Rural school

“ It is easy, without doubt, to give too much emphasis to the peculiar needs of the rural schools and to forget that urban and rural schools have much in common. Without forgetting that many of our [Pg 44] school problems are fundamental and present in all schools regardless of the environment in which they attempt to function, it is reasonable to regret that a larger part in the discussions relating to rural education has not been taken by people living in the country and familiar with the rural life of the present time. ”

“ Again, if perchance a prospective rural teacher should attend a normal school, a town or city grade position is usually waiting for him when he graduates. For, in spite of the growth of our normal schools, they are as yet far from being able to supply all the teachers required for the urban grade positions, to say nothing about the rural schools. The colleges and universities are, of course, still further removed from the rural school, since the high schools stand ready to employ those of their graduates who enter upon teaching. ”

“ The first means of making the rural school a social center is through the course of study. It is here that the introduction of nature-study into our rural schools would be especially helpful. This nature-study when properly followed approves itself both to educators and to farmers. It is a pedagogical principle recognized by every modern teacher that in education it is necessary [Pg 124] to consider the environment of the child, so that the school may not be to him "a thing remote and foreign." ”

“ Of matters relating to his life and activities on the farm he has heard almost nothing. The rural child is not illiterate, but he is too close to the border of illiteracy for the demands of a twentieth-century civilization; it is fair neither to the child nor to society.
The rural school seems in some way relatively [Pg 19] to have lost ground in our educational system. The grades of the town school have felt the stimulus of the high school for which they are preparing, and have had the care and supervision of competent administrators. ”

“ A Good Rural School.—Now, if we suppose a really good teacher under the good conditions described above, we shall have a good rural school. There is usually better individual work done in such a school than is possible in a large system of graded schools in a city. In such a school there is more single-mindedness on the part of pupils and teacher. These pupils bring to such a school unspoiled minds, minds not weakened by the attractions and distractions, both day and night, of city life. In such a school the essentials of a good education are, as a rule, more often emphasized than in the city. ”

“ It is only such an education as every rural child is entitled to, and is no more than the urban child is already receiving in the better class of town and city elementary schools. If the rural school cannot give the farm child an elementary education approximating the one out-lined, it has no claim on his loyalty or time; and he should in justice to himself be taken where he can receive a worthy education, even if he is thereby lost to the farm. ”

“ It now forms, however, an integral part of the consolidated rural school in not a few places, and is abundantly justifying the expenditure made upon it. In other localities the tendency is growing to send the rural child to the town high school, or even for the family to move to town to secure high schooling for the children. In still other cases, and we are obliged to admit that these yet constitute the rule rather than the exception, the farm boy or girl has no opportunity for a high school education. ”

“ In spite of all the money we spend on rural education (in my State from 42 to 50 per cent. of all rural taxes) , our children neither read well nor write well nor reason well. How can they when our rural schools average twelve pupils, most of them less than ten, and often five, three, or only two or one pupil, and are taught mainly by persons themselves but poorly educated, and who are teaching simply to acquire the experience necessary to secure a position in a city school. ”

“ Wanted—a Better Rural Education.—The school in the rural community has its own peculiar weaknesses. First among these weaknesses is the fact that education is not in terms of rural experience. It is an accepted educational principle of instruction to begin with that which is simple and familiar, and to work out to that which is complex and more remote. On that principle the rural school should make use of local geography, of rural material in arithmetic, of literature and music with a rural flavor, of nature study with drawings from nature. ”

“ Since education is the governing factor, especially so far as it directs the attitude of rural children toward rural conditions, the country school should be so redirected and revitalized as to "stir into action community forces which are now dormant; and to make the rural school a strong and efficient social center, working for the upbuilding of all the varied interests of a healthy rural life." ”

“ And, naturally enough, the rural school has conceived its function in the same narrow light; for it is controlled very completely by its patrons, and a stream cannot rise higher than its source.
Because of its isolation, the pressing insistence of its toil, and the monotony of its environment, the rural community is in constant danger of intellectual and social stagnation. It has far more need that its school shall be a stimulating, organizing, socializing force than has the town or city. ”

“ Too long have the rural schools suffered from neglect. Both the local communities and the State have overlooked the needs of the rural school system. At the present hour there is an earnest awakening of interest in rural life and its institutions. ”

“ Singing-schools and debating clubs were quite a common thing in the rural schools forty years ago, and there are many rural schools today that are doing work of this very kind. Is there any reason, for example, why the country schoolhouse should not offer an evening school during a portion of the winter, where the older pupils who have left the regular work of the school can carry on studies, especially in agriculture and domestic science? ”

“ Men and women interested in the cause of popular education have come to feel that the rural schools throughout the country are making little or no progress, and public attention has therefore been turned to consolidation as one of the possible means of improvement. ”

“ It is true that the cost of education must be kept at a reasonable ratio with the standard of living of a community. But it is also true that the consolidated rural school must be looked upon as an indispensable country-life institution, and hence as having claim to a more generous basis of support than that accorded the district school. ”

“ While the rural child, therefore, must be provided with a better and broader education, he should usually not be sent to town to get it. If he is, the chances are that he will stay in town and be lost to the farm. Indeed, this is precisely what has been happening; the town or city high school has been turning the country boy away from the farm. For not only does what one studies supply his knowledge; it also determines his attitude. ”

“ As would naturally be expected, therefore, the teaching in the average rural school is a dreary round of inefficiency. Handicapped to begin with by classes too small to be interesting, the rural teacher is mechanically hearing the recitations of some twenty-five to thirty of these classes per day. Lacking at the beginning the breadth of education that would make teaching easy, he finds it impossible to prepare for so many different exercises daily. ”

“ It is not so clear, however, that rural patrons, school directors, and teachers have become fully aware of their duty in the matter of rural school improvement. To be sure much has been done by way of experiment in many rural communities; but it can scarcely be said that rural communities in general are thoroughly awake to the importance of their schools. ”

“ Of the twenty-five million boys and girls in the United States today of school age a majority receive their foundation training in the rural schools, or in an environment that is characteristically rural. And what of these types of schools? Do we find the same advancement? Do we find the same public concern? Do we find the same skill and organization and supervision? ”

“ WHAT is the real problem now before the rural school? This is a question that is being asked on all sides, and by an increasing number of people. Professional and laymen alike are trying to find out, not only why it is that the rural school has been so much neglected, but in what specific ways it has been neglected; and, what is even more important, what the rural school is really obligated to do. ”

“ In some states the agricultural colleges have inaugurated a movement to this end. In such colleges, agricultural high schools, and institutions of a similar kind in every state, a three-year course for teachers above the eighth year, specially designed to prepare them for rural school teaching, should be established. Such a school would furnish the proper atmosphere and the proper courses of instruction to suffuse the minds of these prospective teachers with appreciation and love of country life and rural school work. ”