%Qii[V0-jO^' OF-CAIIFO/- .^N-' ,^Wt•llNIV!: % ':'iJJiiv.i'ji ^ t s- s^ -///o.., . x^/i.^..,,,, ,, ^n, J?? ^iQ3AiNli■jH> % MM. 30 ^jo>^ ^ ,^,v^£UNIVER fiC < m .5 awminiversva as. ^lOSANCflfj-^ O ■' ■— = <: o ^OF-CAllfOff/i^ ^0FCAIIF( ^xiijoKvsoi^ %a3AiNn-3WV^ ^^Aiivaan^ '^^om ^^•llBRARY■ac^ ^lllBRARY^Jr 3 § ^ , «c^ .^Wt•UNlVtKi/A Aj -n »~' O u- RIVERSIDE TEXTBOOKS IN EDUCATION EDITED BY ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY DIVISION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION UNDER THE EDITORIAL DIRECTION OF ALEXANDER INGLIS PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION HARVARD UNIVERSITY RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION A Study of the Rural-School Problem as a Phase of the Rural-Life Problem BY ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED EIGHTH IMPRESSION CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. TSBrwy AUTHOR'S PREFACE A RECENT writer has stated that the rural-school prol) lem would be much easier of solution if some writer on the subject would clearly set forth thejiature gf_the pro blem. The suggestion was a good one, as most writers on the subject do not seem to see clearly L the nature of the problem they are considering. l..^,^ ^ m ^*^n1 The rural-school p roblem of to-day is a social, even^jjf^^fif^ K mor e than, ai^ educational problem, and is the result y^ ^ 1 of a long national evolution, coupled with rece nt prg- ^'^^^ ^ found chan ges in_rural life_itself. The rural-school' problem is inseparable from the rural-life problem, of which it is but a phase. Those who do most toward its solution will be those who see the problem clearly , j p_its historical and sociological sett mg, and who have some grasp of American rural history. To give the problem such a setting has been the purpose of the first part of the book. The rural-life problem is there set forth in its historical develop- ment, and the origin and present status of the rural- school problem shown. With this as a basis the student is ready to pass to the second part of the book, which sets forth specifically the present rural-school problem, and points out the fundamental nature of the remedies which must be applied for its solution. The many plates and figures in the text have been introduced to give greater concreteness to the discussion. Such a presentation of the rural-life and rural- educational problems as is set forth in the following ~r KV 'r ^. '■' >■ ^'i. vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE pages might well form the basis, as a textbook, for normal-school classes in Rural-Life Problems, Rural - School Problemj, or Rural Sociology, and ought to be of particular value to such students in properly- orienting them for intelligent work in rural education. Those studying the problem in normal-school or col- lege classes in School Administration ought also to find the presentation helpful, from an administrative point of view. To teachers and supervisory officers in service the presentation ought to prove instructive «iand useful, as they are dealing with the problem at first hand. It is also hoped that the work will prove, interesting and instructive to farmers, ministers, rural librarians, rural social-workers, and other students of the rural-life problem. The book has been prepared with a view of meeting the needs of these different classes of students and citizens. Ellwood p. Cubberlet Stanford University, Cal. September 25. 1913 REVISED EDITION / The book has now had a careful and complete re- vision, some of the chapters being rewritten, old data being corrected and brought up to date or elimi- nated, and some new textual matter and a number of new maps and pictures added. In this new form it is hoped that the book may continue to receive the very cordial welcome which has been given it in the past. The Author Stanford University, Cal. November 20, 1921 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS PART I. THE RURAL-LIFE PROBLEM INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER I. Changes in the Nature of Rural Life 6 Four periods of development: — I. The first period, up to 1830: — Early pi oneer life_^ — Markets — Trading — Subsistence farming. II. The second period, 1830-1860: — A perigd o f trans- fouoation — Rise of commerce and manufacturing — Home and school. III. The third period, 1860-1890: — Homestead laws — Inventions and developmen ts -rr-The home-buildgr farmer — ^xpansipn and overdevelopment — The cityward migra- tion — Saving in farm labor — The result. CHAPTER n. New Rural-Life Conditions . . 29 IV. The fourth-period development : — Fourth-period char- acteristics — Importance of the changes. I. The urbanization of rural life: — Changes in rural liv- ing — New rural conveniences — Better homes — The new rural life — The town movement. II. Reorganization and commercialization of agricul- tiu-e: — The U.S. Department of Agriculture — New agri- cultural development — New markets — Agricultural ex- pansion — The future — Commercialized large-scale farm- ing — Intensive small-scale farming — Decreasing rural population. III. Farm tenantry: — Recent increase — Recent change in character — New tenants — The Southern Negro tenant — The intermittent farm laborer — The fourth-period changes — Significance of the changes. viii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS CHAPTER m. Effects of these Changes on Rural Society and Rural Institutions ... 63 I. New rural social life: — Early social life — New and larger interests — City connections — Enjoyment of life — Tenantry and social life — Degenerate rural life. II. Local government — Loss of interest in — The new tenants and government. — Effects of the change. III. The church: — The rural church — The New Eng- land influence — Large influence of the early church — Early religious intensity — The intellectual revolution — Social nature of the old Sunday meeting — The process of church decline — Dying churches — Problems which the church faces to-day — Great potential usefulness, neverthe- less — Social mission of the rural church — The teacher and the chiKch problem. CHAPTER rV. Effects of these Changes on the Rural School 83 Origin of the district school — At first a purely local undertaking — The demand for state schools — The second- period school — The early schoolmaster — EfBciency of the education for the time. Changes in rural education after about 1870 — The change in direction — The city-school influence — Decline in effi- ciency — The rural school and the fourth-period changes — New fourth-period demands — Gradual desertion of the rural school. Present inadequacy of the old education — Breakdown of the old administrative machinery — Increasing needs and costs — The burden of taxation — Present plight of the rural school. CHAPTER V. Rural Life and Needs of To-Day 104 Reconstruction and reorganization necessary — The edu- cational deficiency — The great rural social problem — Ownership vs. tenantry — Important rural economic inter- ests — Great rural interests are human interests. Fundamental rural needs: — 1. Better schools — Reten - tion of personality — The school and personality — 2. Larger life and outlook — 3. Better homes — Better kitch- ens — 4. A community center. Early centers for the com- munity life — Can the church become such now — Need of a ^ ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS a program for social work — Need for cooperation — Rural organizations — The rural library — The school — 5. Com- munity life — Constructive rural service — The call for rural service — Meaning of the country-life movement. CHAPTER VI. Some Worthy Examples of Rural Service 131 I. Church organizations: — 1. A rural church — 2. A vil- lage church — 3. A rural community-center church and Sun- day school — 4. District nursing. II. Organizations for young people: — 1. Y.M.C.A. — 2. Y.W.C.A. — 3. Boy Scouts, and Camp-Fire Girls — 4. Agricultural Clubs. III. The rural library — Examples of such service. IV. Farmers' organizations: — The Grange. V. Organizations for agricultural improvement — The farmers' institute — The county farm expert. VI. Community-center organizations — An early com- munity-center beginning — The community-center idea. PART II. THE RURAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM CHAPTER Vn. Fundamental Needs in Rural Education 163 The school and democracy — The decline of the district school — The result of recent changes — Rural school still of large importance — Poor rural schools not necessary — The recent criticism from without — The recent rural-life movement — The away-from-the-farm influence in rural education — Need of redirecting the school — Difficulties to be encountered — The great rural- life interests — What the Country-Life Commission had to say — Revitalizing the school — Legitimate functions of the redirected school — A group of problems involved. CHAPTER Viil. Organization and Maintenance 177 I. Types of organization: — 1. The district system — Its essential features — Evolution of district organization — District powers and duties — Curtailing the powers in the interests of efficiency — Where the district system rendered service — Chief objections to the district system — Exces- sive number of school officers — 2. The town or township X ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS system — The New England town system — Town vs. dis- trict control — The Western township system — 3. The county system — The county unit in evolution — Advan- tages of the county system — 4. The state miit. II. Types of maintenance : — General taxation for educa- tion — 1. District taxation — Changes in wealth and educa- tion — 2. Town or township taxation — Town and town- ship inequalities — 3. County taxation — Equalizing effect of a county school tax — 4. State taxation — General vs. local effort — Systems of distribution — Fundamental needs for rural-school progress. CHAPTER IX. The Teaching Equipment . . .206 The need for better equipment: — 1. The building — The type — Why they persist — A common condition — Limita- tions to instruction — The cheap building — Fundamental needs in a school building — Library," science, and work rooms — 2. The site — The site for instruction purposes — The site and esthetic training — 3. The teacher's home — The "teacherage" — 4. Teaching equipment — Needed teaching apparatus — 5. School library. City and country compared — Better equipment essen- tial — Difficulties in the way — The need of educational reorganization. CHAPTER X. The Reorganization of Rural Education 226 The multiplication of districts — The present result — Recent attempts to improve conditions — The root of the difficulty — Equal rights for the country child. Consolidation in central schools — The consolidation movement — Slow progress of consolidation — Recent rapid adoption of the consolidation idea — The essentials of the plan — Inaugurating the movement — The common plan — The result in Ohio — The centralization plan — Ad- vantages of the plan — Disadvantages of the plan — The county-unit plan — Advantages of the county unit. The need for such reorganizations — Such schools natural community centers — A community school illustrated — A state reorganization. CHAPTER XL A New Curriculum 256 The old curriculum — Why such instruction continues — Recent attempts to change these conditions — The old tradi- ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xl tional curriculum — Arithmetic — Grammar and language — Geography — Physiology and hygiene — History. Redirecting the school — New instructional needs — Na- ture study and agriculture — What can be taught — How such instruction works — Domestic science — Manual train- ing — The home-project idea and work — Organized play — The new and the old compared — Possible correlations — How far is such redirection possible — The rural high school — Redirecting the high school — The country boy who goes to the city. CHAPTER XII. A New Teacher 283 A new teacher needed — Training and wages compared — The natural result — The remedy — Importance of the wage question — Present status of teacher training — New attention to the rural-t*acher problem. Teachers' training classes — Nature of the instruction offered — Why such courses are inadequate — Probable future development — More recent development — A sug- gested one-j'ear course — Explanations of — What such a course prepares for — The rural high-school teacher — The call for rural leadership — Possibilities for usefulness — Personal attitude; steps in the process. CHAPTER Xin. A New Type of Supervision . . 306 Larger rural leadership — The county unit in evolution — The evolution of the school superintendency — New con- ception of the office — Our present supervision — The sys- tem to blame — Present conditions in the county office — Why the cities draw the best — Where the fault lies — Stock arguments — The way out — What democracy should mean. A reorganized county system — The county board — The plan applied — The gain in supervision — Bad features it would eliminate. CHAPTER XIV. Noteworthy Examples in Ru- ral Education 328 I. A one-room rural school — Its building and equip- ment. II. An Illinois consolidated school — Its building, equip- ment, and work. III. A Colorado cominunity-center consolidated school — xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Its organization, and work — The community-center — The community church and Sunday school. IV. A county-unit school system — The county board — The slow development, and the present conditions — The work of the county superintendent — The present excellent county system — The five reasons for it. BIBLIOGRAPHY 357 INDEX 373 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS V Facing Primitive Conditions — Subsistence Farming .... 12 A Farmhouse of the Home-Builder Period 13 Per Cent Land in Farms forms of Total Land Area, by Coun- ties: 1920 .30 Per Cent Improved Land in Farms forms of Total Land Area, by Counties: 1920 31 University Extension in Agriculture 58 New Farm Workers and Owners 59 The District School — Primitive Conditions 92 The Schoolhouse Spelling Match of Long Ago .... 93 Satisfying the Social Instincts of Youth 112 Retaining Personality by Educating Farmers to keep Track of their Business 113 Lads from the Farms at a College Lecture on Corn . . .148 An Automobile that has taught a County to read . . , 149 One of the Local Meetings for Community Improvement . . 149 Where the District System rendered Service 184 A Common Type of Schoolhouse Site 216 A Good One-Teacher Rural-School Plant 217 Different Means for transporting Pupils 242 Types of Modern Consolidated Schools 243 Health Defects in City and Country Children Compared 264a New Forms of Instruction, I 268 New Forms of Instruction, II 269 Rural High-School Instruction, I 280 Rural High-School Instruction, II 281 Teaching Country Children in Terms of Country Life . . 290 Manual Training in the Rural School 291 A Rural School Exhibit 304 FIGURES, DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS xiii Boys' Session of the Farmers' Institute 305 The Model Rural School at the Kirksville, Missouri, Normal School 328 The Harlem Consolidated School, Winnebago County, 111. I . 334 The Harlem Consolidated School, II 335 The Sargent Consolidated School, Colorado 340 The Center Consolidated School, Colorado 341 FIGURES, DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS 1. Showing Recent Rapid Growth of Urban Population . 8 2. An Early Home 11 S. The United States in 1850 17 4. Development of Farms. East North-central Division . . 19 5. Development of Farms. West North-central Division . 20 6. Value per Acre of Farm Property 23 7. Development of Farms 24 8. Distribution of Population by Decades 25 9. Relative Rates of Increase in Population and Production 27 10. Per Cent Land in Farms forms of Total Land Area, by Counties: 1920 jacing 80 11. Per Cent Improved Land in Farms forms of Total Land Area, by Counties: 1920 facing 31 12. Agriculture in the United States — Surplus for Export, 1900-1920 42 12a. Farm Property Values per Acre 43 13. Decrease or Increase in Population in Indiana, 1910-1920 . 48 14. Per Cent of Increase in Rural Population, by States, 1910-1920 49 15. Changes in the Population, 1910-1920, in Eight Important Agricultural States 60 16. Acreage of all Land in Farms classified by Character of Tenure of Operator, 1920 53 17. Percentage of Foreign-born Whites, and Native Whites of Foreign or Mixed Parentage combined, in the Total Pop- ulation, 1920 57 18. Classes of Farmers in the Cotton Belt of the South . . 67 19. The Polish Farmers'-Day Poster 70 20. Typical One-Room Rural Churches 73 21. Spiritual Illiteracy in the United States 78 22. A Typical Early School Interior, I 84 23. A Typical Early School Interior, II ' 86 24. A Schoolmaster of the Old Type 87 xiv FIGURES. DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS 25. Decreasing Percentage of Men Teachers 91 26. Increasing Cost of Education, per Pupil, in Average Daily Attendance 99 27. Increasing Length of Term, in Days 101 28. Rural Unrest in the South 109 29. Percentage of Total Population in Rural Districts, 1920 112 50. A Community Center of Large Influence, in the Wrong Direction 118 51. Diagram of a Country Community-Center .... 119 32. Union Church, Proctor, Vermont 121 33. The Original Church 132 34. The New Institutional Church 135 35. Y.M.C.A. County Organization 141 36. Y.M.C.A. County Work 143 37. A Traveling Library in a Farmhouse 147 38. Floor Plans of the Brim6eld, Illinois, Community-Center House , 160 39. The School by the Wayside 164 m. A One-Pupil Class 165 41. A Typical Run-down Schoolhouse 167 42. A Typical Rural School of the Better Class . . . .171 43. Forms for School Administration used in the United States 179 44. Early Organization of School Districts 181 45. Later Organization and Reorganization 182 46. New England Towns and Western Townships compared . 187 47. A Typical Present-Day Interior 208 48. A Typical Weather-boarded Box 209 49. A More Attractive Exterior 210 60, A Rearranged Interior 211 61, A Suggested Exterior 213 62, A Model Interior for a One-Teacher Rural Schoolhouse . 214 63, The Model Rural-School Building at Mayville, North Da- kota 215 64, A Desirable Type of Rural-School Building . . . 215a 64a, An Ohio School Site .216 55. A "Teacherage" for Two Teachers 2186 66. Randolph County, Indiana, showing Progress of Con- solidation by 1921 231 57, Map of Iowa, showing Consolidated Schools .... 232 58, A Large Colorado Consolidated District 234 69. Map of Colorado, showing Consolidated Schools . . . 236 60. Stranded Districts 237 FIGURES, DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS xv 61. Diagram of Gustavus Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, showing Transportation Routes 238 62. Central Public School, Trumbull County, Ohio . . . 241 63. The Ordinary Road to Learning 242 64. One of the Landmarks 246 65. Map showing Consolidated Districts and Location of Con- solidated Schoolhouses in Duval County, Florida . . . 247 66. Map of Ada County, Idaho, showing the Boundaries of the School Districts and the Location of Rural District Schools and High Schools, 1908 249 67. Same County, illustrating a Tentative Plan of Consolida- tion 250 68. A Community-Center School 252 69. First-floor Plan of Community-Center School . . . 253 70. A Reading Chart for Rural Schools 266 71. How the Chief County (or Town) School Officer is secured in our American States 312 72. Basement Plan of Model Rural School 330 73. First-Floor Plan of Model Rural School 332 74. Attic Plan of Model Rural School 333 75. The Harlem Consolidated School Grounds, Winnebago County, Illinois 337 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION PART I THE RURAI^LIFE PROBLEM RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION INTRODUCTION To one who has given little or no attention to the subject, it is hard to appreciate the great revolution in rural life which has taken place during the past three quarters of a century. The changes which have been accomplished have been of far-reaching importance, and they have touched every phase of rural life. Almost nothing is now as it used to be; almost nothing is done now as it was three quarters of a century ago. We of to-day live in a new world — a world of which our grandfathers scarcely dreamed. Life everywhere to-day is far more complex, intricate, difficult, and fruitful of both pleasure and profit than was that of which our grandfathers formed a part. The great changes which have taken place in living and industry have affected all of our people, rural and urban, but perhaps nowhere has the revolution in living and industry been of more far-reaching importance than to those of our people who live on the farms and in the little villages of our nation. This so cial and indust rial re volution has profoundly changed the whole naiure of rural life. Some rural communities naturally have experienced a greater change than others, but no community has wholly 4 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION escaped. The revolution, too, has been so rapid, so extensive, and so far-reaching in its consequences that I both rural people and rural institutions have not changed rapidly enough to ke ep £ace_with_the_de- mands of th^ n^yr riv jlizat^'op. The result has been the development of a rural-life problem of great social and economic consequence, and one which involves most of the cherished institutions of rural society. It has become particularly acute, as it relates to the character and elements of the rural population itselL the condi- tions of land-ownership and farm-tenancy, rural home life, rural societyfthe rural church, antr rural educa- tion. Taken altogether and as a whole, we call this cqll^ctionof jproblems thg rural-life problem. While of necessity referring to each of these phases of the rural- life problem, as they are in a way all tied up together, this book will have special reference to the problem as it relates to the rural and the village school. It may accordingly be considered as a treatise on that phase of the rural-life problem commonly known as the rural-school problem, concerning which much has been said and written within recent years. Like all social problems, the rural-school problem has had a gradual evolution and is closely related to the other rural-community problems, and this it will be our purpose first to trace and to explain. Almost any social problem is more understandable if we can see it in its historical setting, and grasp it in its relations to other community forces and problems. After giving INTRODUCTION 5 the problem this setting, the rural-school problem as such will be examined in some detail, the relation of teachers and supervisory officers to it pointed out, and the remedies which must be applied to it explained. CHAPTER I CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE Four periods of development. The development of rural life in the United States, since the beginning of our Republic, may be divided into four great periods, each, with the exception of the first, covering about the life of a single generation. Each of these periods has been characterized by important movements in the population, by important changes in the nature and methods of agriculture, and by marked changes in almost all of the conditions and surroundings of rural life. Each period, too, has been characterized by more fundamental and more far-reaching changes than the one which preceded it, until to-day the changes have become so great and so profound that they partake of the nature of an agricultural revolution. New methods in farming have been employed, entirely new mar- kets have been found, inter-communication has been established in ways before undreamed of, machinery and labor-saving devices have tremendously simplified and cheapened production, the old rural institutions are dying out, the home and its management are no longer the same, and opportunities for leisure and a taste for higher pursuits have been developed to a degree which would have seemed impossible even half CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 7 a century ago. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that, in all of the time from the crusades to the begin- ning of the second quarter of the nineteenth century, no such profound and far-reaching changes in the methods of agriculture or the conditions of rural life were accomplished as have been accomplished in the United States during the last seventy-five to one hundred years. The rural-school problem, which is to be the special theme of this book, has arisen as a result of these many and far-reaching changes, and the difficulties which now confront the rural school will be under- stood much better if we first trace these great historical changes in rural life, and show the relation of these changes to the problem in hand. Accordingly we shall first sketch this development, state the chief charac- teristics of each of the four great periods which we have said that rural life in the United States may be divided into, and then state the conditions which confront rural society to-day. I. UP TO 1830 The first period of development. The first period in our agricultural development may be said to have extended up to about 1830 or 1835. In a way it was an extension of the colonial period, and of the system of farming and of rural life then in vogue. Nearly all life at the time our National Government was estab- lished was rural, and nearly every one lived on farms 8 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION or in little villages. But 3.35 per cent of the total pop- ulation, or but one person in thirty, lived in a city of 8000 inhabitants or over in 1790, and but 3.97 per cent o o o o ^r-«'->f-l«-lfH.-ii-4.-l.-H r^rH.Hr-1 FiQ. 1. SHOWING RECENT RAPID GROWTH OF URBAN POPULATION in 1800. Still more, there were but six such cities in the whole of the thirteen original states until 1810, and the largest city in the United States had less than 75,000 inhabitants. Even in such a city all life was far simpler then than in a small Western county-seat town to-day. Almost everywhere then the people lived on little farms, and their chief object was to clear the tract. CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 9 develop the land, and obtain a living from the soil. There were few markets, and these were local to a high degree. A little wheat was sold in the Middle Colo- nies for shipment to England, as was tobacco in the Southern. Rice and indigo were also raised for export in the Carolinas and in Georgia. Even these, though, could not be sold except when raised near to the sea- coast, as the almost complete absence of roads and the diflSculties of transportation made a market elsewhere impossible. The division of labor had not as yet made much headway, either in industry or in agriculture. Families lived off of the land, and produced by hand nearly all that they ate or wore. If near a village or a crossroads store, a part of the surplus of certain crops was exchanged, by barter, for certain manufactured articles. Life was exceedingly simple, and diflScult as well. Almost immediately after the establishment of peace with Great Britain, a strong westward movement of the population began. New England people had already settled New York and northeastern Pennsyl- vania, and men from Virginia and the Carolinas had moved westward into Kentucky and Tennessee. Soon this movement extended farther westward. First Ohio, then northern Indiana and Illinois, southern Michigan and Wisconsin, and, still later, Iowa were settled by people of New England stock. Kentucky, Tennessee, southern Indiana and Illinois, and Missouri were settled by people from Virginia and the Carolinas, 10 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION while Alabama and Mississippi were a result of south- em migrations, chiefly from Georgia. The beginnings of the national land policy after 1785, after which time farms in the wilderness were sold to settlers at low prices,^ greatly stimulated migration and helped to settle the new territory. After 1820 a constant stream of wagons poured into the wilderness, and by 1821 nine new states had been added to the Union, all carved from these Western lands, while the frontier had been pushed out to and beyond the Mississippi. Four more states were added from this Western do- main by 1848, completing the Union out to and includ- ing the first tier of states west of the Mississippi, with the single exception of Minnesota. Early pioneer life. Life in the new land was full of hardships, and one of unremitting toil. Forests had to be cut down, stumps burned out, swamps drained, and, to the westward, the thick sod of the prairies broken. Farm life west of the Alleghanies became a repetition of colonial life to the east of the mountains. It was a period of intense struggle with the untamed forces of nature, and the pressing demands on the new settlers for food and shelter for the family and stock left little time for any leisure employment. Every member of the family had to work and work hard, and every member was made useful from a very early age. The agriculture was largely experimental, and was carried on by the primitive methods and with the primitive > At first fixed at $2 per acre, but after 1821 fixed at $1.25 per acre. CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF KUEAL UFE 11 mmpi^'r^'smmc Fio. 2. AN EARLY HOME implements of the times. The ox and a rude form of plow were about all of the labor-saving devices at hand. The home was of the simplest kind, and the furnishings exceedingly primitive. A log cabin, chinked with mud ; an open fireplace, with a stick-and-clay chimney; home- made furniture and simple equip- ment were the characteristics of the times. Of fuel and food there was plenty, and the family raised and prepared al- most all that was eaten or worn. Corn was the chief crop at first, and cattle and hogs the chief animals raised. The people laid by corn for winter; smoked their own meats; preserved such few poor fruits of the time as they cared for or had the means to keep; made their own lard, butter, candles, and clothing; manu- factured sugar and syrup from the forest maples; evaporated salt from the salt springs or " licks "; and ground their corn in rude hand-operated mills. Of intercommunication there was little; of comforts and pleasures, very few; of doctors and nurses, almost none. It was the rude and primitive existence of the sturdy pioneer; and the hard work, the difficulties of 12 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the struggle with the untamed forces of nature in a new land, the lack of outlook, and the loneliness and isolation of the life must have borne hard on many a man and woman. Markets. Of markets there were practically none, except near the seaboard, and agriculture everywhere was in what has been termed the self-sufficing stage of its development. A farmer could raise enough for his own needs, but there was little chance to dispose of any surplus. Cotton in the South, due to the perfec- tion of the cotton-gin, was an exception, and had become a staple crop; and the numerous rivers of the South made the marketing of cotton relatively easy for plantations not too far removed from the seaboard. Little, though, could be sent from the Northwest over the Alleghanies. In Kentucky and southern Ohio some cattle were raised for market, but to drive them to Baltimore or Philadelphia was something of an under- taking, and consumed nearly all of the profits. The building of the National Turnpike to St. Louis, through Zanesville and Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Indianapolis, and Terre Haute, Indiana; and Vandalia, Illinois, opened up somewhat a new territory, while the opening of the Erie Canal through New York State, in 1825, provided a new and easier route for the transportation of grains from the West. Wheat from the interior could now be shipped, via Lake Erie and the canal to New York, for sale in the Eastern and European markets. Wheat now displaced corn as the « tc CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 13 chief money crop on farms not too far removed from connecting navigable water. Trading. Even up to 1830 there were but twenty- six cities in the United States of over 8000 inhabitants, and fourteen of these had less than 12,000 of popu- lation. A number of small towns were developing in the new West, however, and these were rapidly becom- ing centers for local trade. The crossroads store was also becoming common, and in it were beginning to be found a number of the new manufactured articles. There was little money as yet in circulation, especially in the West, and business was carried on chiefly by barter. Salt, bears' grease, pelts, and corn possessed fixed values. Even taxes were paid in produce; such units as half of a beef, a quarter of venison, a peck of corn, and a half-peck of salt were legal tender. Grist- mills and sawmills, run by water-power, were begin- ning to supersede hand mills, where grinding and saw- ing were now done " on shares." Shoes were soon substituted for moccasins, and woolen and linen cloth for buckskin. The tanning of hides became an indus- try, and harnessmakers, wagonmakers, wheelwrights, and carpenters began to be in demand. Better barns and better farmhouses began to be erected, especially by the New England people, and life in the wilderness, by the end of the first agricultural period, began to lose something of its harshness and forbidding aspect. The rich farms of Ohio began to replace the heavily timbered wilderness which met the early pioneers. 14 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION II. 1830-1860 The second period of development. The second period in the development of American rural life may be said to have begun about 1830 to 1835, and to have extended up to the beginning of the Civil War, though to the westward the story of the settling of Ohio and Kentucky was repeated during this second period. During this period farming passed from the local and self-sufBcing to the commercial stage; cities and manu- facturing began to develop rapidly; labor-saving de- vices began to be used on the farms; new peoples came; and the coming of the railroads changed the whole character of farming. Intercommunication began to take the place of the former isolation; civilization began to go with subsistence; and intelligent farming began to supersede an unintelligent dependence upon luck. Products now began to be grown for the market; the steam railroad and the steamboat provided an easy and cheap means of transportation; and the flood of farm products from the great interior now, for the first time, began seriously to disturb the economic equilibrium of the East and of the Old World. Agri- cultural societies were organized; agricultural fairs began to be held; agriculture as a subject began to be discussed; a substantial effort began to be made to improve the breeds of live stock; and new fruits and orchard stock began to be introduced. New migratory movements from the worked-out farms of the East to CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 15 the richer lands of the West now began. This move- ment soon carried population far out onto the prairies. A period of transformation. The period was one of rapid expansion and transformation. At its beginning nearly everything done on the farm was done by hand labor. Plowing, harrowing, and the drawing of loads formed almost the only exceptions. Crops were sown and harvested only with the greatest of effort. At the end of the period most of the epoch-making inventions in agricultural machinery had been perfected and were being introduced. The mower was patented as early as 1831, the reaper in 1833, the thresher by 1840, the separator in 1850, and the steam-thresher by 1860. The machine drill superseded hand-sowing; the two- horse cultivator superseded the hoe; and the faster horse superseded the slow ox. By 1865 every process in the raising of wheat, and every process in the raising of corn, except husking, was done by machinery. Specialization in crops now began to supersede general subsistence farming. Cotton rapidly jumped to a place of first importance in the South. As this crop demands a quantity of cheap labor at certain seasons only, and is best handled on large plantations, there was a large exodus of the poorer Southern whites to Kentucky, Missouri, and still farther west. The repeal of the English Corn Laws in 1846, by which the tariflF was removed from imported foodstuffs, still further stimulated agricultural development in the United States. The coming of thousands of educated Ger- 16 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION mans, who took up farms and settled in the upper Mississippi Valley after 1848, also further stimulated agricultural production. Butter- and cheese-making were added to the list of agricultural industries after about 1850, as was also truck-farming in certain regions. Prices for all kinds of farm products increased rapidly, making farming a much more profitable industry than it had been before. Rise of commerce and manufacturing. The develop- ment of cities and manufacturing now began. At the beginning of the period there were no railways, and all transportation was by pack-train, horse and wagon, or canal-boat. By 1850 the steam roads offered con- tinuous rail travel from North Carolina to Maine along the coast, had reached into the heart of the cotton belt of the South, to Buffalo on Lake Erie, and from the western end of Lake Erie to Cincinnati and Chicago. By 1860 the steam railways had been built west into Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas, and thirty thousand miles of rails were carrying agricultural products from the interior, and manufactured pro- ducts from the seaboard cities back to the interior. Cotton was king in the South, corn and winter wheat in the North, and commerce and manufacturing in the East. The telegraph had been perfected in 1844, and fifty thousand miles of wire were carrying messages by 1860. Edge tools were now made in this country. The platform scale and the sewing-machine were coming into use. Kerosene lamps were in their beginning. 18 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Improved cookstoves were beginning to be used, and friction matches superseded the flint. The coal meas- ures west of the Alleghanies had been opened, and anthracite in the East had been put to use. The great work of steam had begun, and the chimneys of factor- ies were rising over the land. Home and school. A little more leisure had come into the home as well, and the school of books began, in part, to supersede the school of practical experience for the children. Farmhouses and barns were better built, homes were made more attractive, farms were better tilled and more valuable, gravel roads began to supersede the corduroy, and rural life generally began to reflect the changes and improvements in the methods of living. Numerous little towns, the nuclei of future cities, were springing up all through the upper Mississippi Valley, as they had done a genera- tion earlier in the Middle Atlantic States. Notwith- standing these changes, though, rural life was still simple, and travel to any distance was the exception rather than the rule. III. 1860-1890 Third period of development. The third period in the development of American rural life began about 1860, and extended up to about 1890 or 1895. It was characterized by the greatest agricultural expansion the world had ever known. The Government home- stead laws of 1862 and 1864, under which a farm of CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 19 one hundred and sixty acres was given to any person who would actually settle on the land and live there for five years, greatly stimulated the development. Up to 1890, quarter-section farms to the extent of 233,043,939 acres, an area six times as large as New England, six and one half times as large as Illinois, and 100% Percentage of total Land Area:- to 80 East Nortb-Central Division ^^.^^ — 70 ^5^^;-.- \ \ ":-^:= 60 .....-- ^"' — '"^' ■ ""^m g^^i^,,^i^r 50 === ^^'''' ' -^ 40 tf - j ^ ^:^ ■- - - -T 1 -r^= 30 1 -^^- -^ 20 ^^ ^== i-^-.- '1 '^ i' " ■"- 1 ■ ■ 1 ^ — 10 ^^ 1 1 1 1 ' ^^ Pio. 4. DEVELOPMENT OF FARMS more than a half larger than the German Empire, were claimed as homesteads by new settlers. The opportunity to get a cleared farm of rich land and without price soon attracted great numbers of the more intelligent and hardy peasants from other lands, and a great influx of Canadians, English, Irish, Ger- mans, and Scandinavians came into the new states of the upper Mississippi Valley. Many of those who had settled earlier east of the Mississippi also sold their 20 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION farms and went to the West, while the sons of many others went, leaving their parents behind. The effect of this movement on the development of farms is seen from the charts on this and the preceding page. East of the Mississippi the settlement and improvement now proceeded more slowly, while west of the river the Pia. 8. DEVELOPMENT OF PABMS settlement and improvement of the land were very rapid. It was also seen in the development of new states. Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, the two Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington were added as states by 1890, — all essentially agricultural states and all, with the exception of Colorado and Washington, without a large city in them. Inventions and developments. The first trans- continental railway was completed in 1869, and by CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE «1 1890 five additional railway lines linked the West to the East. These, with their branches and feeders, gathered up the wheat, corn, and cattle of the West and carried it to Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston for shipment to other lands. The United States soon became the granary of Europe, and agriculture became a large and an important business. By 1880 the United States was the greatest shipper of grains and meats in the world. The invention of the twine -binder, about 1880, settled the labor problem involved in harvesting and made wheat-growing easier and more profitable; while the patenting of the roller- process of making flour made spring wheat useful, and settled and developed the great Northwest. Great cattle ranges also were developed in the then new West, and the perfecting of the refrigerator car in 1869 made the shipment of dressed beef both possible and profitable. The beginning of the export of dressed meats, in 1870, further developed the cattle industry. The perfection of the Babcock milk -tester and the centrifugal cream-separator, about 1880, gave a new impetus to the dairy industry, and the application of the cold-storage principle shortly after added materi- ally to the farmer's range of markets. Fruit-growing also became an important branch of agriculture during this third period. New attention was now given to the securing of better breeds of stock, and we also note the beginnings of an extension of the principle of selection to both seeds and trees. 22 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The home-builder farmer. The many labor-saving inventions introduced not only made farm life easier and more profitable, but the great increase in the ease of communication made it less isolated and more attractive. Turnpikes and bridges were built by the counties, better houses. and barns were built by the farmers, and many improvements to the land were made. Farm land began to increase rapidly in value, after the depression of the early eighties due to over- development, and the successful farmer began to ac- cumulate a bank account, and to cultivate relations with the adjoining town or with the growing city which formed the county seat. He and his wife dressed bet- ter, gave their children more advantages, and began to enjoy some of the luxuries as well as the necessities of life. He remained, however, essentially a home-builder, loyal to his country neighborhood, and treasuring his rural friendships. His pride was in his broad and well- kept acres, his horses and stock, his home, his barns and machinery, and his family. He was strong, virile, conscious of his personal worth, opinionated, and with a keen sense for values, politics, and often for religion. Such he continues to-day, in many parts of our land. Expansion and overdevelopment. The result of these many inventions and developments was a tre- mendous expansion of agriculture, not only in the new lands to the West, but in the older states to the East as well. Almost simultaneously there was a great CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 23 development of wheat -growing in California and Washington, in Russia, and in Argentine, as well as other important agricultural developments elsewhere. The steam-train and the steamship gathered up the products and delivered them quickly in the world's great markets. The result was a great disturbance in $100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 VaJue per Acre of Farm Property United States as a whole Fia. 6. VALUE OF FARM PROPEETT i economic conditions: for a time an overproduction, a fall in prices of both products and lands, and, for a period, much discontent among the farming class. This was most marked in the decade of the eighties. Gradually, however, these conditions changed. With the exhaustion of the free Government lands, the great increase in population, both at home and abroad, a readjustment of vocations and methods of distribu- tion, and an increasing consumption of foodstuflPs per S4 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION capita, due to better living, the prices for both lands and foodstuffs have recently experienced a remarkable rise in values, and farming has recently become a very profitable undertaking. The cityward migration. Along with these many changes during this third period, another of the most Percentage of total I^and Area:- Umted States as a whole lOOj 90 80 70 Via. 7. DEVELOPMENT OF FARMS far-reaching significance for country life now began to manifest itself strongly. It had its beginnings much earlier, but became marked now for the first time. This was the tendency of coun try boys to leave the farm and go to the rising cities. The fascination of the city and the large prizes which might be won there began to attract the strong^andjhe s elf-relian tamong the young, jaen of the _country. This tendency grew with time, and finally resulted in a great migration CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 25 cityward. In some states, particularly in New York and New England, it led to the abandonment of many farms, while to the West it led to the draining-off of many of the most promising young men of the farming class. The lack of opportunity and the lack of social ^0 '100 95 90 85 80 76 70 65 60 55 60 45 40 35 30 26 In Cities of 8,000 or over In smaller Incorporated Places ( Estimsteii befoK 1880 } In Rural Districts Fia. 8. DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION BY DECADES Percentage of the total population of the United States at earh census in cities, towns, and rursj districts. Note the growth of the city after about 1850. prestige in the country also sent many of the best of the country girls to the city as well. By 1890 the rural conditions were such, due in part to a temporary over- development of agriculture throughout the world, and in part to the tendency of the education provided by the rural school, that boys and girls of energy and 26 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION ambition left the farm for the city at the first opportu- nity/ Farming as a life career at that time appealed strongly to but few. The result was manifested in the rapid growth of the cities after 1890, and in the partial depletion of many rural communities. Anotherclass of count ry pe ople now began to leave Jhe^rural districts for the cities. With the rapid intro- duction of machinery and labor-saving devices during this third period, the farmer was able to dispense with many of his former '* hands ." Fewer laborers were needed to do the work which once required the labor of many, while the introduction of complicated and expensive machinery demanded that the man who ran it should have a good operative head. Many of these former *' hands " belonged to that class of l< ^ss inte l- ligent and lesg_pro gressive rural peop le, who neither owned nor leased land, but were content to work for others. These now had to go to the city to find a market for their labor. The result was to send from the country to the city most of its poor, improvident, and shiftless people, as well as many of its stronger personalities. Saving in farm labor. The saving in human labor by machinery was very great. In the case of nine important farm crops, the increase in efficiency of a single man, between 1830 and 1895, has been estimated * The census of 1890 showed that 66 per cent of the area of Illinois was then diminishing in population, 43 per cent of the area of Iowa, 61 per cent of Ohio, and 83 per cent of New York. CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF RURAL LIFE 27 at 500 per cent, while in the case of barley it has been estimated at 2240 per cent. From 1840 to 1900 in the case of eight important cereals, the increase in the rate of production was twice as fast as the rate of increase in the total population. Harvesting, under the old methods, required more than eight times the number of laborers now required, while threshing required 18«Q|^^^^^[[]^]J I I Rural J|City 1300 [_ lucieaae in Populatlou Increase in Production - 8 Cereals Fio. 9. RELATIVE RATES OF INCREASE IN POPULATION AND PRODUCTION from fifteen to thirty times the present number. Figures from the United States Department of Agri- culture show that in 1855 the amount of labor ex- pended in producing a bushel of com in the United States was four hours and thirty-five minutes. Under modern conditions the amount of time required is only forty-one minutes. With wheat the difference is even more marked. In 1855 three hours of labor were expended on each bushel of wheat; at present a bushel of wheat requires only ten minutes of labor. In the case of a farm worker it has been estimated that his 28 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION efficiency was still further increased 86 per cent by machinery between 1870 and 1900. The result. All of these changes have meant not only an increase in the profitableness of farming, but a great amelioration in the conditions surrounding farm life as well. They have also created a demand for larger intelligence, wider knowledge, and larger ability on the part of the farmer. He has been able to make farming a business instead of merely a means of sub- sistence, and to purchase many of the more desirable modern conveniences and comforts to replace the primitive pioneer conditions. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Explain what is meant by the self-sufficing stage of agriciiltural development. 2. Where was the Erie Canal ? 3. Why did wheat supersede com as the money crop after the opening of the Erie Canal ? 4. Explain what is meant by the statement that during this period , farming passed from the self-sufficing to the commercial stage. 6. Explain why the coming of the railroads changed the whole character of farming. 6. Contrast farm life in 1830 with that of 1860. 7. Contrast these conditions again with conditions in 1890. 8. Contrast the market facilities of 1850 and 1890, and show the effect of these on farming as an industry. 9. Contrast the home-life conditions of 1850 and 1890, and point out how such changes naturally lead to s demand for more and for better educational facilities. • 10. Why would the cityward migration naturally draw off both the best and the poorest of rural people ? 11. What effect would this have on rural life and progress ? 12. Without machinery could farming ever have developed into a business undertaking ? 13. What per cent of your state is in farms ? Improved farms ? CHAPTER II NEW RURAL-LIFE CONDITIONS The fourth-period development. The changes which mark the fourth period in the agricultural develop- ment of the United States began about 1890, and are still in process of evolution. These changes are not by any means universal as yet, as in many rural communi- ties the conditions which marked the third period still prevail. Sometimes even the second-period conditions are still found in isolated localities. Each year, though, sees new regions invaded by the changes which have marked what we call the fourth period of our agri- cultural development, and an intensification of these changes. The change to the fourth-period conditions has been most marked in regions of one-crop farming, in the vicinity of large cities, and particularly in the states of the upper Mississippi Valley. These changes are not confined to any one locality, though, for one finds such conditions manifesting themselves from Maine to California, and from Minnesota to Florida. The chief reason why the upper Mississippi Valley has been most affected is that it is the center of the agri- cultural life of the nation. This is well shown by the two maps which face pages 30 and 81 of this chap- ter, and by the table inserted below. All of the great staple farm crops, except rice, tobacco, and cotton, 80 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION TABLE, SHOWING FARMING CONDITIONS IN FIFTEExN LEADING AGRICULTURAL STATES, 1920 State Per cent of total population in rural districts Per cent of lands in farms Average size of farms, in acres Average value of farm land, per acre New York 17.3 36.2 49.4 32.1 63.6 38.9 52.7 55.9 53.4 68.7 65.1 73.4 74.9 78.3 67.6 67.7 90.2 91.3 89.0 94.1 51.0 62.6 58.4 79.1 87.9 86.8 75.7 66.1 59.7 23.8 106.8 91.6 102.7 134.8 156.8 96.9 117.0 169.3 132.2 339.4 274.8 166.4 81.9 76.4 261.5 $ 38.45 Ohio 85.69 Indiana 104.57 Illinois 164.20 Iowa 199.52 Michigan 50.40 Wisconsin 73.09 Minnesota 91.00 Missouri 74.60 Nebraska 78.87 Kansas 54.50 Oklahoma 36.66 Georgia 35.28 Alabama 21.24 Texas 26.64 are raised chiefly in the upper Mississippi Valley States. The central points for the number of farms, for improved farm acreage, for farm-land values, for the production of corn, and for gross farm income are all located in the State of Illinois; while the centers for wheat and oat production are across the river in Iowa. New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa are the largest dairy-products producers; Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri are the greatest swine and NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS 31 domestic-fowl states; and Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri are the center of the draft-animal industry. As a recent writer has put it, this central region is fairly dripping agricultural fatness.^ Excepting cotton in the South and cattle in Texas, no other agricultural region in the United States approaches it in wealth. Because this is the case, the changes to the fourth-period con- ditions have been rendered easier here. Fourth-period characteristics. The most prominent characteristics of the fourth period in the agricultural development of the United States have been three: (1) the gradual urbanization of rural life; (2) the reorganization and commercializing of the agricultural industry; and (3) the partial, and in some districts the complete, substitution of a system of farm tenantry for farm management by the native owner. Farming has become so profitable in the richer agricultural regions that it has now become a commercial business, to be managed along strictly business lines. We will consider each of these fourth-period characteristics in order. I. THE GRADUAL URBANIZATION OF RURAL LIFE Changes in rural living. During the past two decades very important changes have taken place in the conditions surrounding rural life itself. Except in sparsely settled regions, or where primitive conditions * "The Heart of the United States," by James P. Monroe, in Atlantic Monthly, September, 1908. 32 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION still persist, the old isolation has practically ended, and many of the conveniences and comforts enjoyed by city people are now found in the better farm homes. This change in the conditions of living has taken place chiefly since 1890, and has been particularly marked during the past five to ten years. Everywhere there has been a marked softening of the harsh conditions and limita- tions which once surrounded rural life. As a result, in the wealthier and more progressive farming regions, the well-to-do farmer of to-day can provide in his home almost all of the comforts and conveniences enjoyed by his city relations. New rural conveniences. The telephone, twenty years ago but little used, has recently come to be almost one of the necessities of a farmer's life and work. A generation ago, if he broke part of a piece of machinery, needed information as to markets, or had sickness in the family, there was nothing to do but hitch up a horse and drive to town. To-day with the local-exchange and long-distance telephone, he may order the piece of machinery by catalogue number, find out about the markets or the loading of cars, or summon a doctor or nurse. If he needs to telegraph to Boston or Chicago on business, or to his relatives in Dakota or California, he can telephone his message, have a night letter sent, and have a reply telephoned back to him when received, and have it all charged to him on his monthly telephone bill. The rural-mail delivery and the parcels post have also come to his NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS S3 assistance. Instead of getting mail or a package or posting a letter only when the work or the weather would permit of his going to town, the rural-mail delivery wagon comes to his gate each day to bring letters, papers, and packages, and to take them away. With a Sears-Roebuck or a Wanamaker catalogue and a bank check, he and his wife can supply their needs without leaving the house, and have the goods de- livered by parcels post at their door. Instead of, or to supplement, the local weekly newspaper, its inside filled with " boiler-plate " and its outside with local advertisements and news, the farmer now receives his daily metropolitan newspaper, with its news of the world, national and state politics, and market reports. The monthly magazines, with their club rates and pre- miums, have also found their way into the farmer's home, and serve to create new interests for the family and to weaken the old local attachments. Better homes. The farmer's home, too, has greatly changed in the past two decades. New and better farmhouses everywhere meet the eye. The railroads, during the last fifteen years, have done a large busi- ness in carrying lumber for building purposes from Washington and Oregon to the farming sections of the western half of the upper Mississippi Valley, while the eastern half has obtained its supply from sources farther east. This lumber has gone into new farm- houses, barns, and fences. The perfection of the long- distance transmission line for electric current and the 34 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION building of power lines through the country, have introduced electricity into the homes for lighting and for power, and the electric light has become so cheap, so convenient, and so desirable that farmers are mak- ing connections whenever they can be had. Long- distance high-pressure gas lines are also to be found in an increasing number of the more thickly populated regions, and in places gas is being introduced for cook- ing. A furnace in the house is now becoming a common convenience. With a water tank, a gasoline engine or an electric pump, or even a windmill, running water and bathroom conveniences are possible and are now found in many of the newer farm homes, while the perfection of the septic tank has settled the problem of sewage disposal. As a rule, the newer farmhouses are much more attractive and are much better arranged than the farmhouses of a generation ago. Better furniture, better table appointments, and better equipment generally have been felt necessary, even where the house itself has not been improved. Grand Rapids upholstered furniture, white table-linen, Rogers Brothers silverware, and " hangings " have displaced the simpler furniture, red tablecloth, Sheffield knives, and lace curtains of a generation ago; pianos and gramophones have taken the place of the earlier organs and accordions; and the latest rag-time or the opera by Caruso or Calve now take the place of the Gospel Hymns, once so commonly played and sung. NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS 35 The work done in the farmhouse has also greatly decreased. Both under and outer clothing are bought now, and not made. Dresses, hats, and suits, both for the young and for the adults, are now bought at the stores. Cooperative creameries make the butter and the cheese. Laundry wagons not uncommonly call for part of the washing. Even fruits, jellies, and canned goods are frequently bought at the town store. The new rural life. The farmer's life, too, has materially changed. The old isolation and the narrow provincialism are rapidly ending. He and his wife are no longer so markedly "of the country." They, and particularly their children, dress much better than formerly. The family is no longer limited in motion by the traveling ability of its horse. The interurban trolley will now take them to town almost any hour. The automobile, too, has further extended the farmer's ability to travel. By the close of 1920 there were prac- tically ten million automobiles in the United States, and the rich farming states stood at the top in the percentage of the population owning cars. Hard roads have come with the automobile, and a trip to town, which once consumed the better part of a day, is now only a matter of an hour or so. It is easy to go in in the evening, after the day's work is done. The moving-picture show and the theater, once unknown, now offer their attractions. Sunday, holiday, and vacation trips are now taken in the car, and often long distances are covered on the vacation trips. 36 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The town movement. The most immediate eflfect of these many and almost revolutionary changes in the nature of life on the farm is that the farmer soon loses the home feeling, and begins to spend his income in the enjoyment of life. The economic success of the farmer too often proves to be his undoing. Soon the attractions and still greater advantages of the city attract him, and his family urge it, to such an extent, that he rents his farm to tenants, often closing his farmhouse entirely, and the whole family moves to town to enjoy its social and its educational advantages. The earlier movement, in the third period, was chiefly one of individuals; now, in the fourth period, it is chiefly one of whole families. In the upper part of the Mississippi Valley, in the richest of our farming regions, this cityward movement has become so marked that in some portions of it entire townships have been deserted by the old farming stock. This family movement first began about 1890, but within the past ten years it has gone on at a rapidly increasing rate. II. THE REORGANIZATION AND COMMERCIALIZING OF AGRICULTURE A new type of agriculture. This began much earlier, but did not become a strongly marked tendency until after about 1890. Since 1900 the change has become very marked. It has been caused by the general intro- duction of scientific machinery, methods, and processes ; NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS 37 by the development of farm managers, capable of handling farm business on a large scale; and by a world-wide increase in the demand for foodstuffs, which has materially increased the value of all farm products. These influences have recently combined to make farming very profitable. The introduction of scientific methods and processes is due chiefly to the great work of our state agricultural colleges. These were first provided for by the famous Morrill Land-Grant Bill, passed by Congress in 1862.* A number had begun instruction by 1870, and by 1885 many of these had become effective educational insti- tutions. In 1887 Congress granted further national aid 2 to establish an agricultural experiment station in connection with each of these state institutions, and in 1890^ the National Government granted still fur- ther additional aid to each state for the maintenance of these colleges. The results of these grants have been the creation of fifty * such institutions for the instruc- ^ Each state was given 80,000 acres of pubUc land for each Senator and Representative in Congress, to be used to endow a college of agriculture and mechanical arts. The gran*^ varied from 90,000 acres to Delaware, to 990,000 acres to New York. In all, count- ing other recent land grants to new states for the same purpose, 11,367,832 acres, an area one half as large as the State of Indiana, have been given to found and endow the agricultural colleges. 2 The sum of $15,000 a year to each state, since increased to $30,000 a year, to maintain an agricultural experiment station iD connection with the college of agriculture. * The sum of $15,000 a year to each state, since increased to $50,000, to help maintain the agricultural college. * One in Hawaii and one in Porto Rico, as well as one in each of the states. S8 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tion of white students, and sixteen, in the South, for the instruction of colored students as well. Such in- stitutions as Cornell University, and the state uni- versities of Illinois, Wisconsin, and California stand as types of the best of these institutions, and these have been worth to these states hundreds of times what they have cost. The Department of Agriculture. Another influence of fundamental importance in the development of scientific methods and processes and in improving farm life has been the great work of the United States Department of Agriculture. This was established as a bureau in 1862, and created a department, with a secretary in the Cabinet of the President, in 1889. Its real development dates from about this time, while under the administration o f Secretary W J Ugn , who was appointed in 1897 and continued in office until 1913, the development was very rapid. From a de- partment of 488 employees and costing $1,134,481 in 1889, it grew to one of 12,704 employees and costing $21,537,781 in 1912. The work of this department has been far-reaching, and it has rendered greater service in advancing the public welfare than any other depart- ment of the National Government. The agricultural colleges have been stimulated into new activity; crops of all kinds have been improved; new methods of farming have been pointed out; new varieties of grain, trees, and stock have been introduced; diseases have been eradicated; and by means of experiments, demon- NEW RURAL-LIFE CONDITIONS 39 strations, publications, and lectures, a new interest in agricultural improvement and development has been awakened. The department has also been a training school in which hundreds of agricultural experts have been prepared for service elsewhere. New agricultural development. Largely as a result of the labors of the agricultural colleges, and of the National Department of Agriculture at Washington, agricultural education has been placed on a firm foun- dation, and practical and helpful assistance has been extended to farmers all over the United States, and in thousands of ways. Stock and seed breeding and testing have been developed to such an extent as to greatly increase productiveness and profits,^ while disease eradication among plants and animals has greatly reduced the former heavy mortality. The fruit-growing and dairy industries have been devel- oped into great businesses in themselves. New agri- cultural regions have been opened; new grains and fruits introduced into old regions; new methods of marketing and preserving demonstrated; and new bookkeeping methods have been employed. Free printed matter, farmers* institutes, and agricultural demonstration trains have carried practical informa- * A splendid illustration of this has been the development of a new seed barley, which has standardized the grain and doubled the yield. This was done during the past ten years at the University of Wisconsin, and is described in the World's Work for December, 1912. The financial gain from this new grain is estimated at $12,000,000 a year in Wisconsin alone. 40 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tion direct to the homes, and a new interest in agri- cultural education, both for adults and for children, has everywhere become prominent. New markets. Improvements in marketing have also contributed much to the changes noted in this fourth-period development. No longer, in most sec- tions, do small loads have to be taken long distances to town over a muddy road to be sold or exchanged. Good wagon roads, branch steam roads, the interurban trolley, and the automobile truck have greatly changed the nature of the haul; while express trains, refrigera- tor cars, and the telegraph enable the farmer to reach the distant markets. The trolley car or the freight car on the farmer's siding in the afternoon is in the distant city in the morning. The peach -grower of western Michigan sends his peaches to Pittsburg and Buffalo; the garden-truck-grower of the South can market his products in every Northern city; the grower of water- melons in Oklahoma finds his markets in St. Louis, St. Paul, and Chicago; the butter-maker of Wisconsin and Minnesota reaches the markets of the North Central States; the orchardist and vineyardist of California finds his markets in the Eastern cities and in Europe; and the grower of apples in Oregon and Washington supplies the hotels of New York and Chicago with fruit. Specialization, standardization, and cooperative marketing have in a generation created new markets and greatly changed the nature of agricultural life. Farm products are no longer bartered in the village. NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS 41 but are sold wholesale to regular dealers in exchange for bank checks. In some branches of farm work the farmer has little marketing to do, he being able to sell his products " standing," or on the hoof or tree, to the packer or shipper, while elsewhere cooperative exchanges or associations, managed by the farmers themselves, undertake the shipping and marketing process. The old-type farmer, with a few fruit trees, two or three cows, and a few acres of grain, is being crowded more and more to the wall by the new-type farmer, of either the farm-specialist or the intensive- farmer type. Agriculture has progressed from the self- sufficing and the barter stage to that of a well-organ- ized business undertaking, requiring capital, scientific knowledge, and business foresight and energy. Agricultural expansion. The remarkable develop- ment of agriculture in the United States during the past two decades may be seen from the chart on f>age 42, showing our surplus for export. Since 1890 we have about reached the end of our good free agricultural land for homes, and the efforts to secure new lands have led to the proposal and development of large irrigation and drainage schemes, in the South and West, and under both state and federal control. The great world-wide increase in city population and in the number engaged in the manu- facturing industries, all of whom are food and clothing consumers but not producers, coupled with a world- wide increase in the standard of living and the per " Five Year Prewar Period War Period O »H N M O O tr^ 0 ® 2 - NEW RUR.U.-LIFE CONDITIONS 43 capita food and clothing consumption of people, have created much greater demands for fruits, grains, meats, hides, cotton, and wool than heretofore. The result has been that we, as a nation, are already expe- riencing the beginnings of a time when, as the political economist states it, " the increase in population begins $230 Fio. 12a. FARM PROPERTY VALUES to press on the means of subsistence," and we see this evidenced in the constantly rising values of agricul- tural land and of all agricultural products, as well as shoes and clothing. Since 1900 but little new agicu 1- tural or grazing land has been opened. The future. These conditions will not be temporary or transient, but have come to stay, and will become more pronounced with time. In the mean time our 44 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION population is increasing very rapidly, and this increase must be fed and clothed. At the present rate of in- crease we shall have a population of 150,000,000 by 1935, and 200,000,000 by 1960. How to feed such a population as is just ahead of us is one of the big problems for the future to solve. In all probability, within the lifetime of children now born, all export of foodstuffs will have ceased, and even the rich United States will experience a serious shortage of bread. In beef to eat and hides for shoes we are already begin- ning to experience such a shortage. From now on we may look upon farming as being a capitalized indus- try, calling for knowledge and executive ability, and attracting men of capital and brains. The man of small energy or capacity, the novice, the man lacking in scientific knowledge, and the man of little or no capital will find it increasingly difficult to avoid be- ing pushed to the wall in the new agricultural busi- ness which the past quarter of a century has seen developed in our land. The reorganization and commercialization of Amer- ican agriculture has been accompanied by two develop- ments, each of which is causing some concern to those interested in the preservation of rural institutions. The first is farming as a business and with farms under the control of a scientific farm manager; the other is the marked increase in farm tenantry. Of the two, the latter is the more common and, from a social point of view, far the more serious. NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS 45 Commercial large-scale farming. Over one per cent of the farm land of the United States is still in farm tracts of one thousand acres or more. The acreage in such tracts naturally is greater in the West than in the East. Many of these tracts are held for speculation, and will be subdivided and sold in small parcels later on. This will naturally tend to increase the number of farms and farmers, and to decrease the average size of the farms. This subdivision of large estates and the creation of small farms is a good thing for the state, and may be expected to go on as population increases in density and farm lands increase in value. In places, however, the opposite tendency frequently manifests itself, and large areas are being bought up by com- panies of large capital, to be farmed under farm man- agers and according to thorough business methods. A seventeen-thousand-acre tract is reported near Little Rock, Arkansas; a one-hundred-thousand-acre farm, in southern Texas, managed along careful financial lines, has recently been described; ^ a Chicago com- pany recently drained a million acres of swamp land for rice farming in Louisiana; a number of British individuals and companies have recently bought up large areas in the South and West, for purely business farming; the Solano Irrigated Farms Company has recently been organized in California to farm, by scientific methods and as a business proposition, a tract of thirty-three thousand acres of rich delta land. * See World's Work for January, 1913. w 46 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Similar business farming companies now exist and are being organized in many parts of the country, for the purpose of farming large tracts of land, and accord- ing to department-store methods. In the South this means farming with Negro day labor; in the North and West, often with cheap foreign labor. It frequently results in a marked development of the acres culti- vated, — new towns, railroads, industries, and busi- ness; but it creates new social conditions in rural society which call for difiFerent social, religious, and educational treatment from that which satisfied the needs of an earlier and simpler agricultural situation. PER CENT OF TOTAL ACREAGE UNDER FARM MANAGERS Division 1. New England States 2. Middle Atlantic States 3. East North Central States . 4. West North Central States 6. South Atlantic States 6. East South Central States. 7. West South Central States, 8. Mountain States 9. Pacific States 1000 1910 3.9 5.5% 3.3 4.0 2.0 2.0 3.3 2.2 3.3 3.2 2.0 2.0 26.2 11.6 35.6 18.5 18.0 15.4 5.8% 4.7 2.4 2.4 4.5 1.9 9.4 11.1 12.2 Intensive small-scale farming. On the smaller farms in the eastern part of the country, and in the vicinity of large cities generally, the intensive and di- versified farming of small tracts for profit is becoming very common, and it is in these states that farming NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS 47 under a scientific manager is on the increase. Due to the nearness to a constantly expanding city market, an easily available supply of cheap labor, the short haul, and the good prices obtained, a small farm of twenty to forty acres there has become a good com- mercial business and a well-paying investment. Such farms are being bought up by investors, and in the southern New England States there are many such which pay well. Such farms, themselves well tilled and put to diversified market farming, often possess greenhouse, fruit, model dairy, piggery, and poul- try departments, as well as vegetables and some grains. Not infrequently, however, such farms are also business propositions, run in connection with a city hotel, catering company, or group of stores, or as an investment by some well-to-do city owner. Careful accounts of all operations are kept. The owner, in such cases, seldom lives on the farm, and visits it only occa- sionally to inspect it or to confer with the resident manager. If run in connection with a hotel or catering company, waste from the kitchens is sold to the pig- gery or poultry departments of the farm, while flowers, vegetables, chickens, eggs, milk, and pork are sold to the catering end of the business. The farm on the one hand and the hotel or catering company on the other are run in cooperation, and each helps to make the other pay. This kind of farming, while excellent as a business proposition, has also resulted in social changes of great and far-reaching consequences for rural life. 48 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Decreasing rural population. The decrease in the number of resident farm laborers actually needed, due to the use of improved machinery, or one-crop special- ization, or both; the increased capital required to buy farm land and to conduct farming operations; and the buytQg-up of farms as an investment, to be managed , , oconecsB > 1 | Per cent inserted ^^ INCREASE I I Ml Less than 6 per c«ntl t - 1 5 to 15 percent t-.v.:| 15 to 25 per cent \/2!Z^ 26 to so per cent lilH SO per cent and over Fia. 18. DECREASE OR INCREASE IN POPULATION IN INDIANA Showing change, in total population, by counties, from 1910 to 1940. Were the rural population only shown, the results would be worse, as all but eight of the ninety-two counties lost ia rural population in the same period. 50 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION in a scientific manner by a farm superintendent, em- ploying cheap labor and as needed, have all alike tended to make farming more and more of an intensive business and less of a home-providing industry, and, accordingly, to both a decrease in the rural population itself and to a change in its character. In the South it has resulted in the substitution of a Negro for a white population in many counties, while in the Northern States, where the farms are the most valuable and where the use of improved machinery is most com- mon, we find this decrease in population and change in character most pronounced. The many new in- ventions in agricultural machinery during the past two decades, chief of which is the farm tractor, have only accelerated the change. As shown by the full- FiQ. 15. CHANGES IN THE POPULATION, 1910-1920. IN EIGHT IMPORTANT AGRICULTURAL STATES (Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois,. Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.) On this map the counties in black indicate a total loss in population in the county during the ten years ; the counties shaded indicate a loss in the rural population of the county though the county as a whole gained ; and counties left white are counties in which the population increased during the decade. NEW RURAL-LIFE CONDITIONS 5t page map on page 49, giving the increase or decrease in the rural population by states for the decade from 1910 to 1920, six of our richest and most important agri- cultural states have actually lost in rural population, while the smaller map shows that many counties in the central agricultural belt have fewer people in the rural districts than they had ten years ago.^ This loss in population is largely due to the changes which we have described as characterizing the fourth period of our agricultural development. From an agricultural point of view the loss may not be of any serious signifi- cance, and may even be a good thing, but the effect of this loss on such rural institutions as the church and the school has been most pronounced. III. FARM TENANTRY Recent increase. The leasing of farms to tenants is nearly everywhere on the increase, and is everywhere attracting the attention of thoughtful men. Over one third of the farms of the United States are to-day TENANT FARMS IN THE UNITED STATES 1880 26.6% 1890 28.4 1900 35.3 1910 37.0 1920 38.1 ^ In Ohio the rural sections lost approximately 40,000 inhabit- ants during the decade 1910-1920. Rural Indiana lost 10-1,000; rural Missouri lost 108,000; rural Illinois lost 85,000; rural New York lost 127,000; rural Iowa lost 50,000; rural Kansas lost 57,000; and rural Nebraska lost 23,000. 5i RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION cultivated by tenants. In the Southern States the per- centage is higher than in the Northern States, and it is higher in the older Northern States than in the new states of the West. The recent increase va,farm,tenancy in fifteen_of thejnost important agricultural states may be seen from the following table: — PERCENTAGE OF TENANT FARMERS States 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 New York 16.5 19.3 23.7 31. -1 23.8 10.0 9.1 9.1 18.0 16.3 27.3 44.9 46.8 87.6 20.2 22.9 25.4 34.0 28.1 14.0 11.4 12.9 24.7 28.2 26.8 53.6 48.6 41.9 23.9 27.4 28.7 39.3 34.9 15.9 13.5 17.3 36.9 35.2 30.5 43.8 59.9 57.7 49.7 20.8 28.4 30.0 41.4 37.8 15.8 13.9 21.0 38.1 36.8 29.9 54.8 65.6 60.2 62.6 19.2 Ohio 29 5 Indiana 32.0 Illinois 42.7 Iowa 41.7 Michigan 17.7 Wisconsin 14.4 Minnesota 24.7 Nebraska 42.9 Kansas 40.4 Missouri 28.8 Oklahoma 51.0 Georgia 66.6 Alabama 57.9 Texas 53.3 The chart on the opposite page shows the same thing graphically, for each of the states, but by acreage instead of by the number of farms. R^cent^c^^nge^^in^haxg^tgr. Not only is the per- centage of tenancy increasing, but a significant change in the character of the tenants has also recently begun ■I^H OWNERS M'M'A'y'A MANAGERS-^ f^^^ggl TENANTS Fia. 16. ACREAGE OP ALL LAND IN FARMS CLASSIFIED BY CHARACTER OF TENURE OF OPERATOR. 1920 H RUKAL LIFE AND EDUCATION to manifest itself in certain states and regions. This change in the character of the farm tenants is likely to become one of the marked features of the fourth period of our agricultural development, and needs to be described somewhat fully. The migrations of foreign-born to the United States before about 1882 were chiefly from the north and west of Europe, — English, Irish, Germans, and Scandina- vians. Many of these settled in the states of the then Northwest, and contributed much to their develop- ment and strength. About 1882 the character of our immigration began to change in a very remarkable manner, and, after about 1890, this change became very marked. The Germans practically stopped, the Irish and Scandinavians decreased, and the English and Scotch turned to Canada. In their place came a rapidly increasing number of people from the south and east of Europe, — southern Italians, Sicilians, Huns, Poles, Russians, Slovenians, Bulgarians, Ser- vians, Croatians, Dalmatians, and Roumanians. Japanese, also, came for a time in numbers to the states of the Pacific Coast. After about 1900, edu- cated Finns from the north and poor Russian Jews from the east of Europe, alike driven out by Russian persecutions; and Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians from the south and east, have come to us in rapidly increasing numbers. The eflFect of this change, during the past two dec- aden, is shown by the following table: — NEW RURAL-LIFE CONDITIONS 55 TABLE, SHOWING THE CHANGES IN TWENTY YEARS IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FOREIGN-BORN Per cent of the total COUNTBT OF BiBTa 1900 1910 1920 Northwestern Europe 67.8 9.0 2.3 15.6 27.2 10.4 1.2 1.0 1.1 17.7 0.4 4.7 0.1 6.2 6.2 0.1 0.1 11.4 1.0 1.0 49.9 7.1 1.9 10.0 18.5 9.3 1.3 0.9 0.9 37.4 0.6 9.9 0.7 12.8 12.4 0.7 0.6 9.0 1.6 0.9 44.9 England and Wales 6.4 Scotland 1.9 Ireland 7.6 Germany 17.6 Scandinavian States 8.9 Netherlands 1.6 France l.« Switzerland 0.9 Southern and Eastern Euroj)e 42.6 Spain and Portugal 0.9 Italy 11.7 Greece 1.3 Russia and Finland 16.3 Austria-Hungary 10.0 Balkan States 1.4 Turkey 1.0 8.1 Mexico 3.5 0.3 The southern and eastern Europeans are of a very different type from the Germans, English, Scotch, and Scandinavians who preceded them. These earlier peoples were from lancis wher§ general educatjo^^^and a relatively high degree of civilization pj;eyailed. They were intelligent, thrifty, and law-abiding. The^ later migrations d^ not manifest these charactetigtics ^ strongly. They are thrifty but ignorant, and usually wretchedly poor; they come from countries where 66 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION populareducation^^ popular government have as yet made butjittle headway; they are often lack- ing in initiative and self-reliance; and they lack the Anglo-Teutonic conceptions of law and order, and the Agglo^^axon conception of government by popular jwjJL The poorest and least foresighted of them have settled in our cities and in the mining and manufactur- ing districts, and form the cheap labor of the land. The more intelligent and progressive have pushed on to the westward, and have turned to agricultural employment. This has been particularly the case with the Italians, the Slavs, and those from Turkish terri- tory. The Japanese and the Chinese in the West have also largely turned to agriculture. The map of the United States on the opposite page shows the distri- bution of the foreign-born. The heavy percentage of foreign-born in the strictly agricultural and rural states of the West, as well as in the manufacturing states of the East, is worthy of note. New tenants. It is these more recent arrivals — south Italians, Austro-Huns, Poles, Slavs, Bulgars, Armenians, and Japanese — who are now beginning to take the place as farm tenants, in the Northern States, of the well-to-do farmer previously described. In all of the Northern States we find them, though not in all counties or regions. The movement of these peoples to the farms is probably as yet only in its beginnings. These same people are also pushing on to the new lands of the West, where they are helping to 58 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION open up farms, often on a large scale. ^ The Italians are rapidly pushing into the agricultural states of the South, where they are beginning to displace the less energetic Negro farmer. Many of these new people have been peasant farmers in Europe, they know how to handle farm work, they are used to a much lower standard of living than the American farmer or farm band will endure, and frequently live in wretched poverty that they may rear their families and save enough to buy, eventually, a farm of their own. At first these people are employed as fa rm laborers , little shacks on the corners of the farm being con- structed for them to live in. The next ste^^isthfe tenant stage, the owner leasing the farm to them to manage. Sometimes the owner remains in the farmhouse and enjoys the leisure; very often, though, he closes the farm home and moves to town with his family. There he lives on his income and enjoys the pleasures of city life. The new tenants are at first too poor to furnish machinery or much equipment, so they lease a fur- nished farm at a share or a fixed-cash rental. Sh are tenantry soon changes to cash tenantry, for the reason that the owner, who has moved to town, is unable to 1 In California, for example, 29.9 per cent of the farmers in 1920 were foreign-born whites, and 2.6 per cent were foreign-born non- whites. Of the foreign-born wliites, all of the above-mentioned nationalities are found, Italians, Portuguese, Swiss, Germans, and Japanese being most numerous, with many Serbs, Bulgars, Arme- nians and South Russians present. The climate and agriculture of the South and of California are so suited to Mediterranean peoples that we may expect to see them come iu increasing numbers. ( C-tiS!/, Rural Manliood. ) One of four trolleys in a Massachusetts train. ( Courtesy, Sunset Magazine.) The lecture car in a California demonstration train. UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IN AGRICULTURE % .. ^^»©^ ■J " 1 ■ ^^ Hill J 5 fcs ■1 " M fj], fl HI f ■ ^«iBP%. Jpnl E?^B r iwr ^Bfi IS m P ^^^^MHii MK^ SkI ^Bi When the colonists first came. The iii'st house. One of the later dwellings. NEW FARM WORKERS AND OWNERS An Italian agricultural settlement in Arkansas. The picture below was taken fourteen years after the two above. This shows well the way in which South Europeans slowly evolve into American farmers of the home-builder type. For all such, rural education of a very practical kind is needed. NEW RURAI^LIFE CONDITIONS 69 oversee the work of a share tenant. As the farmer and his family find their wants expanding and the cost of living moving upward, the tendency is to re-lease the farm only to the highest bidder, and to make as few improvements as possible. During the growing season the tenant has little or nothing, and the increasing cash rental frequently leaves him with little surplus after the crops are sold and the debts have been paid. If the lease is not renewed on what the tenant considers good terms, he takes his tools and such family as he may have, and moves on. This condition creates a transient tenan try, who ha ve b ut a_passingLjnterest in the local institutions of mral society, and the social and educational consequences of this change, as will be pointed out in the following chapters, are very great. The Southern Negro tenant. In the Southern States the introduction of Negro tenantry has followed largely as a result of unintelligent farming, which has in turn resulted in soil exhaustion. Due to decreas- ing crops the former owners have lost their lands to money-lenders, and tenantry farming has resulted. Cotton becomes the one crop, and the economic and social results are pathetic. The crop is mortgaged to obtain seed and means to live on during the growing period, the yield and profits are small, the tenants move from farm to farm in the hope of better luck, and society becomes stratified into landlord, tenant, and money-lending merchant. In the exclusive wheat and 60 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION corn regions of the Northern States, and in the hay regions of the Northeastern States, we find similar con- ditions beginning to manifest themselves. The intermittent farm laborer. With the develop- ment of intensive agriculture near the large labor markets, or with farm specialization as a business undertaking elsewhere, the Negroes in the South and these new peoples in the North and Far West form the cheap farm labor which is "taken on" and " let off," as needed. If the farm is a business investment of some non-resident owner, he not infrequently employs a manager with an agricultural education and an auto- mobile, who manages the farm on a salary, and by the intermittent employment of such cheap labor as may be necessary. Not infrequently the owner is himself the manager, and conducts his farm on some such plan. The fourth-period changes. Omitting remote and sparsely settled regions, and omitting the small, par- tially self-sufficing, and somewhat independent farmer who lives in the country largely from choice, the third or commercial and home-building stage has now everywhere been reached in the development of our American agriculture. Somewhere, in practically every agricultural state, these third-period conditions are in turn giving way to the fourth-period conditions, though the latter naturally have not, as yet, been fully evolved in all sections. The commercialization of agriculture has come in all except the remote regions, or regions inhabited by poor, unintelligent, and im- NEW RURAL-LIFE CONDITIONS 61 provident people. In such regions and among such people the self-sufficing stage may, as yet in part, prevail. The urbanization of rural life has also come, to a greater or less degree, to all except the remote or sparsely settled regions. In some states and in many counties, the tenantry problem, and especially foreign tenantry, has not as yet arrived; in others the begin- nings only are to be found, and may be scarcely recog- nized as yet; in others the change is in full swing, and the original farmers of entire neighborhoods have been replaced by the new tenant class. The agriculturai consequences of these changes may not be very signi- ficant; the educational and social consequences, how- ever, are very important and far-reaching. With the increasing values for good farm lands, and the increasing use of expensive farm machinery, each decade it becomes harder for a man without capital to engage in farming as an owner. Values, wages, and the conditions of farming now favor the property-owning class of farmers, and the farm-laboring class tends to become more and more like the factory laborer in the city. This brings the old question of the relations of capital and labor into rural life, to be worked out in agriculture as well as in the manufacturing industries. Having now described, at some length, the historical development of American agriculture, and the vast changes in rural life which have come as a consequence of this development, we shall, in succeeding chapters, point out the great and far-reaching social conse- 62 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION quences of these changed conditions, and then show the relation of these changes to the problems surround- ing the improvement of the rural school. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is meant by the old isolation practically ending? 8. Estimate the time- and labor-saving effect of the introduction of the new rural conveniences, described on pp. 32-33. 3. How rapidly are the homes in your neighborhood being trans- formed in the manner described on pp. 33-34? 4. Explain the change, in the cityward movement, from an indi- vidual movement in the second and third periods to a family movement in the fourth period. 6. How far has the commercialization of agriculture progressed in your community or county? 6. Where do your farmers find their markets? 7. About how much capital would be required to buy a good farm in your neighborhood? how much capital would it take to run it a year; and about what would be the value of its output? 8. Is the rural population in your county increasing or decreasing? If so, why? 9. Is it changing in character? If so, how? 10. Have southern Europeans begun to come into the county, as farmers? If so, what races? How do they live and farm? 11. How far have the fourth-period changes evolved in your county? 12. Have you different communities in the county which typify second-, third-, and fourth-period conditions? Have you also intermediate types? 13. Have specialization, standardization, and coBperative market- ing become common in your county as yet? In what lines? CHAPTER III EFFECTS OF THESE CHANGES ON RURAL SOCIETY AND RURAL INSTITUTIONS Up to very recently rural social life and institutions have always possessed certain marked and very defi- nite characteristics, but where the changes which have characterized the fourth period in the development of American agriculture, as described in the preced- ing chapter, have taken place, they have materially changed the nature of rural society and have under- mined the old rural social institutions. The effects of these changes have been most marked with reference to (l) rural social life, (2) local government, (3) the rural church, and (4) the rural school. These we shall next consider, in order. I. RURAL SOCLAL LIFE Early social life. During the early pioneer period this was very limited. Isolation and loneliness were the rule, except where a little settlement existed. With the coming of more people and the development of roads and villages, local intercourse became easier and more common, and this soon developed into what may be termed rural society. There were barn-raisings, husking- and quilting-bees, sugaring-offs, spelling- matches, singing-schools, literary societies, weddings. 64 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION funerals, dances, parties, and church " socials," as well as prayer-meetings, and Sunday school and Sun- day church, to which farmers and their families came from miles around. Generally speaking, all were admitted to these local social gatherings. The people knew one another, formed a homogeneous group, and often maintained close social relationships. Their children attended the same district school, grew up together, and intermarried. It was not uncommon, a score of years ago, to find most of the people of an old established community related to one another. This is still the case in those older communities which have not as yet experienced many of the fourth-period changes, but it is much less common than it used to be. New and larger interests. With the urbanization of rural life, as described in the preceding chapter, there has been a marked breaking-up of this close social relationship in the rural communities. The barn- raisings, husking- and quilting-bees, spelling-matches, and singing and literary societies have all disappeared, and the church social has declined in importance. The urbanization process has also greatly changed the farmer himself. He is no longer so peculiar in his dress, his manners, or his speech, and the newspapers have largely ceased to make fun of him or to caricature him. The daily metropolitan newspaper, the illustrated monthly magazine, public education, the steam train, the interurban trolley, and the automobile, as well as the many inventions and discoveries of science, have RURAL SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS 65 opened up a new world to the farmer, his wife, and his children. New and larger interests now occupy their minds; local social relationships interest them less; larger and more distant matters interest them more. Their range of acquaintances has increased; they can- not know the many so well as they once knew the few. The farmer comes to feel himself a part of a larger society, — a county, a state, or the nation, rather than of a district or a township, — and he takes an interest in the aflPairs of the larger unit. Farm specialization, scientific management, and improved machinery have given him more time to read and to think, and more time for personal enjoyment, and he travels farther and more. The result has been a great widening of personal relationships and a marked weakening of the old local personal ties. City connections. The literary and social clubs and the fraternal orders of the towns now count many farmers and their wives as members. City connections — financial, professional, social, political, and religious — are established. The children attend the high school in the neighboring town or city, copy town ways and dress, and form new friendships there. The young farmer, with his automobile, begins to call on the city girls, and the farmer's daughters establish city social connections. The social horizon is soon greatly en- larged. The increasing wealth of the farmer and the better education of his children have made both his son and his daughter acceptable socially where they would 66 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION not have been received a generation ago. Marriages are accordingly made at a much greater distance than formerly, and with new social classes. Enjo3rment of life. As prosperity comes to the farmer, he begins to enjoy life more. He goes on a cheap excursion somewhere, and soon establishes the vacation habit. We next find him spending the winter with his son or daughter " in town " or in some distant city, leaving the farm in the care of a hired man. Soon a trip to Florida, Texas, or California during the "off season " is not considered too far. From the middle of December to the middle of March, many of the board- ing-houses and cheaper-rate hotels of Los Angeles and vicinity are crowded with farmers and their wives from the Middle West, who have gone to California to spend the winter season. They crowd the sight-seeing trolleys, visit the orchards and the beaches, and travel by auto stage to see and comment on the farms and ranches they pass. The great increase in land and produce values, together with the increase in acreage production due to scientific methods and management, make the farmer feel that he can afford these pleasures. Not infrequently he goes home, sells out, and moves to some new place he has seen in his travels. In any case he returns from his trips a broader-minded man, with new thoughts and new interests, and more a citizen of the world than of a county. Tenantry and social life. In communities where there has been an introduction of foreign farm ten- RURAL SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS 67 antry the old rural social life still more rapidly disin- tegrates. The old families retain their friendships and maintain social relationships with one another, but there are few social relations established with the new tenants. The old families frequently resent their intrusion into the neighborhood. " Calls " are limited Fia. 18. CLASSES OF FAEMERS IN THE COTTON BELT OF THE SOUTH almost entirely to cases of sickness or death, and both parties to the employing or leasing contract under- stand that it is to be a business and not a social rela- tionship they are entering into. Such conditions are natural and understandable, but they tend only to increase the social stratification in the rural districts. Those who still remain on the neighboring farms lose their old loyalty to the rural neighborhood and to rural institutions, and one by one follow their neigh- bors to town, or practically withdraw from the neigh- borhood social life. In the Southern States, as the blacks come in the whites move out, and the complex- 68 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION ion of the country changes rapidly to black. By the migration of whole families the country is drained alike of the energy of youth and the experience of age, and the rural districts, in consequence, experience a social, political, and religious degeneration. One of the most important social questions now facing those inter- ested in rural welfare is how to prevent this change and preserve the old life standards. II. LOCAL GOVERNMENT Loss of interest. The effect of these fourth-period changes on local government is also marked. With the development of new and larger interests in things be- yond the rural community, the rural resident gradually loses interest in the things at home. As he becomes a citizen of the world rather than of a school district or township, the world's work interests him much more, and the government and the petty questions of the school district and the township interest him much less. Questions and elections which once seemed all- important to him now too often seem of such small significance that he is unwilling to take the time to go to the meeting or to the polls. The larger and more important his farm business, the more he reads and travels, and the broader his interests become, the less he is likely to take any real interest in the small affairs of local government. The effects of this change in rural outlook are seen in the decline in importance of and attendance at, and often the entire abolition of the RURAL SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS 69 annual school-district meeting; the decHne in attend- ance at and interest in the annual town and township meetings; the difficulty in securing good men to serve as local school or township officials; and the small percentage of voters who take the trouble to vote at these local elections, unless there is some local fight involved. The new tenants and government. As foreign farm tenantry is introduced, the effect on local self-govern- ment becomes even more marked. The movement of the older home-builder type of families to town, leav- ing the farms in the hands of the newer class of tenants, results in a great dearth of personality in many rural districts. In marked contrast with the farmer he dis- places, — strong, opinionated, virile, deeply conscious of his personal worth, and deeply interested in political affairs, — the newcomer is too often docile, subser- vient, and without decided opinions on any question. If the new tenant is of south European stock, he is almost devoid of the Anglo-Saxon conceptions of the importance of local self-government, and he is natu- rally but little interested in our forms of government or our political life. The lack of ownership of any property, and often the expectation of but a transient residence, naturally contribute to the lack of interest. These conditions are far from universal, yet in many rural communities the change has progressed so far that there is now no longer enough of the older resi- dential class remaining to carry on the work of local 70 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION DZISIV Polsko-Amerykanskich Farmerow w Kolegfum Agronomicznem Stana Mass. ■w Amherst, Mass. w Piatek dnia 31 Marca 1911 Program w Kaplicy KoleKimn. Wstep wolay. Przekaski 25 ct. '•^g-HTiirr '" i nni ^^-j-- " "'jt rr irrnrp mainii fihiili " pnct pniaon C E. Stan* Oiaf»>-tUm»foiC^baU' .... pnlaor W. F Bnob OfAiay* ..... PL Frmrmii Oritiu>; i Sandotanl ''Pceabt tmt Bc ithijai obyw^kltai taaykuu^wi,' p. ]w Rouizkiewiei t Botfom o 12 godoae w p olu rfn iw pnekxika w atli nJiiina^ji'TiMJ Odgodzillj l2J0<)a I JO tmediuie i<3)rbi wiuuaidicd>~ . . p. C H. Whils OtkjTti'CoPoWnbXdU Amorfa" . . Di. C W. Tiippa t B' / "OAK. fSOS.800 ^ ..>j-'> 1 A">l/fs.r3 «-DAK. ■?^ ( >^' i» WVQ, r*-)**' 68,340 Kran.^ 1 t«,»10 / jS !?& INO oi.a.«"y V V — i J 439,580 ee3,*9o\^ ^ i\c A' flso.o'flO^ S9 160 N.MCX. / «3t,S60 1 '~1 .°o=s' Afl-C. /" 7'o,« ^y^ B66>'»0 / 531, S'O eso^ooo/ ■■ ~i ^^■^-H.* ALA. \ I V 3,8*»' ,1003 { 0A> TEXAS \ /'6t.,9C 1,3.8," V k I— V- -"■^Vfl-A ',Jw Fig. 21. SPIRITUAL ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES A mnp prepared as a result of a surve.v by the Interchurch World Movement of North America, and reproduced by permission. The map shows the distribution of 27,000.000 children and youth (under 45 years), nominally Protestant, who are not enrolled in Sunday school (19iO) and who receive no formal or systematic religious training. great changes in the nature of rural life which we have previously traced; in part they are also due to a change in attitude toward the old religious problems. Problems which the Church faces to-day. The church, in the mean time, has done little to meet these new life conditions. Piety has remained largely an isolated thing, instead of being made an expression of earnest human life; creed has been exalted above char- acter and good works; while denominationalism haa RURAL SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS 79 divided the people and prevented a united fight against the real devils of our modern days, — drunk- enness, vulgarity, licentiousness, ignorance, and the devils within one's self. The false conceptions of the world as one of sin and corruption; the attempt at repression instead of guidance in dealing with the young; of religion as something external and apart from daily life; and the exaltation of the clergy, — these have all alike tended to isolate the church and to divorce religion from the people. The church finds itself in an even worse predica- ment in those regions where farm laborers or tenants of the newer type of immigrants are found. These newcomers, nearly all of whom are, nominally, at least, members of the Roman or Greek Catholic churches, find little or nothing in these old Protestant churches which appeals to them. They know nothing of their history, and neither understand nor care for their service. Their needs are essentially social and not religious, and the old Protestant churches, face to face with new peoples and new problems in an altered world, and with no program for social service worthy of the name, know not how to minister to this poor, ignorant, and landless class. Great potential usefulness, nevertheless. It is well for us to understand that the great changes in living which have taken place have had their effect on the churches as well as on other social institutions. It is especially important that the plight in which the 80 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION church finds itself be understood, because the church is entirely too important an institution to lose. The day when it stood first is perhaps past, but it still remains one of our greatest social institutions, and with a possible usefulness far beyond its present rather limited service. Other institutions lack the perma- nence and the historic past of the church, as well as its spirit of sacrifice and its consecration to service. When the church can be awakened to a realization of its opportunities, as has been done in a few places, it stands almost first among the institutions of society for the upbuilding of the community and for the im- proving of its moral tone. Once the church held such a position by natural right; to-day it can hold it only by successful competition. The social mission of the rural church. If the church is to be strong and wield much influence, it must labor to build up the community rather than itself; it must look into the future, as well as into the past; and must first make of itself an efficient earthly institution if it is to render a real spiritual service. The rural minister needs economic and agricultural knowledge more than theological, that he may use the economic and agricul- tural experiences of his people as a basis for the build- ing-up of their ethical life; he needs educational knowl- edge, that he may direct his efforts with the young along good pedagogical lines; and the church as an institution needs to study carefully the rural-life prob- lem, and to plan a program of useful service along RURAL SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS 81 good educational and sociological lines. Unless this is done, the church will bear but little relationship to a living community; its influence on the young will be small; and its mission of moral and religious leader- ship will be forgotten by the people. In a succeeding chapter (v) a few noteworthy examples of such recon- structed churches will be described. The teacher and the church problem. It is impor- tant, too, that the rural or village teacher recognize the critical nature of the rural-church problem, and see it as a part of the community educational problem. Because of the importance of this, the greatly changed conditions which face the rural and village churches to-day have been described at some length. The de- cline in influence of these churches serves to modify the whole rural educational problem, and consequently to throw a much greater burden upon the rural and small village schools. In proportion as the church declines in social, moral, and religious influence, other community forces must take its place and do its work. Chief among these stands the school. It, too, has been hard-pressed by the great economic and social changes which have marked the third and fourth periods of our agricultural development, and the social and educational demands now made upon it are very much greater than they were a generation or two ago. It, too, generally speaking, has responded but little to the changed conditions, and with the result that it, too, has been left behind in the progress of our civiliza- 82 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tion. Once an important rural-community institution, it has to-day, in part, lost its former hold, and, like the church, too often fails to serve because it has not changed to meet new rural-life conditions. In the next chapter we shall consider the effects of these great economic and social changes on the rural school, and set forth something of the condition in which it finds itself to-day. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What changes in social relationships are noticeable in the rural communities you know best? 2. How much do the farmers of your community travel? 3. What has been the general effect of town life on the families which have left the farm and moved to town to obtain the edu- cational and social advantages found there? 4. What has been the general effect on the rural life of the replace- ment of these families by tenants? 5. What is the moral level of the villages and rural communities you know best? Has there been a change recently for the better or the worse? 6. How much importance do the people of your community now attach to: — (a) The annual school-district meeting, or election? (6) The annual town or township meeting, or election? 7. Under what circumstances has either had a large attendance recently? 8. How many churches per family or per adult male are there in your community? 9. What percentage of the community attend them? 10. Judging them as community social institutions, what grade in social efBciency would you give them? 11. In how far is the social aspect of the Sunday meeting still re- tained in your community? 12. Calculate the number of families to each church in the Indiana township shown in Figure 21, and the cost per family for any- thing like proper maintenance. 13. Are the churches gaining or losing? Why? 14. What changes in church methods are required to meet present conditions? CHAPTER IV EFFECTS OF THESE CHANGES ON THE RURAL SCHOOL Origin of the district school. The rural or district school arose originally as essentially a local community undertaking. In New England it arose as a part of the struggle for district rights, as opposed to the control of the old central town. The unity of the town was broken, and local district schools, with full local rights in the matter of taxation and control, followed as a consequence. Everywhere to the westward, where the plan of district organization was carried by New Eng- land people, the district system and the district school arose in response to community needs. The simplicity and adaptability of the district system to community interests and to the needs of the pioneer settlements were strong features of it. Wherever half a dozen families were located near enough to one another to make cooperation for the purpose possible, and where an interest in the maintenance of a school existed, the district-organization law permitted such to meet together, to vote to organize a district school, to elect three trustees or school directors to manage it in the interests of the community, and to vote a tax on them- selves or their property to maintain the school for the length of time decided upon. The organization pro- 84 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION ceedings were simple and easy. Communities which desired schools could organize them; communities which did not could let them alone. At first a purely local undertaking. When a school had once been decided upon, it became, to a marked degree, a commu- nity undertaking. The parents met and helped to build the schoolhouse, and hew out and install the furni- ture; they deter- mined how long they would main- tain the school; they frequently decided whom they desired as teacher, and how much they would pay the teacher in wages; and they all helped to provide the teacher with board and lodging by means of the now obsolete " boarding- around " arrangements. In these earlier days there was no body of school law of any consequence; no county school authorities to supervise the instruction of the teacher or the acts of the school trustees; al- most no state educational authorities; no body of edu- cational theory to serve as a guide; and no conception of education as an important function of the state. Fis. 22. A TYPICAL EARLY SCHOOL INTERIOR, I. EFFECTS ON THE RUKAL SCHOOL 85 Schools were essentially local affairs, directly related to local needs and local conceptions; and the extreme simplicity and democracy of the district system, and its adaptability to pioneer conditions, made it the natural system of the early pioneer period of our de- velopment. The demand for state schools. With the beginning of the second period of our agricultural development, we find a new interest in education beginning to mani- fest itself in all of the Northern States. By 1835 the ferment was working; in some states it had begun to work still earlier. With the passing of the pioneer period; the general full attainment of manhood suf- frage; the introduction of machinery and new methods on the farms which had been rescued from the wilder- ness; the beginnings of intercommunication; the intro- duction of the newspaper and new political discussion; the growth and influence of the cities; and, a little later, the coming of the steam train, a new need for education began to be felt. Public men began to urge general education as a duty of the state, and the right to a common-school education began to be asserted as the natural birthright of every American boy and girl. With the coming of great numbers of Irish and Ger- mans, after 1846, public education began also to be urged as a necessity for the protection of the Govern- ment. By 1835 the battle for the general taxation of every man's property for the free education of every man's 86 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Bati and Coats children was on in every Northern State; by 1850 it was an accomplished fact in most of our states. By 1870 the movement had extended into the South, and free common-school systems, with state and county school officers to guide and direct them, were everywhere to be found. Since then, school districts and schoolhouses have been multiplied to such an extent that schools are now found everywhere, while the principle of general taxation for common schools has been ex- tended to many other additional forms of public education. The second-period school. The rural and the village school, as we find it at the close of the second period of our agricultural development, was still one of quite meager proportions. The district system was almost everywhere supreme, and the school still answered closely to the community needs and feelings. Frame schoolhouses were replacing the log ones, and home- made seats in rows in the room had displaced the ^ Fib. 23. A TYPICAL EARLY SCHOOL LNTERIOR, IL EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 87 bench around the walls; but otherwise there was no great change. In an effort to meet the needs of new population and to carry the school nearer and nearer to the people, the proceedings for creating new districts by dividing old ones were made simple and easy, and new school districts and new schoolhouses were rapidly multiplied. The schools established were often poor schools, measured by our modern standards, but the people believed in them and were satisfied with them. The exceedingly democratic nature of the district organization made the school seem '* of the people, by the people, and for the people." In the annual and special school -district meetings the people guided their represent- atives, and had an immediate voice in the management of the school. The district organi- zation also be- came a training school for the people in civil gov- ernment, and a means for awakening in all a con- ception of the needs and benefits of public education. Pio. 24. A SCHOOLMASTER OF THE OLD TYPE (After a photograph in Clifton Johnson's Old Time Schools and School Books. — By permission of The Macniillan Co.) 88 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The people enjoyed the expression of their wishes and opinions in the district meeting, and district organ- ization, in those early days, doubtless rendered a very useful service. The early schoolmaster. In still other ways the early rural school endeared itself to the people. The earlier school-teachers were nearly all men, and they taught the community in which they worked, as well as the children. The teacher was commonly a student, thoughtful, judicious in his conduct, and devoted to his work. He may not have really known very much, judged by our present-day standards, but to the com- munity he seemed very learned. The pupils who came to him were of all ages, from four or five to twenty or twenty-one. Grading, state or county courses of study, and uniform textbooks had not as yet been introduced. Each pupil studied about what he chose, and from the book he happened to have. Reading and recitations were individual; sums were worked on the slate and shown to the teacher. The teacher's work was to main- tain order and to direct effort, rather than to hear pupils recite, and he strove to stimulate the children to make the best use of the short time they could attend the school. By means of the " boarding- around " arrangement, under which the teacher lived with each family for from one to three weeks each win- ter, the family came to know him and he them in a way not now possible, and both learned much by the contact. The weekly meetings of the literary society EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 89 and the spelling contests, which were held at the school and to which the people came for miles around, made the old-time school a social center for the com- munity life. Efficiency of the education for the time. One of the best evidences as to the hold these old-time district schools had on a community is the bitterness with which members of the older generation everywhere have opposed all attempts at a change in the condi- tions. The school, in the days of limited outlook and limited knowledge, was a center of the community life, and provided instruction which was then deemed of much value. Considering the limited needs of the time, the early rural school was remarkably efficient, and the recollection of this past efficiency has been a strong force in leading older men to oppose a change in con- ditions. The rural school has become endeared by age and by sentiment, and those who experienced its benefits have been most vigorous in opposing any changes in its organization. Regardless of the fact that practically all of the life conditions surrounding the rural school have since materially changed, these members of the older generation are hardest to con- vince that there is any need of a change in the school. Changes in rural education after about 1870. Dur- ing the third period, and especially after about 1870, the old conditions surrounding rural and village edu- cation materially changed. The years following the Civil War were a period of great national, industrial. 90 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION and agricultural development. Cities began to grow rapidly, and to drain off the best blood from the country; manufacturing of all kinds experienced won- derful development; the old trades and small indus- tries of the villages began to disappear; the fron- tier was pushed out to and beyond the mountains; immigration from the north of Europe reached a maximum; new lands and new markets were opened up, and new crops introduced; and a wonderful agri- cultural expansion took place. Labor-saving machin- ery so decreased the need for farm labor as to cause, in many places, an actual shrinkage in the rural popula- tion. Life conditions also greatly changed, and the old educative influence of the home, the church, and the farm began rapidly to decline. New methods of procedure were introduced so rapidly that the old father-to-son form of instruction, which had for so long prevailed, gradually became inadequate. New meth- ods of farming, calling now for the application of sci- entific knowledge, began to be introduced. All of these changes naturally tended to make the instruction offered in the rural school less vital than it had pre- viously been. The change in direction. The rural and village school, too, now began to receive a marked change in direction. The school was gradually graded and reor- ganized. A course of study, moulded after city lines, was introduced for the guidance and direction of the teacher. Uniform textbooks were provided. New EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 91 studies and new methods of instruction began to change the old emphasis. The old literary societies and spelling-bees gradually died out. The new normal- trained female teacher now began to make her appear- ance, and, after 1880, the displacement of the men rural teachers was rapid in all parts of the country. This is well shown in the chart reproduced below. Fis. 25. DECREASING PERCENTAGE OP MEN TEACHERS This new teicher brought with her a new and a minute methodology, and the psychology of instruction for a time outweighed all other educational interests. In the mean time the division of districts went on in an effort to carry the school nearer to the child, and small and inefficient schools, lacking in money, equipment, and numbers, were everywhere multiplied to such an extent that a small one-room rural school was, before 92 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION long, to be found every mile or two apart in any fairly well-settled rural community. The city-school influence. The marked develop- ment of city schools now began to exert an important influence. The concentration of wealth had made it possible, and the concentration of people of many different types had made it necessary, that the cities should develop a class of schools capable of meeting the changed conditions of life. The cities accordingly began to provide much more liberally for their chil- dren; high schools and supervision were added; kinder- gartens were organized; laboratory and other forms of teaching equipment were provided; and many of the newer branches of instruction were added, with a view to making their schools attractive to parents and useful to the community supporting them. The city schools, in consequence, soon became remarkably efficient, began to attract the attention of parents, and soon drew to them the best teachers and the best edu- cational leaders. The larger towns also developed graded schools and a high school, secured good teach- ers, provided a good building and teaching equipment, and did what they could to make their schools useful and attractive as well. City-school ideals soon began to dominate all educa- tional aims and practices. The textbooks were written more for them, and their commercial and cultural aims became of first importance. Education began to lean markedly toward preparation for clerical and profes- EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 93 sional employments, and rural education began to lead away from farm life. The agricultural depression of the eighties, due largely to temporary overdevelop- ment, only stimulated this cityward tendency in edu- cation. The teacher, too, trained on methods in the city, came to look upon country life as a life of hard- ship and country service as a period of probation, and naturally did little or nothing to make the rural school minister to the needs of rural life. The poor wages paid rural teachers, and often the poor living con- ditions, only added emphasis to this tendency. The teacher developed little interest in the rural com- munity, and the community lost interest in both teacher and school. Families so situated as to make it possible sent their children to the town or the city for their education, while others leased their farms and moved to town that they might secure better educa- tional advantages for their children. Decline in efficiency. By the close of the third period in our agricultural development, the shrinkage in the rural population also began to have its effect on the schools. In many places there were fewer families on the farms than a generation before; and the families not infrequently had fewer children. The attendance, too, came to be limited to the younger children, the older boys and girls who once attended either going now to the high school in town or dropping out of school altogether. Schools in the rural districts began to lose materially in numbers, and the increasing num- 94 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION ber of small and inefficient schools in the different states began to attract attention. It was clearly evi- dent to most observers that the rural school had lost its early importance, and that country people were losing their former interest in it. Soon the " rural-school problem " began to attract the attention of thoughtful persons, and to be discussed on the platform and in the educational press. The problem was early recognized, but just what to do about it was not so clear. The rural school and the fourth-period changes. The still greater changes which have characterized the fourth period in our agricultural development have made the problem of the rural school still more acute. Had it not been for the state aid which has been received, and the state laws which have required the maintenance and support of the schools and the attendance of the children, it is doubtful if the con- dition of the rural schools to-day would be any better than the present condition of the rural churches. The great changes in the whole nature of rural life, and the reorganization and commercializing of agriculture, which have taken place largely since 1890, have cre- ated entirely new demands on rural education even in the best of communities; while the decline of rural in- dustries and the decadence of the rural population in some places, and in other places the introduction of a poor and an uneducated foreign tenant class, have created a social problem which it is difficult for the rural school, organized as it is at present, to solve. EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 95 The result of these many changes is that the rural- school problem has become so complex that the aver- age teacher scarcely knows what to do, or how to deal with the situation which confronts her; while the abso- lute inadequacy of the rural school of to-day to meet the new educational and social needs of to-morrow is evident to any one who has studied the problem. The situation calls for educational insight and leadership of a high order, and for a reorganization of rural education under some authority of larger jurisdic- tion and knowledge than that of the district-school trustee. New fourth-period demands. The many changes which have characterized the fourth period of our agricultural development have also created new de- mands on rural education which the rural schools have been very slow to meet. The great change in agricul- tural methods and the great increase in scientific knowledge relating to simple agricultural processes have created a new body of knowledge of fundamen- tal importance to country people. The old traditional knowledge and methods in agriculture are each year being relegated to the rear, and the boy of to-day fre- quently knows more about agricultural processes than his father. New standards in education have been created, and new demands have been made upon the school. With the passing of the old home conditions, too, when the home and the farm were places where nearly all of the simple arts of life were practiced, the 96 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION demand for practical instruction relating to home life, to meet the changed conditions of living, has also come to be heard. The old limited education, based on a drill on the so-called fundamentals of knowledge, no longer suffices. It does not meet the needs of the new situation which has been created, nor is it extensive enough to meet modern needs. The farmer now wants high-school as well as elementary-school advantages for his children. Gradual desertion of the rural school. With the increasing ease with which rural people can now send their children to the town or city, generally to a better teacher and a better school, the competition of better education elsewhere has also contributed to the weak- ening of the old rural school. The more intelligent and the more commercially and agriculturally progres- sive the rural community, the more the dissatisfaction with the little district school expresses itself, and the more the school suffers as a consequence. The cumula- tive effect of these many changes has been manifest not only in a decline in attendance and importance of the rural school, but also in an increasing demand that rural education should execute a right-about-face and begin seriously to minister to these new needs of coun- try life. The old subjects of instruction need to be reorganized and redirected, new subjects of instruction added, and teachers with an understanding of rural needs found and trained. ** The strong, virile, rural school of a generation EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 97 ago," says a recent writer on the subject, " has gone, and in its place is a primary school weak in numbers and lacking in eflBciency. School buildings are poor, unsanitary, and ill-equipped. The school enrollment is constantly decreasing. The supervision is wholly inadequate. The cost of instruction is higher than in the cities. The terms are short. The teaching body is immature and lacks proper training. Of the 12,000,000 rural-school children, constituting a clear majority of the youth of school age, less than 25 per cent are com- pleting the work of the grades." Present inadequacy of the old education. The great changes of the past twenty years which have marked the urbanization of rural life have also had their effect on the little country school. With the hundreds of new interests which have been brought home to country people, and the wider contact with people and with life, the old type of rural-school education has ceased to satisfy as it once did. With the new interests enter- ing the home, and the decline in importance of the church, new problems in moral as well as intellectual education have come to the front. The inadequacy of the old book education is gradually becoming appar- ent, and it is seen that the education of children must involve the moral and physical, as well as a new type of the intellectual. The recent World War gave added emphasis to the need for a reconstruction of rural education. The introduction of commercialized agriculture, on 98 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the one hand, and the introduction of farm tenantry, on the other, have alike further comphcated the problem of the rural school. Neither the owner nor the tenant has the same interest in the little rural school as had the farmer of the home-builder type, and neither is now interested in its support. As a result the schools have in many places declined in attendance or been closed, while in others the former complexion of the school population has been largely or entirely changed. With the changing tenantry, from one third to one half of the children are new to the school each year. The children change, the trustees change, and the interest in the maintenance of a good school declines. As the newer type of farm tenants comes in, the homo- geneous character of the school population is broken, and a social problem is created which tends further to the disintegration of the rural school. Breakdown of the old administrative system. Under the stress of the new conditions, the old supervision of the school by district authorities has also completely broken down. A half-century ago it was possible for the locally-elected trustees or school directors to direct the teacher and to supervise the instruction fairly well. Aside from the discipline and the material environment there was little to supervise. To-day, with the newer conceptions of educational work, and the new social, industrial, and educational problems facing the rural school, the need for intelligent direction and leadership is far beyond what any but the most intelligent com- EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 99 munities can supply. The rural-life problem is now far too complex and far too difficult to be solved by isolated local effort. Inexpert local authority does not have the grasp of the newer problem necessary to corh tribute much toward its solutici. /r / } Increasing Cost of Education, per Pupil in Average Daily, Attendance ) P 1 .V /^ #;> A "-^ V7estern ^^ 7=^ /y -/^"•'"s H C^ ''piv. ' A ^ South South _AUa]riti. ^^^^^ Central Div. $70. 60. 50. 40. 30. 20. 10, Fig. 26. INCREASING COST OF EDUCATION, PER PUPIL, IN AVERAGE DAILY ATTENDANCE Increasing needs and cost. Perhaps the most serious difficulty which the rural schools have had to face within the past two decades has been the financial one. The many changes in the character of public educa- tion, which have been marked features of our recent development, have all tended to increase its cost, and this increasing cost has borne heavily on the rural 100 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION school. Everywhere the demands of the state have increased, and parallel to this has been the constantly increasing cost of all living. Since about 1895 these two forces have united, and the effect in all parts of the United States is shown in the accompanying chart. The state, on its part, has been insistent that the character of the school should be improved, and to that end has demanded longer school terms, better schoolhouses and sanitary appliances, better- trained and better-educated teachers, and higher taxation for schools. On the other hand, the cities have rapidly increased their wages and other educational expenses, thus enabling them to draw off the best teachers from the rural districts. The teachers, too, have experienced the increasing cost of living, and with the possibilities open of going to the city or of changing to other forms of better-paid employment, have demanded and ob- tained better yearly salaries. New schoolhouses and supplies of all kinds have also cost more than formerly. Longer terms have been provided, and the laws of a number of states have recently fixed a minimum wage for teachers, and have required that rural districts shall also pay the tuition of such of their pupils as attend the neighboring high schools. The burden of taxation. All of these increases in cost have meant increased taxation. In rural communities where the third-period conditions still prevail, and where the sturdy home-builder type of farmer is the rule, the increased prices received for farm jproducts EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 101 have made it possible to meet the increased rate with- out serious effort. On the other hand, where farm ten- antry has come to be the rule, the burden naturally falls upon the non-resident owners, who are now but little interested either in maintaining or in improving the Fig. 27. mCREASING LENGTH OF TERM, IN DAYS rural school. In such cases the increases have natu- rally been resisted. In regions where intensive market gardening as a business, conducted by a non-resident owner, or where the large corporation farm, man- aged as a business undertaking, has been created, the owners of the land are naturally not vitally inter- ested in the maintenance of what often seems to them an unnecessary number of small and inefficient rural schools. 102 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Present plight of the rural school. The result of these many changes in rural-life conditions, brought about by the changing economic and social conditions which we have previously described more or less in detail, is that the rural school has lost its earlier im- portance and finds itself to-day in a somewhat sorry plight. It is no longer, generally speaking, the impor- tant community institution which it was forty or fifty years ago. It has largely ceased to minister, as it once did, to community needs; its teacher no longer plays the important part in neighborhood affairs that he used to play; it has lost much of its earlier importance as a community center; its attendance has frequently shrunk to a small fraction of what it once was; it finds itself in a serious financial condition; and it has been left far behind, educationally, by the progress which the schools of the neighboring towns and cities have made. Managed as it has been by rural people, them- selves largely lacking in educational insight, penurious, and with no comprehensive grasp of their own prob- lems, the rural school, except in a few places, has prac- tically stood still. The increased standards for certifi- cation have, very properly, prevented the untrained and relatively uneducated country girl from serving as a teacher, while the city-trained and too often city- sick teacher, with little comprehension of rural life or interest in rural people, and with no training to fit her to minister to the real community needs, has not con- tributed anything of importance to the solution of the EFFECTS ON THE RURAL SCHOOL 103 rural-school problem. This problem, tied up as it is with the whole rural-life problem, has now become too complex to be solved by local effort alone, and nothing short of a reorganization of rural education, along good educational and administrative lines, will meet the needs of the present and of the future. This reorganiza- tion it shall be our purpose, in the second part, to out- line somewhat in detail. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. About when, so far as you can learn, did the schools of your community experience the change in direction described on pp. 90-91? 2. Assuming that no state or county aid for schools had been granted, and no laws requiring the maintenance of schools had existed, during the past half-century, in what condition would the rural schools of your district be to-day? How would they compare in efficiency with the churches? 3. How strong are your rural schools in the affections of the more intelligent rural people? 4. How do the number and size of the rural schools of your com- munity compare with conditions ten years ago? 5. Explain what are some of the new demands on rural educa- tion brought about by the changes of the fourth period of our agricultural development. 6. Why has farm tenantry tended to prevent increased support for rural schools? 7. In what ways has the district system of school administration broken down under the stress of the new conditions? 8. The educational demands of the state should increase rather than decrease. If they do, what will be the effect on rural education? 9. Are the people of your community satisfactorily solving the rural-school problem, or not? 10. Have you any examples in your county of revitalized and redirected rural schools? 11. Are your rural schools centers for the community life? CHAPTER V RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OP TO-DAY Reconstruction and reorganization necessary. The great changes which have taken place during the past half-century in practically all of the conditions sur- rounding rural life have created a rural-life problem of large dimensions, which we are now beginning to recog- nize and to try to solve. The mere enumeration of the changes which have taken place, and the statement of the condition in which almost all of the old-established institutions of rural society find themselves to-day, as given in the preceding chapters, are sufficient to show the need of a remodeling and a redirecting of these old institutions if they are to continue to render useful service. Their reconstruction and reorganization are necessary if rural society is to meet successfully the changed conditions of modern rural life. Temix)rary palliatives and expedients may be applied, and tem- porary defense work may be employed, and perhaps with some temporary success; but only a fundamental reorganization will place rural social institutions and rural life in a condition to meet effectively the needs of the future. Such reconstruction and reorganiza- tion ought to be comprehensive and fundamental, and because of this, naturally will require time for accomplishment. RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 105 The educational deficiency. The main single defi- ciency in rural life to-day is the lack of enough of the right kind of education. The general lack of scientific knowledge relating to farming and to the needs of rural home life, on the part of rural people, has long been a common observation. Conversely, the main single remedy which must be applied to the rural-life prob- lem is educational, and consists largely in a redirection of rural education itself. By means of a redirected education, we may hope to disseminate new knowledge relating to rural-life needs and problems; to teach young people simple agricultural facts and processes; to awaken a deep love for the open country on the part of those born there and a desire to live there; to develop better standards of taste for estimating pleas- ures and attractions outside the farm; to stir into ac- tion community forces which are now dormant; and to make of the rural school a strong and efficient social center, working for the upbuilding of all the varied interests of a healthy rural life. Because the rural school is to-day in a state of arrested development, burdened by educational traditions, lacking in eff'ec- tive supervision, controlled largely by rural people, who, too often, do not realize either their own needs or the possibilities of rural education, and taught by teachers who, generally speaking, have but little com- prehension of the rural-Hfe problem or of the possibil- ities of a reorganized and redirected rural school, the task of reorganizing and redirecting rural education is } 106 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION difficult, and will necessarily be slow. This reorganiza- tion and redirection of rural education, is, however, the main key to the solution of the rural-life problem, and the sooner it can be accomplished the better it will be for rural life. The lines along which this must be car- ried out are given in some detail in the second part of this volume, and we accordingly postpone further con- sideration of this need until we reach the second part. The great rur al social prob lem. Xhe real underlying social problem, though, which faces us in a considera- tion of the rural-life problem of to-day, is ^hat of, ho w I to maintain a satisfactory American civilization on the | farms of our nation. Large-tract commercial farming I by individuals or by companies, on the one hand, and farm tenantry on the other, are not conducive to such an end, and are not best for rural life or for the state. Farm-ownership by the many rather than by the few, and farm ownership rather than farm tenantry, are what are most desired. The typical American farmer of the past has been essentially a man of the intelligent middle class, owning a medium-sized farm, maintain- ing a good standard of living, educating his children well, and he himself interested in the neighborhood and in local affairs. Such he still is in the great majority of places. How to preserve this standard, and how to develop such standards in the new farmers, is a verj important social and educational question. As much as possible, we want to retain on the farm, as farmers, a class which represents the best type of American RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 107 maiihood and womanhood, and to whom the farm is, before all else, a home. Ownership vs. tenantry. The upward evolution from laborer to tenant, and from tenant to owner, needs to be encouraged as much as possible. Con- versely, the change from ownership to tenantry is unfortunate, and can be prevented, in part, by better education and by better laws. The ownership of land is the poor man's rock of defense. With free lands practically at an end, and with land values rising rapidly, the power of the laborer to save and to accu- mulate enough to buy a small farm is becoming harder each decade. While land is still cheap, the poor man should be educated to thrift and helped to ultimate land-ownership; and the man of small means who owns a farm should be prevented from losing it by reason of poor farming methods. The struggle, in the near future, for land and the food it will produce will be severe indeed. The foreign tenant understands the importance of land-ownership much better than does the native American. The Italian, in particular, seems to have a genius for saving and obtaining the possession of land. The Slav, the Armenian, and the Japanese have also much ability in this direction, as has also the better- educated Negro in the South. Among the earlier immi- grants, this was a marked characteristic of the Scotch, Germans, and Scandinavians. These newly arrived tenants and evolving landowners, white or black, are 108 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION everywhere in need of educational assistance and guid- ance. They need, in particular, such education as will enable them to rise gradually to the best American farming standards, and to create a good type of Amer- ican home. With such help it is surprising how rapidly the Italian, Bulgar, Russian Slav, American Indian, or Southern Negro develops into a good type of home- owning American farmer. Important nxral economic interests. Up to very recently the one effort of the National Department of Agriculture and of the state colleges of agriculture has been to increase the yield of farm crops, to eliminate pests and diseases, and to improve the breeds of seeds, trees, and farm animals. This has been very valuable, and was essentially the right thing to do in the begin- ning. Still more, such scientific work ought to be continued with energy. Our national food-needs in the near future make the promotion of national safety in the matter of a food-supply an important function of both state and national governments. All this, too, tends to make farming more profitable, and unless agriculture can first be made remunerative to men and women of energy and capacity, farm life will never prove satisfying to the class we most desire to retain on the farms. Economic betterment must come first, and without this all attempts at educational, social, and moral betterment are to a large degree superficial and transitory. Better farming and better business meth- ods must precede better living. RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 109 Great rural interests human interests. The great rural interests, however, are the essentially human interests, and the really important questions in the rural-life problem are how to improve the conditions surrounding human life in the open country, so as to make farm life less solitary, freer from sheer drudgery^ Out of every 100 Farmers 29 remain on same farm four years or more 23 for two to faor yean 28 for one year 20 less than a year Fia. 28. RURAL UNREST IN THE SOUTH From statistics for the Southern States published in a survey of The Rural Sit- uation in tke South, and published by the Conference for Education in the South, 1921. fuller of opportunity, and more comfortable and attractive to the best farming people. We hope ulti- mately to double the yield of com and wheat and cotton, which would, indeed, be a great achievement; but an even more important undertaking would be that which would double the comfort, happiness, and attractiveness of life on the farm to the farmer, his wife, and his children. Aiter all, the farmer and his 110 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION family are more important than his crops, and the conditions which surround rural family life are more important than those which surround the raising of cows and pigs. The magnitude and the national importance of such a problem in rural improvement will be appreciated better if we remember that nearly one half of the people of the United States still live on farms, and nearly one half of the children of our country are still educated in the rural schools. Figure 28 shows the problem in the Southern States, while Figure 29 shows the percentages of the total population living in the rural districts in each of the states of the Union. The high percentage of rural population in the im- portant agricultural states of the North Central and the Southern groups, as shown by this map, re- veals how largely the problem of rural and agricul- tural improvement is there a problem of rural educa- tion. FUNDAMENTAL RURAL NEEDS To make agriculture remunerative and family life in the country attractive and satisfying to intelligent and progressive people, both of which are necessary if we are to make much headway in improving rural life, certain fundamental rural needs should be met. In addition to a redirection of rural education, which will be dealt with in detail in the second part of this book, these may be briefly summarized, as follows : — RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 111 1. Retention of Personality The great economic success of the farmer has tended, in certain regions, to eliminate him from the rural community, and the disintegration of many rural communities is traceable in large part to this eco- nomic success, to the poor education provided, and to a lack of standards by which to measure the value of the city pleasures and attractions. The removal of the more successful farmers to town, as well as the desertion of the farm by the more enterpris- ing and more energetic children, have alike tended to rob many rural regions of those men and women of forceful personality who alone give tone and charac- ter to a community. The result has been to pro- duce, in many rural regions, that flat level of equal- ity where little or no progress is possible. The same has been true of little towns, many of which to-day are stagnant because all the boys of ability and all the girls who could get away have deserted them for the greater opportunities and attractions of the city. In the upper part of the Mississippi Valley one may find hundreds of such little towns, where leadership seems to have disappeared, and where the people seem to have quarantined against progress. One does not find such conditions in the newer agricultural communities of the West or the Southwest, chiefly because the ini- tiative and spirit of the pioneer are still there. In the older agricultural communities of the Mississippi ^-T^ V 1 *^ ^ I iup=i J " ■ < <0 < 3 ra / \ +■■ -P \2 £^i-^ r -^ J / ^-^ / ^' 1 o a 1 1 « « ll-T tti jTy sij u J / * ' \ i "■ J ^ — ^ ) ° S f" fi?^ 7 >=< .9 3 « RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 113 Valley, though, this spirit is too often entirely lacking, and for the reason that the stronger and the more capable have gone. The community life, such as it is, no longer appeals to the best; the fundamental social instincts remain unsatisfied; and the higher intellec- tual and spiritual life is not ministered unto. The country seems lonely, monotonous, and common- place; it lacks personality and leadership; and its lack of sociability seems depressing to the young. Poor roads; poor residences; poor schools; decaying churches; low aesthetic standards; low intellectual ideals; lack of cooperation and harmony; soil-depletion by unwise farming; often almost a contempt of scien- tific agriculture; lack of good business methods; and a disregard of hygienic laws; — all alike tend to reduce the remuneration from farming, and to obscure, to old and young alike, the many advantages of rural life to those adapted to it. The school and personality. To change this condi- tion is the problem before us. That the schools, man- aged as they have been mainly by country people, are largely responsible for the condition in which country communities find themselves to-day, there can be little question. The away-from-the-farm influence of rural education in the past and its lack of adaptability to rural needs have been its marked characteristics. That the schools must be the chief agent in turning the current in the other direction, there also can be but little question. The farming industry represents 114 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION a large element in our civilization, and schools in the country, if they are to be effective rural institutions, must represent the civilization of their time and location. A fundamental need of rural life of to-day is local institutions which will select and train virile men and women, men and women of personality and force, for effective living in the open country. This must be accomplished chiefly by appealing to country people themselves, and by offering an education for country living which will reveal to young men and young women the opportunities and possibilities of life on the farm. The movement of city people to the open country is not likely to accomplish much in improv- ing conditions, except in the case of little towns, and where such people come as suburban residents rather than as farmers. S. Larger Life and Outlook Another fundamental need is the broadening of rural life and the giving to it a larger outlook. The fundamental social instincts of youth — recreation, play, friendships, social life — must be provided for and allowed to satisfy themselves. Many a boy and girl have been driven from the farm by rea- son of the life there being all work and no play. In many rural communities there is no community life, — - no body of accumulated common experi- ence, no common meeting-ground and no meetings RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 115 throughout the year, no church, no store, no society, — and the young people early form a distaste for the life this represents. This needs changing. Sports and games should be provided, time for recreation allowed, and the play instinct guided. Social meetings for the young people, under proper conditions, are needed. Rural clubs of various kinds, for both boys and girls, should be organized and directed. The fundamental pedagogical principle of guidance rather than repres- sion needs to be kept in mind in dealing with the young. The elders, too, need to be brought together in friendly social meeting, that the rural outlook may be enlarged and some sort of social cooperation estab- lished. The need for one or more social centers for every rural community to satisfy these needs will be apparent. 3. Better Homes For the girls and the women, too, life in the country is too often most unattractive, and too often unnecessarily harsh and exhausting. Gener- ally speaking, they have a much harder time than the men and boys. Successful farming, though, is essen- tially a partnership business between a man and a woman, and much of the success of the undertaking depends upon the woman. Whatever can be done to make her work simpler and easier to do, and to enable her to develop some other interests than mere house- work, ought to be done for the sake of farming effi- 116 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION ciency, if not for humane reasons. A farmer ought to take as good care of his chief human burden-bearer as he does of his brood-mare or his prize fat-producing cow. Too often the man takes all the advantages, and gives the woman few or none. He buys the best of machinery, drives good horses to his buggy or drives an automobile, and builds good barns for his grain and his stock. Often machinery for pumping water and doing other labor is installed, to save the labor of hired men. Yet, notwithstanding his clear perception of the importance of labor-saving machinery when applied to farm work, and of proper housing for his stock, the residence, where the women do the work and the children grow up and have their tastes formed, is often almost entirely devoid of labor-saving con- veniences. Often it is inconveniently arranged, small, crowded, and ugly as well. There is little doubt but that the desire of the women to escape from the hard labor and tbe unattractive surroundings by moving to the city, to secure city conveniences and better resi- dences, has been a strong influence in the cityward movement of farmers' families during the past decade. Better kitchens. The narrow life of the women, with its drudgery and lack of outlook, is seriously in need of improvement. Domestic labor on the farm is hard to get, so that the woman's part should be sim- plified as much as possible. As new farmhouses are constructed, or old ones repaired, they should be con- structed with a view to making the housework easy RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 117 to do, and labor-saving devices, to make easier the lot of women, ought to be installed. It has been calculated that for from $500 to $1500, varying with the extent and size of the equipment, there can be installed in any farmhouse practically all of the conveniences which city people to-day enjoy. The gasoline engine and the electric motor have made it possible greatly to simplify housework on the farm. Running water, within and without the house; washing and ironing by machinery; vacuum cleaning; and, where electric current is avail- able, lighting and cooking by electricity, are now within the reach of the farm home. A little money put into homes in which it is easy to do housework, and which are easy to keep clean, will do much toward making rural life more attractive to both women and children. Add to this a comfortable, well-planned, and an archi- tecturally attractive house, with lawn, flowers, and long-lived trees about it, and we have a combination which is of fundamental importance in instilling a love for home-life in the country. ^. A Community Center Perhaps the greatest social need of rural communi- ties is some kind of a community center, where men, women, and children may meet frequently, for various educational and social purposes. Life, once narrowly individualistic, is to-day essentially social and coopera- tive, and the relations of man to man, and the re- sponsibility of man for his neighbor and his neighbor's 118 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION E m Rink and Dance Hall General Store m m Pool Room Qttrage E \B child, were never so strongly emphasized as they are to-day. Education has given a new importance to youth, and life to-day holds new and enlarged values for both old and young. In a city, by reason of the many means of social contact and the closeness of man to man, cooperative efforts for the common good and the public welfare are easy to start and to carry along. In the country, though, where people are so separated by mere distance, and so strongly individualistic, it is much more difficult to secure effective cooper- ation, and the need of a common meeting-place and of a community center to develop a community life and spirit is more important than in the towns and cities. Early centers for the community life. In the earlier days the barn-raisings, huskings and quilting-bees, and singing-schools afforded opportunity for such con- tact, but these have long since passed away. The earlier school, with its spelling-matches and literary societies, also once contributed much to this end. But 0' Pio. 30. A COMMUNITY CENTER OF LARGE INFLUENCE, IN THE WRONG DIRECTION RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 119 memie-s itfirvs 7 rjtaM ' i> ^ unnoifa iuutr-3 £ 3Minrs AMKPurrs KMft M/nery ttsts or f0/b)6£ CPOPS /IMO ROOTCmPS Me m -ciovea taiyua-cpiii* ?»» » - ctoi/ra iBieM-ctovcit TOWN H/)U PUBLIC fiOJtO Fio. 31. DIAGRAM OF A COTTNTRT COMMUNITY-CENTER Including school, church, town hall, and industrial plant. Reproduced here from Circular 84, Oflace of Experiment Stationfl, U.S. Department of Agriculture. 120 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the spelling-matches and the literary societies have now ceased to exist. The church once answered the need, but to-day sectarianism, the dying-out of the old kind of faith, the lack of a social program, and the immi- gration of new peoples have destroyed its former hold, while new interests and new knowledge have carried the community in other directions. In most rural com- munities to-day there is no community center worthy of the name, and as a result the increasing social needs of the people remain unsatisfied. There is no common community experience or interest; the community does not meet together from one year's end to another, and it is never united in any worthy cooperative effort. In such communities narrow attitudes are common; there is no community interest in progress; the children lack social intercourse under good conditions, and do not learn the value of cooperative effort; the intellec- tual life is stagnant, the moral and religious life fre- quently ebbs; while selfishness, indecency, vulgarity, and licentiousness increase. The need of a rural community -center, in which the community life may find itself, and then express it- self, and of vitalized rural institutions which will make for progress and tend to attach men and women to the soil, are fundamental needs for rural progress to-day. Social cooperation is needed even more than economic cooperation, and the means of securing it must be found. It may be that a rural social center may be created at the church, the Grange hall, the town hall, RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 121 the rural library, or the rural school, or by combining all at some central place; but somewhere and somehow community centers need to be established in each rural community. The women and children need such a meeting-place even more than do the men. (a) Can the church become such a center now ? The possibilities of the church meeting y \ . this need and be- f^- coming a center for the community life are, in most com- munities, relatively small. Before it can do so the church must be reorgan- ized along entirely new lines. One of the first noorl f r 1 A $35,000 marble "many-roomed" church erected neeuS OI our rural and used by twelve different denominationa. These , .|l , , include Catholic, Episcopalian, Friends, Reformed and village CnUrclieS, Hungarian, Unitarian, Universalists, Presbyterians, Christians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Bap- if they are to serve, tists, and Free Baptists. All unite in malutaiuing cue efficient and serving church. is the great curtail- ment and, if possible, the abolition of denomination- alism. The small number of farmers, the changed rural class, the new life interests and conditions, and the rising cost of church maintenance all alike call for a uniting of forces for religious work and service. The present system of little struggling churches in- ^:.m'^ Fio. 32. UNION CHURCH, PROCTOR, VT. 122 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION volves great financial and moral waste, divides rural people instead of uniting them, and destroys the op- portunity of the church for large institutional useful- ness. The problem is no longer one of getting more churches, but rather of uniting the ones we now have into stronger and more efiFective working bodies. This, though, is very difficult of accomplishment, as rural people are preeminently hard to unify or to organize. The nature of their vocation emphasizes individual- ity and independence, and new proposals are usually received by them with anything but enthusiasm. Denominationalism, too, is very strong with many people, particularly those of the older generation, and not much can be expected at present along this much- needed line of unification. Still, federation and cooper- ation embody the dominant spirit of the age we are now entering, and the church must fall in line or be left behind. Need of a program for social work. If the church is to play any important part in rural reorganization, it must evolve a program for social betterment and make its ministrations such as will enable it to render effec- tive social service. Only a giving church is a growing church. There are many real needs of rural people which to-day call for ministration, and the church should set itself the task of finding these and then trying to serve them. Then only will its religion be- come vital and effective. The old one-room meeting- RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 123 house, used for a few hours a week by a few people, and solely for religious service, is an economic waste, and needs gradually to give way to a many-roomed social church, with tentacles reaching out in many directions and seeking for helpful points of contact with the community life. Need for cooperation. The church must also unite in cooperative effort with all of the other great forces working for the upbuilding of rural life, such as the Grange, the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A., boys' and girls' clubs and Scouts, farmers' institutes, district nurses, the library, and the school, and these in turn should cooperate with every living and serving church. Organized service for the poor, the sick, the stranger, and for mothers should be developed. The need is for service, rather than preaching. The home, the school, the vocation, and the social life of the community are all important forces in moulding the thoughts and as- pirations of men, and ought not to be neglected. One great difEculty in trying to aid the rural church is that so many churches and so many ministers have not as yet learned that we live to-day in a new world, and that people of to-day have more than one funda- mental interest in life. In a few places, however, the church has accomplished such an internal reform, and is to-day rendering social and religious service of fun- damental importance in the improvement and redi- rection of rural life. In the next chapter we shall de- scribe a few examples of such worthy religious service. 124 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION (b) Rural organizations. The Grange hall has been suggested as a possible community center, and has been so employed in some places. The town hall has also been so used in a few places. The rural Y.M.C.A. has also been made effective here and there. All of these may prove useful community forces in certain places, and all should be encouraged to extend their usefulness. All rural residents, however, may not belong to the Grange; the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. appeal especially to the young; and the town hall possesses certain rather obvious limitations. All such organizations, as well as boys' and girls* clubs, farm- ers' institutes, lecture courses, and extension centers, while an important part of rural social life, are much more in the nature of adjuncts to, than centers for, the community life. The Grange hall, perhaps, comes nearer to providing a center for the community life than any of the other organizations mentioned above, but even it possesses certain obvious disadvantages as a center for the community life. (c) The rural library. The rural district library, where such an institution exists, has certain advan- tages as a center for the community life over any of the other rural institutions, so far mentioned. It is a com- mon property of all, is supported by all, and hence has a democracy about it which the church and the Grange do not as a rule have. The greatest difficulty met with is that the rural library in so many states is non- existent, while in states where it does exist, it is too RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 125 often without a home of sufficient size or attractiveness to meet the needs of a community center. The rural library, too, is usually a purely passive agent, the librarian merely keeping the books neatly arranged on the shelves and handing them out, on demand ; whereas it ought instead to be an active, energetic agent for the improvement of rural community life. The women, in particular, ought to be brought to use the rural library, and a rural librarian ought not to feel satisfied if the mothers and the young people do not come frequently to use the room and the books. They will do this, though, only if the library ministers to a vital com- munity need. Perhaps it is when connected with the school that the library will reach its greatest degree of usefulness. (d) The school. If the school can be reorganized and redirected, as described in Part ii of this book, it is possible to create, in every rural community, an admirable center for the fullest expression of the com- munity life. It is the one rural institution, excepting the library, which is supported by all and equally open to all. It represents no church, no party, no organiza- tion, no lodge, and no single group or interest, but rather all such organizations united together for the common welfare. It possesses a great advantage over all the other institutions so far mentioned in that its labors are directed to the education and improvement of the children of all the people, and this can be used as a great unifying idea. Without attempting to go 126 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION into detail here, it may be said that it is possible so to change and so to redirect the rural school that the building will become the community meeting-place, with the other community interests centering about it, and the school itself will become a center for the improvement of the community life. In Part n we shall describe, in some detail, how this may be done. 5. Community Life The rural-life problem, as we stated at the begin- ning of this chapter, is one calling for a reconstruction and a reorganization of rural social institutions. The old institutions need to be reorganized, redirected, and quickened into new life. The place (or places) where this new life may find itself and express itself we have called the community center. Whether this center for the community life shall be at the church, at the Grange, at the library, or at the school, de- pends upon which one of the number first discovers its opportunity and renders that service to the rural community which will make of it a center for the community life. Constructive rural service. The need is for some unifying rural institution which will quicken the com- munity life and focus its efforts along worthy lines of action. The improvement of roads and roadsides; the abatement of eyesores and nuisances; the carrying- through of a community plan for health and sanitary improvement; the formation of civic organizations; the RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 127 improvement of schools; the development of recreation centers; the holding of contests and fetes; inspection trips; the organization of boys' and girls' clubs; meet- ing in school and farmers' institutes; the organization of hospital associations; the holding of lectures; read- ing and extension courses; grain- and stock-judging exhibits; fruit and poultry shows; — these are some of the results which follow a quickened rural community life, and nearly all of which may take place at a prop- erly arranged rural community-center. The moral life of country people needs to be dealt with, too, though by constructive service, and not by repression and prohibition. The play instinct of young people needs to be ministered unto and guided. Playgrounds, dramatic and literary activities, and boy-scouts' and camp-fire girls' movements should be encouraged. The life of the farm-hand, the working- girl, and the poor tenant farmer ofiPer a challenge to the activity and effectiveness of the church. The Grange should lead in the matter of cooperative organization and civic improvement. The school and the library should meet the needs of the community for knowl- edge, and energetically stimulate the intellectual life. The community center, wherever it may be devel- oped, should serve as a rallying-point for all of these forces for the improvement of rural life. The call for rural service. The development of a new and a better country life is largely a question of education and guidance. New knowledge, new ideals, 128 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION wise counsel and advice, new stimuli, and guidance and direction are needed. The call for young men and women of personality, energy, capacity, convictions, and aspirations, who like the open country and will live there and work for agricultural and community advancement, is a call which is long and loud. To ministers, educated farmers, physicians, editors, libra- rians, and teachers, the call comes with especial clear- ness and force. Nothing less than the creation of a new rural life, the creation of new standards and values with reference to life on the farm, and the crea- tion of new rural institutions which will better minis- ter to the needs of rural people, is what is aimed to be accomplished. Meaning of the country-life movement. To awaken a new appreciation of the beauties of sky and field and wood; to create new standards for the ap- preciation of rural life and freedom; to reveal farming as the application of the subtlest laws of nature, as revealed by science; to ameliorate the harsh condi- tions, the loneliness, and the isolation of rural life; to make it a remunerative undertaking; to conserve the home and to develop a happy, intelligent, and re- sourceful people; to secure social, as well as economic, cooperation; to improve the educational and spiritual advantages provided for country people and country children; and, withal, to make life in the small village and in the open country more productive of health, pleasure, and profit, — these are some of the important RURAL LIFE AND NEEDS OF TO-DAY 129 objects of the rural-life movement of to-day. All fundamental improvement of rural-life conditions, while it may be aided by wise legislation and stimu- lated into activity by others, must, after all, be carried through by the rural people themselves. To guide and to aid them in their efforts ought to be the great mis- sion of the church, the library, and the school, and of these the school easily stands first, if it can rise to meet the opportunities which confront it. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Indicate means whereby the rural school may teach and incul- cate the different items enumerated on page 105. 2. In what way is the rural school burdened by traditions? 3. Would the improvement of agriculture by national and state agencies be desirable, if no human interests were involved? 4. Would the improvement of the human side of rural life by the state and the nation be a legitimate undertaking, if no agri- cultural interests were involved? 6. Show how an organized plan for nursing, helping the poor and sick, and aiding mothers in the care of children, would greatly improve rural-life conditions. 6. Is it the poor or the high-priced lands of your community which have come under tenancy? 7. How far is strong personality retained in your community ? In what direction, if any, is the change taking place? 8. What is the character of the villages of your county in the matter of personality? 9. Why must the chief work in improving rural society be accom- plished by appealing to country people themselves? 10. How can the improvement of rural social life for the young be made to contribute to the improvement of adult rural society? 11. What percentage of the farmhouses of the community you know best would you say have good working kitchens? 12. What future effect on home and kitchen designing and equip- ment do you think would be the result of introducing instruc- tion in domestic science, using good equipment, in all of the rural schools? 130 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 13. Of what do your community centers consist, and what is the nature of their influence? 14. What is the character of the villages in your county, in the matter of helpfulness to rural life? 15. Have you known of any unions of churches? 16. Explain why the nature of the farmer's vocation emphasizes individuality and independence, and makes it diflScult to interest farmers in cooperative undertakings. 17. To what extent does the school occupy the place of a center for the community life? 18. To what extent is the play instinct, the literary instinct, the domestic instinct, and the social instinct ministered unto by the rural community life in your community? 19. How much of the program for constructive rural service, given on pages 126-127, is carried out in your community? By whom, and with what degree of effectiveness? 20. How far does the school reveal to the young people in it the deeper meanings of rural life, as indicated on page 128? 21. Explain what is meant by the statement that " federation and cooperation embody the dominant spirit of the age we are entering? " 22. Why is only a giving church a growing church? Would the same principle apply to school work? 23. What limitation does the Grange possess as a community cen- ter, which does not attach to the school or the library? ^m 24. What is meant (page 126) by the statement that the rural-hre problem calls for a reconstruction and a reorganization of rural social institutions? 25. How many of the community efforts enumerated on pages 126- 127 take place in your rural community? Have you known communities where such took place? 26. Why does the call for constructive rural service come to teach- ers with especial clearness and force? 27. W'ould the " meaning of the country-life movement," as stated on page 128, form a good creed for country-workers? CHAPTER VI SOME WORTHY EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE This chapter will be merely descriptive and illustra- tive, its purpose being to give concreteness to the pre- ceding chapters by describing some worthy efforts at rural service which have been carried out in different parts of the United States. Obviously no attempt can be made to describe here more than a very few typi- cal examples of conspicuous rural service, and it is not even claimed that the ones cited are the best of their kind. They are typical, however, and serve to illus- trate what was meant in the discussion of the preced- ing chapter. We shall classify these various efforts under the headings of (l) Church Organizations; (2) Young People's Organizations; (3) Library Organizations; (4) Farmers' Organizations; (5) Agricultural Improve- ment Organizations; and (6) Community-Center Or- ganizations. These six represent the main forms of rural social service, though others, of more limited scope, might be added if space would permit. It is hoped, however, that the few examples here described may serve to illustrate the possibilities and the form of such rural community service, and to show how centers for the rural community life may be created. 132 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION I. CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS I. A rural church. A number of notable examples of rural-church community-service h&,ve been de- scribed in print. One near Plainfield, in Du Page County, Illinois, is typical.^ Under the leadership of a young minister of insight and capacity, a poorly supported country church of the old type was, in ten years, transformed into a strong rural-community institution; a new com- munity-center type of church building erected; and the church was grad- ually transformed into a social center for the country people for miles around. The original church, established in 1833, was located in the country, six miles from a railroad, and in a rich farming area some thirty -five miles west of Chicago. The farms surrounding it were very rich, the farm homes of the best, and the country very prosperous. The church, however, had fallen into decay. The meeting-house, built fifty years before, was old, the fences had fallen down, and the horse- sheds were an eyesore. No one had united with the church for five years; there were few services; and a 1 " Ten Years in a Country Church," by Matthew B. McNutt; in World's Work, December, 1910 (vol. xxi). Fia. 33. THE ORIGINAL CHURCH SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAX SERVICE 133 dancing club in the neighborhood attracted the young people much more. The new minister was fresh from a theological school, and had no training whatever for rural service. The people, too, were full of preconceived notions as to the church service and country life, which for a time prevented progress. The church awakened but little community interest; many had grown indifferent as to its services; others had grown indifferent as to its fate. It was soon evident that the only hope for prog- ress lay in working with the young; but how to interest them in the work of the church was not so easily seen. The first effort to interest the young people was by the organization of an old-fashioned singing-school, in which the young people were taught to read music and to sing. Quartets were formed, musical instruments were secured, and finally an orchestra was organized. Choruses were also formed, and special choral services rendered. This led to a great personal and home de- velopment of music in the community. Public speak- ing was also made a feature, and societies for debating and literary work were organized. Extemporaneous speaking on public questions soon became a feature, and debates with town teams were held. Plays were given at the church, and home-talent entertainments organized. These have proved very popular with the farmers and their families, and have done much to edu- cate the people away from the cheap amusements of the neighboring towns and cities. 134 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION. Much was also made of athletics. A number of teams — baseball, basketball, tennis, etc. — were organized, and competitive matches arranged. Moot- courts, spelling-bees, story-telling clubs, reading- circles, and sewing-clubs were also formed. A printing- press was secured, and all of the church printing was soon done on it by the boys. Celebrations and public holidays were made patriotic and inspiring. The great- est day of the year is the "Annual Meeting" day, held each year on the third Saturday in March. This has been made into a great event. An all-day meeting is held; a banquet is served at noon; addresses are made; good music is rendered; letters from absent members are read, etc. The day is, in a way, a round-up of the year's work of the community. Sociability and fellow- ship are emphasized, and an effort is made to develop a new social feeling in the community. Such means as these were employed to awaken the community interest and to create a community feeling. To awaken the interest of both old and young and to develop a community life that should be strong and vigorous were the first essentials. These ends had to be accomplished through social efforts and service, instead of through religious services and zeal. A Bible class of young men was formed, with social meet- ings once a month, and Bible-study work on Sunday mornings. This class in time reached a membership of fifty rural young men, who not only held social meetings of much personal value and studied the SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 135 Bible on Sundays, but in time became the pastor's chief assistants in religious and community service. A young women's sewing- and reading-circle rendered a somewhat analogous service. As a result of ten years of work along such lines, the rural community has been almost completely trans- formed. In the place of the old-type one-room church, a new institutional church has been erected. This contains an auditorium, with a seating capacity of five hundred ; a sepa- rate Sunday-school ■wing, containing a number of class- rooms; a pastor's study; a choir- room; a mothers' room ; cloak-rooms ; and a vestibule, — all on the first floor. In the base- ment are a large dining-room, a kitchen, toilets, and a furnace-room. The building has its own lighting, heating, and water plants, and is well equipped with supplies and apparatus for entertainment and instruc- tion. The cost of the new institutional church was $10,000; all of this sum was subscribed before build- ing was begun; and the subscription lists included Catholics, German Lutherans, other Protestants, and men of no church, as well as members of the particular Protestant denomination. No collection for building or furnishings was needed at the time of its dedication. Fia. 34. THE NEW INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH 136 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The people, as a result of these many social efforts, have not grown less reverent or less religious. In ten years the church membership, which had previously been declining, increased from 80 to 163, and the Sun- day-school membership from ICK) to 300. The manse connected with the church was also remodeled, to make it a more comfortable home for the pastor; the pastor's salary was very materially increased; and $5270 was contributed to benevolences of various kinds during the decade as against $6407 during the preceding fifty years. The effect on the people has been marked. Whole families, that formerly had no interest in the church or in the uplift of the community, have since become active church members. The community conception of life itself has materially widened. The people are buying books, pictures, and musical instruments; they are installing modern conveniences and comforts in their homes; they are friendlier, and more generous than before; a new desire for education has developed among the young; and a new community spirit and interest has been awakened. The people are orderly, peace-loving, and enterprising; and the young people clean, sturdy, and ambitious. Land values are rising, farms are in greatest demand, the farm-tenant tend- ency has been checked, and people who live outside this rural community now express the wish that they lived nearer to this church. In competition with social clubs, Grange, school, and town, this church, SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 137 with a program of social betterment and service, has been successful in winning and holding the affections of these rural people. It has become distinctively the community center for both old and young in this rural agricultural community, and offers a worthy ex- ample of church effort for community betterment and community service. 2. A village church. Another example of church service will be described, this one from a community where all phases of the rural life were decadent.^ The church, agriculture, religion and morals, local govern- ment, the economic welfare, the physical man, the social and recreative life, and the community hfe it- self were all backward and stagnant. The pastor, having studied sociology as well as theology, sought out such a community, instead of its seeking him. His object in going to such a place had to be kept secret, as otherwise he would have met with opposition too strong to be overcome. His story is also the story of ten years of effort. He began to strengthen the church and the Sunday school by building up the social hfe of the community, which as a whole received much attention. The good economic, social, and religious results of good roads were pointed out. Better schools, township supervi- sion, and a township high school were also urged and * "The Rural Pastor a Community Builder," by Charles O. Bemies, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at McClellandstown, Pennsylvania. In Rural Manhood, February, 1913 (vol. iv, no. 2). 138 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION later secured, and still later an agricultural course was introduced into the high school. Scientific agriculture was continually preached in the pulpit and without, and, in order to demonstrate improved methods, the minister finally became advisory manager of a 330- acre farm in the community. This was organized into departments, and scientific methods were introduced and their advantages demonstrated. Some improve- ment in civic righteousness has also been made, though the presence of coal and coke towns in the township has made the progress in this particular less noticeable than in other directions. After much eflFort a new institutional church build- ing was also secured here. It has a basement, over fourteen feet high in the clear, divided into a large gymnasium, bath- and locker-rooms, dressing-rooms, and a kitchen. Here games, socials, festivals, and banquets are held. The main floor has a large audi- torium, with a platform with rooms on each side, and adaptable for use as a stage for amateur plays, enter- tainments, and concerts. The room is also used for meetings of the farmers' institutes, mining institutes, conferences for foreigners, Sunday-school conferences, high-school graduations, corn shows, and special oc- casion programs, as well as for the regular religious services. This building has done more than any one thing, except the work of the pastor himself, to make of this church an important community center, and during the ten years of social and religious effort more SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 139 members have been added to the church than during the preceding sixty-three years of its history. It is another illustration of the statement that only a serv- ing church is a growing church. 3. A rural community-center church and Sunday school. A number of these have been developed, with- in recent years, at different places in the United States. As one of the best of these is described in the final chapter of Part I of this book, it is merely mentioned here and the reader is referred to the chapter cited for further details. 4. District Nursing. Another form of church service, not included in either of the above, and yet one which might well be included in the work of an active living church, is the provision of a community nurse, and the enlistment of the community in an effort to improve sanitary conditions and to care better for the babies and the sick. A community nurse, acting in connec- tion with a community-center church, or a community- center house, would be of much service in advancing the community welfare. The largest usefulness for the rural nurse, though, probably lies in connection with the reorganized rural school. II. ORGANIZATIONS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Three organizations of this kind have recently begun active work, and each is worthy of mention. I. The Young Men's Christian Association, County- Work Division. This division was first founded in 1 889, 140 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION but it is only recently that any marked d«^velopment of the work has been efifected. Within the past ten years a strong effort to extend the work has been made, with a view to organizing, ultimately, such counties as are rural and organizable in each of the states. Up to the close of 1921, county work was in successful operation in 195 counties in 34 states in the United States and in 11 counties in Canada, 242 secretaries were giv- ing their time to the work, 1050 local organizations within the counties were at work, 1586 volunteer lead- ers were directing community activities, over 30,000 young men and boys were enlisted in the work of the organization, and 2514 business men were giving care- ful administrative oversight to the work of the county associations. This organization has in the past been essentially a city organization, but recognizing the fact that more than one half of the young men and boys in America live in small towns and in rural districts, the Asso- ciation has recently turned its attention to this field as well. Recognizing that, with the decline in influence of the church and the great change in rural-life con- ditions, the youth of such communities stand in par- ticular need of the character-building services of such an organization, this Association has begun the devel- opment of county work in an effort to improve rural and village manhood. Instead of the school district or the township, as is so common in school affairs, the county is made the unit of organization and adminis- SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 141 tration. The county is subdivided, as may seem desir- able, and with towns and rural communities as units. The County Committee an incorporated body INTERNATIONAL and STATE COUNTY WORK DEPARTMENTS COUNTY SECRETARY EMPLOYED BY COUNTY COMMITTEE TOWN COMMITTEE OF LOCAL.ASSOCIATION "1 ♦ i 1 SELF GOVERNINQ OROUP ORGANIZATIONS COUNTY WIDE BOYS YOUNO -EN SURVEY OF THE COMMUNITY OLDER BOYS' [MJ EEEI LECTURE COURSES 1 ONE NIGHT A WEEkJ SOCIAL SAIHERINSS 1 -II— II — II — CHURCH SERVICES ONURCN CONFERENCES EDUCATION PUBLIC SPEAKINO I liuov 1 'enTr't^^in" "'b"a"q'e7s""' COUNTY CAMP "c'.'-PS* HOME "^""^w^tm'"'^'^ FIR&T AID EVANGELISTIC SERVICES BASE BALL LEAGUE TSRM *N0 GROU? GAMES 1 Tau's"' I ["I't"-"" SAVING DEPUTATIONS CAMPAIGN ATHLEIiei ""IT"' ."reviews 1 WTir. FOR IMMIGRANTS COUNTY-WIDE EVANGELISM EDUCATION STUOY OF DUTIES FOR MEN AND BOYS '"Tjrzj^'" EDUCATIONAL TfllfS JLIFE POOHLEmI PROMOTING ■' SPORTS IN SCHOOL 1 SOCIETIES. GRANGES ETC. "ISEzf" "SlOAMCE*'- 'c^;;"."str.Tro'N\" Fig. 36. Y.M.C.A. COUNTY ORGANIZATION A county secretary is in charge of the work of each county, thus providing a trained specialist in all-round 142 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION work for the young men and boys, and a county-wide program of work is laid out. The chart on page 141 shows both the plan of organization and the scope of the county-wide activities. Unlike the city organizations, little or no equip- ment is needed or desired. Membership is based upon what men give in service, rather than upon what they get in privileges. The chief work of the county secre- tary is the discovery, enlistment, training, and direc- tion of the volunteer leaders for the social, educational, physical, and religious work of the Association. The work in the different counties naturally varies with the needs. In general, the organization work includes athletic meets, summer camps, recreative and com- petitive games, debates, lecture courses, educational tours, exhibits and contests, receptions, suppers, fa- ther and son banquets, and social visitation, as well as Bible-study, the chief purpose of it all being to bring young men and boys of different communities to- gether in such a way as to develop their character, in- crease their social power, and enlarge their mental horizon. This means not only physical exercise, but higher ideals for the development and care of the body. It also means mental growth, stimulated by club and group work; evening classes; plans for enriching rural life where it is poorest; ministering to the social hun- ger of the country boy with wholesome recreation and social contact; and religious work of a sensible and manly type. The Association also cooperates with 144 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION churches, Sunday schools, young-people's societies. Granges, fraternal organizations, and schools, with a view to making the work of all such organizations more effective. Naturally the needs of boy life in rural districts and small towns receive the chief attention of the Association. Though naturally an ally of the church, and work- ing for the building-up of rural manhood and the moral life of rural communities, the movement itself is es- sentially a lay movement, financed by business men. Half of the members enrolled in its Bible-study classes are not church members, but one out of ten of such students is won each year to a Christian life, and largely as the result of the personal touch of strong men. It is also non-denominational and inter-denomi- national, thus serving as an ally of all the churches, and bringing rival, competing, and jealous churches together for constructive work. The county secretary is usually a college graduate, with some special train- ing for the work, and one who knows the country, believes in the country, and has faith in the future of rural life. The movement, as yet, is only in its beginnings, and in time is certain to exert a tremendous influence for good with the youth of rural and village communities. Probably no other organization gives promise of such large results in the elimination of vulgarity, profanity, licentiousness and misdirected living, and in the con- servation of rural manhood. SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 145 2. The Young Women's Christian Association, County-Work Division. This is an even more recent development of this organization, and as yet has scarcely begun to serve. It is patterned after some- what the same lines as the Y.M.C.A. county work, and its aim is to do for the young women and girls in rural communities and villages a service similar to that so well begun for the young men and boys. This organization could add district nursing to its field of usefulness with advantage. 3. Rural Boy-Scouts and Camp-Fire Girls. Provi- sion for "the lone scout" is made in the Boy Scouts organization, and the idea is capable of development by teachers in rural schools, and others interested in rural welfare. A similar idea could be carried out by organizing rural girls, under the Camp-Fire Girls' or Girl Scouts' plan of organization. Both of these or- ganizations are of recent origin, and both have found such a field for work in the towns and smaller cities that as yet they have had little opportunity to render any distinctively rural service. Under good county organization, though, both are capable of large rural usefulness and service. 4. Boys' and girls' agricultural clubs. Thousands of boys' and girls' clubs, of different kinds, have been organized in the rural communities of the different states. There have been few developments within re- cent years of greater educational significance for rural- life improvement than these clubs. Originally these 146 RUKAL LIFE AND EDUCATION clubs were usually begun as a result of some competi- tive contest, and clubs of various kinds were formed, — clufes for corn-growing, cotton-growing, potato-grow- ing, fruit-growing, live-stock study, bird-study, home culture, sewing-clubs, cooking-clubs, and camera-clubs are the main kinds which have been formed. Prizes were then offered for successful competition, — schools, churches. Granges, commercial organizations, rural Y.M.C.A.'s, and citizens assisting and providing the funds. Within the past decade the work has been al- most entirely taken over, as far as general direction is concerned, by the United States Department of Agriculture. During the World War these clubs ren- dered very valuable national service. The purpose has been to enlist and direct the energies of rural boys and girls into useful work; to train them in dealing with problems of production and conservation of food, the prevention of disease, the preservation of health, proper marketing and crop accounting, and thrift and saving. In the Southern States negro boys and girls have been organized as well as whites. More than a million boys and girls are now enrolled in gardening, drying, canning, pig-raising, poultry-raising, corn, sugar-beet, dairy, and marketing clubs, with large re- turns in production, cooperation, thrift, and health. The good results of such club and competitive work are already apparent. The boys and girls have been trained to observe more closely; to recognize good and bad qualities in their products; they have met and SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 147 learned to solve problems; they have learned some thing as to the cost of production and the keeping of simple accounts; they have learned to read agricultural literature bearing on their work; and personal ini- tiative has been strongly developed. The importance of organized effort, cooperation, and compromise — matters of much importance in rural districts — have been developed. The influence on the parents, the homes, and on agriculture on the home farms has been most excellent. Agricultural and home-making literature has been popularized; new facts and proc- esses have been introduced; and parents and children have found growing contests and farmers' insti- tutes interesting and profitable. In some of the more important agricultural states, both in the North and in the South, the prizes offered for successful com- petition have included trips to the state agricultural college, and a short course of instruction there. The schools have found these clubs of great value, not only in developing agricultural and domestic- science instruction, but in awakening both school and community interest as well. The exhibits have often proved among the most attractive of all exhibits at the local and state fairs, and have done much to make the people feel that the schools are rendering a useful service. III. THE RURAL LIBRARY Another great service for rural and village life, which 148 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION has been begun almost entirely within the past twenty- five years, and largely within the past ten years, is the introduction of traveling and branch libraries for the benefit of rural and village people. This move- ment has developed so rapidly within the past ten years that, in the near future, we may expect to see library facilities carried to every rural home. The city library, with its branch libraries and stations, has for some time carried library facilities to all of the people of the city. It is now proposed to render the same service to rural and village communities, using the county generally as a unit, and with branches and sub-stations in the village schoolhouses, stores, and farm homes. The movement may be said to have begun with the appropriation made by the New York Legislature, in 1892, under which the New York State Library began to send out traveling libraries to organizations or as- sociations of citizens in the villages and rural districts of the state. A box of fifty or sixty books was sent, and this could be retained for six months. This plan was gradually followed by other states, and at the end of fifteen years (1907) twenty-two states had adopted the idea, and had a total of over five thousand boxes in circulation. After about 1905, and especially since 1909, state after state has adopted the library-exten- sion idea, and in a few years it may be expected that every state in the Union will have made some pro- vision for carrying library facilities to the people of the AN AUTOMOBILE THAT HAS TAUGHT A COUNTY TO READ In the first six months of 1912, this motor truck circulated 23,000 books in Washington County, Maryland, of which more than two thousand were delivered to the homes of remote families in the rural districts. ONE OP THE LOCAL MEETINGS FOR COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT This is one of the local community meetings described on page 158. SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 149 rural districts. Instead of waiting for the people to apply for the libraries, state organizers have been sent among the people to explain to them fie^fj'l'iv the advantages, select deposit sta- tions, and help them arrange for the first box of books. The ex- penses of trans- portation have usually been paid by the state, from legislative appro- priations for the purpose. The state traveling library, however, may be re- garded as only a beginning, and as an initiatory step leading to the establishment of county (or town- ship) libraries. The county is the natural unit, with township libraries as branches. The state then deals only with the county libraries. These then establish branches throughout the county, as needed, using schools, stores, post-offices, and homes as branches and depositories. The existing libraries, including school libraries, are frequently incorporated into the county library plan, and the books are indexed and catalogued according to a uniform county system. Every one in Fia.37. A TRAVELING LIBRARY IN A FARMHOUSE 150 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the county, including children, may then become bor- rowers from the county or a branch library, and boxes of books, or single books to meet individual needs, are sent out as called for. Pictures are included by some states, while a few, notably New York, supply sets of lantern slides for lectures. Moving-picture reels are also beginning to be loaned to communities by a few states, and also by a few large corporations. The ul- timate end in view is that any citizen of the state may be able to borrow, at some central place near his home, books to meet his needs. The establishment of a low rate for books sent by parcels post has greatly aided the movement. I The plate opposite page 149 shows how the libra- rian of Washington County, Maryland, not content to wait for the people to come after the books, has taken the books and gone to the people. This library was one of the first in the United States to begin extension work within the county, having opened twenty-three branches in 1901 . By 1903 there were fifty-five branches and two village libraries in cooperation. In 1905 a horse and wagon were purchased, in order to reach the homes, and when this proved too slow it was discarded for the automobile shown in the picture. This has since rendered valuable rural service. IV. FARMERS* ORGANIZATIONS The Grange. The largest and most important of the distinctively farmers' organizations is the Grange, SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 151 the official title of which is the Patrons of Husbandry. The members are called Patrons; the local organiza- tions, Granges. This association dates back to 1849, it having been founded in that year by a Minnesota farmer by the name of Kelley, for the purpose of better educating farmers for their business, and for cultivat- ing a better spirit of brotherhood between the North and the South. The movement grew, and, by 1873, ■when the National Grange was organized, there were 20,000 Granges, in 28 states, with a membership of three quarters of a million persons. Many at first entered the organization for financial gain alone. A kindred organization was established for political agitation, but this soon died, and in its downfall seri- ously injured the Grange. During the decade of agri- cultural depression, following 1880, the granges de- clined greatly in membership and influence, but, with the coming of the fourth-period conditions in our agri- cultural development, the Grange has rapidly in- creased in both particulars. Local lodges, or Granges, exist in the agricultural townships, or communities. The area of local jurisdic- tion is about five or six miles in diameter, and usually corresponds closely with that of a rural community. The membership consists of both men and women. In addition, every boy and girl over fifteen years of age may attain full membership, while those over fourteen may be admitted by vote. Only those whose interests are with agriculture are eligible, though rural ministers 152 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION and teachers are here included. Women are placed on a plane of equality with the men, and every delegate to the State Grange is a double delegate — man and wife. Women are eligible to any office in the order, and some of the most effective state workers have been women. Members must also be persons of good repute. An ed- ucational program is a part of each regular meeting of the Grange. Many Granges have built their own halls, which are equipped with dining-room and kitchen, as well as lecture or assembly-hall. Some also have bowl- ing alleys, game rooms, and a little store and soft-drink room, the profits of which help maintain the building. This organization has accomplished much for the improvement of agricultural conditions and the life of rural people. The legislation it has won has been important. In national legislation, the creation of the Department of Agriculture, the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, larger national grants for the agricultural colleges, the establishment of rural free mail delivery, laws preventing the exten- sion of patents on sewing-machines, and pure-food laws are among the chief measures to its credit. In the different states it has also been influential. Even more important than these measures has been the local influence of the order. As an organization it has done more than any other agency to drive isolation out of the farming communities, to extend social op- portunities, and to further fellowship and cooperation among farmers and their wives. It has stood for intel- SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 153 ligent and intensive farming, cooperative purchasing and selling, mutual insurance, and the amelioration of influences injurious to the farm and farm life. It has given a great impetus to agricultural education and to the study of domestic science, has stood for better schools, and has done much to assist the movement for the consolidation of schools. It has also empha- sized the need for scientific knowledge, now being so well met by the farmers' institutes. The Grange hall has been made an educational center, and its debat- ing clubs, lecture courses, exhibitions, and circulating libraries have done much to educate the farmer. The work of the organization in improving the ethi- cal life of rural communities has been one of its marked features. While avoiding all sectarian discussions, it has emphasized real religion and a moral and religious life. Being distinctively a family organization, its in- fluence in improving and conserving the home has been very large. The church has not been more influ- ential or helpful in conserving family life, and, with the decline in influence of the rural church, the Grange has in many places practically taken its place as the conserver and improver of the moral life of the community. The Grange is an important rural institution, and has within itself the possibility of great rural service. Organization, cooperation, and education are the basic principles of the order. It includes the entire family, and its chief work is moral and educational. With the 154 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION school and the church, the Grange seems destined to be one of the great forces for the moulding and improv- ing of rural life. By avoiding sectarian and political questions, which might destroy its usefulness, it is able to concentrate the energies of its members on rural welfare. It is an organization with which teachers and school oflBcers should connect themselves, and with which they should work heartily. V. ORGANIZATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT I. The farmers' institute. This is indirectly a prod- uct of the work of the Grange. As the farmers of the different communities met together to discuss affairs relating to their life and work, it became usual for them to send to the state agricultural college for men to come and speak to them on various agricultural and social topics. So useful were such services found, and so frequent did the calls become, that the state colleges organized bureaus for supplying speakers and manag- ing the meetings, or institutes, as they soon came to be called. As an outcome of this activity, the state legis- latures began to make specific appropriations to the agricultural colleges to enable them to secure addi- tional instructors and to organize and manage the work properly. In reality it is nothing more nor less than a university-extension movement in agriculture, origi- nating with the farmers themselves. These institutes have now developed into real short- SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 155 course schools for the instruction of the farmers, and are now a regular feature in practically all of our states. During the last year for which we have records over seven thousand such institutes were held, over two thousand lecturers were sent out to them, and approx- imately two million farmers were in attendance. Lec- tures and demonstrations continue often for a week, the county farm-adviser is prominent in them, and the superintendent of farmers' institutes from the agricultural college and his assistants go to the insti- tutes and give instruction. With the passage of the Smith-Lever Act by the National Congress, in 1914, commonly known as the Cooperative Agricultural Extension Act, giving na- tional aid to the States for the work, a national movement was begun for the improvement of rural- life conditions by the diffusion among the people of useful and practical information relating to agricul- ture, home economics, and rural welfare. In conse- quence the institutes have recently come to include work in sanitation, domestic science, home economics, and social welfare as well as the former instruction in agriculture and business management, and the women have come to find the institutes as valuable as do the men. An effort has also been made to bring together in these institutes all of the various forces now working for the betterment of rural life. Farm- ers' clubs, the Grange, the church, the library, and the school are now frequently asked to cooperate in 156 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the county and state institutes, and in many of the recent meetings the theme for the session has been how better to unify the different forces working for the amehoration and improvement of rural hfe. The value of these farmers' institutes in advancing agri- culture and in improving the life and social welfare of the farmer and his family is not likely to be overes- timated. The good effects of this work with the farmers has become so evident that a few of our agricultural col- leges are now organizing institutes and short courses for rural ministers, with a view to acquainting the ministers with agricultural practices, advances, and needs, and interesting them in the upbuilding of rural communities by means of intelligent rural service. 2. The county farm expert. This is a recent develop- ment of the work of the United States Department of Agriculture, working in connection with the States, the state agricultural colleges, and county governing authorities. Thirty such cooperative undertakings in a dozen different states had been established by the close of 1912, while by 1920 county agents were to be found in most counties in the United States where such could be used to advantage. In the fifteen South- ern States the organization had been made particu- larly complete, there being a large force of state agents and directors, over thirteen hundred county agents and approximately eleven hundred home-demonstration workers. In addition a cooperating county farm coun- SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 157 cil had been organized among the farmers of practically every county. In the thirty-three Northern and West- ern States approximately eighty-five per cent of the counties had been organized by 1920, there being about fourteen hundred county farm agents at work. The county farm advisor system has thus evolved into a vast national organization for agricultural propaganda and home-life improvement, working with the farmers, their wives, and their children. In all the southern counties, and in a constantly in- creasing number of the northern and western counties, the county farm council or community committee composed of farmers has recently come to play a very important part in furthering the work of the county agent. By organizing demonstration projects, to be carried through by the farmers themselves and reported on at the community meetings, the agents have done much to educate the people in the use of better meth' ods and to introduce a better understanding and needed cooperation among country people. The value of such organizations in breaking up the old rural isolation, in promoting neighborhood ac- quaintance and solidarity, and in disseminating agri- cultural and educational ideas will undoubtedly be very large, while the monetary value to the farmers of having a disinterested county agricultural adviser, ready to visit them and to prescribe, is likely to be under- ather than over-estimated. Such cooperative efforts as this will contribute much toward promot- 158 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION ing community and county solidarity, and in im- proving the conditions surrounding rural life. VI. COMMUNITY-CENTER ORGANIZATIONS An early community-center beginning. The com- munity-center movement began at a number of places in the United States, near the beginning of the pres- ent century, sometimes starting as a lecture course, or a local improvement club, or as meeting a social want. One of these earlier movements, which is some- what typical of the evolution, was the one organized in a little agricultural community of about seven hun- dred people, the center of which was twelve miles from a railroad. It was formed at a little center called Hesperia, located in Oceana County, Michigan, about forty miles north and west of Grand Rapids. The re- gion consists of fertile farms, and a good class of the home-builder type of farmer. They are noted as pro- gressive, successful, and intelligent. Being somewhat isolated, they started to develop their own local com- munity institutions for local improvement. The movement started there by a transformation of the teachers' institute into a cooperative organization of teachers and farmers. Starting at first with neigh- borhood meetings and local speakers, it soon devel- oped into a cooperative association of farmers, home- makers, teachers, and pupils, all working for the im- provement of the local schools and the advancement of the community welfare. To give wholesome enter- SOME EXAMPLES OF RURAL SERVICE 159 tainments for rural people, to create a taste for good books, to develop higher ideals of citizenship, and to improve the rural-school surroundings were also fea- tures of the work. Acting on the principle that the real forces which socialize rural life must spring from within the community itself rather than from without, these people succeeded in developing a movement which became known all over the United States. Its purpose was not to supplant other organizations, but rather to draw all together in closer union and sympathy. The "big meeting," held at Hesperia once each year, became a great event, and to this some of the best speakers in the United States have been drawn to speak to the people on topics relating to the school, the church, the farm, the home, and civic life. On Sunday, a union service emphasized the place of the church as a spiritual factor in rural life. The re- sulting benefits to this small rural community were large, and the lives of the people were made hap- pier, more influential, and more hopeful, and the in- tellectual, moral, and social tone of the community greatly improved. The community-center idea. The idea which this movement typified has recently been taken up in many parts of the United States, and promises to render large service in uniting the people of small towns and rural communities for many forms of important com- munity service. Community-center organizations have been formed, programs for work laid out, and build- First Floflr Plan Basement VT&a Fig. 38. FLOOR PLANS OF THE BRIMFIELD, ILLINOIS. COMMUNITY- CENTER HOUSE Dedicated in 1919 in an Illinois village of 700 population as a memorial to the soldiers who served in the World War. A well-planned building, serving a town and country community of 2000 people. Building unfurnished cost $26,654. Seating capacity of auditorium and balcony is 1400. Building has a 6replace, two beating plants, electric and ventilating fans, air pressure tank, and electric lights. RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 160a ings to form centers for the community life have been erected. While many of these community-center build- ings have been built in villages and towns, others have been erected to form centers for distinctively rural communities. An assembly hall, dining room, and kitchen are almost always found in these, and many also contain a library, committee rooms, a music room. Red Cross room, Scouts' room, and a gymna- sium. A few contain pool tables, bowling alleys, and facilities for bathing. A children's play room and a kindergarten are also occasionally found. In connec- tion with some are playgrounds with apparatus, tennis courts, and a ball field. A Community Secretary, or Community-House Director, is commonly employed to plan and oversee the community service program. Lectures, musicals, dances, debates, singing-meets, exhibits, festivals, dramatic performances, and special programs of many kinds are held in these centers. The modern country-life movement is rapidly be- coming a community movement, and the community- center house stands as a visible symbol of the new rural social unity that is being built up. What the com- munity-center house is doing here and there, well- organized new-type community-center consolidated rural schools should be doing all over the nation. This new community-center movement has much in it that the rural school may adopt with great advan- tage to itself. All of the new movements for the im- provement of farm life, described in this chapter, also are of large significance for rural education. PART II THE RURAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM CHAPTER VII FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS IN RURAL EDUCATION The school and democracy. The provision of free elementary education for all of our people has long been a noteworthy feature of our American life. As rapidly as new agricultural areas have been opened to settlement, the little district school has been created and has opened its doors to the children of the new settlers. Here fundamentals of English learning have been taught to all who came. Within recent years the struggle to eliminate illiteracy in our country, by insist- ing on the fundamentals of learning for all, has been marked in both the Northern and Southern States. The little country schoolhouse at the crossroads or by the wayside, with its handful of pupils and its American flag, has become a marked feature of our landscape. The establishment of such schools has no doubt contributed much to the creation and pre- servation of a democratic spirit among us, and their establishment has also done much to weld the differ- ent elements in our population into a homogeneous whole. The creation of new schools has been made easy of accomplishment under the laws, and school have been multiplied in such numbers as to bring i, school near to the home of every child. 164 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Until very recently about the only progress made in rural education was in the multiplication of schools and schoolhouses. While the cities were expending much thought on their school systems, and were in- creasing the efficiency of them by adjusting them to the new and more complex life conditions which they faced, the rural school, as an institution, not only •^''::ii::^5feili!i^ Fio. 39. THE SCHOOL BY THE WAYSIDB i^,: stood still, but in many cases actually slid backward. There can be little doubt but that the average rural school gradually declined in efficiency, and came to render a much less useful community service than did the earlier type of country school. The decline of the district school. The changes which have marked the third and fourth periods in our agricultural development have brought forcibly to tht front the need of a fundamental change in the nature and purpose of our rural education. In many country FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS 165 schools the number of pupils has greatly declined within the past quarter of a century. Other schools have been entirely closed. Some districts have been depleted by the removal of farmers to the cities or to other farming regions, and, due to an introduc- tion of machinery, the elimination of small farms, or to new farming conditions; while other districts, where no such changes have tak- en place, have suffered a loss by reason of the grow- ing-up of the chil- dren and by the decreasing size of families in the district. In still other districts the school has been depleted because many of the farmers now send their children to town, to obtain better edu- cational advantages for them. The elimination of the small children at the bottom and the older ones at the top, due to grading and the development of high schools, has also served to deplete still further the rural school. Fio. 40. A ONE-PUPIL CLASS Many such exist in every county. 166 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The result of recent changes. As a result of these changes it has come about that there is an increasing number of rural schools which have so few pupils and so many classes that there is little chance for mind to wrestle with mind. Such schools lack interest, enthu- siasm, and impulses to action, and usually have poor attendance and a short term. For such schools the financial support is usually small and the moral sup- port weak. The frequent changes in teachers; the inadequate supervision; the lack of proper direction; and the poor, inadequate, and too often run-down school building, make the school almost wholly lacking in the elements which are necessary to make it an im- portant factor in the lives of country children. Com- pared with a good town school, the little rural school is often miserably poor, and the mere handful of pupils, the overburdened program, and the lack of ideas or impulses to effective action on the part of either teacher or school authorities create heavy odds against a life in the open country. While better off in many respects, the small village school often suffers from many of these same influences. Rural school still of large importance. Yet about one half of the school children of the United States are enrolled in the rural schools,^ and perhaps ninety per cent of the children of the rural population receive no other education. That the education provided for such chil- * If small town schools are added, about three fifths are enrolle, < ,.^.| FlO. 46. NEW ENGLAND TOWNS AND WESTERN TOWNSHIPS COMPARED Kssex County, Mass. Area 497 8q. miles. 84 towns. Huntington County, Ind. Area 386 sq. miles. 12 townships. may exist in any state. The New England town thus has natural geographic boundaries, and is much more likely to form a center for local government and commu- nity life than is the very regular Western township, with its lines drawn straight across the county, with no refer- ence to geographical features or comjnunity possibilities. The New England town system. Under the town system of management, as we find it in New England, the educational affairs of each town are managed by one school board, known as the " Town School Committee." The schools of the central village, town, or city, which 188 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION forms the community center, as well as all of the out- lying schools, are managed as a unit by this one school board. Each town now forms a single school district, instead of being split up into a number of little school districts, as was for so long the case. District lines still remain, but only for purposes of classification and of regulating attendance, and these may be changed by the town school authorities at will. The town school committee must provide adequately for the education of all the children of the town and for an equal length of time each year; may close unnecessary schools and transport the children to some central school; makes all contracts, orders all repairs, and employs and pays all teachers; maintains a central high school, as well as graded schools; and determines the tax necessary for the proper maintenance of all the schools. The schools of a New England town are thus managed as a unit, and just as all of the schools of a city are managed by one city board of education. Town vs. district school control. The struggle to restore the town as a unit in New England was a long and bitter one, and was only accomplished after a struggle with the champions of district rights and dis- trict-school control. The result of the reestablishment of the town as the school unit has everywhere been good. Taxes and educational advantages have been equalized throughout the towns; better teachers have been em- ployed, and at higher wages; better and more sanitary school buildings have been erected; the consolidation ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 189 of schools has been greatly promoted; close and effec- tive town supervision has been instituted; free tuition at the central town high school has been provided; special instruction in music, drawing, etc., has been introduced into the outlying schools, as well as in the central town school; and one small board of representa- tive citizens, responsible to the people for results, has taken the place of the many small district school-boards and the small army of school oflScials which existed under the old regime. The Western township system. In the Western States we find the purest type of township school con- trol in Indiana and Ohio. In Indiana, one township trustee, elected by the people, manages all the schools of the township, except the schools of any incorporated village or town, which here are under separate control. In Ohio, a township school-board of five have about the same functions as the one township trustee in Indiana. The fact that in both states — and for that matter in all the states of the North Central group where the town- ship is used as a unit for school organization and main- tenance — schools in incorporated villages, towns, or cities are under separate control instead of under one township organization, constitutes the most important difference between the Western township form of or- ganization and that provided for the New England town. In this respect the New England town or- ganization is superior. Like the New England town system, however, the Western township form of school 190 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION organization attempts to provide for the systematic organization of the educational affairs of the whole township under one responsible board, and by so doing to secure some of the same efficiency which character- izes the educational administration of a New England town. For this purpose it is greatly superior to the district system. It not only provides for a much bet- ter equalization of the opportunities and advantages of education, but it is more economical and efficient as well. The chief disadvantages of the township as a unit for school organization are that it is too large for some purposes and too small for others, and frequently the township lines and community boundaries do not coincide. This is well shown by figure 46, on page 187. In many respects the county offers a still better unit of organization. S. The County System In some of our American states both the district and the township units have been completely subordinated to the county, and what is known as the county sys- tem of school organization has been instituted. Mary- land, Louisiana, and Utah offer excellent types of this form of educational organization, and the Maryland form is described somewhat in detail in chapter xiv. The county unit in evolution. The county as a unit for educational organization is found in some stage in the process of evolution in all states west of New England, except Nevada. All other states have super- ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 191 imposed some form of school superintendent to look after, correlate, and in part subordinate the dis- trict or township school authorities beneath. In some states the county superintendent has as yet but few and relatively unimportant powers ; in a number of states his powers are important, but chiefly clerical and financial; while in a few states he has been evolved into an important educational officer. County boards of education have also been established in a number of states. In some, they are largely rudimentary, and have few important functions; in others, they exercise a number of important powers. A county system of school organization may be said to be slowly, though sometimes hardly consciously, in process of evolution in most of our states, and may be looked to in the future as one of our important educational developments. Advantages of the county system. The county sys- tem of school organization, a description of which we defer to chapters xiii and xiv, is merely an attempt to apply to our educational affairs the same common- sense principles of business administration which have been put into practice, in whole or in part, in other departments of our governmental service, and which have been found to give such excellent results every- where in the business world. Under the system as best developed, the people elect a county board of educa- tion of five, who are analogous to a city board of edu- cation for a city. This board then selects and appoints a county superintendent of schools, and such deputy 192 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION supervisors as are needed; determines the educational policy for the county, and sets financial limitations; manages the schools of the county, outside of cities having a city superintendent, as a unit and after much the same method of organization and management as has been found so effective in city school organization; alters, consolidates, or abolishes the school districts, as the best interests of education require; oversees the work of its executive officers; determines the county school tax; appropriates all funds; employs teachers, fixes, and pays them their salaries; provides equal educational advantages and length of term for all schools in the county, and free high-school advantages for all children; acts as a board of control for any county high-school, teachers' training-school, or pa- rental school which may be established; looks after the building and repair of all school buildings, and the pur- chase of all books and school supplies; and, in general, manages the scattered schools of the county as though they were a compact city school system. Under such a system of school organization educational progress can be made in a year which it would take a decade or more to obtain under the district system. 4. The State Unit Superimposed above all of these units for educa- tional organization are the state educational authori- ties, usually consisting of a commissioner of education or a state superintendent of public instruction, and a ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 193 small number of deputies and assistants, to whom are given certain powers of inspection and supervision of the schools of the state. These officers usually render a valuable service in the way of inspiration and advice and in directing legislation, but they are of necessity too far removed and have too many other functions to enable them to render more than general service in the solution of the rural-school problem. The real work- ing-out of this problem must be done by the county and local school authorities, the teachers, and the in- terested people of the communities concerned. II. TYPES OF MAINTENANCE General Taxation for Education This is an attempt to equalize both the burdens and advantages of what, after careful consideration, has been conceived to be for the common good of all, and the value and importance of any plan for taxa- tion must be measured, in large part, by how far the idea of equalizing burdens and advancing the com- mon good of all underlies the plan. If education were purely a local matter, such as the maintenance of street lamps or pavements, the equalization of op- portunities and advantages would be a matter of no state concern; but since nothing more fundamentally influences the future welfare of a state than the main- tenance of good schools, the matter is not one that ought to be left entirely or even largely to local initia- tive and effort. Some form of general taxation is not only desirable, but necessary as well. 194 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Just as there are four main types of school organ- ization and control, the district, town or township, county, and state, — rising in an ascending series of values, — so there are four main types of school main- tenance employed by our American states. These are based on each of the four units used for organization and control, and also rise in an ascending series as to values. As the question of adequate finance underlies almost every attempt at the improvement of our rural and village schools, a brief consideration of the differ- ent types of school maintenance will also prove of value in understanding the problem we are considering. 1. District Taxation When the people of a little geographical area, known as a school district, first voted to tax themselves to maintain, either wholly or in part, a school for the edu- cation of the children of the district, the first step to- ward the public-school idea was made. Each resident of the district paid in proportion to the value of his property, and shared in the benefits in proportion to the number of children he had to be sent to school. Some would share who did not pay, and some would pay who did not share. It was a cooperative effort to maintain what had been decided to be for the common good of the local community, and marked the first step in the establishment of the principle that the wealth of the state must educate the children of the state. Further progress was made when the tax was ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 195 changed from permissive to mandatory, and each school district in the state was compelled to levy an annual district tax for the maintenance of a district school. Under the earlier agricultural conditions, when the need for education was small and when wealth was somewhat evenly distributed, district taxation had its greatest period of usefulness. Change in wealth and education. Since those earlier days great changes have taken place in the distribu- tion of wealth and in the kind of education demanded to meet the needs of the future. Then one man's farm was worth about as much as another's; there were few cities, and but little surplus wealth; the railroads of the country were just beginning to be built; there were no telegraph, telephone, or power- transmission lines; no express companies or trolley lines; but few corpora- tions, and those of small size; no invisible wealth; but few persons who were classed as rich; and the natural resources of the country — coal, oil, iron, stone, minerals — were as yet practically unworked; wealth and property were somewhat evenly distrib- uted; undertakings of all kinds were small; life was simple, and required but little to satisfy its needs; education was a local rather than a state interest; and the pooling of effort on a large scale was not then necessary. The social, industrial, and agricultural changes which have taken place during the half-century since the beginning of the third period in our agricultural 196 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION development have changed the whole face of the taxa- tion problem. If good schools are to be maintained generally to-day there is need for the use of some larger taxing unit than the school district, and good schools generally are practically impossible if any TABLE OF ASSESSED VALUATIONS I^-rge dependence IS placed OF A SERIES OF RURAL SCHOOL on district tflYfltion With DISTRICTS IN A MISSOURI O" Qistrici: taxation, w itn COUNTY the increases and de- creases in population, the development of the natu- ral resources of a state, and the shifting economic conditions, the inequali- ties in taxing power, as between districts, coun- ties, and sections of a state, tend to become more and more pro- nounced. As a result, the maintenance of schools by district taxation comes to involve but slight burdens on some, and very great burdens on others. Short terms, poor teach- ers, poor buildings, poor schools, and high tax rates come to mark one locality, while excellent schools on a medium rate mark others.^ What one community * Not infrequently we also find a low tax rate, and relatively poor schools in districts which can well afford to raise more money, but the district spirit and tradition are such that the trustees and the people will not do so until compelled to by law. This is considered further in the next chapter. What the maxi- District Assessed mum taxof 65ct8. Valuation on the $100 would produce 1 $71,035 $462 2 43,095 280 3 16,410 106 4 22,847 149 5 127,440 838 6 37,160 240 7 26,246 171 8 45,275 498 28,168 182 10 22.424 149 11 61,215 332 12 87,185 666 13 32,450 210 14 17,216 112 15 21.005 " 137 ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 197 can do with ease, another finds impossible even to attempt. Yet children grow up in each, and are in need of about the same educational opportunities and advantages. 2. Town or Township Taxation This marks a slightly larger conception of the need and purpose of education than does district taxation, as here all the people of the township agree to pool their efforts for the maintenance of a system of schools for the town or township. A number of states have advanced to this conception, and have substituted for the district the town or the township unit in the matter of school support. The schools maintained become town or township schools instead of district schools, just as the schools of a city are city schools rather than ward schools. Town and township inequalities. While this plan is a distinct advance over district taxation, because the unit for support and the educational consciousness ex- pressed are both larger, as a plan it is open to much the same objections as the district unit of taxation. As a supplement to some larger unit for general taxation it is very useful, but as the sole or even the chief unit for school taxation, it is so small that any serious at- tempt at the equalization of either the burdens or the advantages of education is impossible under it. Ex- cellent school systems will be found in certain towns and townships, while in others, often adjoining, very 198 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION poor schools must continue to exist, and often with no visible hope of improvement. Within the town or township there is a desirable equalization of tax rates and opportunities for education, the wealthier por- tions helping the poorer portions to maintain a uni- formly good system for the common good of all; but as between town and town, or township and township, there is no equalization whatever. The differences become especially marked when applied to pairs of towns or townships, located in dififerent portions of a state.^ 3. County Taxation The next step in the evolution of a broader con- ception of the need and purpose of public education, though not necessarily the next step historically, is when the people of a county agree to pool their educa- tional efforts, in whole or in part, to maintain all of the schools of their county, the wealthier districts or towns or townships helping the poorer ones to maintain a good system of schools, now believed to be for the gen- eral good of the county as a whole. General county taxation for education represents a marked advance in the equalization of both the advantages and the bur- dens of education over district or even town or town- ship taxation. This plan of cooperation for the sup- port of schools is common throughout the West and ^ As, for example, eastern and western Massachusetts, or northern and southern Indiana or Illinois. ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 199 South, but is not found in the North Atlantic, and scarcely in the North Central group of states. It re- suits in the maintenance of good county systems of schools, as opposed to district or town systems, and in the equalization of tax rates throughout the county, thus enabling many a poor district to provide a much better school than could be done under a system of district taxation. Under a county system of school administration, as described in chapters xiii and xiv, a county school tax attains its greatest usefulness. Equalizing effect of a county school tax. A statisti- cal study of the district valuations and tax rates in any county in any state will at once reveal the equalizing effect of a county system of taxation, as opposed to district or even town or township taxation. Instead of extremes of one to two mills for good schools at one end, and twelve to fifteen mills for short and often poor schools at the other, a general county tax of three to four mills will provide good schools for all, and with- out unduly increasing the burden of support on any one. The main reason why California, for example, has uniformly good rural and village schools through- out the whole state, — in the mountains, in the val- leys, on the fruit farms, on the edge of the desert, and near the cities, — with good teachers and good sala- ries everywhere, is that state and county taxation are relied upon to maintain the rural schools, district taxa- tion being seldom resorted to except for building pur- poses. While the district-unit form of organization is 200 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION still retained, in a limited form, a series of county school- systems has been created, as opposed to district school- systems. ^. State Taxation A still further step in the evolution of a broader con- ception of the need and purpose of a system of public education is taken when the people of a whole state agree to pool their efforts, in whole or in part, in the maintenance of what the people of the whole state have come to recognize as for the common good of all, the wealthier counties and cities helping the poorer ones to carry the burden of maintaining the better quality of schools now required of all and for the common good of all. In the present age of railways, trolleys, power lines, mines, manufacturing establish- ments, and large corporations, the need of some form of general taxation, in part to overcome the unequal distribution of wealth, will be apparent. The great equalizing effect of a substantial general state tax, or appropriation from corporate revenue, and especially if coupled with a system of distribu- tion which places an emphasis on units of cost and effort and need, will be evident if the reader considers the conditions in his own state. Nowhere is wealth even approximately evenly distributed, yet every- where future citizens of the state are in need of train- ing and guidance. The best schools of to-day are in the cities, and partly because the cities can do with ease what rural communities cannot even attempt. Rural ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 201 taxpayers probably pay more than an average rate for education to-day, as the burden of support is much greater when six or eight taxpayers maintain a $600 school than when forty or sixty taxpayers support a $1200 school. General vs. local effort. It is from state and county taxation, then, rather than from local effort, that the greater part of the necessary funds with which to main- tain the type of school needed ought, in the future, to be derived. From $900 to $1500 a year ought to be spent on the maintenance of a rural school, and this amount, or any great portion of it, is too large to be expected from district taxation. Many districts can- not to-day produce even one fourth of such a sum, and short terms, third-grade certificates, poor teachers, and weak schools are the inevitable results of the at- tempt to make each district pay its own way. It is only by a state- and county- wide pooling of effort, sup- plemented by local taxation for buildings and extra advantages, that good schools can be maintained uni- formly throughout a state. Systems of distribution. After adequate taxation has been provided for, a wise system for it^ distribu- tion needs next to be devised. To apportion money to school districts on the basis of the number of children reported as between certain ages (school census), and without regard to local needs or educational efforts made, is almost the poorest plan that could be devised. The real unit of cost in the maintenance of a school, 202 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION whether it have 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 children, is the teacher needed to teach the children, and the chief items which should interest the state in the apportion- ment of its funds, after the unit of cost for the teacher has been set aside, are length of term and average daily attendance. In California, where an eight-months school is required of all districts, and where one of the best plans for taxation and apportionment to be found in any state is in use, $750 is first set aside by the county superintendent for each teacher, and the re- mainder, which is somewhere near $10 per child per year, is then apportioned to the districts on the basis of their average daily attendance the preceding year. Such a plan for distributing the taxes raised, supple- mented by a small reserve fund, for use in helping those communities which have raised a certain high rate of local tax and still cannot meet the minimum demands of the state, as is done in Indiana and Mis- souri, will come about as near placing a premium on every desirable effort which communities should be encouraged and forced to make as any which can be devised. If sufficient general taxation, state and county, is provided, good schools are possible through- out a whole state, and some such plan as is indicated above for the distribution of the funds will come as near to an equalization of both the burdens and the opportunities of education throughout the state as it is desirable to do.^ * For a much more detailed consideration of this subject, see the ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 203 Fundamental needs for rural-school progress. The substitution of some larger unit for school manage- ment than the district, adequate financing, and a wise system for the apportionment of the proceeds of taxation, lie at the basis of any marked improvement in the educational conditions surrounding out rural schools. There must be, in most of our states, a doub- ling of funds and a wiser distribution of the funds which are raised, if anything approaching satisfactory results are to be obtained. The attempt to conduct rural schools on a mere fraction of what the cities spend for similar educational advantages will never give good results. More money for education is an absolute essential, and until this can be obtained, either from larger local or general taxation, or both, or from some form of reorganization of rural education which will make better use of the funds now at hand, no very satisfactory results in providing the kind of rural edu- cation needed can be expected. Until one or the other, or both, of these desirable results can be obtained, which may take time in certain states, the best that can be done is to see that the districts provide as much money as they can afford, and then spend it as wisely as possible. In this chapter we have emphasized organization and financial support, because both are of such fundamen- tal importance in dealing with the rural-school prob- author's School Funds and their Apportionment, Tr. Col. Contrib. to Educ, no. 2. New York, 1906. 204 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION lem. In succeeding chapters we shall point out how larger sums can be advantageously spent in the im- provement of the rural and village schools, and, still more important, how, by a reorganization of rural education, a much better system of organization and finance could be provided. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What form of school organization is in use in your state? 2. If the district system, what are the chief powers of the district officers? Is it a strong or a weak district system? 3. How may new districts be created? 4. What has been the chief curtailment of the powers of the dis- trict in the past quarter of a century in your state? 5. Are there parts of your state in which the district system is still a necessity? 6. If your state has the township or the county system, does the sub-district system exist? If so, is it so managed as to be a point of strength or weakness? 7. Are the district-school authorities in your county liberal, fair, or penurious in the matter of school expenses? 8. How many school officers are there in your county? 9. Suppose the county unit of organization were to be applied to your county, what advantages in it can you see? 10. What plan for the support of its schools does your state employ? 11. What are the sources of school moneys in your county, township, or district? What percentage comes from each source? What sources are increasing or decreasing? 12. Are the schools of your state, from a financial point of view, state schools, county schools, or district schools? 13. How have the changes of half a century "changed the whole face of the taxation problem"? (Page 196.) 14. Do you know of two school districts or communities, near one another, where the burdens vary greatly? 15. What extremes of taxation exist among the districts of your township or county? Among the counties of your state? 16. How evenly, or unevenly, is the wealth of your state distributed? Of your county? ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 205 17. How are the proceeds of taxation for education, and the income from permanent funds, apportioned in your state? In your county? 18. Is the system of apportionment a wise one? Could you suggest any improvements? 19. Does the apportionment system place a premium on commu- nity effort? 20. If the state or county school funds in your state were doubled, or trebled, would that alone solve your rural-school problem? 21. Is there any financial premium placed, in your state, on con- solidating the schools? If so, what? CHAPTER IX THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT The need for better equipment. It is of course true that an unusually capable teacher occasionally accom- plishes rather wonderful results under very discour- aging educational conditions and with an almost en- tire absence of teaching equipment. On the other hand, it is also true that hundreds of other teachers, who are not unusually capable, obtain only very un- satisfactory results in our rural schools to-day, and in part because of the poor quality of the teaching equip- ment provided. Despite our recent advances our rural and village schools are still greatly inferior to city schools in this respect, and one of their needs which must be supplied, if they are to be redirected and made educationally efficient, is that they be given buildings and teaching equipment adequate for doing what it may reasonably be expected rural and village schools ought to do. As the provision of improved teaching equipment for our rural schools may be said to be al- most a prerequisite to rural educational progress, we wish to devote this chapter to a consideration of such needs, conceiving teaching equipment to mean build- ing, site, teaching apparatus and material, and library facilities. THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 207 1. The Building In the old days of rural and village education, when instruction was confined chiefly to the three Rs, the main equipment need was for a building where the teacher and pupils could meet together for study and recitation. Almost any kind of a building would do, so long as it had benches and could be kept warm. The log schoolhouse of the East and the South, and the sod schoolhouse of the prairie states, alike answered these early educational needs. The weather-boarded rec- tangular boxes, with a door at one end and a chimney at the other, three evenly spaced windows on each side, the whole somewhat resembling a box car in appear- ance, were the successors of these early schoolhouses. Still later, brick took the place of timber, but the style of house remained the same. The tjrpe. Thousands upon thousands of such little district schoolhouses were built all over the United States, and are being built to-day. The interiors were everywhere the same. A teacher's desk at one end; an unjacketed stove in the middle; blackboards around the walls; sometimes single, but usually double school desks in the room; a manikin or a planetarium, bought by some trustee on whom they had made a deep impres- sion; perhaps a globe, or a map case; a few books; and a water pail; — these constituted the usual material equipment. The interior was severely plain; the ex- terior was crude and unattractive; the site, usually a 208 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION" : [ ] c corner by the wayside, was bare and unimproved. Once created, the type has persisted, and thousands of such schools still exist in almost every agricultural state in the Union. Only very recently have we seen the begin- nings of any improve- ment in the type. Why they persist. Such school buildings once answered the needs of education fairly well, and it is hard for district trus- tees to see the need of anything better to-day. Because they them- selves received their early education in such a temple of learning, they cannot under- stand why it is not good enough for their chil- dren. The farmers who do understand lease their farms to tenants and move to town, to secure better educational advantages for their children. In many rural communities this process has been going on for so long that it has selected out and drained off all who would have stood for better conditions, leaving behind an unprogressive rural population, to whom almost any kind of a school or school building is good enough. A common condition. Despite recent improvements. Fio. 47, A TYPICAL PRESENT-DAY INTERIOR THE TEACHING EQUffMENT 209 Fio. 48. A TYPICAL WEATHER-BOARDED BOX the rural school building of to-day is too often an ugly and an unsanitary box, cheap in its construction, often in a poor state of repair, and with no facilities for instruction worth mentioning. The room is merely a meeting-place for hearing lessons in the old book subjects. The room is unattractive, often dingy and forlorn, with no- thing about it to awaken any of the finer human feel- ings. When the hard white plas- ter walls have be- come so dirty that the teacher is al- most in rebellion over them, instead of tinting them with good soft colors, the best that the average trustee knows is to cover them with that most unsanitary of coverings, known as wall-paper. In its unsanitary possibiUties it is a fit accompaniment of the common drinking-pail. Usually, too, the pattern selected is loud and gaudy in color. The exterior is frequently a picture of dilapida- tion, and its outhouses are often filthy and lacking in privacy. Many rural school buildings are of such a nature that the development of artistic tastes is impos- sible in them, and many are positively immoral in their influence on the young. The lack of respect shown for such public property, as evidenced by broken windows and weather-boarding, the marking of walls, and the 210 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION presence of shutters for protection, is not to be won- dered at. Limitations to instruction. A school, if it is to be vital and to exercise much influence, must relate itself to, and in a large part express, the needs of the com- Fio. 49. A MORE ATTRACTIVE EXTERIOR munity of which it forms a part. It should be a com- munity institution, adapted to the peculiar needs of that community. There is nothing about the usual rural school building to suggest that such an idea was in any one's mind during its construction and equip- ment, and it is with difl^culty that it can be adapted to such a purpose. In rural schools in agricultural com- munities, instruction in agriculture and in the needs of agricultural life should permeate the school and its work. Such would give vitality to the work of the school and make it attractive to the children of coun- try people. The conditions which surround the dis- trict school, as it is usually found, are not such as to be THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 211 favorable to such instruction. For good work in such subjects something more is needed in teaching equip- ment than the usual rectangular box. Neither the building nor the site is arranged for working pur- poses, and in most rural schools lit- tle beyond book- work instruction is possible. The cheap building. The usual rural school- building is built entirely too cheaply, and no attempt is made to make it attrac- tive or sanitary, or to provide it with the necessary fa- cilities for wholesome school life and good instruc- tion. The needs of the past, rather than of the present or the future, have decided its plan. Its cost has been very small, and the idea of the school-dis- trict authorities too often seems to be to provide as little as possible, and to provide this little as cheaply as can be done. No basement is provided; the attic is un- □ □ □ nn an □ an □□ n n □ □□ □ n □ □□ □ n □ □□ 1 I I Fio. 50. A REARRANGED INTERIOR Remodeled along good educational and hygienic lines, and new equipment and some conveniences added. The three windows on the left have been made into doors, and the frames and sash moved to the right side. Compare with Fig. 47. 212 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION used; no cloak or other rooms are divided off; the heat- ing and ventilation are primitive, or at best only as good as the law compels; the lighting is bad; no plumb- ing or artificial lighting fixtures are installed ; picture molding is omitted; the walls are left untinted; and the woodwork and floor finish are cheaply done. From $600 to $1000 has been a common cost for such schools, while perhaps $2500 represents the cost for the best of the type to-day. No wonder so many rural homes are poor and inhospitable, when the owners have been edu- cated to nothing better by the school. Once provided, repairs and additions are usually made by the district authorities only after much pressure has been applied. The cities, on the other hand, spend from $4000 to $9000 for each classroom provided, with between $5000 and $7000 as a common cost, and in such build- ings one finds not only the best of heating, lighting, and sanitary arrangements, but assembly hall, library, science room, rooms for manual training and domestic science, and closets and rooms for the storage of school supplies as well. In such places the conditions favor excellent instruction and the formation of good tastes, while in the average rural building the conditions do not. Fundamental needs in a school building. In many rural districts there are no reasons, other than the par- simony and the short-sightedness of the district-school authorities, for a continuance of these poor educational conditions. Old buildings should be remodeled to ^THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 213 adapt them better to modern educational needs, and when new ones are constructed they should be of a dififerent type. There is much need, in many of our states, for some state or county oversight of all repairs and new construction, with a view to compelling the district authorities to erect buildings of a type called Fio.51. A SUGGESTED EXTERIOR FOR THE SCHOOLHOUSB ON PAGE 214 for by modern educational conditions and needs. Cloak- and hat-rooms, separate from the main school- room, should be supplied. The central unjacketed stove should disappear, and, where at all feasible, a basement furnace should be installed. The walls should be tinted, and a few good, well-framed pictures should adorn them. A good water supply should be provided, and, by means of a pressure tank or a wind, gaso- line, or electric motor, water under pressure should be 214 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION —|p=ac:= ■ ■ ■ , ■= iff oD°D°D-°D°n'^n°D eQoQcioQoncr^i] ^.oQoQoaoactici'^D .□oGoQoQonoQoQ ^rvT^.^ GEOUSnFl.OOB Pl-AS BaSEMUJSI KUOi FiO~iB2. A MODEL INTERIOR FOR A ONE-TEACHER RURAL SCHOOLHOUSE Still another and a better plan would be to use the attic for the manual training •nd domestic science and the basement for the gj'ranasiura. See Figs. 72, 73, ana 74 for such a plan. A curtain or slatted door can be used to close off the plant room, if the liglit is too bright. Lavatory rooms for both boya and girls contain driukuig fouataius, wash basins, and toilets. THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 215 supplied for lavatories, toilets, and drinking fountains within the building. With a coil of pipe in the furnace and a hot-water boiler, such as is used in a kitchen, attached, an economical supply of hot water can be had in winter for the lavatories. Figures 52, 53, 54, 72, and 73 give types of what might be provided, and at no great expense. Figure 53 CI BSanual Training ICaWne^ ?^ pi A^culture Domestic Science cnnmrnrnD DnDmmma Dmmmmn DQDmmma [ frablnotl Tia. 53. THE MODEL RURAL-SCHOOL BUILDINQ AT MAYVILLE, NORTH DAKOTA The especial feature here is the main-floor arrangement, rooms being provided for special work in agriculture, domestic science, and manual training. The basement, to which the stairs lead, is used for furnace, playroom, and water storage for the school. In such a building the best of a modem rural-school curriculum can be taught. (From Woof ter's Teaching in Eural Schoolt, p. 42.) •Lg___gj* Fio. 54. A DESIRABLE TYPE OF RURAL-SCHOOL BUILDING The floor plan shosvs how such a builJinR jirovided for instruction in science and the practical arts, as well as book studies. Two types of exterior for the same classroom are shown. (From Showalter'B Handbook Jur Rural School Officers, p. 61.) THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 215i would be comparatively inexpensive, and represents a very desirable type of one-room rural-school build- ing. Figure 54 makes about the same provision for rooms for desirable special instruction, and utilizes the basement as well. Such school buildings also, with the provision made for washrooms and toilets, are certain to have their influence later on in devel- oping a demand for better rural homes. Library, science, and work rooms. A library room should be attached, as should also a collection and science room. Both are provided for in the remodel- ing shown in Figure 50. In Figure 52 a library room is omitted, but cases are provided for books. The case and table in the back corner are for specimens, while the front corner is for flowers, plants, and growing material. The basement forms an admirable scientific work room. Such rooms will prove to be very impor- tant additions for every rural school. In the science or work room should be kept the teaching collections and illustrative material of the school. These should include scientific specimens, agricultural specimens and implements, cooking specimens and implements, pattern and sewing materials, models of all kinds, illus- trative pictures and plans, and trophies won. Tables with benches or stools should be placed in such a room instead of desks. Such a room, connected with any rural or village school, would be a constant challenge to teacher, pupils, and parents, and would do much to stimulate intellectual activity along nature study, agricultural, and home-keeping lines. In the basement 216 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION or in the attic, teaching equipment for instruction in manual training, domestic science, and sewing should also be provided. Figures 47 and 50 show how old buildings may be remodeled, and Figures 52, 53, and 54 the lines along which new ones should be built. In chapter xiv a fairly good type of one-teacher rural- school building is pictured, and the floor plans shown. In the chapter following this one a number of modern buildings for schools having more than one teacher are pictured, and their floor plans shown. It is in such newer-type buildings that a redirected and a revital- ized rural school becomes possible. 2. The Site Just as the older-type rural-school building is too often not adapted to modern educational needs, so too often the site on which the school is located is also unsuited to mod- ern instructional needs. Thrift has ever been a rural virtue, and rural schools have usu- ally been located Fio. 54a. AN OmO SCHOOL SITE Fronting ou a railroad track, and twenty feet from OU Small COmCrS a hog-chute and pen. (From a picture by Graham.) . i . i or land which were not useful for any other purpose. When rural learning was all book learning, such sites suflBced fairly well, but j,fetmiiii(tiiiiv',iuiiniiilii THE TEACfflNG EQUIPMENT 217 a rural school of the type we now need can no longer use such a site. A rocky hillside, bleak and wind-swept; a streak of clayey soil, where nothing can be raised; a piece of low-lying ground, where the drainage is poor; a corner by the wayside, neglected and forlorn; or a small lot bounded by a highroad or a railroad; — these have been choice spots which rural thrift has dedicated to the cause of learning. Small in size, un- fenced, often unsanitary, bare of trees or adornment, and wholly unattractive, describes many a school- house site. Such sites will not meet modern needs, and the sooner they are abandoned the better it will be for the rural school. The site for instruction purposes. Laboratory in- struction for rural-life needs — that is, out-of-door in- struction in nature study and agricultural subjects — ought to form an important part of the work of our rural schools. For this good land is needed, with good drainage and a good subsoil. The school site should be used for school gardens, experimental plats, group- ing of trees and shrubs, and for the study of the wild life of the neighborhood, as well as for a building site and a playground. An important part of the work of the rural school should be work out of doors. Our school work is altogether too formal and bookish, and the farm child has too often grown up, at least so far as the school could direct his training, a stranger to the life of nature about him. The site and ©sthetic training. The school site, too. 218 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION should be toade to contribute to moral and aesthetic training, as well as to intellectual and physical educa- tion. Walks and drives should be laid out, and grass and long-lived shade trees planted. Playgrounds, with facilities for gymnastic work and games, should be provided. Where possible, beds of flowers, climbing vines, bulbs, shrubs, and roses should be added for the education of the children and the adornment of the grounds. Bird houses should be made and placed. By a little effort and judgment on the part of the teacher much can be done in this direction, though the common lack of a water supply and the long summer vacation naturally interfere greatly with such artistic development. Still such difficulties are not insur- mountable. Where rural schools have been consoli- dated and a central school provided, with running water and janitor service, many things then become easily possible which are difficult for the little district "schools. 3. The Teacher's Home In all efforts to build up an efficient rural school the teacher must not be forgotten. All recent studies have revealed the lack of training, immaturity, and short tenure of rural teachers. In part the short tenure is due to the unwillingness of young teachers to put up with the kind of living conditions they have to put up with in thousands of country districts. After a year or two they either go to town to teach or change to some THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 218a other work. No small part of the inefficiency of rural schools to-day is due to the unsatisfactory and often almost impossible living conditions which rural teach- ers are called upon to put up with. Only as we create conditions which will attract well-qualified teachers to rural service can we hope materially to improve the rural school. To a girl who has become used to a quiet room, bath- room facilities, hot and cold water, privacy, and an attractive dining room while studying to become a teacher, the lack of all these things and the irregular- ity of life of the farmer's home make teaching in the country almost an impossibility. School authorities are finding more and more every year that they must provide suitable living accommodations for the teacher if they are to attract the type of teacher needed by the rural school. The " Teacherage." This has been done in many places by the erection of "Teacherages," or homes for teachers, on the school grounds. Sometimes, in erect- ing a new building, the old one-room building has been rebuilt into a teacher's home; sometimes a new bungalow-type of cottage has been erected. The State of Washington has been prominent in this work, though the movement has extended to all parts of the United States. The drawing and holding power of a "Teach- erage" is a big asset to any type of rural school; a consolidated rural school ought by all means to be provided with such an addition to its equipment. 218i RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Figure 55 given above, shows the floor plan, front elevation, and one wall of the living room of a Teach- |o1 t5| pi lo Fia. 65. A "TEACHERAGE" FOR TWO TEACHERS (From Showalter's Handbook for Rural School Officers, p. 55.) erage planned for two teachers, or a teacher and his family. ^. Teaching Equipments In teaching equipment the district schools, too, are much behind city schools, and often such teaching equipment as does exist is in large part unsuited to the needs of the rural school. District trustees have for long been an easy mark for the apparatus agent, and they have usually purchased as liberally as their very limited funds allowed. Their purchases, though, have frequently borne little reference to real educational THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 219 needs, and the advice of the teacher and the superin- tendent has too frequently gone unheeded. Elaborate planetariums, charts showing the progress of civiliza- tion, expensive relief and dissection maps, manikins, geometrical blocks, encyclopaedias, and unsuitable books and pictures, — such as these have been bought by district trustees in every state in the Union where they possessed the purchasing power. Usually no closet or cabinet has been provided to keep them in, with the result that they have soon become covered with dust and injured by being knocked about. In the city, on the other hand, such teaching equipment is usually bought on the recommendation of the educa- tional authorities, and with a view to meeting real educational needs. It is also bought much more in- telligently than is the case with rural village districts, is stored in closets or apparatus rooms, and is properly cared for. Needed teaching apparatus. The rural school, as well as the city school, needs teaching apparatus. Good blackboards, good illustrative material for pri- mary work, a good globe, good plain maps, good charts, a work-bench for constructive work, molding clay and color material, simple illustrative chemical and physical apparatus, supplies for nature-study work, bench tools and garden tools, a Babcock milk- tester, a number of magnifying glasses and a fairly good microscope, sand boards, germinating trays, flower-pots, a glass aquarium, plenty of good books. 220 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION some playground equipment for individual and for group games, — these are the important equipment needs of the rural school of to-day. A coal or gasoline stove, dishes and cooking utensils, table equipment, a sewing-machine, and a porte lumiere lantern are also very desirable additions to the teaching equipment, and may even be said to be necessary if teaching of the best type is to be done. For all such equipment good cases and closets should be provided, so that it may be properly cared for. 5. School Library Plenty of good books, adapted to the needs of in- struction, are a very necessary part of the teaching equipment, — city, town, or rural. Nearly all schools have a small library fund, but it is frequently so small as to be wholly inadequate. In most states this fund is spent by the district trustee, and too often according to his own sweet will. The writer has seen Gibbon's Rome, Mark Twain's works, Dickens and Scott, Car- lyle and Emerson, Macaulay and Hume, and books on exploration and phrenology in rural-school district libraries, these having been purchased from the school library fund by some one trustee. The purchase of such works may be somewhat unusual, and perhaps is less common now than was the case a decade ago. Better standards as to what should be bought, and greater oversight of the purchase by the county superintendent, have recently done much to prevent THE TEACHING EQUn>MENT 221 such a waste of funds. After all, though, the amount spent for books is small, and the selections by trustees are often unwisely made. More supplemental reading books and supplemental textbooks are needed, and more reference works, dealing with natural phenomena, home life and farm life, and the application of science to modern life, should be available for use by rural pupils. Each school needs a good working equipment of books of a kind adapted to its peculiar needs. A library of 250 to 350 well-selected volumes, with cases for additional pamphlets and pictures, and with provi- sion for yearly additions and replacements, is not too much to expect for a one-teacher rural school. In addi- tion, the library of the school should be supplemented by traveling libraries, sent out from the oflSce of the county superintendent, or from a county or state library. City and country compared. It is when we compare the teaching equipment of the rural school with that of the city, or even of a good town school, that the defi- ciencies in rural equipment are most apparent. In buildings, the average city or town school possesses very superior advantages. These buildings are usually artistic and attractive, well heated and well lighted, equipped with all needed sanitary arrangements, have an assembly hall and a library room, often a science study and lecture room, are well equipped with teach- ing apparatus, and often have, in addition, good play- grounds and attractive grounds about the school. With 222 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the much larger salaries paid, the expert supervision, and the many extra educational advantages provided by the cities, it is not to be wondered at that they attract to them not only the best teachers, but the children of the most far-sighted parents as well. Until country people and their representatives, the district trustees, come to see the necessity of providing buildings and teaching equipment which is approximately as good, it will be a difficult matter materially to improve the district school. Much more money should be put into larger and better arranged school buildings, larger and better school sites, increased teaching equipment, and larger and better school libraries, as well as into better teachers and longer school terms. Better equipment essential. The need for better material equipment for rural-life education is one of the important needs of to-day, and only small ad- vances can be made in the redirection and revitalizing of rural education until such has been provided. The cities spend four to six times as much per classroom for school buildings, and twenty to thirty times as much for equipment, as is spent by the rural districts. They also have much larger and better selected libraries of supplemental and general books, and a city library to draw on, in addition. Add to these advantages the fact that the city teachers, due to superior professional preparation and longer service, and to their specializa- tion by grades, are, as a body, better capable of work- ing without teaching equipment than the teacher in THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 223 the mixed rural school, and that in the cities close, per- sonal, and effective supervision takes the place of the annual or semiannual visit to the rural school by the county superintendent, and we can realize something of the heavy odds under which rural education now labors. More money, better equipment, longer school terms, and closer supervision are fundamental needs of rural education to-day. Difficulties in the way. It is much easier, however, to say that the schoolhouses, school sites, and teaching equipment for rural schools ought to be improved, than it is to secure the money for such improvements. In a series of such districts as those given on page 196 better schoolhouses and equipment are almost out of the question. Most of the districts in the table given cannot now afford taxes enough to enable them to se- cure a well-educated teacher, to say nothing of im- proving their schools. In other counties, richer in wealth, where taxes for better equipment could be raised by the districts without burden, it is difficult to get either the trustees or the people to vote the necessary funds. Economy approaching penurious- ness has for so long been the habit that a proposal for increased expenses now comes as something of a shock. Many school districts in the upper Mississippi Valley have voted $200 to $300 of school tax each year for so long that the amount has become fixed by tradition, and a proposal now for its material increase for new facilities would bring a record-breaking attendance to 2S54 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the school meeting to oppose the increase. Only by patient and long-continued urging and education on the part of the county educational authorities, or by compulsion on the part of the state, can material im- provement in educational conditions be eflfected under the district system of school control. In hundreds of districts in every state, no amount of urging or educa- tion can secure results, for the reason that the districts are too poor in taxable wealth to enable them to pro- vide anything approaching adequate educational facili- ties, even if they had the wish to do so. The need of educational reorganization. In the mat- ter of material equipment for the work of education, the weakness and ineflSciency of the district system of organization and maintenance manifests itself with particular force. In some places the little district school, due to its remoteness from other neighbor- hoods and to the sparsity of population in the sur- rounding country, must, for a time at least, remain much as it now is. In many other regions, though, there is no business or educational reason for the con- tinuance of so many small, poorly equipped, ineffi- ciently managed, and relatively expensive rural schools. The needs of rural people could be much better served, much better schools for their children could be provided, and not infrequently a financial economy could be effected as well, if the long-outgrown district system of organization and maintenance were in large part superseded by a more rational and more business- THE TEACHING EQUIPMENT 225 like system of school organization and maintenance. That such a reorganization must be effected before material, general, or rapid progress can be made in re- directing and revitalizing rural education, the writer believes to be beyond question, and the following chap- ter will be devoted to a description of how such a re- organization may be effected, and the results which might be obtained from such reorganized schools. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What can a teacher in a small rural school do, when she finds such a building as is described on page 209? 2. What is the estimated value of the average rural schoolhouse of your county, or community? How many have any sanitary conveniences? How many would rank good, fair, and poor? 3. How many have any equipment for instruction in manual train- ing, domestic science, or agriculture? 4. How many of the fundamental needs of a school building, as enumerated on pages 212 and 213, have been met in school buildings you have known? 5. How many of the school sites you have known would contribute to aesthetic training? How could they have been made to do so, and about what would it have cost? 6. Compare the teaching equipment of an average city and rural school in your county. 7. About what would it cost to supply a rural school with the teaching apparatus mentioned on pages 219 and 220? 8. What is the average library equipment of the rural schools of your community? 9. How much of a "library fund" is there each year for additions and replacements? Who spends it, and what plan for its expendi- ture is followed? 10. Suggest plans for raising library or equipment money each year by means of entertainments, or other such plans. 11. How many of the districts of your county could afford $6000 for a new and well-equipped schoolhouse? 12. What is the average cost per pupil of rural education in your county or community? How does this compare with city costs? CHAPTER X THE REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION The multiplication of districts. The tendency of rural people to multiply the number of school districts has been commented on frequently in the preceding chapters. To this the laws, originally designed to make easy the creation of new schools, have opposed but little resistance. Whenever the attendance at a school became sufficient to provide members enough in each class to awaken a little intellectual enthusiasm, the de- mand for a school nearer home led to a demand for a division of the district, and the erection of a new school- house nearer to the homes of the seceding parents. This process has been well illustrated in Figures 44 and 45. In the days of cheap schoolhouses, cheap teachers, cheap education, and local taxation, it was thought wise to encourage the process, and commonly pride was taken by the people in the abundant school facili- ties thus provided. The process went on until each township, six miles square, came to have from six to nine one-teacher rural schoolhouses in it, seven or eight to the township being the common numbers. This meant a school for every four to six square miles of farm land, and with maximum walking distances of from one to two miles for the children. REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 227 Even the recent decreases in the rural population, the decreasing size of farm families, and the with- drawal of the older children from the school, all of which have greatly decreased the school attendance, have not wholly stopped the further multiplication of districts. Often the desire of a neighborhood to have a school of their own outweighs all other considerations, the laws interpose but little resistance, the county superintendent can offer but little objection, and the result is that another small struggling school is created, three new representatives of the people are elected to office, and a new rural schoolhouse soon greets the eye. The present result. This process has gone on for so long that every county which has been settled any length of time, and has reached a somewhat stationary level in its rural population, has to-day from five to seven times as many schools, and elects to office from five to seven times as many school officials, as there is any need for; pays for from one fourth to one third more teachers than there is any necessity of employ- ing; and maintains a general level of rural education far below what could be maintained, for the same money, if the schools of the county were reorganized on a rational business and educational basis. The re- sult generally is a collection of small schools, a horde of school officials, short terms, cheap teachers, poor buildings, poor teaching equipment, schools behind the times, and a general lack of interest on the part of the people in the schools maintained. This is one of 228 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the inevitable results of the district system of school administration, and the burden of it falls heavily upon country children. Recent attempts to improve conditions. Much has been said and written within recent years, with a view to remedying these conditions, and some pressure has been applied with this end in view, but with relatively little success. In a number of states the tax limits have been increased by law; minimum salaries for teach- ers have been prescribed; an earnest effort to secure more trained teachers has been made; the minimum yearly school term permitted has been ordered length- ened; improved sanitary conditions for school build- ings have been demanded; special state aid for poor districts has been set aside; agricultural instruction has been introduced; and an effort has been made to educate the district trustees to some better conception of their duties and responsibilities. The net result of two decades of such effort is that a little more money is now being spent on rural education; the term is somewhat longer, and slowly increasing; the average schoolhouse is a little better, and a movement for schoolhouse improvement seems to have set in; the teachers have a little better training, and the salaries paid are a little higher; the trustee perhaps gains a little better conception of his functions before his suc- cessor is elected to oflSce ; and here and there one reads of a revitalized rural school which is rendering admir- able community service. The progress, though, has REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 229 been small compared with the effort expended, and not infrequently the progress made one year, with much effort, has all been lost a few years later. The process is too slow and too ineffective to accomplish much, and because it does not go to the root of the matter at all. The root of the matter. The real root of the matter is that the district system of school administration and school financing is a system which is wasteful of effort and of funds, results in great educational waste, and is unprogressive to a high degree. But little marked progress in the improvement of rural schools has been made in any state where the district system reigns supreme, and but little may be looked for until the district system, with its local taxation and control and its multitude of little schools, is subordinated by general law to a better system of organization and management. The unwise multiplication of school dis- tricts should be stopped, schools which will afford the kind of education needed by rural people should be provided instead, and a rearrangement of expendi- tures should be made which will provide sufficient funds to maintain the necessary number of good schools and attract good teachers to them. High-school advan- tages, of a kind suited to rural needs, now largely lack- ing, should also be provided for all. This is feasible only through a reorganization of the educational re- sources of each county, and along good business and educational lines. 230 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Equal rights for the country child. Such a reorgani- zation proposes nothing more or less than the creation, for country children, of as good schools for their needs as city children now enjoy. It contemplates the aban- donment of dozens of the small and inefficient one- teacher schools which dot the surface of almost every county, and the creation, instead, of a much smaller number of centrally located schools. CONSOLIDATION IN CENTRAL SCHOOLS The consolidation movement. The movement to restore to the country child something like equal rights with the city child, in the matter of educational advan- tages, had its beginnings in Massachusetts as early as 1867, and as a movement has become known as that for the consolidation of schools. Little use was made of the law in Massachusetts until after the final aboli- tion of the district system, in 1882, and it was not un- til about 1890 that the consolidation of schools began to make marked headway there. Since then, under the restored town management of schools, much progress in consolidation has been made, not only in Massachu- setts, but in the other New England States as well. To the westward the movement began in Ohio, with the abolition of the subdistrict system in 1892. In- diana began the movement in 1901, and, due largely to the absence of the district system, this state has since then made remarkable progress in the consolidation of its little rural schools. REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 231 REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION As a result of thirty years of work, the state, by 1920, was 45 per cent consolidated. In the twenty-nine years between 1891 and 1920 the number of one-room schools in the state had been reduced from 8853 to 4880, and there were in 1920 a total of 1002 consol- idated schools. Eight counties were over 90 per cent consolidated, and one county, shown below, was 97.7 ^ -•- ^ r\ 1 » ■ 1 ■ ■ ■~~~-| ®k -— '- -• 1 WT "^^ r-- ■ € ^. , w- V ■ ^^ \«. h — ■ — ■ 3 :: — ^--"^s ■ r::: ^. \ ' -^ E 1 J ^ =. i v ■ v^ \ — ■•- J / R ^ ^ ~i m' r- %f _._^AND ~^ ~7 ^ E OLEHJicOll ^--■^-^ fc-^ 1 ^ V- 1 • . Z ^-^ ^ 4^^/ -I-' , 1 1 -_±-^^ \^ 1 ~ r^ ■ L E "31^ ^ y -^^ 1 t^- ' - \ • / 1 ■ n a ■ 7 ti -^' \ >■ ^■ , ^ t- 1.1/ f Ml ~~ J 1 \ ^^A 1 r — — ;z^- ? ^H- ^ ^ . / "J H. ^^!5 : ^ ♦ ^ ^^ J .;-3 ' FiQ. 56. RANDOLPH COUNTY, INDIANA. SHOWING PROGRESS OF CONSOLIDATION BY 1921 The 16 large black circles indicate the position of consolidated jrrade and high schools, tho hollow squares indicate consolidated grade schools; the 3 crosses indi- cate surviving one-room rural schools; and the 128 small black spots indicate abandoned schools. The heavy black lines indicate township lines. The county b approximately £0 miles square. 232 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION per cent, there being but three one-room schools left out of an original 131. Slow progress of consolidation. Up to recently the great progress in the consolidation of schools has been made in states using either the townships as the unit • r • • • • "-< ^ / • • • *■ • • \ m • < •• • . . .• s /* • L «L ' * p * * • • i-T.--=-^ ^. ' • • 1 — 1 ''•!•".' 'l" •'•.!'• ^" • • • * .• ■• • » v-^ . h: S 1 T-.- *• ■ • r • ^X 1 ■ m '■* \k' *. . . • . - I :' • • : *. .*.'. ' i\V^ \ *.' : ! .,- ■•* •* • ••• • ■ • ■ •••• -y Fig. 57. MAP OF IOWA, SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE 400 ' CONSOLIDATED SCHOOLS IN MAY. 1920 Many of these are township consolidations, and have both grade and high school. It took Iowa 17 years to secure the first 17 consolidated schools, but in the six years from 1914 to 1920 over 300 were organised. As a result 50,000 children have passed from one-room rural to consolidated schools, and the state is now about one sixth consolidated. 2500 one-room schools have been closed, but 11,000 still remain. for school administration, — the New England States (towns), Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, North Dakota, — or in states organized for schools with the county as the unit, — Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, or Utah. No marked progress up to very recently has been made in securing consolidations, de- spite much effort expended — for example, in Illinois, Kansas, and California — in the district-system states. EEORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 233 The stronger the district system was entrenched the greater the difficulty in securing consoHdations. Both trustees and people seemed to unite to resist any change. Recent rapid adoption of the consolidation idea. Since about 1914a number of new influences have com- bined to force new attention to the consolidation idea. The World War proved to be an influence of the first importance, resulting as it did in a great in- crease in prices for everything needed, a great short- age of teachers, a necessary doubling of teachers' salaries, and a general increase of all tax rates. Since about 1914, also, the hard-roads idea has made very rapid progress, and in many states and counties to-day a general state and county system of paved highways has been or is being constructed. These new influences have not only called new at- tention to the desirability of consolidating schools, but have also shown the possibility and desirability of larger consolidations than had before been thought possible. Using horse-drawn wagons to transport the pupils, the area of a township and the union of six to eight one-room schools represented about the maxi- mum limits for school consolidation. With good roads and automobiles, three to four townships and twenty to twenty-five one-room schools may now be consoli- dated into one institution. This is well shown in Figure 58, which shows the size and route for a large Colorado consolidated school. A number of such large 234 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION — 6 TRANSPORTATION MAP SARGENT CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL KIO GRANDE COUNTY COLORADO Key to Routes ^j. Roate 1:111 Route 4: 4 4 4 Route Ts 7 7 7 Route 2: 2 2 2 Route 5: 5 5 5 Route 8: 8 8 8 Route 3: 3 3 3 Route 6: 6 6 6 Route 9: 9 9 9 Fia. 58. A LARGE COLORADO CONSOLIDATED DISTRICT (AFTER SCHRIBER) This map covers four townships, about three of which are included in the Sargent school district. A tenth route was added in 19^20. The average length of haul is IS miles, and the longest haul ISJ miles. The School had, in 1920, a superintendent, five high-school teachers and a principal, six grade teachers, two special teachers, and an enrollment of 378. The plant consisted of the large modern-type high-school building, a grade-school building of similar character, a two-story garage and gym- nasium, a tcacherage, for the women teachers, a home for the principal, a parson- age, and the superintendent's cottage. The buildings are pictured and the school described in the final chapter of this book. REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 235 districts have been formed in this state, Minnesota, and elsewhere. As a consequence of these recent influences favor- able to the consolidation of schools, the movement, since about 1916, has progressed with a rapidity be- fore entirely unknown. New laws facilitating consolida- tion,' and others giving state aid for transportation, ^ have been enacted. A 1919 law in Nebraska provides for a comprehensive plan of county reorganization by providing a board to redistrict each county. In Tennessee, as in most other county-unit states, the county board of education has been given power to consolidate schools as may seem desirable, and to fur- nish transportation as needed. In consequence many states report a marked increase in the number of con- solidated schools after about 1916, and in some of our states where, by reason of the rough topography and sparse population one would not expect many consol- idations, as for example Colorado — see Figure 59 — rather remarkable progress has been made. Inaugurating the movement; the common plan. Two plans have been followed. The one which has usu- ally been used in the Northern States has been for those * For example, the Holmberg Act of Minnesota, which requires the calling of an election on petition of 25 per cent of the resident freeholders; requires the voting to be done in one central place instead of by districts, and the district is created if a majority of the votes cast are favorable. * In Minnesota a consolidated school may draw up to $4000 a year for transportation, and in Georgia state aid is given in pro- portion to the number of teachers employed. 23G RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION interested in establishing such schools to look over the school map of a county and pick out certain natural concentrating centers, — communities where the ad- vantages of consolidation would easily be made evident, Fig. 59. MAP OF COLORADO, SHOWING CONSOLIDATED SCHOOLS (AFTER SCHRIBER) This map shows progress to end of June, 1921. The 146 black spots indicate consolidated districts; the 50 circles proposed consolidations. In 1917 there were only 20 consolidated schools in the state. At the end of 1921 there were 400 auto busses and 48 horse-drawn vehicles used in transportation. and where the people were progressive and likely to favor such an idea, — and then to begin a process of education of the people with a view to securing action. The first consolidated school in a county is usually hard to get voted, and requires much patient effort on the part of those interested. After one or two suc- cessful unions have been formed, others follow with more ease, and before long most of the progressive REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 237 portions of a county can be induced to form unions for the maintenance of such consoUdated schools. rn Central School (J Abandoned School ffl School Houses in Use X Farm Honses with Chiidieo « <• '• '• no «• »• Direction of Routes # Starting " " Fig. 60. STRANDED DISTRICTS A township consolidation. Central school located at one edge of the township; stranded districts too far away to join, later on. This method of slow, general education has its ad- vantages, as well as its disadvantages. Its advan- tages lie chiefly in that progressive communities do 238 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION not have to wait for years for unprogressive commu- nities to experience conversion, but may go ahead at -rrr::> X r • X X ^1 XI • 1 1 // ■i "V I ■1 V - " X • XI ^^X X • • X • • { Ix • •: • • X r" X "" ;i #il.— X X • .•„,!*' • i ^ xj x| • •X X X • 1 ' v • U 1 * > X » • X ~"~x~x '1* ;i" MX — Jh • X • • • XX 1 • X • ,. Central School IX I" L X • • Ix •1 •1 xr X X \\ \\ ; X X [^ • • X X • A....A-JIJ x; , . >< • i f \ } X "x ! xi 1 • 1 X •< — # X • :x 1 • • « X X Scale of MiTea • A 1 I 1 11 .. , 1 X % yi X i. 2 irm Houses no Children Abandoned " with •• ' School 3 — *■ nirection Of Rontes * Starting " •• Fio. 61. DIAGRAM OF GUSTAVUS TOWNSHIP, TRUMBULL COUNTY. OHIO. SHOWING TRANSPORTATION ROUTES Nine waRong are here used to gather up the children each day, and take them to and from the central school. once and plan what is best for their children. Its dis- advantages lie chiefly in that some unions are formed which are too small; that some districts are left REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 239 stranded, as it were, too small ever to form a union alone, and not advantageously located for joining exist- ing unions, and that unions are formed with purely local interests in view, and with no thought as to organ- ization with reference to a comprehensive scheme for the county as a whole. These advantages and disad- vantages are well illustrated by Figure 60, showing two stranded districts in a township consolidation. The result in Ohio. The consolidation plan as it works out may be illustrated by the map of an Ohio township given in Figure 61, and a description of the early results there. This township is one which early abandoned all of its district schools and centralized the pupils in a school at the center of the town- ship, the children being hauled to and from the school each day in transportation wagons. When first proposed in this township there was much opposition. This is always the case and must be expected. The first vote on the proposal resulted in its defeat, but the consolidated school-district was created shortly after- ward, by a small majority vote. Two years later a visiting commission from another township made a house-to-house canvass of this township, to ascertain the sentiment of the people toward the centralized school idea. They found but seven persons in the township still opposed to the idea, and of these, six had no children in the school. As a result of the consolidation effected the number of teachers was reduced one half, a township superin- 240 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tendent of schools was employed, and a new interest and enthusiasm in the educational work of the town- ship was awakened. The total cost for the consoli- dated school thus provided, after paying for the nine transportation wagons, which was 53 per cent of the whole cost, was but $245 more than the nine little in- efficient rural schools had formerly cost. This is the general experience everywhere. Where the consoli- dated school costs more, it is nearly always because much better educational facilities are provided. The centralization plan. The map and the experi- ence of this township are illustrative of the plan. An area, neither too large nor too small, is incorporated by vote into a consolidated school-district. In Ohio or In- diana the township unit of school administration forms a ready-made area for the consolidation of schools. A location, as near the center of the consolidating area as is possible, is selected for the centralized school, and a new and modern school building is erected there. The old district-school buildings are then abandoned and sold, or rebuilt for shops or teacherages, and wagons or automobiles, somewhat of the type of the one shown on the plate inserted in this chapter, are used to gather up and haul all of the children to school each morning, and to return them to their homes each night. The auto- mobile is now becoming the common means for trans- porting the pupils. Frequently other forms of con- veyance are employed, such as the trolley, as is also shown on the plate. The trolley car and the automo- REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 241 bile make possible transportation for longer distances, and hence permit of the formation of larger consolidat- ing districts. Instead of continuing the old process of carrying a small and a poor school nearer to the child, Fig. 62. CENTRAL PUBLIC SCHOOL, TRUMBULL COUNTY, OHIO A type of the Ohio oonsolidatfid school. This is a brick, steam-heated, slate- roofed buiHiiig, which cost originally about SiO,()(X». It has eight rooms and base- ment, and four acres of ground. It is located five miles from a railroad, and is the most consiiiciious landmark of the region. Higli school, elementary school, and kindergarten are provided, and an annual lecture courst and many community entertainments are held here. It is a community center for tlie township. the consolidation movement proposes to reverse the process and to carry the child some distance to a large and a good school, and usually one where, in addition, at least partial high-school advantages may also be ob- tained. It takes him from his home in the morning, lands him safely and dry at the school, on time, each day, and then takes him back to his home each eve- ning, and in the same condition. Advantages of the plan. The advantages of the con- solidation plan may be summarized, as follows: — 1. Both the enrollment and the attendance for the 242 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION consolidated area are materially increased. The gain in attendance in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades is usually marked. The provision of some high-school advantages also brings in the older pupils, who are now absent from the district schools. 2. The elimination of tardiness and the reduction of absences to a minimum. The driver should be author- FiG. 63. THE ORDINARY ROAD TO LEARNING ized to act as an attendance officer also, and to report reasons for all failures to attend. In consolidated dis- tricts the percentage of attendance is about as good as in the cities. 3. Pupils arrive dry and warm each day; there is no wet clothing to be dried, and colds and other troubles, due to exposure, are materially reduced. 4. The pupils are under the care of a responsible person to and fro, and quarreling, smoking, profanity, vulgarity, and improper language and conduct are pre- Wagon used in Springfield Township, Clark County, Ohio. Special school car on Cleveland and Southwestern Electric Line to Elyria. School automobile in Del Norte County, Colorado. DIFFERENT MEANS FOR TRANSPORTING PUPILS TYPES OP MODEKN CONSOLIDATED SCHOOLS These three buildings contain four, six, and eight rooms, reading from tlie top downward. Such schools can be made eommunity-center schools of large useful- ness. REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 243 vented, both to and from school. In some localities the protection thus afforded girls is very desirable. 5. Better grading and classification of pupils is pos- sible, classes are large enough to stimulate enthusiasm and intellectual rivalry, and pupils can be placed where they can work to best advantage. Interest, enthusi- asm, and confidence come from contact with numbers. 6. The number of grades which each teacher must handle is reduced from eight or nine to two or three, with longer recitation periods in consequence. 7. Opportunity is provided for the introduction of good instruction in drawing, music, nature study, manual training, domestic science, and agriculture, as well as for the enrichment of other subjects of study. It is the one great means for introducing these newer subjects into the rural school. 8. The pupils have the advantages of better school buildings and school sites; better schoolhouse equip- ment in heating, lighting, ventilation, and sanitary conveniences; and better teaching apparatus, books, maps, etc. All of these naturally follow a concentration of wealth and effort in the provision of school advan- tages, and often cost less per capita than the much inferior equipment now costs for small and scattered schools. 9. It leads to school terms of eight or nine months, instead of the five or six commonly provided by the district schools; to the employment and retention of better teachers; to supervision for the school; and to 244 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION a higher grade of instruction. Instead of passing the teacher around from district to district, she is retained, and the pupils are passed from grade to grade. 10. Community interest in education is quickened, and community pride in the school maintained is awak- ened. This leads to community interest as opposed to district interest; tends to break down the isolation and the stagnation of rural communities; and leads to deeper sympathy and better fellowship among the peo- ple. It improves the community as well as the school, and opens the way for such consolidated schools to be- come centers for the higher life of the community. 11. It brings enough pupils together at one place to permit of the organization of group games, and thus provides for wholesome and stimulating play. The educative value of plaj'' is largely lost in the little dis- trict school, because there are not enough pupils to play many games. 12. It is much more economical in administration, and this often holds true even after longer terms and better teachers have been provided. Much depends upon the economy with which the transportation can be arranged. If a wagon is required for each school closed the expenses will be about the same; if fewer wagons are required the expenses will be less. In the relative eflSciency of the two kinds of schools there is no comparison, however. 13. It offers to the rural boy and girl, and hence to country parents, all of the desirable educational REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 245 advantages which the city boy or girl now obtains, and without having to go to the city to obtain them. 14. The transportation feature indirectly aids in the building of better roads, which in turn makes rural life more attractive and helps to break up the isolation. 15. In reducing the number of teachers needed it eliminates many of the poorest and the weakest, and it also reduces by from 65 to 80 per cent the number of district trustees required to manage the schools. Both of these are gains of much importance. Disadvantages of the plan. The main objections advanced against the plan may be summarized, as fol- lows : — 1. Depreciation of property; decreased valuation of farms in districts where schools have been closed. This idea has been disproved wherever the plan has been tried. A poor elementary school on a farm does not in- crease its value as much as a good school five or six miles away, with transportation and high-school ad- vantages provided. 2. Dislike to sending children so far from home. A child one mile from home, who has to walk, is farther removed than a child five miles away, with transpor- tation, and not so well cared for. 3. Necessity of taking a cold lunch, instead of com- ing home at noon, in the case of pupils Hving near the school. This objection can be easily remedied by the school, by using the domestic-science equipment. 4. Children obliged to travel so far in bad weather; 246 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION children obliged to walk part of the way to meet the team, and then ride in damp clothing; unsuitable con- veyance and driver; bad associations en route. These objections can all be eliminated by the school authori- ties, whose duty it is to provide suitable drivers, proper conveyances, and reasonable routes. 5. Additional expense to parents to provide proper clothing to attend a central school. This objection has been found to have little weight. 6. Local jealousy; an acknowledgment that some section of the community has greater advantages and is outstripping other sections. This is a rather strong argument, — with country people. 7. It removes an ancient landmark, and is in the nature of an innovation. This is an even more for- midable argument with a consider- able class of rural people, to whom all progress is painful. The ar- gument is often really an argu- ment in favor of consolidation, but it frequently takes years to make such people see it this way. The presence of at least one hundred thousand such landmarks in the diflFer- ent states is one reason why rural education labors under so many difficulties. kii>,\jA Pio. 64. ONE OF THE LANDMARKS REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 247 The county-unit plan. In the Southern States, where the county is the unit of school administration, where township lines scarcely exist, and where the district authorities have no functions of any importance, the county boards of education have been able to proceed with a plan for county organization which has re- sulted, in many cases, in complete county consolida- tion. This is well shown in the accompanying map of Duval County, Florida, where complete consolidation has not only been effected, but the location of future consolidated schools has been provided for. ConBollSitad BoBool n ^oundarj of ConBOlidated Pitftrtct .^ m Lftunob Route*...*. ~ — ....n ' BtMinJlotdB .■■■,■■—.— tmlM Pig. 65. MAP SHOWING CONSOLroATED DISTRICTS AND LOCATION OF CONSOLIDATED SCHOOLHOUSES, IN DUVAL COUNTY, FLORIDA (After Knorr.) Area of county, 884 sq. miles. Location of future consolidated schools shown. Two launches are used in transportation, in addition to 28 wagons, all owned by the county. Thirteen schools answer the needs of this large county. QiS RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION In this Florida county a complete reorganization of the rural and village schools of the county has been made, and all placed under one central control. This central control is exercised by a County Board of Ed- ucation, which employs the County Superintendent of Schools, as well as all principals, teachers, and jan- itors, and manages all of the schools of the county, outside of the central city, as a unit. The county sys- tem of schools then becomes exactly analagous to a city school system, and can be made to render a some- what analagous service. Advantages of the county unit. The evident advan- tages of this county plan of action are that the educa- tional resources of the county are dealt with as a unit, and a unified scheme for educational improvement and higher education for all is adopted at one time. Land and property values, number of children, probable fu- ture growth, topography and roads, climate as deter- mining size, educational needs, and natural community boundaries must all be considered in making an educa- tional survey of a county with a view to its educa- tional reorganization. The mistakes made in organizing independent unions may thus be prevented. It may take a little longer to secure the initial action, but ac- tion when taken is likely to prove far more satisfactory and permanent. A carefully worked-out plan for edu- cational organization can be worked out and approved as a basis for action. REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 249 The same form of county reorganization as that shown for a Florida county is shown by the two maps of Ada County, Idaho, reproduced on this and the following page. The first shows the existing school districts; the second, how the county might be re- organized into a much smaller number of consolidated districts, with adequate provision for future growth. CiSTtflCT SCHOOL .^ S CLCCTVie MM HIGH SCHOOL _I1 STEAM ROAD^ OlSTmCT BOUHOARy ~ TOWN Fio. 66. MAP OF ADA COUNTY, IDAHO, SHOWING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND THE LOCATION OF RURAL DIB- TRICT SCHOOLS AND HIGH SCHOOLS, 1908 (After Knorr.) There were twenty-four one-room rural schools (ungraded), five two-room rural achools, one three-room rural school, with a total of 4(^2 pupils enrolled, in 1907. S50 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The need for such reorganizations. It is only in con- solidated schools, such as have been described, and are further described and pictured in chapter xiv, that the educational and social needs of rural children can be adequately provided for. Something, of course, can be done to improve the site, building, teacher, equip- NtSH SCHOOL ....^.^O fVOPOSSO COttSOUDXrCD SCHOOL .v,-_H CONSOLIOATtP m STRICT eOUNDMfr. tLECff ill VtW>. ■ ■ - ■ 1 11 ' StTAMKOAO ,, „.,, ,^i nwt^^.^t^^^ " rX!^ Pio. 67. SAME COUNTY, ILLUSTRATING A TENTATIVE PLAN OP CONSOLIDATION (After Knorr.) Numbers before " 6." and " H. S." indicate probable enrollment of pupils in elementary and higli-school courses, respectively. Roman numerals are used to designate the proposed consolidated school-districts. REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 251 ment, and instruction in the isolated one-teacher rural school and make it better serve the community needs. With an especially capable teacher in charge it is pos- sible to make such schools exert a much larger educa- tional influence than is usual to-day. Still, after all has been done, the great handicaps of small classes and small attendance, numerous recitations with short time for each, lack of that stimulation to mental ac- tivity which comes only from contact with numbers, lack of opportunities for organized play, lack of special- ized instruction, lack of supervision and guidance, shorter terms, inadequate finance, — all these lay a heavy hand on the education of country boys and girls. Under the county plan of school administration as found in the South and in Utah, which embodies the best form of educational control so far devised, these little district schools can be entirely eliminated and a series of good central schools can be established in their place. Only under such a system is high-school instruc- tion for all likely to be well worked out. Such schools natural community centers. It is in such central consolidated schools, too, that the future rural community centers, mentioned at some length in chapter v, can best be developed. Such schools be- come community landmarks, and attract general at- tention. If established in a little village, itself the natural center of a rural community, and properly equipped and managed, such central schools can be- come the very center of both the village and the com- 252 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION munity life. In addition to the ordinary claissrooms, such schools should include rooms for manual training, sewing, domestic science, a science room, an assembly hall, and a combined school and public library. The school should possess space and rooms enough and be fitted with all the facilities necessary to enable it to become the center of the community life. ^nn^^'if".' i Fig. 68. A COMMUNirT-CENTER SCHOOL A community school illustrated. The above pic- ture of a one-story school, and the floor plans which follow on the next page, will illustrate the idea. The same idea could be worked out for a two-story build- ing. The six classrooms shown on the plan provide for the ordinary classwork. The special subjects — manual training, sewing, domestic science, agriculture, and science — are provided for in the basement, as is also part of the gymnasium work. In addition, the building has a good assembly hall on one corner and a library room on the other. The arrangement of the building is such that either of these may be used by the community without interfering with the work of REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 253 s L >n a a a tn a§- □ □ □ □ □ g IIm 3 □ a □ □ □ a >^ CD □ a □ ao □ □an as 11'' 8 1 □ □ a c3 a", □ man af a □ a □ □■ n Fig. 69. FIRST-FLOOR PLAN OF A COMMUNITY-CENTER SCHOOL In the basement the heating plant and fuel and janitor's rooms are under class- rooms 3 and 4. The manual-training room is under the assembly hall ; the domes- tic science and sewing rooms are under the library ; a science laboratory is under classroom No. 1, and an agricultural laboratory is under classroom No. 6. The toilet rooms and showers are under classrooms 2 and 5, under 2 for girls and women, and under 5 for boys and men, and so arranged that they may be entered by the school children by the main stairways from above or from the playground by the rear basement entrance stairs leading to the library or to the assembly hall. Note that the six classrooms form a unit by themselves, and can be closed oft from the library and assembly hall entirely. Similarly either the assembly hall or the library may be used, at any time, without any access to the school proper. The toilet rooms in the basement may be shut off, in a similar manner, from the Mhool. 254 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the school. The assembly hall, fitted with movable seats, can be used by the school for morning exercises, lectures, exhibitions, and special occasions, and also by the adult residents of the community for lectures, pubUc meetings, rural organization meetings, farmers' institutes, exhibitions, or social affairs. A piano, a lan- tern and screen, a stage, and possibly a moving-picture machine, should form part of the equipment of the hall. The library, at the other end of the corridor, and also accessible from the outside without disturb- ing the school, is the complement of the assembly hall as a center for the community life. A children's room, with open bookshelves about the wall; stacks for stor- ing the community library, traveling libraries, and the school's books when not in use; reading-tables and magazine tables, and a librarian in charge of the room, constitute the essential features of the library room. Given now, in addition, a good site of four to five acres, with a teacherage, lawn, flowers, trees, play- grounds, experimental gardens, and all well laid out and planted, and we have an institution of which any com- munity may well feel proud. In the hands of teachers interested in rural welfare, such can be made not onh strong educational institutions for rural people, bu^ the very center of the higher life of the community as well. The initial cost for buildings and equipment, when spread over the larger area, is relatively small, as is also the annual maintenance charge, while the educational and social benefits are very large. REORGANIZATION OF RURAL EDUCATION 255 A state reorganization. With about twenty such schools to a county, instead of a hundred and fifty Httle ones, or somewhere near two thousand consolidated schools instead of fifteen thousand district schools to an average state, the whole nature of rural life and education could be redirected and revitahzed in a dec- ade, and life on the farm could be given a new mean- ing. Such a change would also dispense with the need for the services of from five to six thousand of the cheapest and most poorly educated of the rural teach- ers, as well as of some twenty-five thousand district- school trustees, both of which would be educational gains of great importance and significance. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Is the rural population in your county or conununity increasing or decreasing? 2. Are new school districts still being formed by the subdivision of old districts? Is the opposite process taking place? 3. How many one-room schools in your county? How many in the state? What is the average per county? 4. How many district-school trustees (directors) does this imply? 5. Are your school trustees paid for their services? What does this amoimt to per year, per county? For the whole state? 6. Do you have district trustees' institutes each year? What do these cost? How useful are they? 7. Have you had any experience with the consolidation of schools? What was the nature of it? 8. Do you think of any other advantages of consolidation than those given? Any other disadvantages? 9. Which is the more expensive, — a $1200 school for an average daily attendance of 15, or a $10,000 school for an average daily attendance of 130? CHAPTER XI A NEW CURRICULUM One of our distinguished American scientists, now the chancellor of one of our large universities, once told the writer that in one of the first institute talks he ever gave he pointed out to the teachers present the great overemphasis of grammar in our public-school work, and the desirability of reducing the time then given to this subject. At the close of the address a school prin- cipal came forward and wrung his hand, saying that he agreed with him thoroughly, and had for years been advocating such a reduction, in order that more time might be secured for work in arithmetic. The writer once had a similar experience, except that the subjects involved were exactly reversed. The old curriculum. These two subjects of arith- metic and grammar have for too long occupied a place of first importance in both city and rural education. In the amount of time consumed, and in the emphasis given to minor details, geography has long been a close third. The amount of time given to each of these three subjects, and the great emphasis which has been placed upon relatively unimportant information, have been out of all proportion to the real value of these subjects of study. These three subjects, together with reading, A NEW CURRICULUM 257 writing, spelling, history, and book physiology, have for long constituted not only the backbone, but almost the entire content of our elementary-school knowledge. Eight or nine years of child life have been devoted to the study of these subjects alone. In the mean time, the great world of nature and the increasing needs of practical life have remained almost untaught and un- noticed. With the great changes which have taken place during the past half-century in almost all of the conditions surrounding rural life, is it much wonder that our rural people have lost interest in the type of education usually provided in their rural schools? Instead of trying to adapt the school instruction to the particular needs of rural and village pupils, our schools have remained stationary and traditional in type. In the cities notable advances, on the whole, have been made, though highly traditional city-school systems of the old type still abound. Among the rural and town schools, despite a few noteworthy examples of reconstructed schools here and there, the conditions generally show much less improvement. What were once the only subjects of instruction continue to be taught, almost to the exclusion of other subjects, and in much the old way. Teachers teach as they were taught, and what they were taught, and communities continue to demand instruction in the same old sub- jects, though profoundly dissatisfied with the results obtained. Why such instruction continues. Such instruc- 258 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tion continues largely because of the great number of untrained teachers employed; because of the lack of ability to improve itself, which is one of the most prominent characteristics of the district system; and because of the, as yet, somewhat general lack of any effective educational supervision for our rural and small village schools. Lacking intelligent direction, these schools have merely drifted along in the old way. To the untrained or the poorly educated teacher, both of which abound, such formal book instruction is not only by far the easiest kind of instruction to give, but is also the only kind of instruction she knows how to impart. Of rather limited general education herself, lacking in professional insight, working without intelli- gent guidance, possessing little or no grasp of modern economic tendencies or of community social needs, and following city -type textbooks and a uniform course of study, the young girl teacher is not to be greatly blamed if she teaches the way she was taught and main- tains a traditional school. To maintain discipline and get the pupils through the course of study have been for long the chief aim and end of rural-school in- struction, and until recently our normal schools, al- most unconsciously, have been preparing their girls to fit into only such a traditional type of school. Recent attempts to change these conditions. Within the past two decades there has been a marked attempt to improve conditions and to change the nature of the work done in our rural and village schools. There A NEW CURRICULUM 259 has been much discussion of the subject, and a deter- mined effort has been made, within the past nine or ten years, to arouse trustees, teachers, and school oflScers to some proper conception of the needs and purposes of rural education. Legislation has also been invoked to this end. Trustees' institutes have been provided for in a number of states, agricultural instruction has been ordered introduced into the schools and inserted in the examination subjects for teachers, and many normal schools have at last begun to turn their atten- tion seriously to what ought to be their prime function, — that of educating teachers for the rural and town schools of the state. The subject has also been con- sidered seriously by superintendents' conventions, farmers' institutes, the state and local Granges, and in the magazines and the public press. As a result of these many efforts more progress, nat- urally, has been made in some places than in others, and here and there one finds to-day examples of recon- structed rural schools which are rendering valuable rural service. The percentage of such schools in the total number, though, is still quite small, and the best examples of such are the consolidated schools, de- scribed in chapters x and xiv. The little one-teacher rural school, generally speaking, has as yet been but little touched by the new movement. Generations of educational traditions are hard to overcome, new teachers for the sevrice have to be trained, the district system of management and maintenance interposes 260 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION serious difficulties to any rapid educational progress, and the lack of any efficient or effective supervision for rural education, except in those states having a mod- ern educational organization, almost precludes the possibility of superimposing progress from above. The old traditional curriculum. This old-type tra- ditional form of rural education is no longer adapted to meeting the needs of modern life, and the sooner it is changed and the rural school redirected and revital- ized, the better it will be for rural life and for rural education. The old traditional school-subjects now monopolize too much of the school time, much useless matter should be eliminated, the purpose of the in- struction in some of the subjects should be entirely changed, and all of the old subjects should be reduced to their proper place in a modern school curriculum. In the place of the matter thus eliminated, new sub- jects of instruction, dictated by modern needs, should be introduced. Arithmetic. The redirection of the old subjects of in- struction is of first importance. The great overempha- sis of instruction in arithmetic should be stopped, and the problems given should be made practical by reduc- ing them to farm, rather than city, terms. Few people ever have use for more arithmetic than addition, sub- traction, multiplication, division, fractions, and per- centage, and it is a waste of precious time to teach more. If all arithmetic were eliminated until the third grade, much of the emphasis thereafter put upon men- A NEW CURRICULUM 261 tal work in the four fundamental operations and sim- ple fractions, concrete problems dealing with home conditions introduced, and the upper-grade arithmetic shaded off into drawing, manual work, domestic science, and agricultural practice, it would be a great gain in arithmetical as well as in practical training, and would result in a great saving of time for other more important instruction. The reckoning of farm crops, problems of threshing and harvesting, problems deal- ing with the cost of growing farm crops, dairy and poul- try problems, horse and cattle problems, problems re- lating to birds and insects or weeds and field crops, gardening and fruit-raising problems, carpentry and painting problems, weighing and sale problems, farm- labor problems, drainage and fertilizing problems, — such are types of community problems which may be made concrete and vital, and with which every coun- try community abounds. Some day, when our farm- ers grow wise enough to see that uniform textbooks for a state are not the best things for the rural schools, they will discard the city textbook and demand arith- metics, readers, and other books written primarily for use in the rural schools. Grammar and language. As for formal grammar, this could be eliminated almost entirely, and with no real educational loss. No greater educational fallacy has been imposed upon us than the time-worn asser- tion that the study of English grammar teaches chil' dren to speak and write the English language correctly. 262 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Grammar is the logic of a language, and as such is a study for mature rather than for immature minds. It would be a decided gain if all formal grammar, as such, were postponed to at least the eighth year, and better still to the high school. This does not mean that com- position and language study would not be taught, but that such would be taught rather as an incident to the expression of the ideas the children have obtained from the study of concrete things. One may come to use, habitually, good English in the expression of his ideas, and still be almost ignorant of the rules of formal gram- mar. Too often such rules and such study interpose a serious obstacle between the child and the expression of his ideas, and confuse and impede rather than help him in obtaining that facility in oral and written ex- pression which is the object of language study. A great saving of school time for other and better purposes can be effected here. Geography. In geography, too, much time is given to the mere memorization of useless intellectual lum- ber. A boy is drilled in school on the capes and bays of the coast of Maine, the products of California, the geography of Central America, and the size and loca- tion of the countries of Europe. He memorizes the in- formation, and makes his passing mark on it. Later on when there is a big fire in Bangor, he has no idea as to its location; when it is proposed in Congress to remove the tariff on lemons, he does not know that this will affect a great California industry; he is astonished A NEW CURRICULUM 263 when you tell him that you sail almost directly south in passing through the Panama Canal; and when a war breaks out in the Balkans, he has no idea as to where the Balkans are or what peoples live there. His mind has been " disciplined " on information which he forgets as soon as possible, to give room for informa- tion, which, to him, it is more worth while to know. Of the local geography of his own environment, he may remain supremely ignorant, and of soils, roads, local boundaries, products, hills and valleys, water- courses, sense of direction, climate, seaports, trade- centers, industries, and the intercommunication and interdependence of peoples, he may have no practical conception. His geography has been book knowledge, easily forgotten because it was never tied up with his common knowledge and his home environment. A great decrease in the amount of time givep to book and map geography, arid an increase in the amount of at- tention given to the connecting of geographical study with the rural environment, would be a great rural educational gain. Sand tables are as important as maps, and out-of-door study is here of the first impor- tance. No one of the old studies offers such fine chances for close correlation with the local community life. Too often we mistake, for an end in itself, what is merely a means or a tool for securing self -education, and are in the position of a school principal the writer once knew, who refused to promote a bright boy from the sixth to the seventh grade because he had studied 264 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION the geography of Asia and not Africa, though there was no question as to the boy's abiUty to do the seventh-grade work. Physiology and hygiene. We have been teaching physiology for nearly half a century in our schools, yet of how little practical use it has been to us! The quiet voting-out of the open saloon which recent years have witnessed in all parts of the country is perhaps the greatest asset of our physiology teaching. We have learned the names and the number of our bones, the pairs of muscles and nerves, and the anatomical con- struction of our different organs, but of practical hy- giene we have learned but little. Our teachers are not taught such practical hygiene, and know but little about it; the people themselves, as a mass, know but very little as to sanitary conditions; and only recently have we begun to direct our attention to the proper form of physiology instruction. Most of this new awakening is due to the state boards of health and to the newspapers, instead of to the schools. The real needs in such instruction are hygienic, rather than anatomical. How many bones or pairs of mus- cles or nerves we have, or what are their names, are matters of no consequence; the important matter is that children know how to take proper care of their bones, muscles, and nerves. Still more important are the great sanitary problems, particularly of rural life. Many rural homes and many rural schoolhouses do not, as yet, have even the rudiments of sanitary arrange- HEALTH DEFECTS IN CITY AND COUNTRY CHILDREN COMPARED Compiled from a study of the health examinations of children in twenty-five American cities and of rural-school children in five American states. Only in pediculosis (head lice) and iu skin diseases do the city children show greater per- centage of defects. (From Woofter's Teaching in Rural Schools, p. 299.) 2646 A NEW CURRICULUM Need for better health knowledge. The recent army • draft medical examinations have given us a rude shock as to the physical condition of our young men. Their lack of simple hygienic knowledge was also clearly re- vealed by the camp life and discipline, and here the boys from rural districts appeared to less advantage than did city boys. In the first draft, approximately one in four of the young men between the ages of 21 and 30, the time when a young man should be in the prime of physical condition, were rejected for the army be- cause of physical defects which would incapacitate them for the life of a soldier. Others who were accepted had to be placed in developmental battalions to bring them up to physical standard. Had our young women between the same ages been called up for important national duty there is reason to think that an even larger percentage among them would have been re- jected. Such tests of a nation's stamina are startling, and these revelations as to the physical incapacity of our young men, together with the many recent studies of rural and city health conditions, have given a new em- phasis to the demand for constructive health work in our schools and better health instruction by teachers to the children. Child and rural hygiene is a new study which rural teachers must become familiar with, and county health supervision must be added to the su- pervision of geography and arithmetic. It is certainly of equal importance. A NEW CURRICULUM 265 ments. Nowhere more than in the open country is there need for instruction relating to soil, water, and milk pollution; to the general unsanitary conditions of the homes and yards; to the importance of cleanliness and fresh air; the care of common accidents and disorders; the proper care of the sick; and to the baneful effects of improper diet, intemperance, advertising quacks, and patent medicines. The prevalence of hookworm in the South, and of malaria and typhoid everywhere as rural diseases, emphasizes the importance of some such sanitary instruction. How and what to eat, the importance of fresh air, the nature and prevention of disease, the importance of proper attention to disorders, and the evils of intemperance are types of information of which rural people stand in particular need, and boys and girls on leaving school should carry such practical hygienic knowledge away with them and apply it to their lives. Such information is far more important as information, far more useful for life purposes, and far more educative to youth than the location of Cape Blanco, the rule for the use of the objective case, or the ability to distinguish the tibia from the fibula. History. In history, too, the great field of national growth and of agricultural and industrial expansion, and the rich field of civic life and duties, present in- structional opportunities too important for teachers to spend time in memorizing the skeleton of history. Wars, individual battles, and unimportant dates 266 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION see good foimd ear liapa should be sacrificed for the personal, inspirational, and national sides of our national development. The study of history should leave a patriotic inspiration, rather than a bundle of dry facts. Reading. In reading, also, despite a recent enrich- ment of the work, there is still much room for improve- ment. Reading is still too much of an art in itself, instead of a tool for useful- ness in other school and in life work. Pupils are too fre- quently taught to read from a reader, but a love for read- ing and a habit of seeking informa- tion from. books is not developed in them. The reading work of our rural and town schools lacks application, content, and scope, and needs to be connected, in a better way, with good literature and with the other work of the school. More books should be read, the supplemental reading should be materially increased in quantity, the number and the range of outside books read should be extended, the love for I found a good ear of coro. Papa tested and planted It. It had even rows. 1 like good corn and some day I wnt grow It on my farm. Fkj. 70. A READING CHART FOR RURAL SCHOOLS (From Miss Field's The Corn Lady. Courtesy of the publisher t, A. Flanagan Co.) A NEW CURRICULUM 267 good literature should be built up, and reading as an isolated art should be made to give place to reading for pleasure and for use. Redirecting the school. Such changes as these need to be made in the old traditional subjects, partly to improve the instruction in them, and partly to make room for other new subjects of importance for modern life. A twentieth-century civilization cannot be advan- tageously maintained on an early-nineteenth-century curriculum and type of school, and one of the impor- tant duties of school officers, charged with the admin- istration of the course of study, is to cut deeply into these old traditional subjects and to redirect the teach- ing of what is left. The reading and history need en- richment, physiology needs to be made personal and useful, geography needs to be made interpretive, and the arithmetic and language work should, in large part, be made a natural outgrowth of other instruction within and without the school. In the place of the in- struction eliminated, new subjects of instruction, deal- ing with twentieth-century needs and problems, should be introduced, and teachers secured who are trained to handle them. In the majority of our cities such changes, redirections, and additions have been made, but no- where are such changes, redirections, and additions more needed than in our rural and small-village schools. The special necessities of life on the farm, the peculiar needs of rural and small-village life, and the special need of interesting country children in country life 268 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION early, all contribute to make such a redirection of the school of fundamental importance there. New instructional needs. The center of rural civili- zation is the home and the farm, and the great rural needs relate to domestic and agricultural life. How to make better homes, how to live more happily and better, how to improve the farm and its returns, and how to provide a better and a richer life for people in the open country, are the fundamental needs of rural communities to-day. As was stated earlier in this book, the school, if it is to be a vital force and to serve, must relate itself to the community in which it is lo- cated, and must so shape its instruction as to express and minister unto these same fundamental needs. To do this there should be added to the course of study of every rural school, in place of much of what has been and too often still is taught, good instruction in nature study, agriculture, manual training, domestic science, music, and play. Just what should be included in each of these new subjects will naturally vary some- what with different communities, but whatever is done certainly should not be a mere copy of what has been worked out for the cities. Nature study and agriculture. Nature study, school gardening, and agricultural instruction are all related to one another, and no school has such excellent op- portunities for effective instruction in these subjects as our rural and village schools. To open the minds of young people to the world of nature about them, to Lesson in bedmaking. ( Courtesy, Rural Manhood.) Class in table-serving. NEW FORMS OF INSTRUCTION, I A model farm made iu a country school. Page Couuty, Iowa, school work. Teaching Arithmetic with a Babcock milk-tester. This is a feature of the instruction in a one-teacher country, school near Chokio, Minn. The girls in this school study cooking and sewing also. NEW FORMS OP INSTRUCTION, II A NEW CURRICULUM 269 make them observant and thoughtful, and to give them a mass of practical knowledge relating to the soils, the plant life, and the animal life of their sur- roundings, are the fundamental objects in such instruc- tion. Beginning at first with generalized nature study and involving experimental gardening and growing, the work should gradually shade, during the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, into the study of the elements of agriculture. The farm life and farm experiences of the community offer excellent opportunities for observa- tion and illustration and for testing and applying; and the work is so fruitful of possibilities that, if well taught, much of the other work of the school may be made to hinge about this center of scientific informa- tion. Few subjects of instruction offer such golden opportunities for real life-instruction as does agricul- ture in an agricultural community. The opportunities for changing a dead school into a live one, by such in- struction, are very large for any teacher who has energy enough to find out what to do and insight enough to know how to do it. What can be taught. The study of the soils of the community, with reference to their composition, cul- tivation, fertilization, drainage, and crop-producing qualities, is full of educational possibilities. The study of farm and garden plants, with reference to varieties, soils, tillage conditions for growth, common diseases, harvesting, costs of raising, selection and care of seeds, 270 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION and values for different purposes, is likewise full of educational opportunities. Similarly the study of the insects, birds, and animal life of the community, and their habits and feeding value, can be made alive with interest. The care of chickens and the principles un- derlying the poultry industry could also be made a study of much value. The same is true of bees and the honey industry. Seed and soil testing, tests of grasses and vegetables, milk tests, experimental studies of molds and decay, tests of sprays for plant diseases, studies of fertilizers, and weather records and maps, as well as simple problems in chemical and physical action, are types of scientific studies, lying close to the home and the farm, which could be carried out even in small one-teacher rural schools. The value of the science workroom attached to a rural school, such as is shown in Figs. 50, 52, 53, and 54 (pp. 211-16), and of a good school site, will now be apparent. Both are almost a necessity for good work in such subjects. How such instruction works. In a few of our schools such instruction had been made so alive and so valu- able that it has interested the whole community, and farmers, who have not before visited a school for years, have come to see what the school is doing. The school gardens and schoolroom have become demon- stration centers; boys in particular, but girls also, have been led to take a new interest in farm life and in farm conditions. Not infrequently, as a result of such in- struction, they have been able to excel their parents in A NEW CURRICULUM 271 some form of agricultural work. When a father finds that he has been beaten in a contest by his boy, using new practices learned at school, he soon takes a new interest in rural education. The work soon leads to contest work in boys' and girls' agricultural clubs, and to entry in township, county, and state agricultural contests. The stimulating mental effect of such ac- tivity can hardly be overestimated. Domestic science. Equally important for the girls is some work in domestic science, given with particular reference to the home life and needs of children. The nature study, school gardening, and agricultural work contain much that is preparatory for such instruction. While the work of the seventh and eighth grades will naturally differentiate a little for the two sexes, espe- cially in the consolidated schools, much of it can still be done in common, and with advantage, in the one- teacher rural school. The general science, the garden- ing, the milk tests, the study of molds and decay, the study of sprays for plant diseases, the principles of bacterial action, the simple problems in chemistry and physics, the study of foods and food materials, the planning of kitchens and homes, house furnishing, house sanitation, household accounts, economy in pur- chasing and marketing, and something as to the qual- ity of textile fabrics and their adaptability, — these are almost equally important for the boys and the girls in our rural schools. It must not be forgotten that farming and successful and happy farm life are essen- 272 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tially a partnership business between a man and a woman, and the success of the business depends upon the intelHgent cooperation of each of the partners. The men, too, need enlightenment upon some of these topics even more than do the women. Beyond this common basis of knowledge, the girls should be given elementary instruction in the house- hold arts, in household management, and clothing and decoration. The household arts ought to include in- struction in the selection and care of food materials, some ideas as to food values, the preparation of foods for workers and invalids, canning and preserving, the proper serving of foods, and the proper care of the dining-room and kitchen. Household manage- ment ought to include elementary instruction in the proper arrangement and care of the house, economical and practical furnishings, house cleaning and sanita- tion, laundry work, nursing and proper care of the sick, home emergency measures, and household accounts. The work in clothing and decoration should include simple sewing, the use of patterns, use of a machine, simple millinery, some study of textile fabrics, their adaptations and costs, and some study of color harmony and design in clothing and in house furnishing. The absolute unadaptability of the common-type one-room rural school for any such instruction will be at once apparent. It is a survival of the past, built to meet the needs of an earlier-nineteenth-century text- book education. If we propose to offer a twentieth- A NEW CURRICULUM 878 century education, the school needs to be reconstructed entirely and to be given an entirely new equipment. Simple sewing alone is possible on the desks of the old' type school. For this newer work the type of school building shown in Fig. 50, Figs. 52-54, or in Figs. 72- 74, and the kind of equipment described in chapter ix, are both essential. Manual training. Manual training for boys is also an essential, if the needs of modern rural education are to be met. Some parts of the work might be taken by the girls as well, as some facility in the use of tools is desirable for the woman as well as for the man. In the consolidated school, and to some extent in the one- room rural school as well, the work will naturally differentiate itself into work which the boys will do somewhat alone. Besides offering a desirable physical relief from the monotony of books and seat work, this work ought to include instruction in the use of tools and materials, and practical work in construction and repair work of a kind common on the farm. It should not be confined to wood alone, but should include leather. A little paint and concrete work could also be included. A good workbench and tools, with a grindstone and a whetstone for their care, are neces- sary; while a simple set of tools for harness and shoe repair, and a few paint-brushes and trowels are desir- able. The construction work, after certain funda- mental instruction, should be applied to meet the needs of the school, the farm, and the home. 274 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Again, for such work, the inadequacy of the typical rural schoolhouse and its equipment will at once be apparent. Not only has it no tools, but almost no place to set up a workbench, even if the tools were pro- vided. While it is possible to set up a workbench in the ordinary schoolroom, and such is certainly prefer- able to no manual instruction at all, the need of the workroom, such as is shown in Fig. 50, Figs. 52-54 or Fig. 74, will at once be apparent. In the consolidated schools such instruction can be provided for with ease, and made most effective in the training of youth. (See pictures of the Harlem School, in chap, xiv.) The home-project idea and work. Another very important and relatively recent addition to the work of our rural and town schools is home-project work. Such work is particularly adaptable to rural school work and reflects directly on rural-life problems. By the home project is meant the determination, by teacher and pupil, upon some simple piece of work to be done at home, such as making something useful of concfete or wood, or still better upon some simple but controlled farm experiment, such as trying out some particular crop or determining yield under set conditions, or the improvement of production of a certain area of corn or a certain number of rows of potatoes in the parent's field. Hog and chicken raising represent other proj- ects often used. For girls the project may consist in some phase of the home work, again under fixed con- ditions. A NEW CURRICULUM 274a In each case the project is definitely determined upon and the conditions under which it is to be carried on are definitely fixed in advance. Not infrequently the pupil works in competition with father or mother, and usu- ally shows them, in the end, new and better ways of doing things. A commercial value is usually calcu- lated out for all that is done, and this is valuable not only as teaching thrift and awakening a sense of the value of labor, but as teaching the elements of farm accounting as well. Such work has very valuable educational bearings, keeps boys and girls interested in what is a form of educational extension, and is a great unifier of home and school in that it gets the child interested in what the parents are doing and the parents interested in what the children are doing. It brings school and home, and teachers and parents together. It provides useful manual and intellectual employment at home, and tends to teach fundamental agriculture, home eco- nomics, and industrial principles and t ain pupils for successful farm and home management and operation. Organized play. Organized play is another desirable addition to the curriculum of our rural schools. The children do not need the play so much for the sake of mere exercise, because most rural children have plenty of mere muscular exercise. The need from the exercise point of view is greater in the consolidated schools, because there transportation usually takes the place of walking. The great play needs are educa- 2746 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tional and social, and not merely physical. A common sight around a rural schoolhouse is a little bunch of children huddled up together against the schoolhouse, at noon and at recess, doing nothing, and with almost no initiative to action or group activity. Rural chil- dren carry into the school the rural isolation and rural lack of cooperative effort, and they need that train- ing in wholesome play which will awaken the play instinct, develop group activity and individual initia- tive and give grace to the carriage of the body as well. Some playground apparatus ought to be pro- vided for every rural-school ground. This need not be expensive, and part of it could be made with advan- tage in the manual-training work of the school itself. Basketball, volley ball, indoor baseball, and football are possible in any school, and swings, rings, hurdles, and parallel bars could be provided without much ex- pense. A consolidated school should have all of these, with tennis courts and a ball-ground in addition. The supervision to be given schoolyard play nat- urally differs somewhat with the different ages of the children. With the little ones the teacher must in- itiate and assist and guide and keep interest going, and teach them how to play many simple games suited to their ages. The middle groups are harder to handle, and must be allowed to follow much their own wishes, so long as this is wise and not harmful. The older pu- pils need starting and direction, but much less super- vision, and the girls need more attention than do the boys. A NEW CURRICULUM 275 Few things do so much as organized play to develop a school morale, bring out timid and backward pupils, transform the schoolyard bully into a useful person, create good feeling, teach self-control, and develop in pupils the qualities needed for good citizenship. The school playground can be made a valuable aid in civic training. The new and the old compared. The comparative value of the new and the old instruction is striking. One prepares directly for usefulness and efficiency in life, while the other does not. If the new instruction were well introduced, it would not only prove most at- tractive to young people, but it would be possible to center about it much of the old traditional instruc- tion, over which we have worked so hard and so long. If arithmetic were omitted almost entirely until the third grade; then about three years of work given in the use of the four fundamental operations, fractions, and percentage; then, beginning with the sixth grade, omitted almost entirely as a subject of study, but ap- plied continually thereafter in the work in agriculture, domestic science, manual training, and drawing; — how easy the teaching of arithmetic could be made, and what an amount of time could be saved for instruc- tion much more worth while. If, also, formal grammar were banished almost entirely from the elementary school, and what little was retained were used by the teacher to illustrate usage, and the oral and written language work were then based on what the pupils 276 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION knew and were doing, how easy language teaching would become, and what a vast amount of time and energy would be saved for more useful employments. Why not have oral and written language work on set- ting a hen, managing an incubator, selecting seed- corn, raising alfalfa, shearing lambs, making an apron, baking bread, testing milk, mending harness, or on how to make a pigeon box? Possible correlations. Around these new subjects of instruction much of the old instruction could be correlated. Arithmetic, language work, and much of the work in physiology and hygiene, geography, and drawing could be closely correlated with the work in agriculture, domestic science, and manual training. Some of the reading could also be so correlated. This would then leave history, literature, and music as the inspirational and cultural subjects of the school. One group of studies would be for practical training, and of direct vocational value; the other for inspiration, amusement, and cultural ends. Such a change and redirection of rural education, either in the one-room, one-teacher school or the school of the consolidated type, would prove of inestimable value to rural chil- dren, and ultimately to rural life as well. How far is such redirection possible? How far such a redirection of rural education can be accomplished with the one-teacher district school as the unit is a question. Something, of course, can be done, especially in the county-system states, but in the strong district- A NEW CURRICULUM 277 system states and in states where low salaries and un- trained teachers are the rule, the results are likely to bear but little relation to the amount of energy ex- pended. Given a poorly educated and an untrained teacher, who has gained her stock of educational ideas by preparing for the county teachers' examination; a typical one-room, box-like, rural schoolhouse; finan- cial support derived largely from local sources; the dis- trict-trustee system of control; and a county superin- tendent nominated at the primary, and elected at a general election, and for two-year terms; and we have a combination which can hardly be excelled for pro- ducing and maintaining inefficient rural service. The redirection of rural schools under such conditions calls for almost superhuman powers. On the other hand, given a normal-trained or other- wise well educated teacher, with some adequate grasp of rural needs and problems; an intelligent community, willing to pay for good schools; and a school building which has either been built or reconstructed to meet modern educational needs, such as is shown in Fig. 50, Figs. 52-54, Fig. 69, or Figs. 72-74; and it is then pos- sible to create a new type of rural one-room school. Given, in addition, an effective system of township or county supervision, and it is possible to make such a redirected school as efficient as small one-room rural schools can be made. If, however, large educational efficiency and as high a grade of education for rural children as for city children is desired, then the con- 278 RURAL LIFE] AND EDUCATION solidated school, such as is described in chapters x and XIV, must be instituted. It is only in such consoli- dated schools that the country child will ever obtain an education which, for him, is the equal of that en- joyed to-day by the city child, and only by means of such redirected education will the chief present ob- stacles to keeping country boys and girls on the farm be overcome. The rural high school. When we turn from the ele- mentary school to the rural high school, another prob- lem in the redirection of rural education at once faces us. A separate chapter could be written on the rural high school alone, but the limits of this book forbid; still more, for our purposes it is not necessary. The same principles which apply for the elementary school apply for the high school as well. All over our land to-day are high schools, located in villages which are the centers of distinctly rural communities, and which are offering only an old-style course of instruction. The chief result of such instruction, so far as it relates to the farm, is to stimulate the cityward tendency among the young people. Almost nothing relating to farm life is taught; almost everything relates to prepara- tion for college, the life of the professions, or a life of cultured ease. Book instruction almost entirely characterizes the work offered. Four yeais of Latin, two of some other language, four of English, four of history, two of math- ematics, and one of science, with j)erhaps a couple ' A NEW CURRICULUM 279 of years of commercial work, characterize the usual small-village or rural high school. Excepting the sci- ence, all the subjects are textbook subjects, and are the cheapest things the school could offer. A room, a stove, and a teacher represent almost the entire ex- pense for instruction. In the city high schools, on the other hand, we find many of these new subjects of study well introduced. There we find good laboratories existing for instruction in the different sciences, and manual training and domestic science in all of their important aspects are taught. A number of city high schools have also recently introduced agriculture, not because of its practical value for city children, but be- cause of its superior value as a means of mental train- ing. The village high school, though, remains highly traditional, and offers an excellent preparation for de- serting the farm and going to the city to live. Its work bears but little relation to rural life or rural needs. Redirecting the high school. The same redirection of education is needed for the village and rural high school as for the rural elementary school. As in the elementary school, the high school which ministers to rural and village needs should relate itself to the life of the community which supports it, and for whose bet- terment it alone exists. There is little need for instruc- tion in Latin in such schools, and probably not for German either. The English needs redirection, and the history reduction and redirection. A course deal- ing with social, economic, industrial, and political 280 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION problems should be introduced. Music, art, and phys- ical education should be added. The science work needs to be expanded. Agricul- ture, home economics, and manual work should be in- troduced, and taught in a more thorough and more extended manner than in the grades. The work in these subjects, begun in the grades, should be extended and carried on in the high school, into lines of advance- ment not possible in the grades. For the study of agri- culture, barns, a greenhouse, a dairy laboratory, and liberal acreage are now needed; for domestic science, good kitchens, dining-room, sewing-room, and an art- room are desirable; for manual training, good facili- ties for woodworking, forging, farm blacksmithing, and concrete work are necessary. A good illustrative museum of agricultural, textile, mechanical, and com- mercial material would be a very desirable addition. The country boy who goes to the city. The question may naturally arise, What about the boy or girl who is not destined to remain on the farm? This is a good question. While but few city children will ever be- come farmers, and most country children will find their place on the farm, yet, on the other hand, it is true that not all country children will be needed on the farm, and some are of such type that their largest future lies elsewhere. Should all, then, be trained as though all were to become farmers and farmers* wives? What, after all, is education? Is it merely the ac- A corner in the blacksiuitli slioj). High School, Colebrook, N.H. A corner in the carpenter shop. High School, Colebrook, N.H. RURAL HIGH-SCHOOL INSTRUCTION, I Class in sewing. High School, Colebrook, N.II. Class iu live-stock, judging dairy cows at the Waterford, Pa., High School. RURAL HIGH-SCHOOL INSTRUCTION, II A NEW CURRICULUM 281 cumulation of a stock of traditional knowledge for pos- sible use later in life, or is education the living of life and life's experiences, in the best sense of these terms, as we go along? Is education the mere memorization of facts, or is it also the awakening of the power to think, and the refining of one's practical judgments, with a view to preparation for real usefulness in life? An answer to these questions will answer the other question. Education, unrelated to one's environment and daily life, is bookish and likely to be ineflFective; education closely tied up with one's richest life experir ences, whatever these may be, is likely to prove effec- tive anywhere. It really matters little whether the fu- ture man or woman lives on the farm or in the city, for the kind of training which will adapt a man or woman to life in the open country will prove useful anywhere; and it will prove useful largely because it has been effective in awakening thinking, establishing stand- ards, and refining judgments. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Do you agree with either of the teachers mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter? Why? 2. How long has it been since you have had need, in your business Hfe outside of school work, for any arithmetical knowledge beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, simple fractions, and percentage? 3. Aside from your school work, how much use do you ever have for the technical rules of grammar, or for parsing and analysis? 4. Is it true that the study of English grammar trains young peo- ple to use the English language correctly? 5. What should be the main purpose in teaching reading? 6. What should be the main purpose in teaching geography? 282 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 7. How far is the maintenance of discipline and getting pupils through the course of study: — (a) The ends you set up in your school work? (6) The community measure of your efficiency? 8. What would you need to do to change such standards? 9. How far does your course of study prepare pupils to meet the needs of the modern life of which they probably will form a part? 10. Do you use such problems in arithmetic as are given on page 261? If so, where do you get them? 11. Do you think there would be a gain if different kinds of arithme- tics and readers were used in country schools, from those used in city schools? Why? 12. How important do you make the local geography? How could you connect such teaching with community welfare? 13. Why is hygiene of particular importance for rural schools? 14. Why is a redirection of the old subjects of the school curriculum particularly desirable for country children? 15. Have you ever tried to change a dead school into a live one by means of nature study, school gardening, and agriculture? What did you do, and how did it work? 16. Aside from the practical value of the knowledge, what s the edu- cational value of such studies as agriculture, gardening, manual training, and domestic science in developing practical judgments and stimulating intellectual activity? 17. Wherein will instruction in manual and domestic work tend to give greater skill in farm work and make farm life more attrac- tive? 18. How could you introduce manual work into a rural school, if you had no equipment, and no place for it was allowed in the course of study? 19. What kind of organized plays would be most useful with rural children? What kind are feasible in a small school? 20. Are the rural high schools of your community real rural high schools, or old-type city high schools located in the country? If the latter, why do they continue to be such? 21. What do you think of the statement that a good education is one related to one's environment? 22. What do you understand education to be and to mean? CHAPTER XII A NEW TEACHER A new teacher needed. In reading the precedhig chapter the reader has, no doubt, had raised in his mind many times the question as to where teachers are to be found who can do such work for our rural schools. The question is a pertinent one, and how to secure an efficient corps of teachers for our rural schools is one of the most important problems now before us. Without intentional disrespect to teachers now engaged in rural service, it must, nevertheless, be acknowledged that the average rural teacher of to-day is a mere slip of a girl, often almost too young to have formed as yet any conception of the problem of rural life and needs; that she knows little as to the nature of children or the technique of instruction; that her edu- cation is very limited and confined largely to the old traditional school-subjects, while of the great and im- portant fields of science she is almost entirely ignorant; and that she not infrequently lacks in those qualities of leadership which are so essential for rural progress. Training and wages compared. When we compare her training and her services with the wages she re- ceives we are led to feel, however, that our rural com- munities get all or more than they pay for, despite her 284 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION many deficiencies. As late as 1918 the average yearly salary of all teachers in the United States was as low as $606, with a number of states below $400. The in- evitable result of such salaries is poorly-trained teach- ers, to whom teaching is too often but a temporary makeshift. While there has since been a material in- crease in teachers' salaries, including rural teachers, the conditions in many of our states still make the re- tention of adequately prepared teachers in the coun- try almost an impossibility. The result is a constant changing of teachers, and only a few years of service for those who teach. Such conditions make good schools in the country difficult to secure. While recognizing the serious deficiencies of the aver- age rural teacher for really efl'ective rural service, it must still be admitted that the services rendered are remarkable, in view of the compensation oflFered. The wonder is that so many young women of energy and moral earnestness can be attracted, even for short periods, to such a poorly paid service, and that they are willing, during the short time they remain in the work, to spend so much time and energy in study and in attempts to increase their personal efficiency. The natural result. One result of such low standards and wages is that, in a number of our important agri- cultural states, from 15 to 25 per cent of the teachers in all the schools are new to the work each year. As per- manency of tenure and length of service characterizes city-school systems rather than country schools, it must A NEW TEACHER 285 follow that from 20 to 30 per cent of the country teachers are beginners each year, and from 25 to 35 per cent are new to the particular position. This means that short terms of service and a constant recruiting of the ranks with beginners must characterize the teaching in our rural schools. The best of the class, instead of remaining in the rural schools to render service, are soon drawn to the cities, where better pay and practically permanent tenure are the rule. The inevitable result is that the teaching force in our rural schools, despite notable exceptions here and there, is as a class made up of either the older, least progressive, and least successful teachers on the one hand, or of the young, poorly educated, and inexperienced teachers on the other. The remedy. So long as we retain the district system of organization and management, there is little help, generally speaking, for this situation. While some rural-school districts could undoubtedly afford to tax themselves at higher rates, and offer the equivalent of city prices for their teachers, the great majority of our rural-school districts cannot and never can do this. Still more, it would not be right for them to be com- pelled to do so, as both the burden of taxation and the per capita cost of instruction would be unreasonably high. Under a system of consolidated schools, as de- scribed in chapter x, there is no reason, though, why the larger taxation area could not pay the equivalent of city prices for their teachers, and so secure and 286 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION retain the best that are available. Cheap teachers, short-term contracts, and frequent changes will never produce good rural schools, and one of the most im- portant needs in rural education to-day is the adoption of some larger unit of organization and finance, under which our rural schools may be enabled to pay what the best teachers can command elsewhere. Then only can our rural schools expect special preparation for the work, and then only may they expect to retain the best teachers in them. The consolidated school, if organized along the right lines, offers such an oppor- tunity for rural education, while the district unit does not. Importance of the wage question. The pay which teachers in our rural schools receive, by which is meant their annual income rather than their monthly salary, has been emphasized first because better pay is an absolute prerequisite to any material improve- ment in the character, training, and permanency of our rural teaching force. Until salaries somewhat com- parable with city salaries are paid, we cannot expect the kind of young men and women we want to be attracted to rural teaching or to be willing to spend the years necessary in study and preparation for the work. The best of those who get started in rural work to-day tend to leave for the city at the first opportunity, or to change soon to other better-paid employments. It requires a large amount of devotion to an ideal to remain as a rural-school teacher, despite the large A NEW TEACHER 287 opportunities for usefulness, when the work does not carry a living wage. We may talk as much as we like about giving the country boy and country girl a chance, and of equalizing the educational advantages as between city and country children, but this can never be done until the country can economically compete with the city for teachers and for educational leaders. So long as the cities can continue to draw off the best, by reason of longer terms, better salaries, better tenure, and better teaching and living condi- tions, so long will rural education be at a discount, and so long will discerning farmers continue to send their children to the city to secure the better educational advantages offered there. The fact that the present low salaries and poor con- ditions surrounding rural education are wholly unnec- essary, and that salaries of from $900 to $1500 a year could be paid rural teachers, and good educational conditions provided, if a proper unit of educational organization and taxation were once instituted, makes the present conditions all the more inexcusable. Once place rural-school teaching on a financial basis com- parable with that of the cities, and we can then de- mand almost any preparation for the work, within reason, which the peculiar necessities of the case seem to require. Teaching in the country is not different from farming, in that both must be economically profitable if they are to attract and retain the class we want to keep on the farm. The writer has known many i88 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION good teachers, who Hke the country better and would much prefer to teach there, but who simply cannot afiFord to do so under the present economic conditions. Present status of teacher training. When we turn from the pay to the training of our rural teachers, the situation is almost equally bad. In most of our states the standards for entering the work are low, while the means provided for helping and improving teachers in service are wholly inadequate. Nowhere is good edu- cational preparation and proper professional insight needed more than in our rural schools, where the teacher must work alone almost the whole year through. If untrained and poorly educated teachers are to start anywhere, under present conditions, it ought to be in the cities, where there are superin- tendents, supervising principals, special supervisors, teachers' meetings, and study classes for the constant improvement of those in service. The cities, however, do not need to, and usually will not, receive such teachers. A good high-school education, followed by normal-school training or by an apprenticeship in the country, is to-day a somewhat general prerequisite to city service. For the country schools, on the other hand, sixteen or seventeen years of age and a third- grade county teacher's certificate, obtained by coach- ing up on and passing an examination on the old common-school subjects, plus the good will of some district trustee, is about all that is necessary to enter the service. The fact that the new teacher too often A NEW TEACHER 289 lacks general education, knows almost nothing as to rural needs and problems, has little or no professional insight and interest, and is almost wholly ignorant of the great worlds of science, industry, and agriculture, counts for little in her certification or her employment. It is the competition of such teachers which keeps down wages and drives the better teachers to the cities or into other fields of service. As soon as it can be done, the county examination, as a means of enter- ing the teaching ranks, ought to be abandoned in favor of certification based upon having first obtained a certain minimum of general education and profes- sional training. The further continuance of such certificates ought also to be based upon the teachers showing growth in knowledge and in teaching power. New attention to the rural-teacher problem. During the past ten years, new attention has been directed to the special problem of preparing teachers for service in the rural schools. As the complex problems of rural life and rural needs have dawned upon us, we have slowly begun to realize that their solution not only demands a new type of rural education, but that edu- cation is also the key to the solution. To try to meet such new needs the State of Michigan, in 1897, first ordered that each of the state normal schools should organize a special course for the preparation of rural teachers. In 1902, the Indiana State Normal School made similar provision, by organizing a rural school in connection with its normal work. In 1907, the State 290 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri, did the same thing. This Missouri school has rendered special service to rural education, and the rural-school build- ing provided is described in some detail in chapter xiv. Since these beginnings, a number of other state normal schools have turned their attention to this problem, though the number doing so is as yet altogether too small. In states where the consolidated school has developed the normal schools have been forced to turn their attention more and more to this new aspect of rural education, and to offer training and courses that will give some adequate conception of the problems of rural life. The training that will best prepare for city graded work, which our normal schools emphasize, will not best prepare for rural service. The special ed- ucational and social needs of the city should charac- terize one; those of rural life the other. Teachers' training classes. Despairing of ever se- curing enough trained teachers for the schools of the state through the regular state normal schools, New York, in 1894, provided for the establishment of teachers' training classes in the high schools of the state. Maine did the same in 1901, Michigan in 1903, and Minnesota and Nebraska in 1905. By 1911 thirteen states had made provision for such training classes, and 624 such classes had been established in the high schools of these states. The idea soon spread to a number of additional states, and by 1917, such train- ing courses had been organized in 1493 high schools, in A NEW TEACHER 291 21 states, with 27,111 students enrolled and 16,626 graduates in 1917. After the entry of the United States into the World War, there was a drop in attendance at these classes, as was the case also with the regular nor- mal schools, but by 1920 there were indications that the attendance would soon be back to the former level. In 1889, Wisconsin provided for the establishment of county training schools, in counties not containing a state normal school, and twenty-eight of these had been organized by 1917. All of these schools are in- tended specifically for the training of teachers for the rural schools of the county; the course is usually one year long; and nearly all of the states grant to the graduates of such a course a short-term teacher's cer- tificate, usually valid only for teaching in the rural schools of the county. The prime object in the establishment of such train- ing classes has been to secure some professional prepa- ration for the teachers in the rural schools of the state. In this, these classes have been very successful. In New York, approximately seven thousand such grad- uates are now teaching in the rural schools. In Ne- braska, probably three thousand teachers so trained are now engaged in teaching. The course is short, being but one year in duration in most of the schools, and no- where over two years in length. In some of the states, even elementary-school graduates are admitted to the course, though the usual plan is to oflFer such work only m the third and fourth years of the high-school course, 292 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION and in place of the other instruction. A one-year course, offered as a substitute for the last year of the regular course, is perhaps the most common plan. Nature of the instruction offered. As might natu- rally happen in the beginning of such a movement, the instruction offered in most cases followed too closely the old traditional lines, and prepared primarily for teach- ing a traditional old-type rural school. The studies at first were chiefly reviews of the so-called common- school branches, with a little psychology, history of education, school law, and school management, with a little observation and practice on the younger chil- dren in the grades beneath thrown in for good measure. Such training courses were very common a decade ago, and are still to be found in a few of our states. Why such courses are inadequate. Such prepara- tion, while perhaps good enough of its kind, is not the kind that is needed to meet the peculiar needs of rural education of to-day. It prepares primarily for the old type of rural school, and not for the new one which is needed. It may, of course, be said that the students in these classes do not know these old common-school branches. This is probably true, but if they are not capable, after a little help and direction, of getting up these subjects themselves, and fast enough to keep ahead of a class, they are not likely to prove of much value as teachers. They knew these subjects once and have forgotten them, and a year after this second drill. A NEW TEACHER 293 if they do not at once teach the subjects, they will have forgotten them again. There are too many subjects to be taught, of so much more importance, and sub- jects which cannot be worked up from books alone, that only a minimum of time ought to be put on these old subjects. Such training courses are, of course, better than no training at all, but they are not what should be given to enable young people to render the kind of rural service demanded by the conditions of twentieth- century farm life. More recent development. Within the past five years, under the impulse of a new interest in agricul- ture and rural-life problems, there has been manifest a somewhat general tendency to depart from such old- types courses and to introduce work more likely to prove profitable to prospective rural workers. One of the best of these newer courses is that outlined for the high-school training-classes of Minnesota. This divides part of the work into half-year subjects, and part into one-third year subjects, and is as follows: TWO-TERM SUBJECTS 1st semester (18 weeks) 2nd semester (18 weeks) Observation and Teaching. Teaching. Geography. Language Methods and Grammar. Arithmetic. History (12 w), Minnesota his- tory (3w.). Civics (3 w.). Reading (| period). Reading (? period). General Exercises (20min.). General Exercises (20 min.). 294 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION THREE-TERM SUBJECTS First term {12 weeks) Second (12 w.) Third {12 w.) Pedagogy. Rural School Mgmt. Country Life (|). Nature Study (f). Hygiene (5). Nature Study (1). Industrial Arts. Industrial Arts. Industrial Arts. Primary Hand- Hot Lunch (J). Drawing (5). work (i). Primary Hand- Intermediate work {{). Hand-work (5). [Periods 40 minutes long; fractional periods indicated. Two to three hours of outside preparation expected daily.] Probable future development. These high-school training courses are now rendering a useful service in providing some training for the teachers of our rural schools. The probabilities are, though, that these high-school training classes supply a temporary rather than a permanent need, and that the line of evolution in the future will involve both the development of combined county normal-training and agricultural high schools, and the turning of our state normal school back to what ought to be, in part at least, one of their main functions. The development of agricultural and normal-training high schools, somewhat after the Wis- consin type, offering four-year courses intended to prepare young people directly for rural life and rural service, ought to become a prominent feature of a future county unit of educational organization. Under a county plan for consolidated schools, such as is out- lined in chapter x, and with the county unit for educa- tional organization and administration, as is outlined in chapter xiii, the organization of such agricultural and normal-training high schools would become a A NEW TEACHER 295 marked feature of the school system of every agri- cultural county of any size in area and population. Agriculture would, of course, be prominent in such schools, as would studies intended to prepare for other rural-life needs. Preparation for rural-school teach- ing would, in such schools, be closely correlated with preparation for rural living, and the teachers' training course would be so shaped as to involve the whole four years of training, with specialization during the fourth year, or perhaps the third and fourth years. No ade- quate preparation for rural teaching of the right kind can be given in one year. The whole teachers' training, with emphasis on applied science, music, drawing, man- ual and domestic work and English, should lead up to the last professional year as its culmination. A suggested one-year course. Assuming, however,' that for the present but one year can be devoted to such preparation, and that the course is to be open to students of all kinds of previous training, of what ought the training to consist? The following is one suggestion for such a course: — SUGGESTED ONE-YEAR COURSE FOR RURAL TEACHERS (To be divided into four terms, of ten weeks each) First term Second term 1. Language work. 1. Reading and literature. 2. Geography. 2. Arithmetic. 3. Agriculture. 8. Nature study. 4. Arts group. (See below.) 4. Arts group. (See below.) 5. Rural problems. 5. Rural problems (continued). 6. Educational psychology. 6. Princples of teaching. 296 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION Third term Fourth term 1. History and civics. 1. Library work. 2. Physiology. 2. Hygiene and sanitation. 3. Nature study (continued). 3. Agriculture (resumed). 4. Arts group. (See below.) 4. Arts group. (See below.) 5. School manual, law, etc.* 5. Observation and practice.* 6. School management. 6. Education and the state. Arts group Drawing; music; and games, organized play and gymnastics; — each one lesson a week throughout the year. Manual training, two lessons each week, first half-year. Domestic science, two lessons each week, second half-year. EXPLANATORY Common-school subjects. In the work in the common- school subjects (language work, geography, reading and Ht- erature, arithmetic, history, and civics), the purpose is not so much to "review" and relearn these subjects, as to study plans for teaching them; what to emphasize and what to omit; and plans for correlating the work with other school instruction and with the community life. The possibilities of farm arithmetic, farm language work and essays, and home geography would naturally be emphasized. In reading and literature some drill on the use of the voice should be included. Physiology and hygiene. After a very short review of phy- siology' proper, the work should go into personal and commu- nity hygiene, and should include such topics as bacteria, home and yard sanitation, schoolhouse sanitation, common diseases, proper care of the sick, first aid to the injured, detection of common defects in school children, and the personal health of the teacher. Agriculture and nature study. A year devoted to practical work in agriculture and science. Agriculture is studied in the fall and spring, and scientific experiments, particularly in chemistry and physics, are carried on during the winter. School gardening and farm observation should be an important * The order for these two subjects to be reversed, for one half of the pupils. A NEW TEACHER 297 part of the work. The importance of a sunny conservatory corner in the schoolroom for growing plants, such as is shown in Fig. 52, p. 214, or of the workrooms shown in Figs. 50, 53 and 54, will now be apparent. The work should be as prac- tical as is possible, and students should be shown how to obtain and use agricultural bulletins, and how to organize and conduct boys' and girls' clubs. Library work. A ten-weeks' course, on the selection, care, and use of books, intended to put teachers into sympathetic touch with the traveling and rural-library movement, and to train them in the care of the school library. What type of books to buy for the school library; what kind of literature children ought to read; what types of supplemental books to order, and how to use them; and also an acquaintance with a number of the most useful books for a rural teacher, as helps and for stimulating fm-ther professional growth, should be included in this course. Rural problems. A course dealing primarily with the rural- life problem, what can be done to solve it, and how to do it. The course might be called one in rural sociology, if that is a more expressive term. It should set forth the rural-life prob- lem as it has developed and now is, showing the country teacher's relation to it; should show the place of the church, the library, the school, the Grange, the Y.M.C.A., etc., in its solution; should point out the need of revitalizing rural educa- tion and of redirecting the rural school; should reveal to the new teacher the economic and social needs; should empha- size the importance of slowly educating rural communities to see the need for improving their home life, the community life, and the school, and the many advantages of the consolidated school for such purposes; and finally the need and place for leadership on the part of the country teacher, and the ways in which she may exercise it. Arts group. The instruction here should be of a very prac- tical type, as what to teach in drawing and music in the rural school; how to organize games and sports, what kind of equipment to get, and how to get it; what kind of gymnas- tics to teach; how to organize local and inter-community contests; and what to do in handwork, manual training, and the home arts in the rural school. 298 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The manual training should be adapted to rural needs, and should include instruction in how to teach the use and care of tools for work in wood, leather, and perhaps concrete, with instruction as to what to do in these various lines. In domestic science, the work should include the essentials of cooking and sewing, the chemistry of the kitchen, the use of the sewing- machine, kitchen appliances, table service, etc. It will be val- uable for teachers to know manual and domestic work, even though the school in which they teach does not as yet offer any facilities for instruction in such subjects. Professional work. The first ten weeks should be given to a very simple and very concrete study of the essentials of edu- cational psychology; the second ten weeks to a study of the fundamental principles underlying the organization and in- struction of a rural school; the third ten weeks to school man- agement, with special reference to rural-school needs; and the last ten weeks to a study intended to enlarge the teacher's horizon and give inspiration for service, and dealing with the place and purpose of public education in the state and the why of public education. During the third term also the school manual, or course of study, for the state or county is read through and explained; the small amount of school law a rural teacher needs to know is stated ; and the use of the school code shown. In the last ten weeks there is both observation and practice in teaching, and training in how to make reports and keep a school register is given. To prevent a congestion in the practice work, the order of giving the practice teaching and the school manual and law work should be reversed, for one half of the pupils. What such a course prepares for. With some such course of training as the above, the new rural teacher is prepared to go out and get results and to improve social and educational conditions. The emphasis, it will be noticed, is placed upon knowing something as to needs, means, and ends, rather than upon mere practice in teaching the traditional old-type common- A NEW TEACHER 299 school subjects. The course is intended to develop a useful, thinking teacher, capable of increasingly useful service, rather than a mere teaching apprentice along the old traditional lines. Such a teacher has been shown how to improve the schoolhouse and grounds ; how to get school gardening and agriculture started; how to get a bench and some tools into the schoolhouse, and what to do with them; how to start sewing with the girls, and how to awaken an interest in cooking and home work; and how to enrich the instruction in the old subjects, and relate them to community life. Such a teacher, also, will see the advantages of getting acquainted with the people of the community, and will discover ways of socializing and improving the rural life. She will understand both the strength and weakness of the school in which she works, and, instead of talking vaguely about the edu- cational rights of the country child, will set to work to improve the existing school and schoolhouse. She will also know the greater advantages of the consolidated school, and perhaps do something to awaken a senti- ment in favor of providing such. Everything cannot be done at once, or in a year, for rural communities are proverbially slow to move. They follow those only whom they know and trust, and real rural service can never be rendered by the city teacher who goes to the country " to get experi- ence," takes but little interest in the community, and never gets into sympathetic touch with rural life and 300 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION rural needs. The story of the two churches, given in chapter vi, each of which is a story of ten years of effort, and where it took time in each case to see that any progress was being made, are good illustrations of rural-community service and good illustrations for the rural teacher to keep in mind. The rural high-school teacher. When we pass from the elementary-school field to the high school, some- thing of the same need for a new type of a rural and village high-school teacher is evident. Of teachers of Latin, English, history, and mathematics of the pre- vailing type, there is a great surplus, while of teachers of the newer subjects and with the newer attitude in the old subjects, there is a shortage. This is only natural in a time of changing educational emphasis, and, in a country where the emphasis has been shifted so recently and so quickly as in our own, the lack of adjustment to new conditions, in the training of high- school teachers, is only natural. Colleges and univer- sities, like normal schools and training classes, are too often continuing to give a preparation better suited to the past than to the future. The rural and village high schools, generally speak- ing, need redirection almost as much as do the ele- mentary schools. Agriculture, manual work, and the home-keeping arts ought to be important elements in the training given in such schools, and the school needs good laboratory and land and barn equipment for its work. The usual rural or village high school is an old- A NEW TEACHER 301 time city-type institution, copied by the village or rural district because it represents the traditional course of instruction and is cheap and easy to main- tain. If a teacher of the newer subjects is wanted, or one who can redirect the teaching of the old subjects, such teachers are hard to obtain, even though the salaries now offered for such teachers are comparable with the profits obtained from farming or from prac- tical work. The institutions engaged in the training of high-school teachers, alike with the institutions en- gaged in the training of elementary teachers, need to set to work seriously to prepare teachers who can go to our rural and village high schools and begin the redi- rection of the school and the improvement of rural and village life. The call for rural leadership. If our rural teachers are really to serve, if our rural schools are to be redi- rected and made vital, and if the school is to assume the position almost everywhere open to it and become the social center for the community life, a new type of leadership must be developed in our rural teachers. As Dean Bailey puts it, "A new race of country teachers needs to arise." The course of training just outlined has been worked out with this thought in mind. The need for rural leadership is great, and no one in the whole rural community has one half the opportunity for leadership and service that belongs, by the nature of the case, to the country teacher. The isolation and petty jealousies of rural communities are 302 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION such that hardly any one is willing to try to start a new movement, and especially is this the case if it is a movement for the improvement of existing condi- tions. The heavy burden of denominationalism inter- feres with the effectiveness of the rural minister, the Grange leaders belong to an organization which does not include all citizens, while the rural social worker at best occupies but a limited field. Everywhere we find the public-school teacher, and the fact that she is a public oflBcial, supported by all and at the service of all, gives her an initial advantage such as no other com- munity agent does or can enjoy. The nearest approach would be the public librarian, but the opportunities of even such an officer are small compared with those of a teacher. Possibilities for usefulness. As an outside person, with a better perspective than that of the community residents, and as a teacher of the children of all, the teacher, if possessed of proper training and vision, has the opportunity gradually to enlarge her duties so as to include the social and the educational leadership of the whole community. If she has studied rural social, economic, and educational problems and needs; if she realizes the place and the importance of the home, the school, the church, the library, the Grange, the Y.M.C.A., and the Y.W.C.A., as social institutions; if she knows the importance of each of these in effecting general progress; — then it is possible for such a teacher to evolve into one of the most useful of rural social A NEW TEACHER SOS workers. She must, however, have the vision to form a clear conception as to needed community advance- ment; have the practical judgment to know what to attempt, and what to postpone or to let alone; be patient enough not to expect to transform everything in a day or a year; and be possessed of that quality of leadership which stimulates others into action, and develops initiative and self-reliance in them, instead of trying to run everything personally and to magnify her own importance in the community. To give, in the training school, so far as it can be done, training for such rural leadership, is much more important than improving the teacher's knowledge of the subject- matter of arithmetic and grammar, or of filling her full of methods and devices for the teaching of such subjects. Personal attitude; steps in the process. In addition to such training the teacher needs to be in sympathy with life in the open country. No town-bred and town- sick teacher can ever render the kind of service de- sired. She must really love the country, and feel that her call for service lies there. The possibilities and beauties of life in the open country must make a strong appeal to her. Accepting conditions as she finds them, she then begins to contribute her part to that gradual transformation and reconstruction of rural life which is necessary to adjust it to modern demands. From small beginnings large results will ultimately come. The first step is to make as good a school as is possible, 304 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION and to make it permeate the life of the community. Another early progressive step is the improvement of the building and the grounds. From the school as a center, the teacher must gradually reach outward into the community life. School exhibitions, boys' and girls' clubs, contests of various kinds, community gatherings, parents' associations, joint institutes of the young people and the farmers, and cooperative com- munity undertakings for the improvement of the school or the community life, will come along natu- rally as the school develops from a little isolated insti- tution for the drilling-in of definite amounts of old traditional knowledge, into a larger community insti- tution devoted to the advancement of the community welfare. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What are average yearly wages for rural teachers in your state? In your county, or township? 2. What percentage of the teachers are new to the work each year? Why is this so? 3. Compare the yearly wages of teachers in consolidated schools with those in district schools. 4. Why is it impossible, in most of our states, to equalize educational opportunities between city boy and country boy under present conditions? 6. Why are good educational preparation and professional insight of particular importance for teachers in our rural schools? 6. Why is the county teachers' examination a poor test for such preparation? 7. What percentage of the teachers in your state or county have had professional preparation for the work of teaching? What number do you suppose have a modern point of view in their work? 8. Do you have high-school training classes in your state? 5 «4 S .2 A NEW TEACHER SOiT 9. Are the courses of instruction offered in such "adequate," judged by the standards set up on pages 293-94? 10. Do you have courses comparable to the one outlined on pages 295-96? Do you think such would be an improvement on what the teacher now gets? 11. Compare the Minnesota course and the course proposed on pages 295-96. 12. How can we "redirect" the high school along the lines sug- gested? 13. What lines of attack in improving educational conditions in rural districts are most likely to be successful? 14. Show how the best type of rural high school could be developed in connection with the type of consolidated school described in chapter x. 15. In what ways does the country-school teacher have particular advantages for rural leadership? 16. Does the district system of school organization impose unneces- sary obstacles to rural service? How? What? 17. Show how the rural teacher's opportunity for real rural service would be enlarged in the consolidated school under a county- unit form of school administration. 18. Read carefully the last five pages of this chapter, and then out- line a feasible plan for community improvement, and with the ultimate end in view of making your school a community center, , large or small. CHAPTER XIII A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION Larger rural leadership. When we pass from a con- sideration of the teaching to that of the supervision of instruction in our rural and village schools, the need for fundamental supervisory changes, if we are to accomplish large results, will be no less apparent. Perhaps no phase of the rural-school problem is more urgently in need of a radical reconstruction than is that phase that has to do with the supervision of the instruction in our rural and village schools. It is very desirable to stimulate the local leadership of teachers, as emphasized in the last chapter, but even more im- portant is the inspiration and leadership which comes from some one of larger authority and oversight. Unless there is an effective leader of leaders to stimu- late and to direct, rural educational progress is almost certain to prove sporadic and ineffective. In an army good drill sergeants and lieutenants are, of course, necessary, but an army would prove ineffective in action if there were no captains for the companies or colonels for the regiments. It is the lack of captains and colonels of larger grasp and insight that is to-day the greatest single weakness of our rural and village educational army. When matched ugainst the city A NEW. TYPE OF SUPERVISION 307 educational army, with its many captains and colo- nels, and under generals of large insight and effective I>ersonal force, the city army easily outgenerals its opponent. Still more, because of its superior organ- ization and superior generalship, its more attractive service, and the better pay and greater permanency of its educational positions, the city educational army is continually drawing off from the other not only its best officers, but its best privates as well. The rural and village army can make but few reprisals, and hence is continually compelled to fill its ranks with raw recruits. The reason for this condition is partly finan- cial, due in part to poor educational organization, as we have previously pointed out in chapter viii, but partly due to the lack of good generalship in the rural and village army. Dropping the figure of speech, the lack of effective personal and professional supervision for our rural and town schools is to-day one of the most serious handi- caps under which they suffer. Lacking leadership which knows what ought to be done and how to do it, the rural and village schools too often merely drift along. Only in some of the New England States, in Maryland, New Jersey, Utah, and in most of the Southern States, is anything approaching effective supervisory organization as yet to be found. . The county unit in evolution. Everywhere outside of New England, and excepting only New York, Vir- ginia, and Nevada, the county exists as a unit of school 308 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION organization and administration, though the county as a unit is everywhere more or less further subdivided into townships, or school districts, or both. The county unit, also, is found in all stages of evolution from the strong-district and weak-county combination, such as exists in Missouri, up to the county as the single unit of educational organization and administra- tion, analogous to a city-school organization, as exists in Maryland. Between these two extremes we find states representing all stages in the evolutionary process, though the direction of the evolution seems somewhat clear. The county, outside of New England, and pos- sibly one or two other states, offers such a natural and ready-made unit for educational organization and administration, its use would offer so many financial and educational advantages, and the general tendency toward making the county the unit, generally speak- ing, seems so unmistakable, that we may, perhaps in the near future, look forward to seeing a system of school organization, administration, and supervision evolved which shall be as effective and efficient for rural and village schools as our forms of city educa- tional organization and administration are for city schools. In the mean time, we need an improvement in conditions to secure better results. The evolution of the school superintendency. As education began to evolve from a little, local, and voluntary community interest into a large, general, and compulsory state interest, and as the states began A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION 309 to be possessed of school funds of some actual or poten- tial size, our people began to create state and county educational officials to look after the larger interests of the state, as opposed to the smaller interests of the communities. State and county superintendents of schools were eventually created for nearly all of the states, and these officials were given power to appor- tion the income from the state school funds and the proceeds of taxation, and to compel, in return, the submission of certain statistical information which the state thought it worth while to collect. The state edu- cational officer looked after the financial and statistical matters for the state as a whole, and the county edu- cational officers acted, in large part, as his representa- tives, in the same capacity, in the different counties. Almost the only educational function given to such officials at first was that of visiting and stimulating an interest in the schools. As the office called for no special qualities, and could be filled from among the electorate more easily than could the position of county treasurer or auditor, there was at first no reason why election from and by the electorate, and for short terms, would not secure as satisfactory school officers as any other method. New conception of the office. Since those early days the whole face of the educational problem has changed, and the nature of the superintendent's duties and powers has changed as well. The clerical and financial functions remain, but greatly enlarged, and, in addi- 810 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION tion, powers and functions formerly resting with the local district authorities on the one hand, and new educational functions since assumed by the state on the other, have been intrusted to this county educa- tional official. Many of these new powers and duties, such as the certification of teachers, the outlining of the course of study, the selection of school library and school textbooks, the construction and sanitation of school buildings, the examination and grading of the schools, and the supervision of the work of the teacher, call for professional preparation of a rather high order if efficient service is to be expected. As a result, within the past decade or two, entirely new conceptions of the office have been evolving, and entirely new educational demands have been pushed to the front. The idea that any citizen or teacher could fill the office has been passing, and states have begun to demand an examination and a special certificate as a prerequisite of holding the office. Still more recently our studies of the rural-life and the rural-educational problems have alike led to the conclusion that the educational system of a county should be placed under as efficient educational leadership as is that of a city. If the education of the country boy and girl is as important as the education of the city boy and girl, and if the country boy and girl are ever to secure approximately equal advantages, then country people must see to it that their schools are possessed of as good educational organization and leadership, for their A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION 311 needs, as are the schools of the cities. To secure such results for country boys and girls there must be pro- vided a better system of organization and maintenance than is now found in most of our states (chapter vni) ; a new type of teaching equipment must be provided (chapter ix) ; a reorganization and consolidation of the schools, according to some rational county plan, should be carried out (chapter x); a new course of instruction, ministering to the community needs, should be introduced (chapter xi); a new type of teacher, interested in the community welfare, should be trained and secured (chapter xii) ; and a new form of rural-school supervision, which shall be as good and as effective for rural and village schools as city- school supervision is to-day for city schools, should be created and maintained. Our present supervision. Of real educational super- vision for our rural schools, except in a few favored states, we have to-day almost none. The town super- vision required uniformly for all schools in Massa- chusetts, under which rural and town schools are alike supervised by the town-school superintendent, is perhaps as effective as any system of supervision we have. The toT\Tiship system as inaugurated here and there in Ohio, if properly established, often gives ex- cellent results. Depending, as it does, on voluntary establishment, and not being subject to other than nominal state or county oversight, it is more often inefifective than effective, and still more often not £12 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION -^ ^?> :^V ? 1 -^^By /""/-— —i; n "^ ^'^tlrc^ \j -y^f ? h Appointed:- ^s_i| — T~~ — J 1— (T rV r By State f -j S/*V u^ ^J By County Board | , j \ fj^ Elected by people 1 I \ ^ Deputy State BBBI Vn^t Supts.'™"™ ^J \! FiS.71. HOW THE CHIEF COUNTY (OR TOWN) SCHOOL OFFICERi IS SECURED IN OUR AMERICAN STATES The six New England States use the town (township) system, there being no County School Officers in these States. There the town superintendents are all appointed just as high school principals are in California. Nevada abolished the county educational office and substituted Deputy State Superintendents of Schools as state inspectors in their place, and Delaware in 1921 substituted a state for the county unit. established at all. A number of our states have for years had permissive laws, under which deputy county superintendents might be employed, but these laws have seldom produced supervision for the reason that the County Commissioners, holding the purse strings, have usually refused to appropriate the necessary sal- aries. To remedy this condition California, in 1921, provided for the salaries from the school fund, and placed their selection and appointment with the county superintendents. The New York plan for the appoint- ment of district superintendents, for divisions of a county small ^enough to enable the superintendent A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION SIS to reach the teachers, and with freedom given the appointing boards to go anywhere they desire to secure men or women for the office, is a plan which ought to secure fairly good results. The Maryland and the Utah systems, where the county constitutes one school dis- trict and the county is the unit, represent perhaps the best we have to-day in rural-school supervision. In most of our states, though, the supervision of our rural and town schools is clerical, statistical, and financial, rather than educational in type. These aspects of the work are often handled in a very satis- factory manner, but the educational supervision too often consists only of the yearly visit, for a few hours, of the county superintendent; perhaps a final written examination of the pupils, on uniform questions sent out from the superintendent's office ; and unintelligent oversight by the district trustees. What the school is or is not, it is or is not almost entirely because of the character of the teacher in charge. Here and there a teacher of strength and large personal initiative teaches, for a year or two, a remarkably efficient school; the old stager and the beginner, on the other hand, usually maintain only a traditional old-type school. Either satisfies the letter of the law, because there is no professional oversight close enough to know what is going on or strong enough to compel improvement. The teacher is left to her own initiative; the district trustees set the standards; the school too frequently merely drifts along; and the more intelli- 314 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION gent farmers move to town to secure better educa- tional advantages for their children. Given such a new type of teacher as has been described in the last chap- ter and she would probably soon be driven from the work by the lack of teaching equipment, the inaction of the district trustees, and the lack of effective sup- port from the county educational authorities. Under the present system progress is slow and hard to make, and in large part because there is at the top no educa- tional leadership, with power to act. Good teachers are worn out and leave for the city because the efiForts they put forth secure such small results. The system to blame. There is little use to blame the county superintendent for this state of affairs, because he is not to blame. He is merely the product of a bad system: it is the system itself which is to blame. The chief count against the county superin- tendent is that he too often openly defends the system which hampers him, instead of aiding efforts to throw it off and secure one better adapted to modern needs. We need, in most of our states, materially to strengthen the authority of the county superintendent in dealing with the district boards of trustees; to open the way for securing superintendents of larger insight and broader knowledge; and to replace the present yearly visitation and examination by close personal and pro- fessional supervision, such as our cities to-day enjoy. To do this, some new legislation, as well as trained and efficient supervisors, will be necessary. A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION 315 Present conditions in the county office. In twenty- seven of the forty states having a county superintend- ent, he is elected by the people at popular elections. In eighteen of the twenty-eight states, he is elected for but two-year terms, and in two of these eighteen states, the county superintendent is actually made ineligible, by the state constitution, to serve more than four years in the office. In other words, the county superintendent of schools, a man who ought to enter the work only after careful study and training for it, as a life career, and with the idea of becoming an educa- tional leader, as does a city superintendent, is by the people regarded merely as a political officer and clerk, and the office is passed around among the electorate without regard to the effect of this action on the schools. The county superintendent must first become a resident of the county and a voter, must then work up in the party ranks and extend his acquaintanceship to secure a nomination, must win the primary and stump the county against an opponent, and pay hi? political assessments and campaign expenses, — ali for a temporary and poorly-paid political job, and always with the risk of defeat staring him in the face. Every other year, in eighteen of our states, he must waste six months of his time and possible educational efficiency in such political work, and he must also keep his political eye open all the time in between. Why the cities draw the best. It is not surprising that the office of county superintendent does not 316 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION attract the best men and women in the teaching pro- fession. The low salary paid, the expense of securing the office, the public notoriety, the humiliation of defeat, the short tenure of office, the high protective tariff levied against men and women of training from the outside by the local-residence requirement, and the inability to accomplish much when he has the district system to deal with, all alike tend to keep the best men out of the office. The position of county superintendent of schools is one of much potential importance, and is capable of being transformed into one which will render great service to the people; but in most of our states to-day it remains, to a high degree, a highly-protected local industry, offering but temporary employment to the few who are willing to consider political candidacy, and realizing but a small fraction of the possible service and efficiency for which the people pay. Unlike the city superintendency, the office of county superintendent offers no career to any one. Too often good men go down to defeat at the hands of the people because of having rendered honest and efficient service, or are made the victims of a shrewd canvass by an opponent among an unthinking electorate. In city- school work we should regard it as highly unprofes- sional for a man to open a campaign to secure the city superintendent's job when the board of education had expressed no dissatisfaction with him, but in county supervision this is regarded as the proper method of A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION S17 procedure. The political method of nomination and election seldom brings the best-prepared men to the front; the real merit of a man for the office has little to do with either his salary or his retention in the office; and the inevitable result is that the best-educated and best-trained of our school men, whose services the counties ought to be bidding for to secure them as their leaders, refuse to have anything to do with the office. The blighting influence of party politics in the county and the personal politics and jealousies in the districts alike combine to lay a heavy hand on rural educational progress. Under the circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that the chief educational progress of the last quarter of a century has been made by the cities, and that the rural-school problem remains with us. Where the fault lies. The fault lies, as has been said before, not so much with the county superintendents themselves as with the system which produces them. It is the system itself which is wrong, and no one feels this more than the efficient county superintendent who to-day tries to make educational progress. On all sides he is cramped and hampered, and most so in the states where the district system is strong. Say what we may for the present system and the fact still remains that the office of county superintendent of schools to-day is but a temporary and poorly-paid job, offering no in- centive to any one to prepare for it. If a man to-day desires to become a city-school principal, and rise to be 318 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION a city superintendent, he first goes to a normal school or university and prepares himself for the work by years of careful study of educational theory and admin- istration, and he then expects to be able to enter the work without reference to residence or politics, and to rise in it on the basis of his energy and capacity. Al- most nowhere in county supervision, outside of the Southern States and the States of New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Utah, can a man enter the work or retain his place in it, solely on the basis of merit. If, on the other hand, the office were taken entirely out of politics; made an appointive instead of an elective office; thrown open to general competition, as high- school principalships and city superintendencies have been; and with salary, tenure, and promotion based on competency and efficient service; — the office of county superintendent could soon be made one of great importance, and would offer a career for which a man or woman would be warranted in making long and careful preparation. Stock arguments. The stock argument that the present platf is thoroughly democratic and educates the people is one that has no merit in it. The cities are not undemocratic because they appoint their city superintendents instead of electing them, nor are the high-school districts because they do not have the people nominate and vote for two local residents every time they need a new high-school principal. The argu- ment that the people are educated by using the ballot. A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION 319 which is another stock argument, is exceedingly fal- lacious when applied to the election of what ought to be so distinctly an expert officer as a county super- intendent of schools. In the present days of prima- ries, initiatives, and referendums, there are plenty of chances for such education by means of the ballot without exercising it to the injury of the school system. Moreover, the education of the people comes from voting on public issues, and not in deciding between men who are to do work of a highly expert and profes- sional type. The personal and professional qualities demanded for the office of county superintendent of schools are such that the people, as a mass, are not competent to decide between candidates, and in the interests of the education of their children they ought not to be permitted to do so. It would be just as sen- sible to nominate and elect, by popular vote, a county health-officer, a county entomologist, or a county horticulturist, and the results would be about as satis- factory. The way out. To put our rural and village schools on a proper basis, to provide the kind of instruction and supervision children in such schools ought to enjoy, and to eliminate the rural-school problem, we need to eliminate both personal and party politics from the management of these schools, and to put them, so far as management is concerned, on the same basis as our better-organized city-school systems. This demands the subordination of the district system, the reorgani- 320 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION , zation and consolidation of the schools, the erection of the county as the unit for school administration, and the complete elimination of party politics from the management of the schools. Never before in the his- tory of our educational systems has there been such urgent need for men of adequate educational prepara- tion, deep social and professional insight, and large executive skill and personal power for the supervision of rural education; and such men, once selected and appointed, need to be given the same tenure, compen- sation, and free hand which a superintendent of schools in a well-organized city-school system has to-day. Long ago our cities abolished their districts, stopped electing their superintendents by popular vote, and began to manage their cities as a unit; and not until our counties introduce something of the same unit system into their educational management can rural education be put on a competitive basis with city education. For the pleasure of electing a horde of unnecessary trustees and of voting for another county officer, the people have as a consequence an unneces- sary number of small, costly, and inefficient rural schools, poorer teachers than is necessary, inadequate and often unsuitable instruction, and supervision that is little more than a name. What democracy should mean. Democracy ought to mean good government and efficient administration, — the best and the most efficient that the taxes we pay can secure. This, however, does not of necessity mean ' A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION 321 that the people should vote for all, or even for any large number, of those who are to secure such govern- ment for them. With the coming of the short ballot in county government, as it has come in city govern- ment, one of the first offices which ought to be removed from the political column is that of county superin- tendent of schools. Rural-school administration and supervision, if it is to be properly done, is a piece of expert professional work, for which a superintendent ought to prepare himself with care, and one which ought to be placed on as high a professional plane as is the supervision of our city schools. When this has been done, the reorganization of rural education, with cen- trally located rural schools, instruction suited to the needs of country children, and supervision as close and effective as the cities to-day enjoy, will be easy of accomplishment. Then only will farmers cease moving to the city to secure better educational advantages for their children.^ A reorganized ccanty system. Utah and Maryland offer us excellent examples of a good system of county school organization; and the plans followed by some other states, as, for example, the supervisory system of Massachusetts or Alabama, or the Nebraska scheme for the reorganization and consolidation of districts, possess some commendable features. The essentials * Of 1100 cases of removal from country to city personally in- vestigated recently by T. J. Coates, supervisor of rural schools in Kentucky, more than 1000 were caused by a desire for better school, church, and social advantages. 822 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION are a small county board of education, say of five, only a part of whom go out of office at any one time, and consisting of laymen elected by the people, preferably at a time distinct from the general political election. This body constitutes a county board of education, analogous to a city board of education. This board then elects the county superintendent of schools, and such assistant superintendents or special supervisors as are necessary, or as may be required by law, and fixes the compensation for each. In making such selec- tions they should be free to go anywhere in the United States for the man or woman for the position. The county board also appoints a secretary, with such cleri- cal assistance as is needed. The secretary and his as- sistants then attend to all clerical and business func- tions, leaving the superintendent and his assistants free to attend to the supervision of the instruction in the schools. The county board. The county board, with the assistance of its executive officers, then manages as a unit the schools of the county, outside of cities under city superintendents; manages all strictly county schools, such as county agricultural high schools and county training schools; purchases and distributes all school supplies; levies the county school taxes; and pays out all school funds. One very important func- tion of such a board, acting in conjunction with its executive officers, is that of abolishing the present unnecessary districts and reorganizing the educational A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION 823 system of the county according to some rational plan, and with a view to providing all children in the rural and village districts with a system of rural education comparable in efficiency with that provided by the better city-school systems for their children. This involves the establishment of a number of strong cen- tralized schools, often with partial or complete high schools attached. The Utah and Maryland plans are fundamental, because they go to the root of the rural-school problem. The subordination of the district system, the elimina- tion of personal and party politics from the manage- ment of the schools, and the reorganization of rural education along good business and professional lines are absolutely necessary prerequisites to any solution of the problem of giving the rural boy and girl educa- tional advantages comparable to those now enjoyed by city children. The plan applied. Applying this plan, then, to the suggested reorganization of Ada ObuJnty, Idaho, as shown in Figs. 66 and 67, pp. 249 and 250, the fol- lowing results would be obtained. Instead of the peo- ple electing one county superintendent of schools from among their own number, and at the low salary JSxed by law, the people would then elect a county board of education of five citizens, who, in turn, would appoint a county superintendent of schools to serve as an edu- cational expert, and a secretary to manage the clerical and business affairs of the county office. In making 324 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION these selections, the county board would be as free to go outside of the county, or outside of the state if it seemed wise to do so, as city boards of education are now free to look elsewhere for a city superintendent of schools or a grammar or high-school principal. They ought also to be free to fix the salary of each person so employed. What is wanted is the best person which the money a county can afford to pay will secure. On the recommendation of the superintendent the county board would also appoint such assistant super- intendents, primary supervisors, and supervisors of special instruction — drawing, music, agriculture, manual work — as the best interests of the schools of the county seemed to demand. The two independent town-school systems and the thirty-one district schools, as shown in Fig. 66, would be consolidated into eleven districts, following natural community lines, as shown in Fig. 67. This would pro- vide for the future growth, and prevent much future district subdivision. All of the consolidated schools would contain a graded school, while some would offer two or more years of high-school instruction in addition. Full four-year courses would be maintained in each of the towns. Should the educational needs of the county seem to require it, a county agricultural high school could be developed at some central point, from one of the two-year high schools. A county teachers' training school, a county parental school, or other special-type schools could also be developed, if the population A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION S25 and educational needs of the county seemed to war- rant it. The gain in supervision. The greatest gain from such a reorganization would come from the centralized professional leadership, the close supervision, and the business organization which would be provided for the schools. Under such a plan a system of county schools, organized along the lines of the best city-school admin- istrative experience, could be perfected for the county as well as for the city. It would then be the business of the county board of education to select the most capable leader obtainable, pay him a salary commen- surate with his worth and the importance of the posi- tion, give him needed assistance to insure helpful per- sonal supervision, and then expect him to develop the best system of rural and village schools throughout the county which the money at hand would secure. Uni- form terms and uniform tax rates would naturally follow, and a uniformly high standard of rural and vUlage education would soon come to prevail every- where throughout the county. The schools of the whole county would then be managed much as are the schools of a city-school system to-day. A New Eng- land town presents the same idea, on a smaller scale. A city-school system of twenty-four school buildings, located in diflFerent parts of the city and under one city superintendent and one city board of education, is entirely analogous to a county-school system of twenty -four consolidated schools, under one county 326 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION. • 9 superintendent and one county board of education. The difference is one of distance, and not of principle; and a telephone in each school, connected with the county office, and an automobile for the county super- intendent would largely eliminate this. If farmers can afford such conveniences for a county agricultural ad- viser, it ought also to be possible to afford them for a county educational adviser and his assistants. All that is required is the exercise of a little imagination and the expenditure of a little more money to perfect as good schools for the country as are now to be had in the cities. That such a form of school organization is not imaginary or impossible may be seen from the descrip- tion of the schools of Baltimore County, Maryland, given in the following chapter. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Classify the clerical, financial, and educational functions of a county superintendent of schools. 2. Distinguish between statistical, clerical, and financial super- vision of schools on the one hand, and educational supervision on the other. 3. If your county superintendent spent half a day visiting each teacher in your county not under a supervising principal or a city superintendent of schools, and spent four days each week in visiting, how many visits could he make to each teacher each school year? 4. Is the supervision as you know it supervision, or inspection? Why? 6. What new lines of educational activity could a county superin- tendent of schools in your county engage in, to the great advan- tage of the schools? 6. Would the county system, in your judgment, be a good thing if applied to your state? \ A NEW TYPE OF SUPERVISION S27 7. What has been the average tenure of office of the county superintendent in your county? 8. To what extent is the county the unit for other public affairs in your state? 9. Work out a good plan for a county system of school administra- tion to fit the needs of the schools of your county. 10. Do you see anything impractical in the Idaho county-unit plan as applied on pages 323-25? 11. Apply the present district system of organization and control to a city of 100 teachers, and what would be the result? 12. Read the third part of the following chapter, describing a county-unit school system, and see if it does not give you new ideas as^to the possibilities of county-school supervision. CHAPTER XIV NOTEWORTHY EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION This chapter, like chapter vi, is intended to be merely descriptive of a few noteworthy examples of rural educational effort of the kind the preceding pages have tried to outline as desirable. It is not claimed that the examples described are the best of their class, but only that they are typical, and that they illustrate well what may be done along the line of redirecting and revitalizing our rural schools. I. A ONE-ROOM RURAL SCHOOL The rural school building shown in the plate oppo- site this page was erected on the campus of the State Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri, on the estab- lishment of the ungraded school there, in 1907. The children come chiefly from two different and adjacent rural school districts, and are transported to and fro each day in the transportation wagons, as shown in the picture. The school is in charge of a regular teacher, and pupils from the normal school go to it for obser- vation and practice. A number of other normal schools, in different states, have since established somewhat similar schools. m 0) :5 a ® s C/3 Sf) EXAJVIPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 329 The building represents what can be done, at no great expense, to provide a building with modern con- veniences for the one-room rural school. In such a building a redirected school, such as is described in chapter xi, is easily possible. The basement, ground floor, and attic were all equipped and put to use, as may be seen from the floor plans here reproduced. This building, with full equipment, could probably be du- plicated to-day in most communities for not to exceed $5000, and in many communities for less. The build- ing ha«s been copied, in more or less modified form, by school authorities in Missouri and Iowa, and, where one-room schools must be maintained, represents a desirable type of rural building.^ Basement. This is twenty-eight by thirty-six feet in size, with a clear head room of eight feet. The floor is of concrete, underlaid with porous tile and cinders. The tile leads into a sewer. The walls are of concrete also, protected from undue moisture by an outside tile, running around the building, also leading into the sewer. The space above the tile is filled with cinders. The outside entrance to the basement is also of con- crete, with a sewer drain through the lower step. The basement has eight compartments: (1) A furnace-room, containing a hot-air furnace, inclosed by galvanized iron; a double cold-air duct, with an electric fan; and a gas water-heater. (2) A coal-bin, six by eight feet in size. (3) A bulb or plant room, three ^ See also Figs. 51 and 54, for other model rural school buildings. 330 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION by eight feet, for fall, winter, and spring storage of materials. (4) A dark room, four by eight feet, for children's experiments in photography. (5) A laundry- i [ CWTWAWCCI I COLD AIR DUCT. WATER TANK 40O,CAL DRYWC ROOM OVMNASIUM f2»X23 BASKMCNT PLAN Fia. 72. BASEMENT PLAK OF MODEL RURAL SCHOOL room five by twenty-one feet, for teaching laundering, with tubs, drain, and drying apparatus. (6) A gym- nasium, thirteen by twenty-three feet, for indoor games, in stormy weather. (7) A tank-room, containing a four-hundred-gallon pneumatic pressure-tank, stor- age battery for electricity, hand-pump for emergencies, sewer-pipe, floor-drain, etc. (8) An engine-room, con- taining a gasoline engine, water-pump, electrical generator, switchboard, water-tank for cooling the EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 331 gasoline engine, weight for gas pressure, gas mixer, batteries, pipes, wires, etc. The pumps lift water from a well into the pressure- tank, through pipes below the frost line. Gasoline is admitted, through pipes below the frost line, from two forty-gallon underground tanks, placed thirty feet from the building. The basement, first floor, and attic are wired for electric lights, so that the building may be used in the evening for neighborhood purposes. The gasoline engine, furnace, and other appliances can be managed by the boys, as such machinery is not differ- ent from what they will use later on the farm. First-floor plan. The schoolroom is twenty-two by twenty-seven feet in the clear. The children face the east, and the light comes in from the north. A ground- glass window at the rear admits sunlight, for sanitary reasons. The schoolroom has adjustable seats and desks, teacher's desk, and telephone. An alcove or closet is on the east side for books, teacher's wraps, etc. At the back of the room is a stereopticon, with a screen at the front. The school has an organ, book- cases, shelves, and teaching apparatus. Pure air enters above the children's heads from the furnace, and passes out at the floor through the open fireplace. Both boys and girls have separate toilet-rooms within the building, containing a washbowl with hot and cold water, toilet, and shower, as well as mirrors, towel-racks, and separate water-heaters. The walls between the toilet-rooms are deadened, and each is 832 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION reached from separate cloak- and hat-rooms. Girls may enter the building and reach the girls' toilet-room by a side entrance, and without passing through the rta*T rboon puw Fio. 73. FIRST-FLOOR PLAN OP MODEL RURAL SCHOOL schoolroom. A drinking-fountain on this floor would be a desirable addition, and could easily be supplied from the pressure-tank. Stairs lead both to the attic and to the basement. Attic plan. This is thirty-five by fifteen feet in size, and seven and one half feet to the ceiling, in the middle of the building. While an attic is a common feature in schoolhouses, this is one of the few to be put to use. Still more attic room could have been secured if the EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 333 roof had been humped out (gambrel roof) instead of being doubled in on the sides. The attic is furnished with gas for cooking and with electricity for lighting. It has a gasoline stove; a large sink, such as a good , t : AB- xzo- [ SKV;'; L.IOHT TABLE SINK \\l// J i r 1! { > 48 munity Sunday school was jSrst organized. Three months later its enrollment had reached the 300 mark, and its success just as marked as that of the public school. With both the public school and the Sunday school in successful operation, it was next suggested that a community church be organized, and this was done in May, 1918. Seventy members were received into fellowship the first Sunday. The public school, Sunday school, and the community church are now all growingjand flourishing institutions, all using the same plant. With the school enrollment near the 400 mark, with the Sunday school above that, with the regular church services, and with numerous community meet- ings all requiring more rooms and a still larger audi- torium, the community decided to continue its build- ing campaign. In June, 1920, another bond issue, for $125,000, was voted to build a still larger building to serve as a junior and senior high school, with an auditorium seating 1000, and still another teacherage to serve as a home for the principal of the high school and other male employees of the district. These buildings are now completed and in use. ^ These seven buildings are all located on a fine four- teen-acre tract of good irrigated land in the center of the district, and the entire plant has a present value of $190,000. Yet it is in the open country, and there is not a farmhouse within half a mile of these buildings. The school itself has been a marked success from the [EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 843 beginning, and has excited the wonder and admiration of hundreds of visitors. Twice as many children are now in the school as ever attended the old schools; the daily attendance is fifty per cent higher than it ever was in the old ones; a completely graded school and a four-years' high school have been provided; the term is nine months ; the character of the instruc- tion given is on a par with that in good city schools; the educational opportunities of 400 children have been equalized; and all of them are being educated in the finest and most complete country school to be found anywhere, and under an environment as nearly ideal as one could imagine. Practically all of the children are in school, and ten times as many are now enrolled in this good country high school as ever went away from home to school before this one was built. All of the standard subjects are found in the curric- ulum, and in addition courses in vocational home- making, agriculture, and farm shop are also offered, and their support contributed to from State and Federal funds. Outdoor games and athletics are di- rected and supervised by competent teachers, and this school has been very successful in competitive games with other schools in this part of the state. Some of the teachers coach the football, basketball, baseball, and track teams, while others direct simpler games and play activities of the younger children, so that proper physical development of all these children receives good attention from volunteer workers and without S44 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION . • ^ expense to the district. The teachers live at the school and are available for this service. The Community Church The work of the public school is supplemented by regular and systematic religious instruction in the Sunday school, which has an enrollment of 435 and an average Sunday attendance of near 300. In May, 1921, the community church membership was 202. The women's missionary society has a membership of 94, and there are three flourishing Christian Endeavor societies. The senior society has a membership of 65, the intermediate of 23, and the juniors of 34, making a total of 122. Besides all these organizations there is a live Sunday-school athletic association with a mem- bership of 50. The community church is governed by evangelical standards, has a constitutional form of organization, and is not controlled by any denomination. Men and women representing nine different denominations, and many others who before uniting with this church were not members of any church, are fast learning to wor- ship the same God in the same house of worship, at the same time and in pretty much the same way. The two large school buildings and the garage and gymnasium not only take care of the daily education of the children, but the classrooms are used for Sun- day-school classes and the large auditorium is used for church services and all large community meetings. In . • • • EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION S45 addition to these buildings, this community has pro- vided three modern teacherages and a parsonage, making 34 rooms in all for its workers, all of whom live under the most pleasant and congenial surroundings. The teachers not only have the most favorable oppor- tunities to perform their regular school duties with the highest degree of eJBBciency, but they also have the finest opportunity to engage in many community activities that are of great value to the people of the district. Some of the teachers teach classes in the Sunday school, some are officers and leaders in the Christian Endeavor societies, and in these and many other ways they make themselves useful in the community activ- ities that are thus made more successful than they would otherwise be. This is an excellent example of what a community may do for itself by cooperative effort. These people have mad'e adequate provision for their educational, social, and religious needs, and instead of families moving out of the district to town, as they were doing when this movement started, they are now moving in, and many new farmhouses are being built by new famihes anxious to establish homes in this progressive district. These people have their children in a good school for twelve years, and do not need to send them away from home until they are prepared for college. They not only receive religious instruction in the Sunday school 846 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION • and community church, enjoy social intercourse in a larger and richer sphere than they ever did before, but they meet their fellows in larger groups, in ath- letic contests, literary and musical organizations, learn to appear in public, and in all these and other ways prepare themselves for civic duties. The plant is in operation twelve months in the year, and the school and all the educational work connected with it is carried on on a twelve-mill tax levy, which is less than that paid by many of the town school systems of the state. IV. A COUNTY-UNIT SCHOOL SYSTEM Baltimore County, Maryland, is an excellent exam- ple of the county unit of school organization and ad- ministration, and also serves as an excellent example of what can be accomplished in the improvement of rural education, with good leadership and by patient effort, and under proper educational conditions. The story is so interesting and so illustrative of possibilities that it is reproduced here. Baltimore County, Maryland, has an area of 630 square miles (approximately 25 miles square), and is entirely separate and distinct from the city of Balti- more. There aire in the county, in round numbers, 50 one-teacher rural schools, 50 two-teacher rural and vil- lage schools, and 45 schools having from 3 to 49 teach- ers. The largest schools are near the city of Balti- more. A number of the schools having 3 or more 1^ « . EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 347 teachers are consolidated schools, located in the vil- lages and rural communities. The county school- system thus consists of 145 buildings, spread over an area of 630 square miles, and with something over 400 teachers employed; as compared with 105 buildings and about 1800 teachers for the city of Baltimore, and condensed within an area of 30 square miles. In Mary- land the coulnty, and not the township or the district, is the unit of educational organization and adminis- tration. For each county a county board of education is appointed. These county boards consist of either three or six persons, appointed for six-year terms, one third going out of office every two years. In Baltimore County the board consists of six members, and is composed of farmers, merchants and other men of affairs. Each county board of education practically has entire control of the school affairs of the county, with the one exception that county school taxes, above a certain legal maximum, must first be approved by the county governmental authorities. The ex- penditure of all school moneys is in the hands of the county board of education, and funds are appor- tioned as the needs of the different schools of the county require, and without regard to the taxable wealth of the different communities. This results in an equalization of both the burdens and the advantages of education, over the whole county, just as they are to-day equalized over a whole city. In other words, 848 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION equally good schools, equally long terms, and equally good salaries are provided for all the schools of the county, and without reference to the taxpaying power of the different communities. The county superintendent of schools is selected and appointed by the county board of education. He must be a college graduate, and in addition must have had at least one year of professional preparation in a stand- ard college or university, and successful experience as a teacher. He acts as the executive officer of the county board of education, organizes and supervises the schools, interprets the school law, nominates all teachers for appointment and assigns and transfers them as he deems best, prepares the course of study, selects all books and equipment for purchase, prepares the annual school budget, and oversees all repairs to the school plant. District boards of school trustees exist for each school, but these are appointed by the county board of education each year. A district board is allowed to approve the selection of the principal for its school, who acts as secretary of the district board. The functions of these district boards are confined to the above; to the care of school-houses and furniture; to the super- vising of the repair of the schoolhouse, when directed to do so by the county board; and they may also ad- mit, suspend, and expel pupils, and exercise limited local supervision over the schools. With the details of the work of instruction they have little or nothing to EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 349 do, as the outlining of the course of study, the selection of textbooks and apparatus, and the supervision of instruction are strictly educational functions which rest with the county board of education and its ap- pointed educational officers. The development of a good supervisory system in Baltimore County has been a matter of growth, and forms an interesting story of rural effort. It is unusual chiefly because the political conditions in most of our states will not permit of such progress being made. In 1900 the supervisory force consisted of a county superintendent and one assistant, who together at- tended to all the clerical, statistical, and financial work of a large county office, and also tried to super- vise the schools of the county. Together the two offi- cials were never able to visit each school in the county more than twice each year, and even to make such rounds required one hundred days (five school months) of continuous visiting from each. The principals in all of the schools of the county were also teaching princi- pals, with no free time for supervision, so that the schools of the county were practically without super- vision. About this time the board selected and appointed a new county superintendent, a recent college graduate, who had studied edu'cational administration, and he set about the education of his board and the improve- ment of the educational conditions of his county. In 1902 the county board was induced to employ a clerk 350 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION and stenographer for the office, so as to give the super- intendent and his assistant more time, free from office work, for the supervision of the schools. Members of the county board were induced to accompany them, and see for themselves the needs of the schools. In 1901 the county superintendent organized local insti- tutes, or teachers' meetings, in all parts of the county, and soon the principals of the larger schools were made the leaders of these local institutes. The superin- tendent then organized a "Monthly Saturday Round- Table for Principals and Leaders of the Teachers* Meetings." Parents* meetings were also organized, and civic associations were addressed by the superin- tendent and teachers, on the work of the schools. This was all done as part of a quiet but persistent campaign of education, first of the teachers and then of the peo- ple, with a view to securing support for a movement of better schools, better educational conditions, and bet- ter salaries. To a selected list of four thousand citizens, equal to one fifth of the patrons of each school, annual reports, reprints of addresses, programs of work, etc., were mailed. The board itself soon became responsive to popular sentiment, began to talk of improvement, began to lay its plans before the people, and began to show a disposition to meet their wishes for better schools. Progress, though slow, soon became cumula- tive and sure. Additions to the work now began to be made. Domestic science was introduced, at first in a few local- EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 351 ities, and by means of a half-time teacher. Soon the women's clubs of other communities asked for an ex- tension of the work, and this was done. The work is now in charge of a special supervisor, assisted by seven special teachers of domestic science. In all except the one-teacher schools, home economics has now been provided for all girls in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, and is continued through the four-year courses of five of the high schools of the county. In addition, about sixty grade teachers also teach sewing in the fifth and sixth grades of the schools. Rural domestic science clubs have been begun, largely as an out- growth of this instruction. Manual training was begun in a similar way, and with a similar result. Now a special supervisor of manual training, assisted by six special teachers, travels from school to school on a weekly schedule, and gives instruction to the boys in that subject. Farmers' clubs and Granges began to urge the board to improve the schools. The consolidation of schools soon began to attract attention, and a number of consolidated schools have been formed. The farmers began to ask for an agricultural high school for the county, and in 1909 this was established. A demand for better school buildings — better-heated, venti- lated, and adapted to modern educational needs — came as a natural outgrowth of the campaign of edu- cation. The need for better supervision for the schools was 352 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION also kept before the board, largely by illustrations from the business world. Instead of freeing the prin- cipal from teaching duties, the plan decided upon was rather to use the county as a unit and to strengthen the county supervisory force. In 1905 an expert in pri- mary work was appointed as supervisor of primary grades for the county. Grade-teachers' meetings, twice each month, were then instituted for the first- and second-grade teachers. The primary supervisor also began to visit the primary classrooms once every ten days, and to hold personal conferences with the teachers as to their work. The next year the third- and fourth-grade teachers were included. The chief pur- poses of the teachers' meetings were to outline and discuss the work to be done, to give the teachers defi- nite aid, and to create a stronger professional spirit among them. The board, during this second year, appointed one of the best primary teachers in the county as a substitute teacher, it being her chief work to visit and help teachers in their classrooms, and to relieve them for a day or two at a time while they visited schools, with or under the direction of the su- perintendent or supervisor. By 1908 the county board of education had become so impressed with the good results that they appointed a grammar-grade supervisor, who, in turn, began a sim- ilar work of organization and direction, beginning first with the fifth-grade teachers, and gradually extend- ing the work to the upper grades. The work had grown EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 353 to such importance by 1911 that the board authorized each special supervisor to select an assistant, of her own choosing, to help in the work of grade supervision. The special supervisors were also given the help of a stenographer. In 1910 the board authorized the superintendent to hold an all-day meeting, five times a year, of all teach- ers teaching in the one-room rural schools; and, in 1911, meetings for all teachers in the two-room rural schools were also authorized. These meetings were helpful in evolving plans, and led naturally, in 1912, to the appointment, by the county board, of a special supervisor of rural schools for the county. The man selected had been a rural teacher in the county, had risen to the principalship of one of the larger schools, and then had gone to a teachers' college and had pre- pared himself well for the work to be done. Beginning with September, 1912, the teachers of the county were organized into thirteen supervisory groups, of not over thirty-five teachers to a group, with eleven of the thirteen groups in charge of a grade supervisor or as- sistant, who visits and aids the teachers of that group. The other two groups were placed in charge of assist- ant superintendents. The county superintendent over- sees and directs the work of all, and visits each teacher once each year. The development attained by 1912 has since been retained and expanded in details, though the main features of the present organization are the same as developed by 1913. S54 RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION The results have been such as to give the people of Baltimore County, Maryland, one of the best organ- ized rural-school systems to be found in the United States. Aside from the slow but gradual education of the people of the county to appreciate the need for better supervision and to demand that more money be spent on the schools, the excellent results which have been attained there have been due largely to five things ; — 1. The county board of education has been a con- tinuing body of citizens, only one third going out of office at one time, and has thus been able to plan and to execute a continuing educational poUcy. 2. The county board was free to go anywhere it wished to secure the kind of man it desired for county superintendent, to appoint him, and to fix his salary. 8. The county board has been free to retain his services continuously, without the interference of party politics or the chances of a biennial political election. Efficiency, not politics, has been the basis of his retention in office. 4. The county board has also been free to appoint assistant superintendents, special supervisors, assist- ant supervisors, stenographers, and clerks, as they deemed necessary, and to fix their salaries, and without having first to ask the county board of supervisors or the legislature for permission to do so. They have been free, as such boards ought to be, to make progress as fast as they thought desirable, instead of being tied, hand and foot, by uniform laws. EXAMPLES IN RURAL EDUCATION 355 5. The comity board has also been able to consoli- date schools and transport the pupils; to improve buildings and sanitary conditions; to provide a uni- formly long term; to increase and standardize the salaries of the teachers throughout the county; to enforce the employment of good teachers for all schools; and to add new schools and new forms of instruction, where and as seemed desirable; — and all because of its control of the schools of the county as a unit. Their work has been exactly analogous to that of a city board of education for a city. BIBLIOGRAPHY On the following pages is given a small selected list of references on the rural problem. The list contains only the more easily available of the numerous recent publications bearing on the general subject. No attempt has been made to make it a comprehensive list, nor would such serve any useful purpose. Instead is submitted a short list, contain- ing a few of the more important books, pamphlets, and mag- azine articles which have appeared within recent years. So important has the problem become that within recent years most of our states have issued special bulletins on one or more phases of the rural -life or rural-school problem, and most of these can be obtained by teachers for the asking. The following are possible sources of supply : 1. The State Department of Education 2. The State University 3. The State Agricultural College 4. The State Teachers College, or Normal Schools 5. The County Farm Advisor 6. The United States Department of Agriculture 7. The United States Commissioner of Education The Annual Reports of the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, and of the State Department of Agriculture, often contain useful material. The volumes on Population and on Agriculture, giving the results of the 1920 Census, as well as the special volume issued for each state, will also prove useful. In addition the two following monthly mag- azines contain many articles of value: — World's Work. A Monthly Illustrated Magazine. Double- day, Page & Co., Garden City, L.I. This magazine contains many articles relating to farm life and rural education, often of particular value^ to those who are interested in rural life and education. 858 BIBLIOGRAPHY Rural Manhood. A Monthly Illustrated Magazine. Inter- national Committee, Y.M.C.A., New York. Devoted to the country work of th« Y.M.C.A. Contains much that is valuable relating to rural life. PART I. THE RURAL-LIFE PROBLEM 1. The Rural Evolution Boyle, Jas. E. Rural Problems in the United States. 142 pp. MeCIurg, Chicago, 1921. A good brief statement of the fundamental rural-life problems. BuTTERFiELD, K. L. Chapters in Rural Progress. 251 pp. University of Chicago Press, 1908. A good analysis of rural social progress. Carver, T. N. The Principles of Rural Economics. 886 pp. Ginn & Co., Boston, 1912. Deals in an interesting manner with the reasons for the city- ward trend and the possibilities of the farm and country of the future, from the viewpoint of an economist. Childs, Roba P. "Making Good Farmers out of Poor Ones"; In Review of Reviews, November, 1910. 6 pp. An account of Dr. Knapp's demonstration work among Southern Farmers. An interesting popular account. HiBBARD, B. H. *' Tenancy in the North Central States"; in Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1911. 20 pp. A good study of tenancy in these states up to 1910. Gives the high price of land and the one-crop system as the chief factors in producing tenancy. Ross, J. B. "The Agrarian Revolution in the Middle West " ; in North American Review, vol. 190, pp. 377-91 (September, 1909). Sketches the great social changes taking place in the upper Mississippi Valley, and the effect of these changes on the in- stitutions of rural society there. BIBLIOGRAPHY 359 Sims, N. L. The Rural Community, 916 pp. Charles Scrib- ner's Sons, New York, 1920. A very important and valuable collection of readings relating to the rural-life problem in its different phases. Quite valuable as a library supplemental reference, as it reproduces many impor- tant articles not usually found in small libraries. Wilson, W. H. The Evolution of the Country Community. 221 pp. The Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1912. Treats of rural social development, the pioneer, the land- exploiter, the husbandman, the religious life of each period, rural morality, recreation, and the graded school, from the point of view of the church. '' 2. The Rural Church AsHENHURST, J. O. The Day of the Country Ckurck. 208 pp. Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1910. Contains an excellent chapter on leadership. Bemies, C. O. The Church in the Country Tovm. American Baptist Publishing Company, Chicago, 1912. The peculiar problems of the church in the small town. Bricker, G. a., and Others. Solving the Country Church Problem. Jennings & Graham, Cincinnati, 1913. A symposium on the question. BuTTERFiELD, K. L. The Country Church and the Rural Prob^ . lem. 153 pp. University of Chicago Press, 1911. The task of the church and its relation to the rival problem is outlined. Earp, E. L. The Rural Church Movement. Methodist Book Concern, New York, 1914. FiSKE, G. W. The Challenge of the Country. 274 pp. The Y.M.C.A., Association Press, New York, 1912. A book on the rural problem, with special reference to the country church. Written at the request of the International Committee of the Y.M.C.A. associations. 360 BIBLIOGRAPHY Gill, C. O., and Pinchot, G. Six Thousand Country Churches. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. McNuTT, M, B. "Ten Years in a Country Church"; in World's Work, December, 1910. 6 pp. A very interesting account of ten years of effort in a country parish in Illinois, and the results achieved. Also reproduced in Sims, cited above. Nesmith, G. T. "The Problem of the Rural Community with special reference to the Rural Church"; in American Journal of Sociology, May, 1903. 26 pp. The condition of the rural church; community means for improvement. Presbyterian Church, Board of Home Missions. Ohio Rural Life Survey. Presbyterian Church Publishing Com- pany, New York, 1914. 1. Church Growth and Decline in Ohio. 32 pp. 2. Country Churches of Distinction. 48 pp. 3. Northwestern Ohio. 70 pp. 4. Southeastern Ohio. 64 pp. 5. Southwestern Ohio. 93 pp.' A survey of rural-church conditions in Ohio made by the Board of Home Missions, Country Life Division, of the Presby- terian Church. Symposium. "The Church and the Rural Community"; in American Journal of Sociology, March, 1911. Wilson, W. H. The Church of the Open Country. 283 pp. Missionary Education Movement of the United States, New York, 1912. The place of the rural church in modern farming communities and what changes must be effected if the church is to continue as a rural leader. The author is Secretary of Presbyterian missions. Wilson, W. H. "The Church and the Rural Community"; in American Journal of Sociology, March, 1911. 34 pp., including discussion. A paper along much the same lines as the above. BIBLIOGRAPHY 361 3. Rural Life in general Anderson, W. L. The Conntry Town. 307 pp. The Baker & Taylor Co., New York, 1906. Contains good chapters on rural-life conditions and needs, rural degeneration and depletion, rural resources, and the rural church. Bailey, L. H. The Country-Life Movement. 220 pp. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1911. A consideration of the recent country-life movement. Bailey, L. H. The Training of Farmers. 263 pp. The Century Company, New York, 1909. A discussion of the need and the means of training farmers for more successful agriculture and better living. Bailey, L. H. The State and the Farmer. 177 pp. Macmil- lan Company, New York, 1917. A discussion of possible relationships and help given. Country Life Commission. Report. 65 pp. Government Printing Office, 1909. Reprinted by Sturgis & Walton, New York, 1911. The report of President Roosevelt's Commission, outlining the problem and suggesting remedies. A very important document. Crow, Martha F. The American Country Girl. 367 pp. F. A. Stokes Company, New York, 1915. Curtis, H. S. Play and Recreation in the Open Country. 265 pp. Gism & Co., Boston, 1914. Gillette, J. M. Constructive Rural Sociology. 408 pp. Sturgis & Walton, New York, 1916. A text-book treatment of the problems surrounding rural life. Grayson, D. Adventures in Contentment. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, L.I., 1907. Charming sketches of the delights of country life. 362 BIBLIOGRAPHY Haggakd, H. R. Rural Denmark and its Lessons. 335 pp. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1911. Describes the great rural transformation effected in Denmark by agricultural education and cooperation among the farmers. Hanifan, L. J. The Commtinity Center. 214 pp. Silver, Bur- dette & Co., Boston, 1920. Describes what to do and how to organize. Hart, J. K. Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities. 277 pp. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913. A collection of 16 essays, by different authors, on different phases of the rural-life problem. Hill, J. J. "What we must do to be fed"; in World's Work, November, 1909. 38 pp., illustrated. Reprinted as chap- ter I in his Highways oj Progress, 1910. Emphasizes the importance of scientific agriculture. Jackson, H. E. A Community Center. 52 pp. Bulletin 11, 1918, United States Bureau of Education, Washington. What a community center is, and how to organize it. McCoRMiCK, W. The Boy and His Clubs. F. H. Revel, Chicago, 1912. McKeever, W. a. Farm Boys and Girls. 326 pp. The Mac- millan Company, New York, 1912. A good book on rural home life, and the life interests of young people. Nason, W. C. Rural Community Buildings in the United States. 36 pp., illustrated. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, 1919. Farmers' Bulletin 825. Nason, W. C. Plans of Rural Community Buildings. 40 pp., illustrated. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, 1921. Farmers' Bulletin 1173. The above two describe, picture, and give floor-plans for a number of community-center buildings in different parts of the United States. BIBLIOGRAPHY 868 Phelan, John. Readings in Rural Sociology. 632 pp. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1920. A cyclopedia on rural welfare. Useful to teachers. Plunkett, Sir H. The Rural-Life Problem of the United States. 174pp. TheMacmillaaCompany,New York, 1910. Written by an authority on Irish and American agriculture. Deals largely with the life of the farmer, and the great need for business cooperation. Robertson, J. W. Conservation of Life in Rural Districts. 46 pp. The Y.M.C.A., Association Press, New York, 1911. Sims, N. L. A Hoosier Village. 181 pp. Longmans, Green & Co., 1912. A study of a town of 2500 people, with reference to the causes for its degeneration. In conclusion, says that not a single im- provement in the village life has come from within. Sims, N. L. The Rural Community. 916 pp. Charles Serib- ner's Sons, New York, 1920. An important and valuable collection of readings relating to the different phases of the rural-life problem. Should be con- sulted and referred to by teachers of the subject. Symposium. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Philadelphia. Issue for March, 1912, a special number on the rural problem, 243 pp. A very important issue. Contains i28 valuable articles by well- known authorities, and dealing with almost every phase of the rural-life problem. Taylor, H. C. Introduction to the Study of Agricultural Economics. 327 pp. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1915. A treatise on the economic aspect of the rural-life problem. VoGT, P. L. Introduction to Rural Sociology. 443 pp. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1917. An introductory textbook on the subject. Ward, E. J. The Social Center. 359 pp. D. App'eton & Co., New York, 1913. Describes the work to be done. 364, BIBLIOGRAPHY Waugh, F. a. Rural Improvement. Orange-Judd Co., New York, 1914. Wiley, H. W. The Lure of the Land: Farming after Fifty. Century Company, New York, 1915. 4.. Rural Social Surveys Branson, E. C. The Georgia Club. 41 pp. Bulletin No. 23, 1913, of the United States Bureau of Education. Describes the work done by the students at the state normal school at Athens, Ga., in the study of rural sociology. Felton, R. a. a Rural Survey of County. 38 pp., 97 forms, with bibliographies. Presbyterian Church Pub- lishing Co., New York, 1915. An outline form, prepared for general use by the Board of Home Missions, County Church Work, of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Galpin, C. J. Method of Making a Social Survey of a Rural Community, Circ. Inf. No. 29, University Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. 11 pp., illustrated, 1912. A very good short outline, with maps, showing surveys. Dis- tributed free. Morse, H. N., Eastman, E. F., and Monahan, A. C. An Educational Survey of a Suburban and Rural County. 68 pp., illustrated. Bulletin No. 32, 1913, of the United States Bureau of Educa- tion. A social and educational survey of Montgomery County, Md. Sharpleigh, F. E. Principles and Methods of Rural Sur- veys. The Y.M.C.A., Association Press, New York, 1913. A detailed description of how to go to work, and what to do. Taft, Anna B. Community Study for Rural Districts. 137 pp. Missionary Educational Movement for the United States, New York, 1912. Another outline, with directions for such studies, and charts. BIBLIOGRAPHY S65 Wells, G. F. A Social Survey for Rural Communities. 23 pp. Published by the author, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York, 1912. A syllabus outline of things to study. PART II. TIIE RURAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM i. Needs in Rural Education Betts, G. H. New Ideals in Rural Schools. 128 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1913. A short treatise on the school, its social relationships, the curriculum, and the teacher. Carney, Mabel. Country Life and the Country School. 405 pp. Row, Peterson & Co., Chicago, 1913. A very practical treatise on the rurcl-school problem. CuBBERLEY, E. P. The Improvement of Rural Schools. 76 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. Treats the problem under the headings: The Problem; More Money; Better Organization; Better Supervision. Davis, E. E. The Twentieth-Century Rural School. 242 pp. Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1920. Describes the new needs of the school, and the type of teacher needed for real rural leadership. An important volume. Oresslar, F. B. Rural Schoolhouses. Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Education. Pictures and describes many good buildings. Egm3LE8ton, J. D., AND Bruere, R. W. The Work of the Rural School. 283 pp. Harper & Bros., New York, 1913. Considers the rural school as a factor in the upbuilding of the rural community. FoQHT, H. W. The American Rural School. 361 pp. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. A good treatise on the rural-school problem, but chiefly along the lines of organization and the curriculum. 366 BIBLIOGRAPHY Kern, O. J. Among Country Schools. 366 pp. Ginn & Co., Boston, 1906. The first of the books on the rural school, and still quite useful. Describes many experiments. Well illustrated. MoNAHAN, A. C. Status of Rural Education in the United States. 73 pp. Bulletin No. 8, 1913, of the United States Bureau of Education. An excellent presentation of present conditions. Richmond, K. C. Rural School Playgrounds and Equipment. 12 pp. Teachers' Leaflet, No 11, October, 1920; Unitad States Bureau of Education, Washington. Describes briefly what b needed. RoBBiNS, C. L. The School as a Social Institution. 470 pp. AUyn & Bacon, Boston, 1918. An introduction to the study of social education. Seerley, Homer. The Country School. 218 pp. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1913. A very general work, dealing very briefly with almost every phase of rural-school work. Symposium. The Rural School as a Community Center. Tenth Yearbook, Part ii, of the National Society for the Study of Education. 75 pp. University of Chicago Press, 1911. Contains a series of articles, by different authors, on rural- school extension, cooperation, libraries, commimity needs, etc. I 2. Organization and Supervision of Rural Schools (Nearly all of the books listed above, under 1, treat of this topic also. In addition the following are worthy of special note.) Arp, J. B. Rural Education and the Consolidated School. 212 pp. World Book Company, Yonkers, N.Y., 1918. A good treatise on the rural educational problem in general, with some reference to consolidation and transportation. Betts, G. H.,and Hall, O. E. Better Rural Schools. 512 pp. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1914. A large general treatise, emphasiziug consolidation. BIBLIOGRAPHY SG7 BuRNHAM, E. Two Types of Rural Scliools. 129 pp. Teachers College Publications No. 51. New York, 1912. A comparative survey of two rural-school areas in Ohio and Michigan. Challman, S. a. The Rural School Plant. 256 pp. Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1917. Describes and illustrates rural-school buildings, and sets stand- ards. Firestone Bulletin. Consolidated Rural Schools and ike Motor Truck. 52 pp., illustrated. Firestone Tire and Rub- ber Co., Akron, Ohio. Bulletin No. 6, 1920. An excellent monograph on transportation, giving cost data seldom presented. Hayes, A. W. Rural Community Organization. University of Chicago Press, 1922. A study of the type of local educational unit best adapted to a comprehensive community organization. BLays, W. M. Education for Country Life. Circular 84, OflSce of Experimental Stations, United States Depart- ment of Agriculture. Points out the large possibilities of the consolidated school as a community center. Knorr, G. W. Consolidated Rural Schools, and the Organ- ization of a County System. 99 pp. Bulletin 232, Office of Experiment Stations, United States Department of Ag- riculture, Washington, D.C., 1910. An excellent bulletin on consolidation and the county unit. The best study of the subject so far published. Contains much valuable data as to costs, and many illustrations. Knorr, G. W. Study of Fifteen Consolidated Schools. South- ern Education Board, Washington, D.C. Contains data as to organization, costs, and eflBciency. MoNAHAN, A. C. Consolidation of Rural Schools and Trans- portation of Pupils at Public Expense. 108 pp. Bulletin 30, 1914, United States Bureau of Education. An excellent statement of work being done, and the problems. 368 BIBLIOGRAPHY Rapeer, L. W., and Others. The Consolidated Rural School. 54:5 pp. Charles Scribuer's Sons, New York, 1920. A series of tweirty-two articles on different phases of the move- ment for the consolidation of schools, the transportation of pupils and the curriculum of the consolidated school. Our best and most complete treatment of the subject. Contains good bibliographies on rural-life problems. Showalter, N. D. a Handbook for Rural School Officers. 213 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1920. A general treatment of all the phases of rural-school administra- tion coming within the province of a school trustee or school director. A good book on rural-school administration. Special State Bulletins. In a number of states special bulletins have been issued by the State Department of Education, the State Agricultural College, the State Uni- versity, or otherwise. These are often very valuable. Among those issued in 1920-21 the following are illus- trative. 1. Calhoun, J. T. Consolidated Schools. 38 pp. State Department of Education, Mississippi, Bulletin 17, 1920. 2. HiNEs, L. H. The School as the Center of the Com- munity Life. 31pp. The Story of a School. Department of Public Instruction, Indiana, 1920. 3. Knight, E. W. Tlie Consolidation of Rural Schools. 26 pp. University of North Carolina Extension Leaflet, 1920. 4. ScHRiBER, J. H. Transportation of School Children in Colorado. 54 pp. State Agricultural College, 1920. . 5. Sargent, C. G. Consolidated Schools of the Mountains, Valleys, arid Plains of Colorado. 60 pp. Colorado Agri- cultural College Bulletin, June, 1921. Symposium. Supervision of Rural Schools. Twelfth Year- book, Part II, of the National Society for the Study of Education, 114 pp. University of Chicago Press, 1913, A series of contributed articles, dealing with different phases of the problem of supervision of rural schools. Also contains a good bibliography on school supervision. BIBLIOGRAPHY 869 S. The Curriculum (See also Arps, Belts, Kern, Foght, Rapeer, Showalter, and under 1, al)ove.) Alderman, L. R. School Credit for Home Work. 181 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1915. Describes types, and how to administer the credits. Brakdon, M. E. The Project Method in Education. 282 pp. Badger, Boston, 1919. A general consideration of project teaching. Brown, H. A. The Readjustment of a Rural High School to the Needs of the Community, 31 pp., illustrated. Bulletin No. 20, 1912, United States Bureau of Education, Wash- ington, D.C. Describes how Colebrook Academy, New Hampshire, was re- directed. Crocherton, B. H. "A Very Real Country School"; in World's Work, January, 1912. 10 pp., illustrated. Describes the establishment and extension work of this same Baltimore County high school. Crosby, D. J., a7id Crocherton, B. H. Community Work in the Rural High School. 12 pp. In Yearbook, United States Department of Agriculture, 1910. Also reprinted separately for free distribution. Describes the community work done in the agricultural high school of Baltimore County, Maryland. Davenport, E. Education for Efficiency. 184 pp. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1909. A discussion of what constitutes efficient education, and the place of agriculture in an educational system, Davis, B. M. Agricultural Education in the Public Schools. 163 pp. University of Chicago Press, 1912. Outlines work to be done. FoGHT, H. W. The Danish Folk High Schools. 93 pp., illus- trated. Bulletin 22, 1914, United States Bureau of Educa- tion. An excellent presentation of the work of these agricultural 370 BIBLIOGRAPHY high schools and their adaptability to conditions in the United States. Howe, F. W. Boys' and GirW Agricultural Clubs. 23 pp., illustrated. Farmers' Bulletin, No. 385, United States Department of Agriculture, 1910. i^ Describes the work, and gives a list of publications of the De- partment relating to the work. Hummel, W. B. and B. R. Materials and Methods in Agricul- tural Education. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913. A good practical working guide for the teacher. Jewell, J. R. Agricultural Education, Including Nature Study and School Gardens. 140 pp. Bulletin No. 2, 1907, United States Bureau of Education. A careful consideration of the curriculum. Johnson, A. A. County Schools of Agriculture and Domestic Economy in Wisconsin, 24 pp. Bulletin No. 242, OflSce of Experimental Stations, United States Department of Agriculture, 1911. Describes the kind of work done in a number of these schools. Johnson, C. Old-Time Schools and School Books. 381 pp., illustrated. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1904. A good description of the old-time district school, and its work. Leake, A. H. Means and Methods of Agricultural Education. 273 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1915. N. E. A. Report of the Committee on Courses of Study in Agriculture. In Report of Proceedings, N. E. A., 1912, pp. 1391-1413. A very useful report, outlining many practical courses for dif- ferent types of schools. Nolan, A. W. The Teaching of Agriculture. 277 pp. Hough- ton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1918. Two recent books dealing with plans and materials for agricul- tural instruction. BIBLIOGRAPHY 371 lloBiNSON, C. H. and Jenks, F. B. Agricultural Instruction in High Schools. 80 pp. Bulletin No. 6, 1913, United States Bureau of Education. Discusses types of schools, salaries of teachers, and kinds of instruction provided. ScuDDER, M. T. Field Day and Play Picnics for Country Children. Bulletin, Charities Publication Committee, New York. 10c. Describes how to organize and conduct such. Stimson, R. W. Vocational Agricultural Education by Projects. Stockton, J. LeRoy. Project Work in Education. Houghtoi Mifflin Company, Boston, 1920. A general discussion of the problems and plans involved in proj- ect work. Woofter, T. J. Teaching in Rural Schools. 327 pp. Hough- ton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1917. A very helpful book, dealing with both the organization of the school and the instruction in the different subjects. .4. The Teacher Bailey, L. H. On the Training of Persons to teach Agriculture in the Public Schools. 53 pp. Bulletin No. 1, 1908, United States Bureau of Education. Discusses the nature of the problem, and the means of train- ing teachers for rural service. "^ CuLTER, H. M. and Stone, J. M. The Rural School, its Method and Management. 376 pp. Silver Burdette & Co., Boston, 1913. A book on management and methods. Field, Jessie. The Com Lady. 107 pp. A. Flanagan Com- pany, Chicago, 1911. A series of letters from a country teacher to her father, de- scribing her work in transforming a rural school. Should be read 372 BIBLIOGRAPHY by every rural teacher. The appendix contains some very good farm-arithmetic problems. FoGHT.. H. W. Rural Teacher Preparation in the County Training Schools. 71 pp. Bulletin No. 31, 1917, United States Bureau of Education. Describes work and conditions and output. FoGHT, H. W. The Rural Teacher and His Work. The Mac- millan Company, New York, 1918. MoNAHAN, A. C, and Wright, R. H. Training Courses for Rural Teachers. 61pp. Bulletin No. 2, 1913, United States Bureau of Education. Describes what is being done in the difiFerent states in the matter of preparing teachers for the rural schools. MuTCHLER, F., and Craig, W. J. A Course of Study for the Preparation of Rural-School Teachers. 23 pp. Bulletin No. 1, 1912, United States Bureau of Education. Outlines a course of study for rural teachers. PiTTMAN M. S. Successful Teaching in Rural Schools. The American Book Company, New York, 1922. A series of practical illustrations of successful rural instruction. Quick, Herbert, The Rroivn Mouse. 310 pp. Bobbs-Mer- rill Co., Indianapolis, 1915. A very interesting rural-life story. WiLKBpsoN, W. A. Rural School Management. 420 pp. Silver Burdette & Co., Boston, 1917. Describes the daily work of the teacher in the usual rural school. WooFTER, T. J. Teaching in Rural Schools. 327 pp. Hough- ton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1917. Presents both the organization of the school and methods of instruction in the different school subjects. Wray, Angelina. Jean Mitchell's School. 244+32 pp. Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, Illinois, 1911. A charming story of a country teacher's experience, and of a kind which young teachers could read with profit. INDEX Administration and organiza- tion of schools, 178-93. Agricultural clubs, boys and girls, 144-46; Clinton County, Iowa, 156-59. Agricultural colleges, 38. Agricultural development, four periods of : — I. Up to 1830, 7-13; II. 1830-60, 14-18; III. 1860-90, 18-28; IV. 1890 on, 29-61. Agricultural expansion, great American, 18-21, 22-24, 41- 43. Agriculture: — Instruction in rural schools, 268-71, 296; na- tional aid for, 37; new, 36-37; future demands on, 44; re- organization and commercial- izing of, 36-51; U.S. Dept. of, 38,39,146,155-58. Arithmetic, redirection of in- struction in, 260-61. Automobiles on farms, 64. Away-from-farm-influence in ed- ucation, 260-61. Back-to-land movement, 169. Baltimore Co., Md., County unit in, 321-23, 339-47. Barley, new seed, 39. Bathroom conveniences, 34. Bibliography on rural problems, 349-60. " Boarding-around " arrange- ments, 88. Boy-Scouts, rural, 144. Boys' Clubs, 144-46. Buildings, school, 207-16; con- solidated school interiors, 253, 328-38; fundamental needs in, 212-16; typical interiors, 207- 12; special rooms, 215. Camp-Fire Girls, rural, 144. Church : — A rural, reorganized, 132-37; a village, reorganized, 137-39; as a community cen- ter, 121-23; early social as- pect of, 76-78; large early in- fluence, 72-74; the teacher and, 81-82; effect of changes on, 71-81; social mission of, 80. Churches: — Too many, 77-78; dying churches, 76-79. Cities, gradual rise of, 8, 25. City and country schools com- pared, 221. City connections formed, 65. Cityward migration, the, 24-26. Commerce, rise of, 16. Commercial clubs aiding farm- ers, 155-59. Commercial large-scale farming, 45-46. Commercial small-scale farming, 46-47. Community centers, 117-26; pos- sible, 118-25; one plan for, 119; the church as a, 121-23, 139, 339-42; the library as a, 124; the school as a, 125. Community-center church, 121- 23, 139, 339-44. Community-center organizations, 160, 161. Community-center schools, 251- 54; floor-plans for, 253. Community life, 126, 158. Community rural service, 126. Consolidated schools: — A one- room school in Missouri, 328- 34; a good example in Illinois, 334-38; a community-center church and consolidated school in Colorado, 339-44. Consolidation movement, 203 374 INDEX inaugurating the same, 240, 345. Consolidation of schools, 230- 55, 328-38; advantages of, 235-38; disadvantages of, 239- 40; district consolidation, 240- 43; township consolidation, 243-44; county-unit plan, 245- 49, 321-26; state reorganiza- tion, 255; in Colorado, 233-35; in Illinois, 334-38; in Indiana, 231, 242; in Iowa, 232; in Ohio, 232-34. Cooperative Agricultural Exten- sion Act, The, 155. Country-life Commission, the, 169. Country-life movement, mean- ing of, 128. County Agricultural Agents, 156. County board of education, 322- 26, 339-47. County farm council, 156. County school superintendent. (See Superintendent; Superin- tendency.) County system, the, of school administration, 190-92, 245- 49, 339-47. County taxation for education, 198-200. County unit in evolution, 307. Curriculum: — The old, 256-66, 275-76; need of redirecting, 267-68, 275-78; new one needed for rural school, 256- 81, 296; for rural high school, 278-80. Distribution of taxation for edu- cation, systems of, 201-02. District school: — Origin of, 83- 85; multiplication of districts, 163-65, 181-83, 226-29; de- cline of, 164-66. District system, 86-88, 178-86, 221-25; essential features of, 178-86; objections to, 184- 86,226-30,285-87. District taxation, 194-97. Domestic science, instruction in, 271-73, 298, 343. Education, early, 83-89; changes in after 1870, 89-96; increas- ing cost of, 99-100; increasing term, 101; present inade- quacy, 97; what constitutes, 280-81. Educational reorganization need- ed, 172-75, 203, 224. Equalizing effect of general taxa- tion, 199-201. Erie Canal, 16. Expansion, agricultural, 18-2L 22-24. Experts, farm, 155-59. Farm experts, 155-59; hands, 26, 60; labor, saving in, 26- 28; managers, 46; tenantry, 51-61; values, 23, 30, 43, 67. Farmer, home-builder type, 22. Farmer, town and travel habit, 65-66. Farmers, agricultural courses for. 70. Farmers' Institutes, 154-55. Farmers' organizations, 149-59. Farmhouses, newer, 33-35. Farming: — Commercial, 14; conditions in fifteen states, 30; population, 30; subsist- ence stage, 10-14. Farms, development of, 19, 20, 24; free, given away, 19; size of, 30. First period in agricultural de- velopment, 7-13; characteris- tics of the period, 7-13. Florida, Duval County, consoli- dation in, 245. Foodstuffs, recent values of, 42. Fourth period in agricultural development, 29-61; charac- teristics of the period, 31; changes involved, 60-61; ef- fect on school, 94-97. mDEX 375 Furnaces in homes, 34. Geography, instruction in, 262- 64. Government, local, 68-71. Grading of schools, 90. Grammar and language, instruc- tion in, 261, 262. Grange, the, 124. 149-52, 302. Harlem, consolidated school, 324-28. Hesperia Movement, the, 160. High school, rural: — Redirec- tion of, 278-80; teacher in, 300-01. History, instruction in, 265-66. Home and school, 18. Home-builder farmer, 22. Home life, early, 11, 18. Home-project idea, 275a. Homes, early farm, 11; need for better, 115-17; present farm homes, 33-35. Hygiene, instruction in, 264-65, 296. Idaho, Ada County, reorgan- ized, 249-50. Immigrants: — Early types, 15-16; later types, 54-59; land ownership by, 107; teach- ing agriculture to, 70. Indiana, Delaware County, con- solidation in, 242. Institutes, farmers", 154-55. Institutional church, an, 135-37, 339-42. Instruction: — In rural school, 256-81; in rural high school, 278-80. Intellectual revolution, the, 74- 76. Intensive farming, 46. Interiors of building, school, 207-16; a model building, 214; a reorganized school, 211. Inventions : — New, 15-16; labor- saving, 26-28. Kirksville, - Missouri, school, 328-34. Kitchens, farm, 116. rural Language and grammar, in- struction in, 261-63. Library: — Rural, 124, 146-49; school, 220-21; library work, 297. Living: — Early, 10-14, 18; third-period characteristics, 22; fourth-period changes, 31-35. Local government amid the change, 68-71. Machinery, new farming, 15, 89. Magazines in the farm home, 33, 64. Mail, rural delivery, 33. Maintenance of schools, types of, 193-204. _ ^ Manual training, instruction in, 273, 298, 343. Manufacturing, rise of, 16. Markets, early, 9, 11; new, 14, 40^1. Maryland, county unit of ad- ministration in, 321-23, 339- 47. Migrations, early Westward, 9. Mississippi Valley : — An agri- cultural center, 30-31; town movement in, 36; towns lack- ing in personality in, 102. Missouri, Kirksville consolidated school, 328-34. Model rural school buildings, 214, 253, 328-38. Morrill Land-Grant Bill, 37. National aid for agriculture, 37. Nature study, instruction in, 268-71, 296. Negro farmers, 48, 50, 59. Neighborhood clubs, 158-59. New England influence on relig- ious life, 71-72. New interest in rural life, 65. Newspapers in farm homes, 33,64. 376 INDEX Nursing, district, 139. Ohio, consolidation of schools in, 230-34, 241. Ohio, township supervision of schools in, 312. Organization and administra- tion of schools, types of, 178- 93. Outlook, larger rural, 114. Ownership of land, 61, 107. Periods of agricultural develop- ment. (See Agricultural de- velopment.) Personality, retention of, on farms, 112-13. Personality, the school and, 113. Pioneer life, early, 10. Plainfield, Illinois, reorganized rural church, 132-37. Plav, organized, instruction in, 274. Population, rapid growth of ur- ban, 8, 25. Population and production, rela- tive increases in, 27. Professional preparation for teaching, 289-99. Project-idea, the home, 275a. Railways, early, 16-17. Reading, instruction in, 266-67. Redirected schools: — A rural, 328-34; a consolidated, 334-38. Redirecting the school, 172, 174. Rural economic interests, 108. Rural human interests, 109. Rural library, 124, 146-49 297. Rural life: — Early, 11; to-day, 32-35; great rural interests, 173; movement, the recent, 169; needs to-day, 104, 110, 297; educational deficiency in, 105. Rural population, 8, 25, 111; by states, 49; decreases in, 50-51. Rural school. (See School.) Rural school progress, funda- mental needs for, 203-04. Riual social life, 63-68, 297. Rural social problem, 106, 297. Rural teacher: — Training of, 289-99; high school teacher, 300-01; possibilities for large service, 301-04. Sargent School and Church, Colorado, 339-44. School: — Origin of, 83-85; the early, 88, 177; second-period school, 86-88; city-school in- fluence on, 92; changes in direction after 1870, 90- 95; amid the fourth-period changes, 94-97, 164-72; tj'pical early interiors, 84, 86; costs, increasing, 94-101; district, decline of, 163-67; library, 220-21; sites, 216-18; super- vision (see Supervision, Su- perintendency); term, increas- ing, 101. School and democracy, 163, 320. School and home, 18. School and personality, 113. School buildings : — types and needs of, 207-16; typical in- teriors, 207-12; fundamental needs of, 212-10; special rooms in, 215; consolidated, 328-44. Schoolmaster, the early, 88. Schools, rural : — Not of neces- sity poor, 167; recent criti- cism of, 168; redirecting them, 172-75, 328-38; fundamental needs of, for progress, 203-04; present plight of, 102, 164-67. School systems and evolution, 178 Science, domestic, instruction in, 271-73, 298. Science room in schools, 215. Second period in agricultural de- velopment, 14-18. Second-period school, 86-88. INDEX 377 Seed selection, 39. Sites, school, 216-18. Size of farms, 30. Smith-Lever Act, 155. Social worli for the church, 122. Society, early rural, 63-65; changes in, 65-68. Specialization, farm and crop, 15. Stock-breeding, 39. Subsistence farming, 10-14. Sunday, early, social signifi- cance of, 64!. Sunday School, non-attendance at, 77-78. Superintendency, county: — In evolution, 308; new concep- tions of the office, 309-11; present conditions in the office, 315-20; the way out, 319-20, 346-47. Supervision, rural, 306-26, 339- 47; same under county sys- tem, 321-26; under county board of education, 322-25; present type of, 313-21 ; town- ship, in Ohio, 312; county, at present, 311; new California law, 312. System, district. {See District system.) Taxation for education, forms of, 193-204; distribution of, 201- 02. Teacher: — The early, 88; de- crease in men, 91; new rural type needed, 90-93, 283-304; teacher and the church prob- lem, 81, 302. Teacher, rural : — Call for serv- ice from, 301-04; training and wages compared, 283-88; present status of training, 288; in rural high schools, 300-01. Teacher's home, 218a, 342. Teachers' training classes, 289- 99; beginnings of, 289-90; instruction offered, 292-99; suggested course, 295-99. Teaching equipment, 206-25; special equipment needed, 218-20. Telephone and the farmer, 32. Tenantry, farm, 51-61; in the United States, 51; in each state, 53; increase in, 52; ten- antry vs. ownership, 107; ten- antry and social life, 66-68. Tenants, new, and local govern- ment, 69. Third period in agricultural de- velopment, 18-28. Town and township taxation, 197-98. Town movement of farmers, 36. Tovra or township system, 186- 90. Town system, the New England, 187. Town vs. district control, 188. Township, the Western, 189. Trading, early markets, 13. Trains, agricultural, 39. Travel, farmers enjoying, 66. Utah, county-unit plan in, 213- 23. Workroom in the rural school, 211, 214, 215. Y.M.C.A., county-work divi- sion, 123, 124, 138-43, 302. Y.W.C.A., county- work divi- sion, 123, 124, 142-44, 302. RIVERSIDE TEXTBOOKS IN EDUCATION General Educational Theory PSYCHOLOGY FOR NORMAL SCHOOLS. By L. A. AvERiLL, Massachusetts State Normal School, Worcester. EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION. By F. N. Frbbman, Uuiversity of Chicago. HOW CHILDREN LEARN. By F. N. Freeman. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE COMMON BRANCHES. By F. N. Freeman. DISCIPLINE AS A SCHOOL PROBLEM. By A. C. Pbrky, Jr. AN INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY. By W. R. Smith, Kansas State Normal School. TRAINING FOR EFFECTIVE STUDY. By F. W. Thomas, State Normal School, Fresno, California. AN INTRODUCTION TO CHILD PSYCHOLOGY. By C. W. Waddle, Ph.D., Los Angeles State Normal SchooL History of Education THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. By E. P. Cubberley. A BRIEF HISTORY OF EDUCATION. By K. P. CUBBERLKY, READINGS IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. By E. P. Cubberley. PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. By E. P. CUBBBRLBY. Administration and Supervision of Schools HEALTHFUL SCHOOLS: HOW TO BUILD, EQUIP, AND MAIN TAIN THEM. By May Avres, J. F. Williams, M.D., University of Cincinnati, and T. D Wood, A.M., M.D., Teachers College, Columbia University. PUBLIC SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION. By E. P. Cubberley. RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION. By E. P. Cubbbkley. HEALTH WORK IN THE SCHOOLS. By E. B. HoAG, M.D., and L. M. Tbrman, Leland Stanford Junior University. MEASIiRING THE RESULTS OF TEACHING. By W. S. Monroe, University of Illinois. 19263 EDUCATIONAL TESTS AND MEASUREMENTS. By W. S. MoNROB, J. C. DbVoss, Kansas State Normal School; and F. J. Kelly, University of Kansas. THE SUPERVISION OF INSTRUCTION. By H. W. NuTT, University of Kansas. STATISTICAL METHODS APPLIED TO EDUCATION. By H. O. RuGG, University of Chicago. CLASSROOM ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL. By J. B. Sears, Leland Stanford Junior University. A HANDBOOK FOR RURAL SCHOOL OFFICERS. By N. D. Showalter, Washington State Normal School. THE HYGIENE OF THE SCHOOL CHILD. By L. M. Tbrman. THE MEASUREMENT OF INTELLIGENCE. By L. M. Tbrman. Test Material for the Measurement of Intelligence. Record Booklets for tho Measurement of Intelligence. THE INTELLIGENCE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. By L. M. Tbrman. Methods of Teaching TEACHING LITERATURE IN THE GRAMMAR GRADES AND HIGH SCHOOL. By Emma M. Bolbnii;s. HOW TO TEACH THE FUNDAMENTAL SUBJECTS. By C. N. Kendall and G. A. Mirick. HOW TO TEACH THE SPECIAL SUBJECTS. By C. N. Kendall and G. A. Mirick. SILENT AND ORAL READING. By C. R. Stone. THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. By G. H. Trafton, State Normal School, Mankato, Minnesota. TEACHING IN RURAL SCHOOLS. By T. J. WooFTER, University of Georgia. Secondary Education THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. By Thos. H. Briggs, Columbia University. THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL, By Charles Swain Thomas. PRINCIPLES OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. By Alexander Inglis, Harvard University. PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. By David Sneddbn, Columbia University. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1926 b PRACTICAL NEW TEXTBOOKS PRACTICAL BUSINESS ENGLISH. By Oscar C. Gallagher, Superintendent of Schools, Brookline, Mass, formerly Head Master, West Koxbury High School,Boston, and Leonard B. MouLTON, Department of English, High School of Commerce, Boston. Practical Business English tells how aiid what to write to conduct and promote business. Principles are pre rented clearly and defi- nitely. Every exercise is so planned and analyzed that the pupil has a certain piece of work before him, with specific directions as to how to do it. Much of the material in the book is new and has not been treated in other books of similar character. LA CLASSE EN FRANQAIS. By E. GouRio, Professor agr6g6 de l'Universit6 de Paris, Chevalier de la L6gion d'Honneur. This book teaches pupils to read, speak, write, and think in French in a remarkably short time. It follows the direct method ; that is, the entire book is written in French excepting translations of words and phrases, and the vocabulary at the end of the book. La Classe en Francois provides numerous examples, definitions, and pic- tures to explain the meaning of new words. A Manual for Teachers — " The Direct Method of Teaching French" — has been prepared to accompany La Classe en Fran^ais, SPANISH TAUGHT IN SPANISH. By Charles F. McHale, Instructor in Spanish in the National City Bank, New York. The strong appeal of Spanish Taught i7i Spanish is that the pupil learns his lessons in Spanish right from the start. This method stim- ulates interest and thus enables the pupil to think in Spanish and to absorb the language with amazing ra|)idity. THE SCIENCE OF EVERYDAY LIFE. By Edgar F. Van Buskirk, formerly in charge of General Science, DeVVitt Clinton High School, New York City, and Edith L. Smith, formerly Instructor, Geography Department, Boston Normal School. This is the first science book to be built on a definite unifying principle. This basis is Everydav N^eeds. All the material is grouped under five units, which are subdivided into projects. (i) The Air and How We Use It. — (2) Water and How We Use It. — {3) Foods and How We Use Them. — (4) Protection — Homes and Clothing.— (5) The Work of the World. The course bears a close relation to the familiar conditions of the pupil's life. The applicability of what he is studying is constantly impressed upon his mind. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1954 VOCATIONAL PREPARATION THE VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE OF YOUTH By Meyer Bloomiield A monograph by the former Director of the Vocation Bureau of Boston. YOUTH, SCHOOL, AND VOCATION By Meyer BloomfieW A first-hand presentation of the meaning and work of the vocational guidance movement. CHOOSING A VOCATION By Frank Parsons This book is an indispensable manual for every vocational counselor. THE PROBLEM OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION By David Snedden The author is the Professor of Education, Teachers College, and one of the leaders in the movement for the closer adaptation of public schools to the actual needs of youth. PREVOCATIONAL EDUCATION Bj Frank M. Leavitt and Edith Brown The first authoritative book to tell how the public schools may prepare pupils to select wisely the work to which they are best adapted. THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOL By Ruth Mary Weeks A statement regarding the vocational training movement in this country and abroad. VOCATIONS FOR GIRLS By Mary A. Laselle and Katherine Wiley Information as to conditions of work and the opportunities in the more common focations open to girls with only a high-school education. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION By David Snedden, Ruth Mary Weeks, and Ellwood P. Cubberley A combination of three volumes from the Riverside Educational Monographs treating different phases of vocational education, — theory, administration, and practice. PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION By William H. Dooley This is a book for use in teacher training classes. There is an Introduction by Charles A. Prosser, and an equipment of thought stimulating questions, together with reading references and courses of study. INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION : Its Problems, Methods, and Dangers By Albert H. Leake A study and criticism of the opportunities provided for the education of the industrial worker. ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS " By Harry Bradley Smith A practical discussion of the steps to be taken in establishing industrial schools. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY X908 C5 ''Jf> i l'.-- ^'OU-J/ Wl'l> 3 1 '■' iiUj (i V J'3 ' <"i:mvj':i'-,j -'Ji.iJfiViU snr liirc; r. ^E' •"jaj/\ifiii jf' "■(/Aiivaan ■jjii'jNVSUi'^' \^\f-UNlVfR -(>^f.f.!MIVFR5'/^ ^.UFO/?^^ ■^ , .\ntunlVLt\j/A 13 > UUNIVERJ/A «>^ -Y' "^^JUQNVSOl^ >v.Of"CAllFO/?.: -<^Aavaan-^" "II I ""^ "Aava8n# aiUNIVER^/A ■njQNVSOl . \V\t UNIVtKVA u^'^i P a. > so %il3A!Nn-3WV^ AtllBRARYtv mmyi^"^ ^lOS'ANGElfj.- o ^ ^-i/mnHVjaV^ ,\WtlNIVtK.VA Or O iil!S«:|iil:«eiif Sill lii i I iiii i^i^^iii iisi liiiijiii liiiii i I ii^ iiilijiaiiillii i illliiii ip^