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Riverside Educational Monographs
EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO
PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS
BY
GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, PH. D.
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY
CORNELL COLLEGE, IOWA
[Illustration]
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY GEORGE HERBERT BETTS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION v
PREFACE ix
I. THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM 1
II. THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 25
III. THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 57
IV. THE TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 92
OUTLINE 121
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
In presenting a second monograph on the rural school problem in this
series we register our sense of the importance of rural education. Too
long have the rural schools suffered from neglect. Both the local
communities and the State have overlooked the needs of the rural school
system. At the present hour there is an earnest awakening of interest in
rural life and its institutions. Already there is a small but certain
movement of people toward the country and the vocation of agriculture. A
period of agricultural prosperity, the reaction of men and women against
the artificialities of city life, the development of farming through the
application of science, and numerous other factors have made country
life more congenial and have focused attention upon its further needs.
It is natural, therefore, that the rural school should receive an
increased share of attention.
Educational administrators, legislators, and publicists have become
aware of their responsibility to provide the financial support and the
efficient organization that is needed to develop country schools. The
more progressive of them are striving earnestly to provide laws that
will aid rather than hamper the rural school system. In his monograph on
_The Improvement of the Rural School_, Professor Cubberley has done much
to interpret current efforts of this type. From the standpoint of state
administration he has contributed much definite information and
constructive suggestion as to how the State shall respond to the
fundamental need for (1) more money, (2) better organization, and (3)
real supervision for rural schools.
It is not so clear, however, that rural patrons, school directors, and
teachers have become fully aware of their duty in the matter of rural
school improvement. To be sure much has been done by way of experiment
in many rural communities; but it can scarcely be said that rural
communities in general are thoroughly awake to the importance of their
schools. The evidence to the contrary is cumulative. The first immediate
need is to reawaken interest in the school as a center of rural life,
and to suggest ways and means of transmuting this communal interest into
effective institutional methods. To this end, Professor Betts has been
asked to treat the rural school problem from a standpoint somewhat
different from that assumed by Professor Cubberley; that is, from the
point of view of the local community immediately related to, and
concerned with, the rural school. In consequence his presentation
emphasizes the things that ought to be done by the local
authorities,--parent, trustee, and teacher. Its soundness may well be
judged by the pertinent order of his discussion. Having stated his
problem, he initiates his discussion by suggesting how the social
relations of the school are to be reorganized; only later does he pass
to the detail of curricula and teaching methods. It is a clear
recognition of the fact that the community is the crucial factor in the
making of a school. The State by sound fiscal and legislative policies
may do much to make possible a better country school; but only the local
authorities can realize it. The trained teacher with modern notions of
efficiency may attempt to enlarge the curriculum and to employ newer
methods of teaching, but his talents are useless if he is hampered by a
conservative, unappreciative, and indifferent community. When the school
becomes a social center of the community's interest and life, there will
be no difficulty in achieving any policy which the State permits or
which a skilled teacher urges. Scattered schools will be consolidated,
and isolated ungraded schools will be improved. Given an interested
community, the modern teacher can vitalize every feature of the school,
changing the formal curriculum into an interesting and liberalizing
interpretation of country life and the pedantic drills and tasks of
instruction into a skillful ministry to real and abiding human wants.
PREFACE
No rural population has yet been able permanently to maintain itself
against the lure of the town or the city. Each civilization at one stage
of its development comprises a large proportion of rural people. But the
urban movement soon begins, and continues until all are living in
villages, towns, and cities. Such has been the movement of population in
all the older countries of high industrial development, as England,
France, and Germany. A similar movement is at present going on rapidly
in the United States.
No great social movement ever comes by chance; it is always to be
explained by deep-seated and adequate causes. The causes lying back of
the rapid growth of our cities at the expense of our rural districts are
very far from simple. They involve a great complex of social,
educational, and economic forces. As the spirit of adventure and
pioneering finds less to stimulate it, the gregarious impulse, the
tendency to flock together for our work and our play, gains in
ascendancy. Growing out of the greater intellectual opportunities and
demands of modern times, the standard of education has greatly
advanced. And under the incentive of present-day economic success and
luxury, comfortable circumstances and a moderate competence no longer
satisfy our people. Hence they turn to the city, looking to find there
the coveted social, educational, or economic opportunities.
It is doubtful, therefore, whether, even with improved conditions of
country life, the urbanization of our rural people can be wholly
checked. But it can be greatly retarded if the right agencies are set at
work. The rural school should be made and can be made one of the most
important of these agencies, although at the present time its influence
is chiefly negative. With the hope of offering some help, however
slight, in adjusting the rural school to its problem, this little volume
is written by one who himself belongs to the rural community by birth
and early education and occupation.
G. H. B.
CORNELL COLLEGE, _February_, 1913.
NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS
I
THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM
_The general problem of the rural school_
The general problem of the rural school is the same as that of any other
type of school--to render to the community the largest possible returns
upon its investment in education with the least possible waste. Schools
are great education factories set up at public expense. The raw material
consists of the children of succeeding generations, helpless and
inefficient because of ignorance and immaturity. The school is to turn
out as its product men and women ready and able to take up their part in
the great world of activities going on about them. It is in this way, in
efficient education, that society gets its return for its investment in
the schools.
The word "education" has in recent years been taking on a new and more
vital meaning. In earlier times the value of education was assumed, or
vaguely taken on faith. Education was supposed to consist of so much
"learning," or a given amount of "discipline," or a certain quantity of
"culture." Under the newer definition, education may include all these
things, but it must do more; it _must relate itself immediately and
concretely to the business of living_. We no longer inquire of one how
much he knows, or the degree to which his powers have been "cultivated";
but rather to what extent his education has led to a more fruitful life
in the home, the state, the church, and other social institutions; how
largely it has helped him to more effective work in a worthy occupation;
and whether it has resulted in greater enjoyment and appreciation of the
finer values of personal experience,--in short, whether for him
education spells _efficiency_.
We are thus coming to see that education must enable the individual to
meet the real problems of actual experience as they are confronted in
the day's life. Nor can the help rendered be indefinite, intangible, or
in any degree uncertain. It must definitely adjust one to his place, and
cause him to grow in it, accomplishing the most for himself and for
society; it must add to the largeness of his personal life, and at the
same time increase his working efficiency.
This is to say that one's education must (1) furnish him with the
particular _knowledge_ required for the life that he is to live, whether
it be in the shop, on the farm, or in the profession. For knowledge lies
at the basis of all efficiency and success in whatever occupation.
Education must (2) shape the _attitude_, so that the individual will
confront his part of the world's work or its play in the right spirit.
It must not leave him a parasite, whether from wealth or from poverty,
ready to prey upon others; but must make him willing and glad to do his
share. Education must (3) also give the individual training in
_technique_, or the skill required in his different activities; not to
do this is at best but to leave him a well-informed and well-intentioned
bungler, falling far short of efficiency.
The great function of the school, therefore, is to supply the means by
which the requisite _knowledge_, _attitude_, and _skill_ can be
developed. It is true that the child does not depend on the school alone
for his knowledge, his attitude, and his skill. For the school is only
one of many influences operating on his life. Much of the most vital
knowledge is not taught in the school but picked up outside; a great
part of the child's attitude toward life is formed through the
relations of the home, the community, and the various other points of
contact with society; and much of his skill in doing is developed in a
thousand ways without being taught. Yet the fact remains that the school
is organized and supported by society to make sure about these things,
to see that the child does not lack in knowledge, attitude, or skill.
They must not be left to chance; where the educative influences outside
the school have not been sufficient, the school must take hold. Its part
is to supplement and organize with conscious purpose what the other
agencies have accomplished in the education of the child. The ultimate
purpose of the school is _to make certain of efficiency_.
The means by which the school is to accomplish these ends are (1) the
_social organization_ of the school, or the life and activities that go
on in the school from day to day; (2) the _curriculum_, or the
subject-matter which the child is given to master; and (3) the
_instruction_ or the work of the teacher in helping the pupils to master
the subject-matter of the curriculum and adjust themselves to the
organization of the school.
These factors will of necessity differ, however, according to the
particular type of school in question. It will therefore be necessary to
inquire into the special problem of the rural school before entering
into a discussion of the means by which it is to accomplish its aim.
_The special problem of the rural school_
Each type of school has not only its general problem which is common to
all schools, but also its special problem which makes it different from
every other class of schools. The special problem of any type of school
grows out of the nature and needs of the community which supports the
school. Thus the city school, whose pupils are to live the industrial
and social life of an urban community, confronts a different problem
from that of a rural school, whose pupils are to live in a farming
community. Each type of school must suit its curriculum, its
organization, and its instruction to the demands to be met by its
pupils. The knowledge taught, the attitudes and tastes developed, and
the skill acquired must be related to the life to be lived and the
responsibilities to be undertaken.
The rural school must therefore be different in many respects from the
town and city school. In its organization, its curriculum, and its
spirit, it must be adapted to the requirements of the rural community.
For, while many pupils from the rural schools ultimately follow other
occupations than farming, yet the primary function of the rural school
is to educate for the life of the farm. It thus becomes evident that the
only way to understand the problem of the rural school is first to
understand the rural community. What are its industries, the character
of its people, their economic status, their standards of living, their
needs, their social life?
The rural community is industrially homogeneous. There exists here no
such a diversified mixture of industries as in the city. All are engaged
in the same line of work. Agriculture is the sole occupation. Hence the
economic interests and problems all center around this one line. The
success or failure of crops, the introduction of a different method of
cultivation or a new variety of grain, or the invention of an
agricultural implement interests all alike. The farmer engaged in
planting his corn knows that for miles around all other farmers are
similarly employed; if he is cutting his hay or harvesting his grain,
hundreds of other mowing machines and harvesters are at work on
surrounding farms.
This fund of common interest and experience tends to social as well as
industrial homogeneity. Good-fellowship, social responsiveness and
neighborliness rest on a basis of common labor, common problems, and
common welfare. Like-mindedness and the spirit of coöperation are after
all more a matter of similar occupational interests than of nationality.
Another factor tending to make the rural community socially more
homogeneous than the city community is its relatively stable population,
and the fact that the stream of immigration is slow in reaching the
farm. It is true that the European nations are well represented among
our agricultural population; but for the most part they are not
foreigners of the first generation. They have assimilated the American
spirit, and become familiar with American institutions. The great flood
of raw immigrants fresh from widely diverse nations stops in the large
centers of population, and does not reach the farm.
The prevailing spirit of democracy is still another influence favoring
homogeneity in the rural community. Much less of social stratification
exists in the country than in the city. Social planes are not so clearly
defined nor so rigidly maintained. Financial prosperity is more likely
to take the direction of larger barns and more acres than of social
ostentation and exclusiveness.
America has no servile and ignorant peasantry. The agricultural class
constituting our rural population represents a high grade of natural
intelligence and integrity. Great political and moral reforms find more
favorable soil in the rural regions than in the cities. The demagogue
and the "boss" find farmers impossible to control to their selfish ends.
Vagabonds and idlers are out of place among them. They are a
hard-headed, capable, and industrious class. As a rule, American farmers
are well-to-do, not only earning a good living for their families, but
constantly extending their holdings. Their farms are increasingly well
improved, stocked, and supplied with labor-saving and efficient
machinery. Their land is constantly growing in value, and at the same
time yielding larger returns for the money and labor invested in it.
The standard of living is distinctly lower in farm homes than in town
and city homes of the same financial status. The house is generally
comfortable, but small. It is behind the times in many easily accessible
modern conveniences possessed by the great majority of city dwellers.
The bath, modern plumbing and heating, the refrigerator, and other
kindred appliances can be had in the country home as well as the city.
Their lack is a matter of standards rather than of necessity. They will
be introduced into thousands of rural homes as soon as their need is
realized.
The possibilities for making the rural home beautiful and attractive are
unequaled in the city for any except the very rich. It is not necessary
that the farmhouse shall be crowded for space; its outlook and
surroundings can be arranged to give it an æsthetic quality wholly
impossible in the ordinary city home. That this is true is proved by
many inexpensive farmhouses that are a delight to the eye. On the other
hand, it must be admitted that a large proportion of farmhouses are
lacking in both architectural attractiveness and environmental effect.
Not infrequently the barns and sheds are so placed as to crowd the house
into the background, and the yards for stock allowed to infringe upon
the domain of the garden and the lawn. All this can be easily remedied
and will be when the æsthetic taste of the dwellers on the farm comes to
be offended by the incongruous and ugly.
No stinting in the abundance of food is known on the farm. The farmer
supplies the tables of the world, and can himself live off the fat of
the land. Grains, vegetables, meats, eggs, butter, milk, and fruits are
his stock in trade. If there is any lack in the farmer's table, it is
due to carelessness in providing or preparing the food, and not to
forced economy.
While the farming population in general live well, yet many tables are
lacking in variety, especially in fruit and vegetables. Time and
interest are so taken up with the larger affairs of crops and stock,
that the garden goes by default in many instances. There is no market
readily at hand offering fruit and vegetables for sale as in the city,
and hence the farm table loses in attractiveness to the appetite and in
hygienic excellence. It is probable that the prosperous city workman
sits down to a better table than does the farmer, in spite of the great
advantage possessed by the latter.
The population of rural communities is necessarily scattering. The
nature of farming renders it impossible for people to herd together as
is the case in many other industries. This has its good side, but also
its bad. There are no rural slums for the breeding of poverty and crime;
but on the other hand, there is an isolation and monotony that tend to
become deadening in their effects on the individual. Stress and
over-strain does not all come from excitement and the rush of
competition; it may equally well originate in lack of variety and
unrelieved routine. How true this is is seen in the fact that insanity,
caused in this instance chiefly by the stress of monotony, prevails
among the farming people of frontier communities out of all proportion
to the normal ratio.
Farming is naturally the most healthful of the industrial occupations.
The work is for the greater part done in the open air and sunshine, and
possesses sufficient variety to be interesting. The rural population
constitutes the high vitality class of the nation, and must be
constantly drawn upon to supply the brain, brawn, and nerve for the work
of the city. The farmer is, on the whole, prosperous; he is therefore
hopeful and cheerful, and labors in good spirit. That so many farmers
and farmers' wives break down or age prematurely is due, not to the
inherent nature of their work, but to a lack of balance in the life of
the farm. It is not so much the work that kills, as the _continuity of
the work_ unrelieved by periods of rest and recreation. With the
opportunities highly favorable for the best type of healthful living, no
inconsiderable proportion of our agricultural population are shortening
their lives and lowering their efficiency by unnecessary over-strain and
failure to conform to the most fundamental and elementary laws of
hygienic living, especially with reference to the relief from labor that
comes through change and recreation.
The rural community affords few opportunities for social recreations and
amusements. Not only are the people widely separated from each other by
distance, but the work of the farm is exacting, and often requires all
the hours of the day not demanded for sleep. While the city offers many
opportunities for choice of recreation or amusement, the country affords
almost none. The city worker has his evenings, usually Saturday
afternoon, and all day Sunday free to use as he chooses. Such is not the
case on the farm; for after the day in the field the chores must be
done, and the stock cared for. And even on Sunday, the routine must be
carried out. The work of the farm has a tendency, therefore, to become
much of a grind, and certainly will become so unless some limit is set
to the exactions of farm labor on the time and strength of the worker.
It separates the individual from his fellows in the greater part of the
farm work and gives him little opportunity for social recreations or
play.
One of the best evidences that the conditions of life and work on the
farm need to be improved is the number of people who are leaving the
farm for the city. This movement has been especially rapid during the
last thirty years of our history, and has continued until approximately
one half our people now live in towns or cities. Not only is this loss
of agricultural population serious to farming itself, creating a
shortage of labor for the work of the farm, but it results in crowding
other occupations already too full. There is no doubt that we have too
many lawyers, doctors, merchants, clerks, and the like for the number of
workers engaged in fundamental productive vocations. Smaller farms,
cultivated intensively, would be a great economic advantage to the
country, and would take care of a far larger proportion of our people
than are now engaged in agriculture.
All students of social affairs agree that the movement of our people to
towns and cities should be checked and the tide turned the other way. So
important is the matter considered that a concerted national movement
has recently been undertaken to study the conditions of rural life with
a view to making it more attractive and so stopping the drain to the
city.
Middle-aged farmers move to the town or city for two principal reasons:
to educate their children and to escape from the monotony of rural
life. Young people desert the farm for the city for a variety of
reasons, prominent among which are a desire for better education, escape
from the monotony and grind of the farm life, and the opportunity for
the social advantages and recreations of the city. That the retired
farmer is usually disappointed and unhappy in his town home, and that
the youth often finds the glamour of the city soon to fade, is true. But
this does not solve the problem. The flux to the town or city still goes
on, and will continue to do so until the natural desire for social and
intellectual opportunities and for recreation and amusement is
adequately met in rural life.
Farming as an industry has already felt the effects of a new interest in
rural life. Probably no other industrial occupation has undergone such
rapid changes within the last generation as has agriculture. The rapid
advance in the value of land, the introduction of new forms of farm
machinery, and above all the application of science to the raising of
crops and stock, have almost reconstructed the work of the farm within a
decade.
Special "corn trains" and "dairy trains" have traversed nearly every
county in many States, teaching the farmers scientific methods.
Lecturers on scientific agriculture have found their way into many
communities. The Federal Government has encouraged in every way the
spread of information and the development of enthusiasm in agriculture.
The agricultural schools have given courses of instruction during the
winter to farmers. Farmers' institutes have been organized; corn-judging
and stock-judging contests have been held; prizes have been offered for
the best results in the raising of grains, vegetables, or stock. New
varieties of grains have been introduced, improved methods of
cultivation discovered, and means of enriching and conserving the soil
devised. Stock-breeding and the care of animals is rapidly becoming a
science. Farming bids fair soon to become one of the skilled
occupations.
Such, then, is a brief view of the situation of which the rural school
is a part. It ministers to the education of almost half of the American
people. This industrial group are engaged in the most fundamental of all
occupations, the one upon which all national welfare and progress
depend. They control a large part of the wealth of the country, the
capital invested in agriculture being more than double that invested in
manufactures. Agricultural wealth is rapidly increasing, both through
the rise in the value of land and through improved methods of farming.
The conditions of life on the farm have greatly improved during the last
decade. Rural telephones reach almost every home; free mail delivery is
being rapidly extended in almost every section of the country; the
automobile is coming to be a part of the equipment of many farms; and
the trolley is rapidly pushing out along the country roads.
Yet, in spite of these hopeful tendencies, the rural community shows
signs of deterioration in many places. Rural population is steadily
decreasing in proportion to the total aggregate of population. Interest
in education is at a low ebb, the farm children having educational
opportunities below those of any other class of our people. For, while
town and city schools have been improving until they show a high type of
efficiency, the rural school has barely held its own, or has, in many
places, even gone backward. The rural community confronts a puzzling
problem which is still far from solution.
Certain points of attack upon this problem are, however, perfectly clear
and obvious. _First_, educational facilities must be improved for rural
children, and their education be better adapted to farm life; _second_,
greater opportunities must be provided for recreation and social
intercourse for both young and old; _third_, the program of farm work
must be arranged to allow reasonable time for rest and recreation;
_fourth_, books, pictures, lectures, concerts, and entertainments must
be as accessible to the farm as to the town. These conditions must be
met, not because of the dictum of any person, but because they are a
fundamental demand of human nature, and must be reckoned with.
What, then, is the relation of the rural school to these problems of the
rural community? How can it be a factor in their solution? What are its
opportunities and responsibilities?
_The adjustment of the rural school to its problem_
As has been already stated, the problem of any type of school is to
serve its constituency. This is to be done through relating the
curriculum, the organization, and the teaching of the school to the
immediate interests and needs of the people dependent on the school for
their education. That the rural school has not yet fully adjusted itself
to its problem need hardly be argued.
It has as good material to work upon in the boys and girls from the farm
as any type of schools in the country. They come of good stock; they
are healthy and vigorous; and they are early trained to serious work and
responsibility. Yet a very large proportion of these children possess
hardly the rudiments of an education when they quit the rural school.
Many of them go to school for only a few months in the year, compulsory
education laws either being laxly enforced or else altogether lacking. A
very small percentage of the children of the farm ever complete eight
grades of schooling, and not a large proportion finish more than half of
this amount.
This leaves the child who has to depend on the rural school greatly
handicapped in education. He has but a doubtful proficiency in the
mechanics of reading, and has read but little. He knows the elements of
spelling, writing, and number, but has small skill in any of them. He
knows little of history or literature, less of music, nothing of art,
and has but a superficial smattering of science. Of matters relating to
his life and activities on the farm he has heard almost nothing. The
rural child is not illiterate, but he is too close to the border of
illiteracy for the demands of a twentieth-century civilization; it is
fair neither to the child nor to society.
The rural school seems in some way relatively to have lost ground in
our educational system. The grades of the town school have felt the
stimulus of the high school for which they are preparing, and have had
the care and supervision of competent administrators. The rural school
is isolated and detached, and has had no adequate administrative system
to care for its interests. No wonder, then, that certain grave faults in
adjustment have grown up. A few of the most obvious of these faults may
next claim our attention.
_The rural school is inadequate in its scope._ The children of the farm
have as much need for education and as much right to it as those who
live in towns and cities. Yet the rural school as a rule never attempts
to offer more than the eight grades of the elementary curriculum, and
seldom reaches this amount. It not infrequently happens that no pupils
are in attendance beyond the fifth or the sixth grade. This may be due
either to the small number of children in the district, or, more often,
to lack of interest to continue in school beyond the simplest elements
of reading, writing, and number. It is true that certain States, such as
Illinois and Wisconsin, have established a system of township high
schools, where secondary education equal to that to be had in the
cities is available to rural children. In other States a county high
school is maintained for the benefit of rural school graduates. In still
others, arrangements are made by which those who complete the eight
grades of rural schools are received into the town high schools with the
tuition paid by the rural school districts. The movement toward
secondary education supplied by the rural community for its children is
yet in its infancy, however, and has hardly touched the larger problem
of affording adequate opportunities for the education of farm children.
_The grading and organization of the rural school is haphazard and
faulty._ This is partly because of the small enrollment and irregular
attendance, and partly because of the inexperience and lack of
supervision of the teacher. Children are often found pursuing studies in
three or four different grades at the same time. And even more often
they omit altogether certain fundamental studies because they or their
parents have a notion that these studies are unnecessary. Sometimes,
owing to the small number in attendance, or to the poor classification,
several grades are entirely lacking, or else they are maintained for
only one or two pupils. On the other hand, classes are often found
following each other at an interval of only a few weeks, thereby
multiplying classes until the teacher is frequently attempting the
impossible task of teaching twenty-five or thirty classes a day.
Children differing in age by five or six years, and possessing
corresponding degrees of ability, are often found reciting in the same
classes. That efficient work is impossible under these conditions is too
obvious to require discussion.
_The rural schools possess inadequate buildings and equipment._ The
average rural schoolhouse consists of one room, with perhaps a small
hallway. The building is constructed without reference to architectural
effect, resembling nothing so much as a large box with a roof on it. It
is barren and uninviting as to its interior. The walls are often of
lumber painted some dull color, and dingy through years of use. The
windows are frequently dirty, and covered only by worn and tattered
shades. There is usually no attempt to decorate the room with pictures,
or to relieve its ugliness and monotony in any way. The library consists
of a few dozens of volumes, not always supplied with a case for their
protection. Of apparatus there is almost none. The work of the farm is
done with efficient modern equipment, the work of the farmer's school
with inadequate and antiquated equipment.
While the length of the school year is increasing in the rural
districts, _the term is yet much shorter than in town and city schools_.
Many communities have not more than six months of school, and few more
than eight. This shortage is rendered all the more serious by the
irregular attendance of the rural school children. A considerable amount
of absence on the part of the younger ones is unavoidable under present
conditions when the distance is great and the weather bad. After all
allowance is made for this fact, however, there is still an immense
amount of unnecessary waste of time through non-attendance. Many rural
schools show an average attendance for the year of not more than sixty
per cent of the enrollment. Going to school is not yet considered a
serious business by many of the rural patrons, and truant officers are
not so easily available in the country as in the city.
_In financial support the rural school has of necessity been behind the
city school._ Wealth is not piled up on a small area in agricultural
communities as is the case in the city. It would often require square
miles of land to equal in value certain city blocks. But making full
allowance for this difference, the farmers have not supported their
schools as well as is done by the patrons of town and city schools. The
school taxes for rural districts are much lower than in city districts,
in most instances not more than half as high. It is this conservatism in
expenditure that is responsible for many of the defects in the rural
school, and particularly for the relatively inefficient teaching that is
done. The rural teachers are the least educated, the least experienced,
and the most poorly paid of any class of our teachers. They consist
almost wholly of girls, a large proportion of whom are under twenty
years of age, and who continue teaching not more than a year or two. Not
only is this the case, but effective supervision of the teaching is
wholly impossible because of the large area assigned to the county or
district superintendent of rural schools. In no great industrial project
should we think of placing our youngest and most inexperienced workers
in the hardest and most important positions, and this without
supervision of their work.
The rural school has not, therefore, yet been adjusted to its problem.
It has a splendid field of work, but is not developing it. Our farming
population have capacity for education and need it, but they are not
securing it. There is plenty of money available for the support of the
rural school, but the school is not getting it. Enough well-equipped
teachers can be had for the rural schools, but the standards have not
yet required adequate preparation, nor the pay been sufficient to
warrant extensive expenditure for it.
In the rural school is found the most important and puzzling educational
problem of the present day. If our agricultural population are not to
fall behind other favored classes of industrial workers in intelligence
and preparation for the activities that are to engage them, the rural
school must begin working out a better adjustment to its problem. Its
curriculum must be broader and richer, and more closely related to the
life and interests of the farm. The organization of the school, both on
the intellectual and the social side, must bring it more closely into
touch with the interests and needs of the rural community. The support
and administration of rural education must be improved. Teachers for the
rural schools must be better educated and better paid, and their
teaching must be correspondingly more efficient. The following pages
will be given to a discussion of these problems of adjustment.
II
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
Every school possesses two types of organization: (1) an _intellectual_
organization involving the selection and arrangement of a curriculum,
and its presentation through instruction; and (2) a _social_
organization involving, on the one hand, the inter-relations of the
school and the community, and on the other the relations of the pupils
with each other and the teacher.
_The rural school and the community_
The rural school and community are not at present in vital touch with
each other. The community is not getting enough from the school toward
making life larger, happier, and more efficient; it is not giving enough
to the school either in helpful coöperation or financial support.
In general, it must be said that most of our rural people, the patrons
of the rural school, have not yet conceived education broadly. They
think of the school as having fulfilled its function when it has
supplied the simplest rudiments of reading, writing, and number. And,
naturally enough, the rural school has conceived its function in the
same narrow light; for it is controlled very completely by its patrons,
and a stream cannot rise higher than its source.
Because of its isolation, the pressing insistence of its toil, and the
monotony of its environment, the rural community is in constant danger
of intellectual and social stagnation. It has far more need that its
school shall be a stimulating, organizing, socializing force than has
the town or city. For the city has a dozen social centres entirely
outside the school: its public parks, theatres, clubs, churches, and
streets, even, serve to stimulate, entertain, and educate. But the rural
community is wanting in all these social forces; it is lacking in both
intellectual and social stimulus and variety.
One of the most pressing needs of country districts is a common
neighborhood center for both young and old, which shall stand as an
organizing, welding, vitalizing force, uniting the community on a basis
of common interests and activities. For while, as we have seen, the
rural population as a whole are markedly homogeneous, there is after
all but little of common acquaintanceship and mingling among them.
Thousands of rural families live lives of almost complete social
isolation and lack of contact with neighbors.
This condition is one of the gravest drawbacks to farm life. The social
impulse and the natural desire for recreation and amusement are as
strong in country boys and girls as in their city cousins, yet the
country offers young people few opportunities for satisfying these
impulses and desires. The normal social tendencies of youth are
altogether too strong to be crushed out by repression; they are too
valuable to be neglected; and they are too dangerous to be left to take
their own course wholly unguided. The rural community can never hope to
hold its boys and girls permanently to the life of the farm until it has
recognized the necessity for providing for the expression and
development of the spontaneous social impulses of youth.
Furthermore, the social monotony and lack of variety of the rural
community is a grave moral danger to its young people. It is a common
impression that the great city is strewn thick with snares and pitfalls
threatening to morals, but that the country is free from such
temptations. The public dance halls and cheap theaters of the city are
beyond doubt a great and constant menace to youthful ideals and purity.
But the country, going to the opposite extreme, with its almost utter
lack of recreation and amusement places, offers temptations no less
insidious and fatal.
The great difficulty at this point is that young people in rural
communities are thrown together almost wholly in isolated pairs instead
of in social groups; and that there are no objective resources of
amusement or entertainment to claim their interest and attention away
from themselves. They are freed from all chaperonage and the restraints
of the conventions obtaining in social groups at the very time in their
lives when these are most needed as steadying and controlling forces.
The result is that the country districts, which ought to be of all
places in the world the freest from temptation and peril to the morals
of our young people, are really more dangerous than the cities. The
sequel is found in the fact that a larger proportion of country girls
than of city girls go astray. Nor is the rural community more successful
in the morals of its boys than its girls. In other words, the lack of
opportunities for free and normal social experience, the consequent
ignorance of social conventions, and the absence of healthful amusement
and recreation, make the rural community a most unsafe place in which
to rear a family.
But the necessity for social recreation and amusement does not apply to
the young people alone. Their fathers and mothers are suffering from the
same limitations, though of course with entirely different results. The
danger here is that of premature aging and stagnation. While the toil of
the city worker is relieved by change and variety, his mind rested and
his mood enlivened by the stimulus from many lines of diversion, the
lives of the dwellers on the farm are constantly threatened by a deadly
sameness and monotony.
The indisputable tendency of farmers and their wives to age so rapidly,
and so early to fall into the ranks of "fogyism," is due far more to
lack of variety and recreation and to dearth of intellectual stimulus
than to hard labor, severe as this often is. Age is more than the flight
of the years, the stoop of the form, or the hardening of the arteries;
it is also the atrophy of the intellect and the fading away of the
emotions resulting from disuse. The farmer needs occasionally to have
something more exciting than the alternation of the day's work with the
nightly "chores." And his wife should now and then have an opportunity
to meet people other than those for whom she cooks and sews.
But what has all this to do with the social organization of the rural
school? Much. The country cannot have its theaters, parks, and crowded
thoroughfares like the city. But it needs and must have _some_ social
center, where its people may assemble for recreation, entertainment, and
intellectual growth and development. And what is more natural and
feasible than that the public school should be this center? Here is an
institution already belonging to the whole people, and set apart for the
intellectual training of the young. Why should it not also be made to
minister to the intellectual needs of their elders as well, and to the
social needs of all? _Why should not the public school building, now in
use but six hours a day for little more than half the year, be open at
all times when it can be helpful to any portion of the community?_
If young people are to develop naturally, if they are to make full use
of their social as well as their intellectual powers, if they are to be
satisfied with their surroundings, they must be provided with suitable
opportunities for social mingling and recreation in groups. This is
nature's way; there is no other way. The school might and should afford
this opportunity. There is not the least reason why the school building,
when it is adapted to this purpose, should not be the common
neighborhood meeting place for all sorts of young people's parties,
picnics, entertainments, athletic contests, and every other form of
amusement approved in the community.
Such a use of the school property would yield large returns to the
community for the small additional expense required. It would serve to
weld the school and community more closely together. It would vastly
change the attitude of the young toward the school. It would save much
of the dissatisfaction of young people with the life of the farm. It
would prove a great safeguard to youthful morals. It would lead the
community itself to a new sense of its duty toward the social life of
the young, and to a new concept of the school as a part of the community
organization. Finally, this broadened service of the school to its
community would have a reflex influence on the school itself, vitalizing
every department of its activities, and giving it a new vision of its
opportunities.
The first obstacle that will appear in the way of such a plan is the
inadequacy of the present type of country schoolhouse. And this is a
serious matter; for the barren, squalid little building of the present
day would never fit into such a project. But this type of schoolhouse
must go--is going. It is a hundred years behind our civilization, and
wholly inadequate to present needs. Passing for later discussion the
method by which these buildings are to be supplanted by better ones, let
us consider further the details of the plan of making the school the
neighborhood center.
First of all, each school must supply a larger area and a greater number
of people than at present. It is financially impossible to erect good
buildings to the number of our present schools. Nor are there pupils
enough in the small district as now organized to make a school, nor
people enough successfully to use the school as a neighborhood center.
Let each township, or perhaps somewhat smaller area, select a central,
well-adapted site and thereon erect a modern, well-equipped school
building. But this building must not be just the traditional schoolhouse
with its classrooms and rows of desks. For it is to be more than a place
where the children will study and recite lessons from books; it is to be
the place where all the people of the neighborhood, _old and young_,
will assemble for entertainment, amusement, and instruction. Here will
be held community picnics, social entertainments, young people's
parties, lectures, concerts, debating contests, agricultural courses for
the farmers, school programs, spreads and banquets, and whatever else
may belong to the common social and intellectual life of the community.
The modern rural school building will therefore be home-like as well as
school-like. In addition to its classrooms it will contain an assembly
room capable of seating several hundred people. The seating of this room
may be removable so that the floor can be cleared for social purposes or
the room used for a dining-room. One or two smaller rooms will be needed
for social functions, club and committee meetings. These rooms should be
made attractive with good furniture, rugs, couches, and pictures. The
building will contain well-equipped laboratories for manual training and
domestic science, the latter of which will be found serviceable in
connection with serving picnics, "spreads," and the like. The entire
building should be architecturally attractive, well heated and
ventilated, commodious, well furnished, and decorated with good
pictures. In it should be housed a library containing several thousand
well-selected books, besides magazines and newspapers. The laboratories
and equipment should be fully equal to those found in the town schools,
but should be adapted to the work of the rural school.