 193 and contains so many possibilities of harm that it should be as completely eliminated as possible. Unnecessary questions and moving aljoui the room should be reduced to a minimum. Ability in manage- TT ment is shown nowhere better than Unnecessary con- . fusion indicates m the power to foresee the necessi- poor management ties of the school and so provide for them that unnecessary interruptions shall not occur. Nine out of ten of the questions commonly asked in the rural school could be forestalled by taking care of the details of lesson assignments, the matter of pencils, books, note-books and the like. A full supply of all the latter should be had by every pupil, and no borrowing be allowed. The same kind of care and attention to de- tails will render unnecessary most of the passing about the room by the pupils during school time. Questions are sometimes asked just for the sake of asking them, and children wish to leave their seats for A cure for the sake of the change and the rest "questions" from sitting. They are not to be blamed for this very natural desire, but it can be grati- fied in a better way. Let the teacher take two or three minutes in the middle of the session, have the windows and doors thrown open, and every one march around the room to music, or go through a set of calisthenic exer- cises. This will afford the needed change and relaxa- tion for the whole school. The teacher must then kindly but firmly insist that no unnecessary interruptions shall occur. Injury to public property should be carefully guarded. Children can very early be taught principles of justice and honesty toward others, and the school offers excel- 194 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS lent opportunities for such lessons. If school property is injured either wantonly or accidentally it is evident _ . ^ , ,. that the first thing to do is to repair Injury to publxc . property to be the damage. The child should be made good made to see that the taxpayers of the district have supplied the schoolhouse and equipment for the use of the school, but that these things belong to the district. In one rural school a boy w^as found to have marred a newly decorated wall of the school building. He was sent for a workman to come and repair the wall, and the bill was presented to the boy and paid by him out of his own earnings. The boy learned through this incident a practical lesson in business honesty, which could never have been taught him theoretically. Our people are sadly lacking as a nation in the respect for public property. There are those who will ruth- American tendency ^^^sly deface public buildings, parks, toward vandalism or even monuments in order to to obtain a little souvenir to carry away. Others will commit such acts of vandalism wantonly. The most effective cure for these things lies not so much in lec- tures on morals and ethics, as in inculcating practical lessons in morals and ethics by making them a part of the conduct of the children in the school, the community and the home. The child must learn that the first step in either repentance or reparation is, so far as it is possible, to make good the injury. The question of morality is insistent in every school. The matters which have just been discussed are of such Children's morals nature that they apply more or less to be guarded generally to the entire school. But some of the most difficult problems of management grow out of the occasional case of immorality. It is an excep- MANAGEMENT 195 tional school which does not have some child who uses profane or improper speech, or whose conduct does not in some other way suggest immorality. The pure-minded child should be protected from this moral contagion. One such center of immoral influence in the school, if left unchecked, may spread until the whole school is contaminated. The detection and prevention of such influences is one of the teacher's most difficult tasks. The teacher must not be suspicious and spying in his attitude toward the pupils ; but, on the other hand, he must not be blind or deaf to what is going on. He must be thoroughly alert to what is taking place not only in the schoolroom, but also on the playground. He must know the morals of his pupils if he is to protect the innocent and reform the wayward ; and this constitutes both an opportunity and an obligation. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. Counting up all the acknowledged failures among teachers you have known, were most of them failures in management ? Is it possible that some fail in instruction, but their failure is not so easily discovered? Do some fail in instruction because they first fail in management? 2. Judging from your observation, what are the most troublesome points in the management of a rural school ? Can you suggest how such troubles may be avoided? 3. What, in your judgment, is responsible for the at- titude of so many pupils who seem to look on the teacher as a natural enemy, and feel it a personal tri- umph if they succeed in playing some trick or committing a misdemeanor without being discovered? What is the remedy ? tg6 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS 4. Do you agree with the position taken on scolding? Does the habit have a tendency to grow on a teacher? What is a good substitute? 5. Do you find it difficult to be uniform from day to day in your requirements and government? Can you re- late any inequalities to lowered vitality or impaired health? To bad nerves? 6. Did you ever go to school to a teacher who had fits of temper? If so, did the school look on exhibitions of temper as a weakness and lose respect for the teacher because of them? 7. Do you believe in corporal punishment? If not, what is your substitute? Is sarcasm or ridicule to be preferred to whipping? Should a child usually be pun- ished before the school (effect of making a martyr of him) ? Should punishment take place while teacher or pupil is angry? What are your tests of the effectiveness of punishment? 8. Do you know your legal rights as fixed by the laws of your state in governing and punishing a pupil in your school ? Some states do not define the teacher's rights in detail, but simply say the teacher stands in loco parentis to the pupil. What powers are thus given? CHAPTER XIII GOOD TEACHING Important and necessary as good organization and management are in the school, they can never be an end rr. ,-• .t- !-• 1- in themselves. Both exist only to pro- Teacning the nign- . , , ... . i • i 7 est function of Vide the conditions under which teach- the school i^g j^a,y go on. Teaching, the actual instruction and guidance of children in their learning and development, is the ultimate purpose for which we erect our schoolhouses, organize our schools and pay our school taxes. And no matter how excellent the building and equipment, how perfect the organization of the school, or how skilful its management, these all fail of their aim if they are not crowned by good teaching. The true teacher will therefore always have before him a triple ideal for his school — careful organization, efficient management, arid good teaching ; but the greatest of these is teaching. Good teaching requires first of all that the teacher shall meet the children on their own plane, be able to put Meeting the child himself in the child's place and look on his own plane at the problems and difficulties of learning through the eyes and mind of a child. Children do not know how to study, for study is an art and has to be learned the same as any other art. When the chil- dren first enter school they are fresh from the work and the play of home life, accustomed to deal with real tasks 197 198 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS and concrete objects. We place in their hands books full of symbols of which they know nothing, and dealing with lines of thought unfamiliar to them. We tell them to get their lessons, but they do not know how. And even after they have learned to recognize words and their meanings, the process of gathering and unifying the thought of a printed page is difficult. Those of us who have studied a foreign language have not forgot- ten how possible it is to know all the separate words of a paragraph or page, and yet find great difficulty in col- lecting the thought of the whole. How often children say to the teacher, "I don't know how to study this lesson." Or, "I don't understand how Need of teaching ^^ begin on this." Every such confes- how to study sion is in some sense an indictment of the teacher, one of the chief of whose functions is to show the child how to study. It would do many teachers good to try an experiment sometimes given to college classes in psychology. The students are given slips of paper on which is printed an easy story consist- ing of about two hundred words. Each student is to read this story aloud as fast as he can with good ex- pression. The average time required is about seventy- five seconds. Next, the class is given similar slips with another easy story of the same length. But this second story is printed in reverse order from the bottom of the page upward, and without capitalization or punctuation. The students are to read the story aloud, the same as the first one, as rapidly as possible. The average time re- quired for the second story is nearly five minutes, and the reading sounds for all the world like a First-Reader pupil puzzling out unfamiliar words. We often forget GOOD TEACHING 199 that the page of a book is as new to the child as the reversed page is to the college students. The teachers in the elementary schools of Germany give a large proportion of their time, especially in the low^er The German grades,, to showing the children how method to study the lesson assigned. New words are learned, difficult points explained, important sections or divisions noted, and the whole method of work to be followed is suggested or outlined. How far this is ahead of our very common custom of saying, "Take the next two pages," and leaving the children to flounder helplessly in the dark when they come to study the lesson. Good teaching inspires confidence and courage in the pupils. Nothing is to be gained by telling children that Good teaching en- they are dull or backward. Prob- courages the child ably four out of five laggards are failing more from discouragement than lack of ability. A thoughtless teacher was one day called by an uplifted hand to the desk of a glum-looking boy. Joe was having trouble again with his examples. "O Joe," complained the teacher, "you are so dull! I am afraid you will never learn arithmetic." Now this was precisely what Joe himself feared, and the judgment of the teacher only drove the conviction more deeply into the soul of the disheartened boy. What Joe needed was sympathy and encouragement, and a teacher wise enough to find out the faulty place in his reasoning and to help remedy it. An army or a football team which enters a conflict expecting defeat is already half beaten, and a pupil who starts on a lesson sure he can not master it has already failed. 200 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS The teacher should be able to radiate good cheer, con- fidence and encouragement as radium discharges energy, The value of without appreciably diminishing the good cheer supply. The schoolroom ought to be the brightest and happiest place anywhere to be found. For the feelings and emotions lie very close to our in- tellectual powers, and the full capacity of our minds can never be called into play except under the stimulus of belief in ourselves and happiness in our work. The teacher must know how to render sufficient help to set the powers of the child at work, but must not do the work himself, and thus leave no effort or victory for the pupil. It is possible to do too much for the child just as it is possible to do too little ; it is easy for the teacher to re- cite for a backward or poorly prepared pupil and save him the trouble. The best teachers are therefore not those who do most for the pupil, but those who lead the pupils to do most for themselves. Good teaching requires interest and enthusiasm on the part of the teacher. These are of first importance, for The contagion they are contagious. Nothing can of interest take their place. No amount of learn- ing, no determination to do one's duty, no display of false or forced vivacity will answer. The teacher who lacks a true and deep-seated interest in his work is a dead teacher, no matter how many degrees he may hold. And through what we call the influence of suggestion, this deadness of spirit is felt by the class and tends to shape their attitude toward study. It is safe to say that no class is ever found giving themselves whole-heartedly and gladly to a subject which their teacher has no inter- est in teaching, nor is a lifeless class possible with an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. GOOD TEACHING 201 The skilful teacher keeps close to the every-day inter- ests and experiences of the pupils. He does not substi- The point of con- ^ute rules and definitions for real ob- tact with the child jects and experiences. He uses the text-book in his teaching, but is not hampered and bound down by it. He illustrates difficult points by applying them to the immediate activities and knowledge of his pupils. This point of view is illustrated in the case of a ten-year- old schoolgirl who was one day walking with her father along the brow of a hill on one side of which nestled a beautiful little valley. The father said, "See, Marian, what a pretty valley !" Marian stopped short and gazed at the valley. After a moment she exclaimed, "So that is a valley ! Why, we have had valleys in our geography at school, but I would not have known that this was a valley." These poor children had committed definitions of valleys, and spelled all the words relating to valleys and learned the names of many far-away valleys and answered the questions out of the geography, but the half-dozen valleys that lay within sight of the school- room windows were unknown and unrecognized by them. So dead and dry and senseless may teaching become ! The teacher's point of viezv has much to do with his skill in teaching. It makes all the difference in the world whether one is teaching arithmetic, or teaching children. And it is much easier to teach arithmetic than to teach children. Professor Dewey made this point clear when he said, "When the teacher comes before his class he should have his subject-matter so well in hand that it is second nature to him ; he can then give the best of his power and enthusiasm to the work of interpreting the pupils, — to studying their needs, leading their thought, and developing their interest." 202 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS One teacher, fresh from a normal school, complained to the superintendent that the children of her school were Effects of point below the average and not normal of view children in their studies. The super- intendent asked her the reason for her conclusion, and she replied: "You see it is like this; I have been at the state normal school, and there we were required to work out lesson plans and outlines for all branches we were to teach. Now I have been using those outlines and lesson plans just as we were given them, and the chil- dren are unable to understand or do the work." When' it was suggested to her that she reconstruct her outlines' and plans until they fitted the actual boys and girls of her school, instead of expecting the boys and girls to fit into ready-made plans, the idea seemed new to her. But this girl had the willingness and ability to change her point of view, and she is to-day a successful teacher of hoys and girls, whereas she was formerly an inefficient teacher of grammar, geography and arithmetic. Teaching is done chiefly in the recitation. This is the teacher's point of contact with his pupils ; here he meets them face to face and mind to mind. It is in the recita- tion that the teacher succeeds in stimulating and inspir- ing to aims and ambitions that lead to a full and helpful education, or else fails to feed the fires of ambition and thus leaves the child indifferent to training and self-de- velopment. The teacher's success or failure in the reci- tation is therefore the ultimate measure of his value to the school. Although recitations must differ greatly for different subjects and in different grades, yet certain fundamental Principles govern- requisites apply to all recitations, ing the recitation There are a few vital tests by which GOOD TEACHING 203 the teacher can estimate his own success, and the effi- ciency of the recitation. Does the recitation grip the interest of the class f Are all mentally alert, and giving attention because the inter- est of the recitation, and not the teacher, compels them. The writer has elsewhere said : "A recitation without in- terest is a dead recitation. Because it possesses no life it can not lead to growth. Nothing can take the place of interest. Fear may for a time drive to work, but it does not result in development. Only interest can bring all the powers and capacities of the child into play. Hence the teacher's first and greatest problem in the recitation is the problem of interest. To obtain interest, he must use every resource at his command. This does not mean that he is to bid for the children's interest with sensational methods and cheap devices. This is not the way to gain true interest. It means, rather, that he is to offer to the class subject-matter suited to their age and experience, and presented in a way adapted to their capacity and understanding ; that he is to have all conditions surround- ing the recitation as favorable as possible ; and that he is himself to be constantly a source of interest and enthusi- asm."i Does the recitation move with snap and vivacity f This does not mean noisily and after a scatter-brained fashion The recitation that does not give opportunity for must have life calm thought and mastery; it rather refers to the continuity of thought and action necessary to preserve an unbroken line of interest. A successful story or play must have what we call "movement." Something must be taking place, so that interest and at- tention are sustained. Nothing is more uninspiring than ^ The Recitation, page thirty. 204 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS a recitation that drags, with pauses and breaks caused by the unpreparedness, or lack of skill or interest on the part of the teacher. A fair sample of this type of reci- tation was heard by the writer in a western rural school. It was a Fourth-Reader class reading Paul Revere's Ride. The class was called, and came sauntering aim- lessly down to the recitation bench. The teacher was sitting listlessly behind her desk. A little girl offered the teacher her text, which was accepted without recognition of the courtesy. The teacher said, "John, you may read the first stanza." John arose lazily and read it with no show of enthusiasm. "Mary, read the next." Mary read the next. "Joe, you may read the next." Joe complied. So they went on until five stanzas had thus been read. This completed the assignment. The time was not yet up, so they read the lesson through again after the same fashion, with no comment, suggestion or explanation. The teacher assigned the next lesson, and the class was dismissed. Not a word had been said about the historical setting of the incident, not a thrill of patriotism had been aroused, and not an appeal had been made to the imagina- tion. The whole lesson was a dismal failure, a bore to the teacher and an imposition on helpless childhood. Shame on such teaching and such a teacher! Better a thousand times give these children the stirring poem to read by themselves than under the stifling influence of such a personality; or even turn them out on the play- ground or set them at work in their homes rather than subject them to the benumbing influence of such spiritless instruction. Are the zvhole class taking part in the recitation ? This means not alone in reciting when they are called on, but GOOD TEACHING 205 all the time. Or, on the other hand, do those who are not for the moment reciting, wander in their thought, and Every pupil must really take no part in the development take part of the lesson? The questions asked by the teacher, the explanations given, or the answers rendered by the one reciting must be made to command the thought of all. If the attention lags and the attitude of the pupils becomes listless while they are not being called on, this may be taken as an evidence of failure in the recitation. Thinking can not thus be done in piece- meal and be efficient. Further, the pupils need to learn the lesson of giving sustained attention. They must learn to think a reasonable length of time contin- uously, without faltering or lagging. The remedy for this inattention on the part of the class is not, however; scolding, or rapping on the desk for attention, such as is heard in many schools. It is inspiring teaching and en- thusiasm on the part of the teacher. Is each pupil in the recitation receiving his share of opportunity and requirement^ A temptation constantly Each to receive his to be guarded against is that of call- share of attention jng chiefly on the bright and ready pupils. The recitation moves off much better if we do not call on the bungler or the slow-coach. The sparkling eyes and ready lips of the well prepared pupil are a potent invitation to ask him the question that should go to the backward one. The child slow in expression or understanding must have his chance ; he needs encourage- ment in expressing his thoughts, and can attain freedom only through practise. And it may also be true that the too-ready child needs to learn control, and to cultivate the habit of thinking before he speaks. 2o6 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS Does the teacher by skilful questioning and by build- ing on what the pupils already know lead to understand- The question as a ing of new truths, — or does he tell method of teaching the facts himself ? Ever since the days of Socrates the method of developing knowledge in the mind of the child by skilful questioning has been accepted as the best and most natural way. Yet many teachers do not make good use of this method. It is much easier for the teacher to recite the troublesome point himself than to lead the child to see it through a series of questions ; hence the lazy or thoughtless teacher falls into this rut. Other teachers talk too much in gen- eral. They know the subject well and like to talk about it, so they do most of the reciting for the pupils. Still others, after having called on a pupil to recite, will inter- rupt him and go on to finish the discussion themselves. This is not only bad manners, but even worse pedagogy. Children learn to do by doing, and knowledge becomes clear and usable only through its expression. Let the teacher therefore set a guard over his own tongue, and cultivate the art of questioning. Has the teacher learned the art of questioning f For questioning is one of the most difficult arts to master, and Questioning a °^^ ^^^^ which few have perfect con- fine art trol. Is the teacher tied down to the text-book in questioning, asking the questions in the lan- guage of the book? One can not teach until one is able to declare his independence of a book. This does not mean that he may never refer to the text in the recitation. But it does require that he know the general subject and the particular lesson so well that he is not dependent on the text for his questions. Anything less than this is mere testing or catechizing and can not be called teaching. GOOD TEACHING 207 Do tHe questions follow one another in a natural se- quence determined by the lesson to be developed, or are Principles of good ^^^J disconnected and haphazard? questioning Only the teacher who is thoroughly master of his subject can build his successive questions on the pupils' answers, clearing up a point here, empha- sizing a truth there, and making the whole series result in a coherent unified knowledge of the lesson. Are the questions clear? Often children do not know how to answer a question because they are not certain what the question means to ask. Here are some ques- tions recently asked by rural teachers in their recitations : "What about the fish in the Mammoth Cave? Why has a cat fur and duck feathers? What happens when it lightens? What of the animals in the temperate zone? How does tobacco grow?" Not one of these questions is clear, and hence none will admit of a definite answer. They are all the result of loose or careless thinking, and betray the teacher's lack of skill. Are the standards of the recitation sufficiently high? Is the work thorough so that it will do to build on for _,, .^ ^. J later study ? Much time is wasted in The recitation de- , 1 , , mands high our rural schools by stoppmg short of standards reasonable mastery. Children are trying to work in percentage when they can not handle the decimals involved; they are attempting denominate numbers and measurements when they can not use simple fractions. Likewise, we find them in advanced parts of the grammar when they can not recognize the parts of speech in a sentence, or pick out the subject and predi- cate. And so with the other subjects. Most of this in- excusable waste of time, effort and interest on the part of the child may be laid at the door of the teachers who 2o8 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS did not take the time or trouble to insure mastery of fundamentals before passing from them. Further, the children need for their own sake to be trained in high standards of excellence. The child who is set a task, and then let off with the task poorly done, or not done at all, has had an element of weakness and danger built into his life. On the other hand, the one who has been taught to measure up to all reasonable re- quirements and to set a high standard for his work, has added an invaluable element of strength to his char- acter. Is the recitation free from distractions? If thought and interest are to move along in an unbroken train, they Distractions fatal "^^^st not be interrupted too fre- to the recitation quently. The teacher who stops the recitation to answer questions asked by those outside the class, or to correct disorder, is himself a source of distraction, and ought to mend his ways. Most of the questions usually asked in the rural school could be saved by better foresight and management, and those that really need to be answered can usually be at- tended to between classes. The writer saw one teacher in the midst of a reading recitation leave a boy reading a paragraph while she went back in the room to help an- other pupil solve a problem in arithmetic. The reader mumbled his paragraph through, and then the class waited for the teacher to return to the recitation. Such gross mismanagement and incompetency as this teacher manifested would not be tolerated in a business concern, but would surely result in dismissal. The physical conditions surrounding the recitation are not seldom a source of distraction. The recitation seat GOOD TEACHING 209 is sometimes near the stove, and the class are subjected to a roasting process. Sometimes the sunlight falls di- Physical condi- rectly on the books, and the eyes tions a factor are dazzled or pained. The air not infrequently is unfit for breathing, and results in lowered vitality and fagged brains. The minds of the pupils should be at their highest level of efficiency in the recita- tion, and every possible condition should be arranged to favor this end. Is the teacher helpful and responsive in the recitation ? Nothing is more embarrassing to one speaking than to Importance o£ have a dull, bored, or unresponsive teacher's attitude listener. The teacher whose face shows no sign of interest or appreciation is, to say the least, not a source of inspiration to his class. Teachers are sometimes critical, faultfinding and cross in the reci- tation. This attitude is always a mistake, for it has a tendency to embarrass the timid and to make sullen the more bold. A recitation at its best is simply an interest- ing conversation carried on between teacher and class ; and a conversation requires courtesy and responsiveness on both sides. The teacher must learn to be firm, insist- ent and thorough without becoming severe or over-crit- ical. His attitude should always be one of helpfulness and cooperation rather than one of attempting to corner or trap. Is the assignment of the next lesson properly made? Or does the teacher simply say, "Take the next chapter; Good teaching re- *^^ ^^^^^ ^^ excused"? Every lesson quires careful as- should be clearly and definitely as- signment signed, so that every member of the (ilass knows exactly what is to be done. The hard points should be given attention, and the more important sec- 2IO BETTER RURAL! SCHOOLS tions emphasized. Jhe method of attack on the lesson should be suggested, and help given on the mode of its preparation. That all this will take time is no excuse for neglecting it. A reasonable proportion of the recitation time is better expended in this way than in any other. Any failure properly to assign lessons betrays lack of efficiency in one of the most important phases of the teacher's work. • . FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. Can you recall one or two of your own teachers who were especially a source of inspiration and help to you? Can you explain the secret of their powers? 2. One writer says that 'Vicariousness" — the power of putting one's self in another person's place — is the first great attribute of a teacher. If so, why is this true ? What are several other fundamental attributes? 3. Are all of the qualities that go to make a good teacher desirable outside the schoolroom? 4. What qualities in particular would you say are most desirable in a teacher? One writer says that a teacher's personality is even more important than his knowledge. Is this statement true ? Can the personality be improved ? 5. You have known some recitations to drag and others to move with life and interest. What factors are responsible for this difference? 6. How much preparation do you get for your daily recitations? Do you enjoy recitations better when you are well prepared ? Do the children respond better ? How can you prepare daily if you have twenty-five classes? 7. What is your method in assigning lessons ? Do you think it pays to take time for careful assignments ? What do you do with children who forget assignments? . 8. Have you observed wide variations in the standards GOOD TEACHING 211 of excellence in the recitations in different schools? Is not all thoroughness relative, and will the teacher not need to take age and development into account? On the other hand, should partial answers and half-mastered truths be allowed to pass uncompleted? PART IV CONSOLIDATION AND RURAL- SCHOOL EFFICIENCY CHAPTER XIV THE MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSOLIDATION Many different factors are at work for the betterment of the rural schools. Of these none is more vital and _, . important than the movement toward Changes necessi- .... ... tating consoli- consolidation, or the combmmg of ^^*^°" several small district schools into a single larger one. This movement first arose in New England, where it owed its origin to the dwindling size of the district schools. A generation or two ago it was common for the rural school to enroll thirty or forty pupils, and not infrequently as many as fifty were to be found within its walls. But that day is past. Permanent social and industrial changes have come about, and towns and cities are claiming an increasingly larger pro- portion of our people. Besides this, not a few of those who live on the farms now send their children to the town school instead of to the little home school. The consequence is that the district school has been losing in numbers, and occasional schools have become extinct from sheer lack of pupils. Thousands of rural schools are to-day running with less than ten pupils, and many with under half that number. This loss in numbers has produced serious conse- quences in the rural school, and our people are coming Loss In efficiency *° '^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ interest, the efficiency through small and the economy formerly belonging schools jQ ^j^g larger district school are want- 215 2i6 BETTER RURAL' SCHOOLS ing in the small schools of the present. To continue these unprofitable schools is like attempting to carry on our manufactures in thousands of primitive and poorly- equipped shops, each employing but a few workmen, in- stead of conducting such industries in well-equipped factories manned with hundreds or thousands of skilled mechanics. Readjustments must be made to meet the changed conditions in education, just as they have been made to meet new conditions in the industries. Consolidation is no new and untried experiment, as many unacquainted with its history think. Massachusetts Origin of con- ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^P toward consolida- solidation tion in the year 1869, and has steadily continued the policy to the present day. The pioneer in the movement was Superintendent William L. Eaton, of Concord. He looked about him in Concord Township, and saw the small and struggling schools, each irregularly attended by little groups of children from the neighbor- ing farms. He concluded that the children would be bet- ter off in one larger and stronger school. But the homes were widely scattered, and the distance was too great to walk. There was no law at that time allowing public money to be spent for the transportation of children to school. A new law was sought for this purpose, and the school was opened. At first the new school consisted of only two districts, but others voted to come in, and by the end of ten years all the schools of Concord Township were consolidated. The movement thus begun soon extended to other New England states, and so on to the Middle West, and Extent of more recently to the South and the consolidation far West. Consolidated schools now form an integral part of the school system of fully three- This building was planned for a school of forty or fifty pupils. The attendance has now dwindled to nine. For two years the boy- shown in the picture was the only boy in the school. This is a case where a good district building adequately equipped fails to attract pupils when a consolidated school is within reach MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSOLIDATION 217 fourths of the states, and are spreading to the remaining ones. This type of school is in successful operation all the way from Maine to Florida, and from Massachusetts to Washington and Oregon. It is therefore not limited to any particular geographical or economic conditions. The plan has proved successful on the plains of Texas, among the hills of Vermont, and on the sparsely-settled prairies of North Dakota. This is not to say that all district schools are soon to be replaced by consolidated schools, and that the one- room school will henceforth be remembered only as history. Many conditions render this impossible. There are now in the United States something over two hun- dred thousand one-room country schools, while but a few thousand consolidated schools have been organized. Yet the importance of the consolidation movement can not be measured by a comparison of these figures. For, though the movement began more than forty years ago, it is only within the last decade that it has taken on national im- portance and gathered irresistible momentum. It is esti- mated that more schools have been consolidated during the last five years than in all the time preceding since the movement began. There is not a state in the union where consolidation is not now being agitated, and compulsory or favorable legislation is being passed in many of them. As an example of these laws, Indiana requires the auto- matic closing of all schools that fall below twelve in en- rollment, while Minnesota and Iowa have recently passed acts granting state aid to schools that consolidate. The federal Bureau of Education and the Department of Ag- riculture are both giving much attention and study to the matter of consolidation, and are lending it their powerful 2i8 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS support as a part of rural-school improvement. State departments of education are also taking up the question and urging its acceptance by their people. Besides these activities, county superintendents, patrons and teachers are studying and discussing the matter, and rapidly pre- paring the way for its more general acceptance. One of the most striking illustrations of the wide- spread interest in the success of consolidation is found in the recent visit of a party of educators consisting of eleven southern state superintendents, several state supervisors of rural schools, a representative of the United States Department of Agriculture and a repre- sentative of the Southern Education Board, to certain regions where consolidated schools are in operation. These men were sent at the expense of public funds or private benefactions to study the systems of consolidation as they are being worked out in sections of Indiana, Ohio, Canada, Maryland and Virginia. They came to the problem with open minds, ready to see both the ad- vantages and the faults of such a system. Some of them had already been advocating consolidation in their home states, while others were less certain of its success. Their sincere purpose was to learn at first-hand to what extent the consolidated schools, once permanently established, enter into rural community life and become a factor in preparing the youth educationally and vocationally for their work. These educators visited the schools in their regular daily work. They rode in the school wagons ; they talked Leading educators ^^^^ patrons, _ pupils, teachers and support the trustees ; they investigated the matter movement Qf expense, both for running the school and for transportation ; they studied the effect on Southern state superintendents leaving Cravvfordsville, Indiana, the starting point of a twelve day tour among the consolidated schools of Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia and Canada Courtesy of iV. R. Baker (Ala.) An old log school house with only one window and this without glass MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSOLIDATION 219 attendance and educational interest. In every possible way these investigators sought to discover the true meas- ure of the efficiency of consohdated schools. As a result of their painstaking study the cause of consolidation has been greatly advanced. For, so fully convinced were these officials of the value and feasibility of consolida- tion, that they are earnestly advocating its adoption, and have already done much to further the movement in their own and other states. Through their influence and other factors also at work, many parts of the South are now leading the North in rural-school reform and prog- ress. The movement toward consolidation has at no stage been a fad. Farmers are naturally a highly conservative Consolidation class, and because of their very isola- not a fad tion, immune from the hasty and ir- rational spirit of the mob. Consolidation is therefore but gradually being assimilated into the rural-school system. It has been adopted as a result of observation and experiment, and it flourishes best where civic ambi- tion and high educational ideals control. There is no danger of reaction toward the old district type of school ; for in no case has a fully consolidated school reverted to the former one-room type. Indeed the greatest of all factors in promoting consolidation is the loyalty and enthusiasm of the patrons of consolidated schools who, as a rule, are abundantly satisfied with the new school, and would not hear of returning to the old. The present status of consolidation may be estimated from recent statements written or published by the state Present status of superintendents of certain of the con- consolidation solidation states. In Massachusetts the movement has almost ceased to advance, from the 220 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS fact that it has proceeded about as far as is at present practicable. This state spent over a third of a milHon dollars during the year 1911-1912 for the transportation of pupils to consolidated schools. Louisiana has three hundred consolidated schools, accommodating some fifty thousand pupils. Idaho is transporting over five thou- sand children at public expense, and predicts that within a few years consolidated schools will completely sup- plant one-room schools. In Washington more than thirty of the forty counties have begun consolidation, and the movement is rapidly growing. Consolidation has pro- ceeded so far in Rhode Island that there are less than two hundred ungraded schools left in the state. Under the new consolidation law, Minnesota built about sixty con- solidated schools in the year 1911-1912, and the move- ment is spreading with great rapidity ; sixteen thousand pupils attend consolidated schools in Minnesota. Kansas has nine thousand children attending the consolidated schools, which are constantly growing in favor. Okla- homa finds the consolidation sentiment stimulated by re- cent legislation granting state aid to consolidated schools, and now has over eight thousand children in these schools. Arkansas has more than one hundred consoli- dated schools, and many others in project. Ohio has two hundred consolidated schools, accommodating fifteen thousand rural children, and is rapidly extending the con- solidated system. Florida reports consolidated schools in thirty-three of the forty-eight counties of the state. Tennessee accommodates some eight thousand pupils in consolidated schools, and is extending the system. Ver- mont sends one-fifth of her rural children to consolidated schools, and is increasing the proportion. Seven out of Utah's twenty-seven counties have consolidated their MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSOLIDATION 221 schools, which are attended by an aggregate of more than thirty-one thousand pupils. New Jersey expends about two hundred thousand dollars annually for the trans- portation of pupils to school. North Carolina is pushing consolidation, and now has about one-fourth of her pupils accommodated in schools of two or more rooms. This new type of school has absorbed more than twelve hundred of North Carolina's one-room schools during the last ten years. It is, however, in the state of Indiana that the greatest progress has been made in re- cent years, and that we find the nearest approach to a state system of consolidated schools. Eighty-two out of the ninety-two counties of the state now have consoli- dated schools in operation, and approximately half a mil- lion dollars a year is being paid for the transportation of pupils to consolidated schools. Many of these consoli- dated schools have a full four-year high-school course, and as full equipment as a city school. Montgomery County, in this state, is, according to the report of the United States Commissioner of Education, the banner county for the proportion of its rural pupils attending consolidated schools, the percentage being eighty-four for consolidated schools and sixteen for one-room schools. Still other statements could be presented showing similar conditions in many of the remaining states. Enough has been said, however, to prove that consolida- tion has passed the experimental stage. It is no longer a question of tvhether the one-room schools yet remaining in many parts of the country shall be abandoned, and consolidated schools erected in their stead ; the question is rather how this is best to be brought about, and what should be the type of the new school. The rapidity of the movement toward consolidation is 222 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS • ^ affected by the melliods adopted for the change from one system to the other. The earliest laws in New Methods of Chang. England required that each one of ing to consolidated the districts affected by consolida- system ^Jqj^ should vote separately on the question, and that no district should be forced to aban- don its school against its will. This plan was natural and right enough while the movement was still an experi- ment. But it is at best but a slow process, for, voting by single districts, a few objectors can often defeat the whole project. The later method, first adopted by the Ohio voters, is for the entire area to be included in the consolidated district to vote as a unit. Thus, under this method, if it is proposed to form a new district by con- solidating five small districts, the voters from all the districts assemble and vote in the one election, a majority carrying the project for all districts concerned. This method is undoubtedly the better one, and the plan that should be followed in all new legislation on the subject. Three different legislative methods have been chiefly employed to provide for the extension of the system of Legislation bear- consolidation: (i) Permissive \egis- ing on consoli- lation, which merely provides that **^*^°" school districts or townships may if they wish consolidate their schools and provide trans- portation at public expense. Such were the earlier laws in all the pioneer states, and the type that is still common in most of the states. We have, therefore, no complete state system of consolidation. The movement is strictly one of local or district option. (2) Compulsory legis- lation, requiring that all schools which fall below a certain minimum shall be closed, and the pupils trans- MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSOLIDATION 223 ported to neighboring schools at public expense. It is hardly probable that this type of legislation will become popular, though it is entirely rational wherever the con- ditions are such that transportation of the pupils belong- ing to the abandoned school is possible. Indiana has taken the lead in compulsory legislation, requiring the discontinuance of all schools having a daily average at- tendance of twelve or less, and leaving it optional with the township trustee to close schools with an average daily attendance of fifteen or less. Several other states have similar laws, but usually with such exemption clauses as to render the law practically inoperative. (3) State aid to consolidated schools on condition that certain requirements are met. This principle has long been in operation in varying forms in different states. Minne- sota, however, furnishes the best recent example of the use of state aid to encourage consolidation. Under the Minnesota law, each consolidated school having two rooms and two teachers receives annually from the state treasury the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars. Similarly, a three-teacher school receives one thousand dollars, and one having four or more teachers, fifteen hundred dollars. In addition, the state encourages the erection of good school buildings by providing aid up to a possible maximum of fifteen hundred dollars for build- ing purposes for any one school, on condition that certain building requirements are met. The effects of this finan- cial encouragement can hardly be overestimated in stimu- lating the local communities, first, to consolidate their schools, and second, to erect good buildings with ade- quate equipment. The first year under this law saw fifty consolidations effected in Minnesota, as against nine 2241 BETTER RURAL SCHOOUS for the eleven years preceding the adoption of the law. Iowa has more recently passed a similar law, and its effects are already being felt. It should be recognized in speaking of consolidated schools that no uniformity exists at present as to the precise type of schools to which this term shall apply. In many regions of the country, particularly in the South, where the vote on consolidation is taken by separate dis- tricts, the first step toward consolidation is the union of but two adjacent schools, with no extension of the cur- riculum and no great improvement in the grading. Such schools are sometimes referred to as consolidated schools, but are more correctly described as union schools. George W. Knorr, who has made an excellent and ex- tensive study of consolidated schools for the federal De- Consolidated and partment of Agriculture thus distin- "union" schools guishes between consolidated and union schools: "A consolidated school is one combining three or more one or two-room district schools. It is usually located at a logical and conveniently accessible center within a territory of between ten and forty square miles, and provides free public conveyance of all pupils who live beyond a reasonable walking distance from the school. A union school combines two small district schools of one or two rooms into one."^ It is probable that the distinction here made does not sharply enough bring out the difference in standards of the two types of schools. The union school is often set up as a measure of sheer economy; the consolidated school always seeks greater efficiency. Consolidation has already gone far enough to prove ^Southern Education Board of Publication Number six, page eleven. MOVEMENT TOWARQ CONSOLIDATION 225 that it is practicable over a far wider range of country than was at first supposed. The two most unconquerable Consolidation not ^oes are sparsely-settled areas and limited by locality bad roads, the latter resulting from mud, snow, or many very steep hills. Difficult as these two factors make the problem, however, they are less discouraging than the indifference and conservatism still prevailing in many places where all other conditions are favorable. Some of the most successful attempts at con- solidation are being made in thinly-settled regions of North Dakota and in Idaho, where both distance and the roads are a handicap. In Vermont, also, where the topography makes transportation difficult, consolidation has proceeded at an encouraging rate. The chief element in the success of the movement is, after all, an awakened public interest in education, and full information as to what consolidated schools are actually accomplishing for the communities where they are fully established. On the other hand, nothing is further from the truth than the supposition that consolidation will remedy all Consolidation not ^^'^^ shortcomings of rural education. a panacea There is no magic in the consolidated school. Consolidation only supplies the conditions under which efficiency in education may be achieved. It allows a broader and richer curriculum, better buildings and equipments, better teaching, and a wider and more help- ful range of associations than are possible in the district school. Unless these things are supplied, there is little virtue in the mere fact of consolidation. But they are being supplied in the consolidated schools already organ- ized, and it is the demand for them that insures the further spread of the consolidated system. It is true that the one-room school must not be for- 226 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS gotten or neglected. For many rural children will for years receive all their education in the district type of One-room schools rural schools, and every effort should not to be neglected be made to raise their standards of efficiency where it is impracticable to transform them into consolidated schools. The district school will, how- ever, soon cease to stand as the type of rural education in this country. Careful estimates lead to the conclusion that from four to five million of the six million country children will within the next generation obtain their education in well-equipped consolidated schools, instead of in the old type of district school. It is safe to say that the movement toward consolidation of rural schools is the most important national movement now under way in country-life education. It will therefore be our pur- pose to look a little more closely into the nature of the consolidated school and its relation to better rural educa- tion. FOR teachers' discussion AND STUDY 1. What is the smallest district school in your town- ship ? What is the average monthly cost per pupil in this school? Compare this with the cost in town or city schools. 2. What do you consider the chief obstacles to con- solidation in your community ? How may these obstacles be overcome ? 3. What arguments would you use to convince an op- ponent of consolidation, that it is (i) not a mere fad, (2) that the cost is not prohibitive, (3) that transporta- tion is not impossible under average conditions? 4. What is the law on consolidation in your state? Does it need revision ? If so, in what direction ? 5. What effect do you think consolidation will have MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSOLIDATION 227 on tKe status of teachers, (i) in the number of available positions, (2) in requirements, (3) in salaries, (4) in conditions under which to work ? 6. Are you willing to help accomplish consolidation in your county? If so, are you willing to study the question sufficiently so that you can speak with authority on it ? CHAPTER XV THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL; There are in the United States at the present time three distinct types of rural schools. These are, in the The three types order of their development, the dis- o£ rural schools trict school the union school and the consolidated school, and may be defined as follows : A district school is an ungraded one-teacher school usually within walking distance of all the families in the territory it serves. A union school is two or more district schools united in one enlarged district or semi-graded school. A consolidated school is two or more district or union schools combined in one large graded school, conveniently located, and to which pupils from the outlying districts are transported, usually at public expense. The difference between the consolidated and union schools is more vital and real than apparent. These two types of schools have not always been distinguished from each other, and union schools are not infrequently called consolidated schools. This confusion is due to the failure to bear in mind that the term "consolidation" as applied to rural schools has acquired the right to bar from its classification all schools which are not satisfac- torily graded, whose buildings and equipment are in- adequate and out-of-date, and to which oupils living at a distance are not transported. 228 ■ - THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 229 District schools, as already shown, had their origin at a time when life was simple, families large, roads new Place of dis- ^^^ poor, and when education beyond trict schools the simplest rudiments was looked on more as a luxury than a necessity. They were created to meet an immediate and pressing need, and inestimable good they have rendered. For two hundred years they have been for rural America the most important social institution after the home and the church. Union schools are probably as a rule inferior to the average district school. This is because of overcrowded Union schools not conditions and intensified disadvan- the highest type tages, with almost no added advan- tages. A recent investigation of union schools in eight states brought out the following facts: Of the two- teacher union schools, approximately sixty-five per cent, had both teachers in one room, which in certain instances was converted into two rooms by means of curtains or some other form of improvised partitions. Sixty per cent, of all the union schools covered by this investigation were using one of the old district buildings which in only a few instances had been enlarged or altered. Fewer than ten per cent, were offering transportation of any kind. This investigation confirms the conviction that union schools are in the main mere makeshifts, often instituted to save expense, with no thought of improving conditions. However well they may have served the past, district and union schools do not meet the needs or measure up to the standards of the present. Weighed in the balances of comfort, educational efficienc)'' and hygienic require- ments, these schools are found wanting, and must give way to a type of school patterned after twentieth cen- tury standards. 230 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS That consolidation seems the best and most desirable type of rural school has been proved beyond all reason- Looking forward ^^^^ ^°''^^- Professor Eugene Daven- to consolidated port, who has made an exhaustive in- *yP® vestigation of the success and opera- tion of rural-school consolidation, says: "No case is on record in which the change has been made back again from consolidation to the small school. . . . The most searching inquiry has failed to discover any disadvan- tages worthy of mention," I Before consolidation had passed through the stage of experimentation. Honorable William T. Harris, then United States Commissioner of Education, wrote : "Upon the success of Consolidation rests the chief hope for the improvement of the rural school. It is fortunate that a device which changes the ungraded school into a graded school involves a saving of expense. The improvement is well worth the trial, even were it to double the cost of the rural school ; but, as will be seen by statistics, it is secured with an actual saving of expenditure. Better teachers, more sanitary buildings, less personal expense on the part of the pupils, better classification and many .lesser advantages are commending this reform over the 'country." President E. T. Fairchild, of the New Hampshire Col- lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, says : "Would it inot pay as an investment to bring the school up to the same high standard of efficiency that is being enjoyed by the modern up-to-date farm ? . . . The old-time coun- try school, as many of us remember it, has gone, never to return. The large attendance, the male teacher in the winter, the pupils ranging in age from six to twenty-one are no longer in evidence. Consolidation is the only f Consolidated school at Twin Falls, Idaho. The building and the school hacks are typical of the consolidated school in the Far West THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 231 way of securing really good country schools, and it is the only solution of the problem of agricultural educa- tion." I One of the first and most obvious advantages of con- solidation is that it supplies the necessary conditions for Consolidation ^ graded school. The district school allows grading can never be graded accurately where there is but one teacher for all eight grades. In thou- sands of one-room schools the work is a mere jumble, with no regular order of procedure in passing from one subject to another, and no plan or guide as to the cor- relation of studies or the amount of time to be spent on them. The woeful loss of time under such conditions is too obvious to require discussion. Nor with the great variety of subjects now demanded in the curriculum, can any teacher be well prepared to teach them all. This is the age of specialists, and no rural teacher should be expected to teach more than two, or at the most, three grades. Not only is the amount of preparation required too great to admit of one person handling the subject-matter of all eight grades, but the difference in the ages of the pupils demands different methods of instruction and leadership. In other words, children representing all ages from six to fifteen years and requiring a wide differentiation in the subjects taught them, should have teachers specially prepared for certain ages or grades. The consolidated school makes possible a system of grading similar to that employed in urban schools. The Grading provides P^pils can then have a regular se- goal for pupils quence of studies assigned ; they can pass through the subjects at a rate standardized through the experience of many schools; and they can work to- 232 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS ' ward the definite goal of completing a specified require- ment for graduation from the elementary school or ad- mission into the high school. The teacher, relieved of the necessity of covering the whole range of elementary subjects, can now specialize on one or two grades of the work and develop a high degree of efficiency. Or, he may specialize in some one or two subjects, and teach these in several grades, thus carrying out the plan of departmental teaching now adopted in many elementary schools in towns and cities. The consolidated school also has an important bear- ing upon the size of the classes. Few will question the The waste in very statement that it is easier and more small classes stimulating to teach a comparatively large class than a very small one. In the average dis- trict school it is no uncommon thing to find class after class numbering three, two, and even one, pupil. Now, it requires practically as much time and effort on the part of a teacher to make preparation for a class numbering one or two pupils as for a class of twelve or fifteen. And it is far less difficult to create and maintain interest in a larger class than in a very small one. By gathering all the pupils from five, six or more old district schools into a consolidated school, each class is sure to be sufficiently large to stimulate both teacher and pupils. More important still is the amount of time allotted to each class. The average number of recitations per day Better distribution i" district schools is approximately of teaching time double the average number in graded schools. This means that the teacher in a graded school can give twice as much time to each recitation or class as the teacher in the district school. A study of the schools of one county where there are nearly an equal number of THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 233 teachers in graded and ungraded schools showed that the average number of recitations per day in the district schools was twenty-seven, as against eleven in the con- solidated schools. The average number of minutes given to each recitation was thirteen in the district schools, as against twenty-nine in the consolidated schools. Now it is wholly evident that no teacher can do justice to him- self or his school if he has twenty-seven classes a day, and an average of only thirteen minutes for each reci- tation. Consolidation is the only rational outcome of the de- mand for an extension of the rural-school curriculum. o 1-j ^- 1 The public is asking for a course of Consolidation al- ^ ° . lows extension study that shall not only mclude the of curriculum ^j^ fundamentals, but also add the practical newer branches relating to the immediate life and work of the pupils. This can never be accomplished successfully in the district school with its many grades under one already overworked teacher. It requires the consolidated school, with its division into grades, and some opportunity for specialization on the part of the teachers. The consolidated school is the chief agent for securing new and necessary buildings and equipment. For one Better buildings whose school-days were spent in a and equipment district school to visit a modern city school and pass from room to room including assembly room, library, laboratories, playrooms, gymnasium, lava- tories, manual-training shops, kitchen and sewing-room is enough to cause him to feel that society has immeasur- ably and irreparably defrauded him. Country boys and girls have as much need for these things as a part of their school facilities as city children. But they are possible 234 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS only in the consolidated school. Nor can the matter be put aside by calling attention to the many compensating advantages enjoyed by country children. Many of the very people who talk and write most enthusiastically about the advantages of country life would greatly hesi- tate to place their own children in a one-teacher country school. The one man who said and did most to hinder consolidation in a certain western county, moved to the county seat for the express purpose of giving his chil- dren better school advantages than were offered by the district school near his farm home. ' The cry for better buildings and equipment involves vastly more than mere pride and a growing desire to Ajj-.- 1 r M« effect visible improvement. Both are Additional facili- . ^ . . ties required by necessary m order to make it possible new subjects ^qj. country people to participate in the "new education." The more practical and helpful subjects recently added to the curriculum can not be taught effectively within the walls of the country school- house. These branches of study require not only addi- tional room but special equipment. Where in the ordi- nary district school building is there room for a labora- tory, a workshop, a domestic-science department, or a kitchen ? But perhaps of even more importance than these is the matter of sanitation and the health of body and soul. It can not be denied that the average district school falls short in the matter of hygienic and moral safe- guards. With rare exceptions district schools have very limited and undesirable accommodations in the seating, the lighting, the ventilation and the lavatory equipment which they possess. Consolidated schools are being built that are beyond criticism on these points. THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 235 Consolidation has proved desirable because it has se- cured better teachers and closer supervision. Before the Consolidated establishment of modern high schools schools demand in every city and town, with their call better teachers £qj. ^j^ increasing number of high- class teachers, district schools offered the only field of service to a majority of the young men and women en- tering the teaching profession. And it is well agreed that many of the best teachers remained permanently in the country schools. But in these days when there are so few eft'ective inducements to lead promising young people into teaching, and when the city schools are the goal of almost every aspiring teacher, it is next to impos- sible to find competent teachers for the one-room country schools. To be sure there are many marked successes among the beginning teachers in district schools, but the very The handicap of ^^^^ ^^^^ these young teachers have district schools done excellent work in spite of severe handicap is sufficient ground for calling them to larger schools. The superintendents and school boards of many town and city schools ask for no better field from which to select new teachers than from the beginning teachers who have made good in rural schools. One or two years' experience in these schools seems to be regarded as pe- culiarly good preparation for a position in a town or city school. In a certain county in the Middle West, there were during one school year two hundred and thirty-four teachers, thirty-eight of whom were teaching their first term: of these thirty-eight first-year teachers, thirty-six were in district schools. And more interesting still, there were only forty-four district schools in the county at 236 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS that time. In other words, there were just eight district teachers in the county who had had experience. And of these thirty-six beginning teachers only seven returned to the district schools the following year. The remaining twenty-nine have either dropped out of the profession, or were promoted to larger schools. A recent investigation covering thirty-six counties in twelve representative states showed that a majority of district schools changed teachers every year. That this is one cause of the decline in the character of district schools none will deny. And should one charge this fault up to teachers in these schools ? Who can blame an am- bitious young teacher for accepting a tempting offer to take a position in a city, town or consolidated school? District schools require more work and more responsi- bility, entail more hardships, and offer considerably less remuneration than the more desirable schools. By closer supervision we mean the presence and serv- ices of the superintendent or principal, who is at the head ^ ,^ . . of every consolidated school. The Better supervision •' in consolidated very fact that the daily work of a schools teacher falls under the scrutiny of an experienced leader or superintendent is enough to call forth maximum effort. There can be no such super- vision over district teachers. An annual or semi-annual visit from the county superintendent may help a little, but in the words of an experienced district teacher, "When the superintendent is most needed, he can not be had ; and when he is least wanted he is likely to appear." Consolidation meets this need by providing each school and each teacher with a competent and accessible superin- tendent. THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 237 Consolidation has proved its superiority over the other two types of rural schools hy keeping a larger percentage C YA t A ^f ^'^^ older children in school. schools keep Thoughtful persons everywhere are pupils longer coming to realize that one of the gravest problems connected with the education of our youth is the question of preventing so many boys and girls from dropping out of school with but the smatter- ing of an education. How the consolidated school af- fects attendance is typified by a new school in Louder- dale County, Tennessee, where a consolidated school now has twice the enrollment of all the district schools it displaced. A comparative study of the number of children be- tween fourteen and eighteen who are out of school in localities served respectively by consolidated and district schools has shown that consolidation succeeds in hold- ing nearly twice as many pupils of these ages. Whether this is due to the high-school advantages offered by the average consolidated school, or to the more attractive buildings, grounds and associations is neither here nor there in the discussion. The plain fact is that consoli- dated schools are keeping hundreds of boys and girls in school who otherwise would have dropped out. Re- ports from county superintendents in states where con- solidation is in operation show that it is a common thing to find as many boys and girls above fourteen years of age out of school in a single district served by the old type of school as in the entire area served by a consoli- dated school. And what makes this weakness on the part of the district schools a still more serious matter is the fact that approximately eighty per cent, of these 238 BETTER RURAL! SCHOOLS boys and girls who are out of school have never com- pleted the elementary course. Greater economy has been urged as an outstanding ad- vantage of consolidation. Some of the most influential Economy not the ^"'"'^' ^""^ promoters of consolida- reason for con- tion have held that a consolidated solidation school can be operated more cheaply than the aggregate cost of the district schools supplanted by the consolidated school. For example Doctor W. T. Harris, v^hom we have quoted on an earlier page, uses these words : "It is fortunate that a device which changes the ungraded school into a graded school involves a saving of expense." Other officials have issued bulle- tins and pamphlets purporting to show that consolidation means an actual saving to taxpayers. We shall not at- tempt to prove that consolidation reduces the amount of money needed for school purposes in communities adopt- ing this type of school. But it is beyond question that a given amount of money spent in establishing or main- taining consolidated schools will purchase much more genuine and lasting advantage than an equal amount spent in establishing or maintaining district schools. It is further true that the same amount of schooling, day for day, can usually be had for at least as little in the consolidated as in the one-room school. The following table allows an interesting comparison to be made be- tween the two types of schools. The comparative cost of consolidated and district schools as shown by reports from the county superintend- A comparison of ^nts representing the states of Ala- relative cost bama, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, Idaho and Washington is shown. These superintendents were asked to give the average cost THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 239 of the best district and the best consolidated school in their respective counties. All of the consolidated schools reported maintain a high-school department. A Comparison of the Cost of Buildings and Equipment Av. Cost of Av. Cost of Best. Con- Best Dis- solidated trict School School Building and grounds $18,000 $3,000 Equipment 3,ooo 500 Heating system and plumbing 3, 500 180 Library, maps, charts and pictures. 500 70 Total amount invested 25,000 3,750 Interest on amount invested at six per cent 1,500 225 A Comparison of Annual Expenditures Teaching $3,040 $360 Supervision 500 20 Transportation 1,500 Janitor service 200 30 Fuel 160 45 Library 100 5 Transfers from one district to an other ... 90 Insurance 25 5 Repairs 50 20 Miscellaneous 100 30 Interest on initial cost 1,500 225 Total annual cost 7,i75 930 Number of pupils enrolled 139 21 Per capita cost 51 44 It is thus seen that the modern one-room building is costing an average of $3,000, and the consolidated build- Summary of ^"g six times as much ; and that the results average total amount invested in the consolidated school is $25,000, and in the district school, 240 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS $3,750. The teachers in the best one-room schools are averaging $360 a year, while the teachers' budget for the average consolidated school amounts to $3,040, more than eight times as much, though there are seldom more than six or seven teachers in the consolidated school, and frequently less than six. The greatest increase is in the cost of supervision, the consoli- dated averaging twenty-five times as much for this item as the district school. Another excellent indication is seen in the fact that the average consolidated school spends twenty times as much for library purposes an- nually as the district school, though the consolidated school combines only from four to six district schools. The average number of pupils enrolled in the best one- room schools is twenty-one, while the average number for the best consolidated schools is one hundred and thirty-nine. The annual cost per pupil is greater for the best consolidated than for the best one-room schools, the former being fifty-one dollars, and the latter forty-four dollars. When the fact is taken into account, however, that the attendance in the consolidated school is much more regular than in the district school, and that the school year is also longer, it is found that the cost per day of actual schooling is usually not greater in the con- solidated than in the one-room school. Frequently it is considerably less. But educational advantages and social opportunities can not be measured in terms of dollars and cents alone ; Cost not the ^^^^ '^^ important, but not all. The true measure strongest claims for the consolidated school are not based on the question of economy. They are based on the belief that our people are ready for, and are demanding: (l)^ better accommodations, (2) higher THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 241 educational efficiency, and (3) an enriched country life. When the consoHdated school fails to excel the district or union school in these advantages, it fails to live up to the real purpose for which it was created. The difference between the consolidated and the dis- trict schools as to the distribution of the teacher's time is shown in the following table representing the two types of schools in Montgomery County, Indiana, where eighty-four per cent, of the rural children are in con- solidated schools and sixteen per cent, in one-room schools : Consolidated District Average number of grades per teacher 2.7 6.4 Percentage of teacher's time per grade 37 15 Number of recitations per day. ... 11 27 Minutes for each recitation 29 13 Minutes for each grade taught... 117 56 It is seen from these figures that the teacher of the one-room school handles nearly two and one-half times the number of grades cared for by the teacher in the consolidated school. He also hears almost two and one- half times as many recitations daily, and therefore has less than one-half as much time for each recitation. Each grade in the consolidated school receives more than twice as much of the teacher's time as a grade in the district school. When it is also taken into account that the consolidated schools run from nine o'clock to four, and the district schools from eight-thirty to four in this county, the discrepancy becomes still greater. In order to test the attitude of patrons toward the con- 242 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS. solidated school an inquiry was recently instituted in which the following were among the questions asked : ( i ) What do you consider to be some of pafron"^to°advan- ^^^ greatest advantages of the consoli- tages of con- dated schools? (2) What are some so 1 ation ^£ ^1^^ greatest weaknesses of this type of school? (3) Would you be willing to return to the old district school if you were assured that your teacher would be equally as competent as the present teachers in your consolidated school ? In reply to the first question the following represent the type of answers given by these patrons : The consolidated school provides better building and equipment. It results in better teachers. Better discipline is maintained. The consolidated school saves washing and patching of clothes. It makes it unnecessary for parents to force or drive their children to attend school. There is less of sickness and bad colds. It puts the children in larger classes. The consolidated school enables our children to have more practical and useful matter taught them. In reply to the second question, typical criticisms were : The school is trying to do too much work. The lesson assignments are too long. The chil- Valid criticisms , ^ 1 • i.t. t'u^ dren are too long m the wagons. 1 he wagons are not always comfortable. The wagon driver drives too slowly. The teachers are too strict. It is to be noted that the only criticisms that could not equally well be lodged against any other type of school are those dealing with the matter of transportation. And it is frankly to be acknowledged that the transportation sys- tem as organized in many places is susceptible of radi- cal improvement. Suggestions as to certain lines of im- THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 243 provement in the wagon service will be made in another chapter. The most striking result from the inquiry, however, was in response to the third question. Not one of all the many patrons interrogated would Universal loyalty ^^.^y. ^^ returning to the district school. While certain details of the consolidated school were freely criticized, this type of school was unan- imously accepted as the most promising solution of the problem of rural education. The simple chance to com- pare the advantages offered by the consolidated school with those offered by the district school was enough to convert all the original objectors and opponents, and unite the neighborhood in the common aim of securing better rural schools through consolidation. FOR teachers" discussion AND STUDY 1. Can you relate the three types of rural schools to stages of social or economic development? What is the fundamental difference between district and union schools? What is the fundamental difference between union and consolidated schools? If some patron should ask you what constitutes a consolidated school, how would you answer? 2. What reasons explain the decline of the district schools ? For what purpose are most of the union schools established? Why are so many of them inferior to the district schools? 3. Has consolidation begun in your community? If so, when did it start? Explain in detail its success and growth. See if you can find where a good consolidated school has ever been abandoned and the district school 244 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS reestablished. Write your state superintendent and ask if he has any record of a case of this kind. 4. How fully do you agree with what the late William T. Harris said about the consolidated school? With the other prominent educators who are quoted in this chapter? What do you understand by President Fair- child's statement that "the old-time country school has gone never to return" ? Do you think this is true ? 5. What is the first great advantage of consolidation? Explain what is meant by the terms "graded school," and "ungraded school." Discuss some of the advantages the graded school has over the ungraded school. Can you think of any advantage that the ungraded school has to offer over the graded school? 6. Would you prefer a class of ten, or a class of twenty pupils; of one, or five pupils? Do you think district teachers can have time properly to care for so many classes? What was the greatest number of classes you ever had? Do you feel that you did justice to your- self and your pupils with this number? How many minutes do you now have for each recitation? Is it enough time? How many classes do you now have? Do you have time to make thorough daily preparation for all the classes ? 7. How many times a day do you hear your primary pupils ? Compare a district teacher's daily program with a consolidated teacher's daily program. How do you ar- range so as to be able to give the proper time to the subjects of agriculture and domestic science? Criticize your own daily program. Do you try to outline your work for the larger pupils? Try to find out how many of the best teachers you know depend wholly on the question and answer method. How often do you give written recitations? Do you find time to grade these papers carefully? 8. Why do consolidated schools keep more of the older children in school? Give reasons for the decline THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL 245 of social advantages in the country. Name three ways in which consoHdation may contribute to the social life of a community. Make comparisons of the cost of the three types of rural school. CHAPTER XVI THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY The rural community suffers from no greater danger than that of social monotony and stagnation. The nature of the work both in home and in field, the insistent and pressing toil during the greater part of the year, and the isolation of the farm all tend to an unvarying same- ness of life and experience. While solitude has its advantages, and while every per- son should have an opportunity to be alone with him- Danger from so- ^^^^ some portion of the time, yet cial stagnation change, variety and a certain degree of excitement are also necessary. For unrelieved routine finally deadens and cripples. The mind needs the stimu- lus of change, the shock of contact with other minds, the invigorating influence that comes from new objects of thought and association with other people. Lacking these, there is an inevitable tendency on the one hand to settle into an attitude of indifference and indolence — the ruts of "fogyism" ; or, on the other hand, to become dissatisfied and morose, impatient of one's surroundings, and rebellious against the fate that binds one to such conditions. The rural community as it exists at present offers few opportunities for social mingling in general neighborhood Little meeting in groups. Going to spend the day in social groups family visiting has declined. The old- 246 . .. SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY 247 time spelling schools, the debating societies and the sing- ing schools are no longer a part of the activities of the district school. The country church, the common meeting- place for the community, has fallen largely into disuse. Even the telephone, the rural mail delivery and the parcel post, civilizing agencies as they are, have made possible still further isolation; for they run the errands for the family, who are thus enabled to cling still more closely to the v^^ork of the farm. The country people do not meet one another face to face, discuss matters of mutual inter- est, laugh, talk and enjoy a good time together as people need to do. Their lives have a tendency to become very serious, their mental horizon to narrow down, and their outlook on the world of values to become distorted. The country needs some central, organizing, vivifying force to unite members of the community in common interests, friendships and social activities. Something is required to create and maintain a community spirit, a mutual feeling of pride in neighborhood welfare and progress, and to entice away from the humdrum care and toil to the restoring influence of fun and jollity. Particularly is the rural community lacking in social opportunities for young people. The social impulses, the c . , ^ . desire for comradeship, recreation, Social opportum- ^' ' ties lacking for fun and amusement, are as deep- young people seated and insistent in country boys and girls as in those who live in towns. Nor can these natural forces of human nature be any more safely ig- nored or repressed in the one case than in the other. Expression, and not repression, is the law of develop- ment ; and where this law is disobeyed, whether in city or in country, rebellion and disaster are sure to follow. The city is a constant lure to young people, promising 248 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS them what it can but in a small measure fulfil. Seen at a distance, and through the eyes of the magazine or novel Social lure o£ writer, the city possesses many attrac- the city tions that are lacking in the coun- try. Even the very dangers and pitfalls, so frequently pictured in lurid colors in the press or on the platform, often constitute a dare and a challenge to youth. For the adolescent demands adventure ; he craves an opportunity to try his powers ; he longs for variety and excitement, and will not be satisfied with the uneventful round of experience that constitutes the placid daily life of his parents. Nor are such impulses to be deprecated and frowned on ; for they constitute the foundation for later achievement. Failure to recognize these fundamental impulses in rural young people and to provide for their expression is one of the most fruitful causes for the dissatisfaction of our boys and girls with the life of the farm. They are impatient of its limitations, and resentful of its monot- ony and sameness. Hence they turn their backs on the career that lies nearest to them, the one they would most naturally be expected to choose, and seek occupations in the town or city, where there is already far too large a proportion of our population. Nor would there be justice in keeping boys and girls on the farm without an oppor- tunity to develop the social side of their natures, even were it possible to do so ; for this is as much a part of education as the training of the intellect. The want of social opportunity for young people in the country districts is also accompanied by grave moral -^ - , dangers. Young people will seek one growing out of so- another's society ; it is natural and cial stagnation j-jg^t that they should. Boys have a SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY 249 natural tendency to form in "gangs" and clubs. If these organizations are given a right trend, they constitute an important educational influence; but if they lead in the wrong direction, they train the hoodlum and the crim- inal. The young men and maidens are likewise found in one another's company, as it is also natural and right , ■, . , , they should be. But the lack of social Lapses due to lack •' . of social meeting meetmg places, the absence of op- P^^*^^^ portunities for recreation and enter- tainment such as are available on every hand in the city, renders the association of country boys and girls un- natural and fraught with possibilities of danger. Instead of being together in social groups and hence under the control of the social conventions, as is largely the case in the city, the rural young people are thrown together in isolated pairs for buggy rides, or rambles along unlighted roads. At the same time there is nothing objective to demand their attention from themselves and each other at the very stage of development when the impulses most need the check of dominating objective interests and ac- tivities. The result of this poverty of social opportunity is that, "The country districts, which ought to be of all places the freest from temptation and perils 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 opportuni- ties for free and normal social experience, the consequent ignorance of social conventions, and the absence of healthful amusement and recreation, make the rural com- 250 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS munity a most unsafe place in which to bring up a fam- ily." 1 The school is the most natural and effective solution of the rural need for a neighborhood center. The school rp, h 1 th belongs to the whole people, and can natural social easily be made to serve the social as *^^"*^'^ well as the intellectual requirements of its constituency. Instead of ministering to a very small proportion of the population a few hours each day, twenty days in the month for a little more than half the year, it should be of service to all the people of its com- munity whenever it can serve their needs. With ade- quate buildings planned with such uses in mind, the young people will find at the school a place for their enter- tainments and parties ; here the older ones of the neigh- borhood will come for their special programs on scientific agriculture and home economy; here all will assemble for neighborhood picnics, lectures, concerts and what- ever else goes to add to the intellectual and social life of the community. But it is to the consolidated school that we must chiefly look for such service. The one-room district ^ , , ,. school can hardly hope to minister Only the consolx- .,,.,. . , dated school equal successfully m this way to the social to social demands ^j^^ intellectual demands of the entire community. Indeed the community itself which is tributary to the district school is too small to carry on well such activities as are required in making the school a social center. The consolidated school, however, serv- ing from twenty-five to thirty square miles of territory, embraces a large enough population to make possible a real neighborhood organization. ^ Betts, New Ideals in Rural Schools, page twenty-eight. The Indiana Scate Champion Basket Bail Team for the school year 1912-1913. Wingate Consolidated School, Montgomery County, Indiana Rural high school orchestra SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY 251 The best proof that the consohdated school can be made a true social center for its territory, is the success that has already attended efforts made in this direction in various parts of the country. It has been found that the commodious assembly room of the centralized school naturally suggests and leads to lecture and entertainment courses ; that the large and ample grounds are the logical places for picnics, agricultural exhibits, and stock or grain judging contests; that the well equipped athletic grounds result in the organization of neighborhood teams for out- door sports, and in field days for the witnessing of ath- letic contests. I In neighborhoods where the school has been put to such uses, it is not necessary for the boys and girls to drive to some adjacent town to see ball games, or enjoy literary or musical entertainments. For these things can now be had in the home community, and better still, the boys and girls themselves are active participants instead of idle spectators, and hence a thousand times more interested in the occasion. Parents who were wor- ried at seeing their boys start from the farm home for the streets of the near-by town on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons, look with approval and satisfaction on their departure for some clean and wholesome enter- tainment at the school center. For here there are no pool rooms, saloons or other dens of corruption. The ready response of the people of the rural com- munities to the school as a recreation center has been well Ready response typified in Winnebago County, Illinois, of the people where Superintendent O. J. Kern has organized a series of play festivals held on the school athletic grounds. These gala days are attended by hun- dreds of people from the near-by communities, who bring 252 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS their picnic dinners and give the entire day to fun, froHc and a general good time. The program recently carried out at the festival held at the Harlem consolidated school is typical of all. The Illinois play hour fixed for assembly was nine- festivals thirty, and by that time the roadside was lined with buggies and automobiles from miles around. The program opened with The S tar-Spangled Banner played by the school band. Then came the march to the playgrounds, and the exercises of hoisting the flag over the grounds. The entire audience sang the state song and gave the salute to the flag. Next was the tug of war between boys of the competing townships, who fought valiantly for the honor of their teams. This was followed by an hour of games, for which the children were divided into groups in accordance with age, and led by their teachers, who entered as fully into the spirit of the occasion as the children themselves. Three deep, dodge ball, hill dill, and bean bag throw- ing occupied the smaller children. Girls from nine to Play-day games twelve played long ball, and sheep and athletic events fold; they wound the May-pole, held a fag relay race, and competed in basket-ball throwing. Boys of the same age ran in a hoop-race, and a kite- flying contest, a three-legged race, a leap-frog race, and a relay race. Still older children played games suited to their ages. By this time it was noon, and a monster dinner was set under the trees on the school grounds. At one-thirty began the sports of the afternoon, consist- ing of a field-meet open to all pupils of the rural schools of the district represented. The junior events included a fifty-yard race, high jumping, a one-hundred-and-eighty- yard race, the shot-put, a sixty-yard hurdle race, pole SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY 253 vaulting, broad jumping, the discus throw and a quarter- mile relay race. The senior events, which were limited to high-school boys, consisted of the seventy-five-yard dash, high jumping, a one-hundred-and-forty-yard race, the shot-put, a hurdle race, pole vaulting, broad jumping, discus throwing and a half-mile relay race. Expert offi- cials refereed the contests and kept records of the events. Prizes and trophies were given the winning schools. The spirit of true sportsmanship was encouraged and culti- vated. The memories of such a day are long cherished by both old and young. Care and toil are laid aside, and worries and troubles forgotten ; petty feuds Permanent results 1 • 1 1 1 j 1 1 • 1 and neighborhood quarrels are buried, and a spirit of goodfellowship and friendship engendered ; and the community feeling is strengthened, and loyalty to country life developed. The gain to the schools them- selves in increased interest and support can not be esti- mated. Similarly a certain consolidated school in Indiana is typical of the relations existing between the consolidated „ . , ^ . schools and their communities in Social center m an . , . , , Indiana consoli- many other regions. This school was dated school opened about one year ago. Before that time the pupils had been distributed among four smaller districts now constituting the centralized school. Even during the erection of the new consolidated build- ing, the patrons manifested great interest in the school and often came to watch its construction. On the dedica- tion day, the women of the school neighborhood spread dinner for more than three hundred people who came to attend the exercises and learn about the new school. Immediately following the; dedicatory exercises a move- 254 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS ment was set on foot for social and literary meetings to be held regularly in the assembly room of the new build- ing. From that time to this, not less than two, and fre- quently as many as four, neighborhood meetings have been held at the school each month. On a cold night in February the large assembly room seating four hun- dred people was crowded to its capacity. The program opened with a short excellent literary and musical pro- gram given by the pupils of the school. A recess was then taken, and light refreshments were served from the domestic-science kitchen, the class having charge of the serving. The program was again taken up, lecturers from the state agricultural college speaking on various phases of agriculture and country life, and giving demonstrations. The assembly adjourned at ten o'clock, having spent a very profitable and pleasant evening, and incidentally having become firm friends of and believers in their consolidated school. At the various programs held at this school dur- ing the year, distinguished speakers and musicians have been heard and the audience room Social results j^^^ ^^^^ ^j^^ ^^^^ ^jj^^ ^j^j^ ^^^ pupils, patrons and friends of the school. There has been no lack of appreciation of the many good things presented. Scores of families who before scarcely knew one another's names have met and become ac- quainted. New friendships have been formed, old griev- ances obliterated, and a spirit of interest in the common welfare has been created. This consolidated school, had it done nothing more than supply a social center for its community, has well been worth all it cost. The John Swaney consolidated school of Putnam SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY 255 County, Illinois, is another example of a modern rural school serving the entire community. This school, con- The John Swaney Gaining laboratories, a library, man- school as a neigh- ual-training shops and a domestic- or ood center science room, has also a basement playroom, and a large assembly room capable of seating several hundred people. The school has literary societies organized to include every pupil from the primary room through the high school. These literary societies meet every two weeks, giving various forms of programs. Several times each year plays, concerts and other forms of school entertainments are given and the public is in- vited. The school also has its musical organizations, and a strong athletic association which includes in its mem- bership nearly every boy in the school. The girls like- wise have their athletic teams. A large wooded campus is arranged for all the major athletic sports. At the school are held almost all forms of social meetings that could interest a community; agricultural conferences, stock and grain judging contests, demonstrations and lectures by agricultural specialists, and club meetings of various sorts. There is also maintained a well-patronized lecture course in which the highest type of platform abil- ity is represented. It is needless to say that the young people of this community are not found drifting to the near-by villages and towns for their recreation and amuse- ment. It has also been found in consolidated-school communities that the trend from the country to the town as a place of residence has been checked, and that better teachers can be kept from leaving the rural schools. Of one thousand and one hundred cases of removal from country to city personally investigated by T. J. Coates, 2S6 BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS supervisor of rural schools in Kentucky, more than one thousand were caused by a desire for better school, church and social advantages. And so we might go on describing the work being done by the consolidated schools in various parts of the country ; for those we have mentioned To supply a social . .• i . i ^ • center a chief func are m no sense exceptional, at least in tion of consoli- the spirit they manifest or the co- dated sc oo operation they win. Dozens of lec- ture and entertainment courses are being well supported in different consolidated schools, where are heard some of the country's most famous speakers. Statesmen pre- sent from the school platform the great political and social issues before our people. State and government experts come to the school center with their message of higher ideals and larger success for country life and work. Farm boys hold their corn club, and girls their canning and garden club, meetings at the schoolhouse. Here are held social functions of all kinds for the en- tire community. The consolidated school, as it is grow- ing up in the United States, is finding one of its great missions in supplying the neighborhood social center of which the country stands so greatly in need. FOR TEACHERS DISCUSSION AND STUDY 1. Do you think the people in your school community take enough time for recreation and social enjoyment? What means of social recreation have the young peo- ple ? How many of them go to entertainments in near-by towns ? 2. Looking over the population of your district, do you think the farmers and their wives are aging faster A consolidated building, accommodating forty-two square miles of territory, and maintaining a four-year high school A rural community centre with its consolidated school and church SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY 257 than they should? What, in your judgment, explains the fact that farmers' wives show a larger percentage of in- sanity than women in other occupations? 3. To what extent is your schoolhouse used as a so- cial center? Could this use of the school plant be ex- tended? What would be necessary in the way of addi- tional equipment? 4. Do you know how the young people of your com- munity feel about the comparative merits of country and town as a place to live? What are the chief points of attraction the town possesses for them? 5. How many days a year is your schoolhouse ac- tually in use? Is it not a poor financial policy to lock up so large an investment the greater part of the year, when the school property could well be used for many other purposes than school work? 6. Do you think it practicable to make the one-room schoolhouse serve as a neighborhood center? Do you think it practicable to make the consolidated school serve such a use in your community? 7. To what extent do you think such social and ath- letic activities as those described in the chapter are a factor in making boys and girls satisfied with farm life? 8. Could you teach children to play a wide range of games and plays ? Do you think it pays a teacher to pre- pare in this line? Is such knowledge worth while even outside of school ? Do you know the rules of games well enough to act as an oflEicial in judging contests? CHAPTER XVII THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL The American high school is a product of the last fifty years. Its forerunners in the field of secondary edu- r til f fVi cation, the Latin grammar school and American high the academy, never gained the hold on ^•^^^^^ the affections of our people that the high school has attained. Neither has the elementary school appealed as strongly as the high school. Although free in their support of elementary education, the Ameri- can people have been doubly generous in maintaining the high schools. Almost every town and village boasts its well-equipped high school. Especially during the last decade has the high school increased in importance and power. Its attendance, now one million three hundred thousand, has proportionally outstripped that of the ele- mentary school, its curriculum has been vastly broadened and enriched, its buildings and equipment have become marvels of excellence and completeness, and the funds placed so liberally at its disposal have not unfrequently necessitated unwise economies in the support of the ele- mentary school. This rapid development in high-school education has, however, hardly as yet touched the rural schools. Only _, , . , , , here and there do we find high schools The high school . , , . still rare in as an mtegral part of rural education. rural communities j^^ accepted standard for the rural 258 By courtesy of Mr. Bcirksdalc Hamlctt, Superintendent of Piihlu- Instruction, State of Kentucky. Has not the farm boy a right to as good an education as the town or city boy? THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 259 school has in most places been an elementary course of eight years. The farm child who has had an opportu- nity at this grade of school has been looked on as having all the education required, or at least all that could be expected. High schools have been considered out of reach of country districts, or as belonging only to city people. But this standard is passing — has already passed in many rural communities. Rural children require as much High-school train- education as the children of towns ing necessary for and cities. The demands placed on farm children ^j^^j^. intelligence and training in a ca- reer on a modern farm are at least as great as will be made on the average urban worker, and their ability to profit by this advanced education is certainly not less. The willingness of the rural communities to provide high- school education for its youth is one of the first tests of its right to the loyalty of the young people. The four years of school privileges above the elementary grades now so generally available to urban children must be similarly open to country boys and girls, else we can not blame them for deserting the farms for the better educa- tional opportunities afforded by the town. The high school must be free and it must be accessible to the boys and girls of the farm. The high school is not yet free to the majority of rural children, even if they are willing to go to town for their ^ , . , , , high-school training. In many states Free high schools ° ° ■: not generally ac- the rural youth must himself pay a cessible tuition of from three to five dollars a month if he attends the nearest town high school. His dis- trict disclaims all responsibility for his education after he completes the elementary school. Some states, as 26o BETTER RURAL SCHOOLS Iowa, for example, have recently provided that graduates of rural schools may attend the nearest high school, the district to pay the tuition fees. But in the Iowa law, reasonable as the demand on the district is, the liability is limited to three dollars and fifty cents a month, any amount in excess of this devolving on the pupil. But even where the rural district freely pays the tui- tion in the town high school, such a situation is far from satisfactory. The high-school training afforded rural children should be in rural high schools and not in town and city schools. Not only in curriculum but in spirit and in teaching, the rural high school should represent the life and activities of the farm. If the rural high school is to maintain an adequate standard of efficiency, if it is to serve its patronage aright, it must take into its program of studies training in the concrete affairs awaiting its graduates. There are at present more than two thousand public and private high schools in the United States teaching agriculture, but comparatively few of these have actual country environment, most of them being situated in towns and cities. Such is also true of the more than one hundred special agricul- tural schools of secondary grade located in seventeen different states. While the agricultural courses taught in the city school are valuable as educational material and well worth while from the standpoint of general culture and development, yet of necessity they lack the vitality and concreteness possessed by similar courses taught with an immediate environment of farm life and conditions. In the reorganization of rural education that is now going on, therefore, there must be definite provision for the installation of high schools as a part of the rural system. Judging cattle at a rural school Judging horses at a rural school THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 261 The rural high school is a natural outgrowth of the movement toward consolidation. It need hardly be _ , , . , , , aro:ued that the one-room school can Rural high schools *= , . , , , follow consoli- never support a high-school course,