visit and supervise one hundred and fifty teachers at work in as many
different schools scattered over four or five hundred square miles of
territory. If he were to devote all his time to visiting country
schools, he would have only one day to each school per year. When it is
remembered that the county superintendent must also attend to an office
that has a large amount of correspondence and clerical work, that he is
usually commissioned with authority to oversee the building of all
schoolhouses in his county, that he must act as judge in hearing appeals
in school disputes, that he must conduct all teachers' examinations and
in many instances grade the papers, and, finally, that country roads are
often impassable, it is seen that his time for supervision is greatly
curtailed. As a matter of fact some rural schools receive no visit from
the county superintendent for several years at a time.
A still further obstacle comes from the fact of the frequent changes of
teachers among rural schools. A teacher visited by the county
superintendent in a certain school this term, and advised as to how best
to meet its problems, is likely to be in a different school next term,
and required to meet an entirely new set of problems.
This is all very different from the problem of supervision met by the
town or city superintendent. For the town or city district is of small
area, and the schools few and close together. If the number of teachers
is large, the superintendent is assisted by principals of different
schools, and by deputies. The teaching force is better prepared, and
hence requires less close supervision. School standards are higher, and
the coöperation of patrons more easily secured. The course of study is
better organized, the schools better graded and equipped, and all other
conditions more favorable to efficient supervision. It would not,
therefore, be just to compare the results of supervision in the country
districts with those in urban schools without making full allowance for
these fundamental differences.
The county superintendent is in many States discriminated against in
salary as compared with other county officers, and, as a rule, no
provision is made to compensate for traveling expenses incurred in
visiting schools. This, in effect, places a financial penalty on the
work of supervision, as the superintendent can remain in his office with
considerably less expense to himself than when he is out among the
schools. In some instances, however, an allowance is made for traveling
expenses in addition to the regular salary, thus encouraging the
visiting of schools, or at least removing the handicap existing under
the older system. An attempt has also been made in some States to
relieve the county superintendent of the greater part of the clerical
work of his office by employing for him at county expense a clerk for
this purpose. These two provisions have proved of great help to the
supervisory function of the county superintendent's work, but the task
yet looms up in impossible magnitude.
The county superintendency is throughout the country almost universally
a political office. In some States, as, for example, in Indiana, it is
appointive by a non-partisan board. But, in general, the candidate of
the prevailing party, or the one who is the best "mixer," secures the
office regardless of qualifications. Sharing the fortunes of other
political offices, the county superintendency frequently has applied to
it the unwritten party rule of "two terms and out," thus crippling the
efficiency of the office by frequent changes of administration and
uncertainty of tenure.
No fixed educational or professional standard of preparation for the
county superintendency exists in the different States. If some
reasonably high standard were required, it would do much to lessen the
mischievous effects of making it a political office. In a large
proportion of cases the county superintendent is only required to hold a
middle-class certificate, and has enjoyed no better educational
facilities than dozens of the teachers he is to supervise. The author
has conducted teachers' institutes in the Middle West for county
superintendents who had never attended an institute or taught a term of
school. The salary and professional opportunities of the office are not
sufficiently attractive to draw men from the better school positions;
hence the great majority of county superintendents come from the village
principalships, the grades of town schools, or even from the rural
schools.
A marked tendency of recent years has been to elect women as county
superintendents. In Iowa, for example, half of the present county
superintendents are women, and the proportion is increasing. In not a
few instances women have made exceptional records as county
superintendents, and, as a whole, are loyally devoted to their work.
They suffer one disadvantage in this office, however, which is hard to
overcome: they find it impossible, without undue exposure, to travel
about the county during the cold and stormy weather of winter or when
the roads are soaked with the spring rains. Whether they will be able to
effect the desired coördination between the rural school and the
agricultural interests of the community is a question yet to be settled.
In spite of the limitations of the office of county superintendent,
however, it must not be thought that this office has played an
unimportant part in our educational development. It has exerted a marked
influence in the upbuilding of our schools, and accomplished this under
the most unfavorable and discouraging circumstances. Among its occupants
have been some of the most able and efficient men and women engaged in
our school system. But the time has come in our educational advancement
when the rural schools should have better supervision than they are now
getting or can get under the present system.
The first step in improving the supervision, as in improving so many
other features of the rural schools, is the reorganization of the
system through consolidation, and the consequent reduction in the number
of schools to be supervised. The next step is to remove the supervising
office as far as possible from "practical" politics by making it
appointive by a non-partisan county board, who will be at liberty to go
anywhere for a superintendent, who will be glad to pay a good salary,
and who will seek to retain a superintendent in office as long as he is
rendering acceptable service to the county. The third step is to raise
the standard of fitness for the office so that the incumbent may be a
true intellectual leader among the teachers and people of his county.
Nor can this preparation be of the scholastic type alone, but must be of
such character as to adapt its possessor to the spirit and ideals of an
agricultural people.
A wholly efficient system of supervision of rural teaching, then, would
be possible only in a system of consolidated schools, each under the
immediate direction of a principal, himself thoroughly educated and
especially qualified to carry on the work of a school adapted to rural
needs. Over these schools would be the supervision of the county
superintendent, who will stand in the same relation to the principals as
that of the city superintendent to his ward or high school principals.
The county superintendent will serve to unify and correlate the work of
the different consolidated schools, and to relate all to the life and
work of the farm.
If it is said that systems of superintendence for rural schools could be
devised more effective than the county superintendency, this may be
granted as a matter of theory; but as a practical working program, there
is no doubt that the office of county superintendent is a permanent part
of our rural school system, unless the system itself is very radically
changed. All the States, except the New England group, Ohio, and Nevada,
now have the office of county superintendent. It is likely, therefore,
that the plan of district superintendence permissive under the laws of
certain States will hardly secure wide acceptance. The county as the
unit of school administration is growing in favor, and will probably
ultimately come to characterize the rural school system. The most
natural step lying next ahead would, therefore, seem to be to make the
conditions surrounding the office of county superintendent as favorable
as possible, and then give the superintendent a sufficient number of
deputies to make the supervision effective. These deputies should be
selected, of course, with reference to their fitness for supervising
particular lines of teaching, such as primary, home economics,
agriculture, etc. A beginning has already been made in the latter line
by the employment in some counties, with the aid of the Federal
Government, of an agricultural expert who not only instructs the farmers
in their fields, but also correlates his work with the rural schools.
This principle is capable of almost indefinite extension in our school
system.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: See Coffman, _The Social Composition of the Teaching
Force_.]
[Footnote 6: _The Social Composition of the Teaching Population._]
OUTLINE
I. THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM
=The General Problem of the Rural School=
1. The general problem of the rural school identical
with that of all schools 1
2. The newer concept measures education by efficiency 2
3. This efficiency involves (1) knowledge,(2) attitude,
(3) technique, or skill 3
4. The purpose of the school is to make sure of
these factors of efficiency 4
=The Special Problem of the Rural School=
1. Each type of school has its special problem 5
2. The rural school problem originates in the nature
of the rural community 5
3. Characteristics of the rural community 6
_a._ Its industrial homogeneity 6
_b._ Its social homogeneity 7
_c._ Fundamental intelligence of the rural population 8
_d._ Economic status and standards of living 10
_e._ Rural isolation and its social effects 10
_f._ Rural life and physical efficiency 11
_g._ Lack of recreations and amusement 12
4. Recent tendencies toward progress in agricultural
pursuits 12
5. The loss of rural population to the cities 13
=The Adjustment of the Rural School to its Problem=
1. Failure in adjustment of the rural school to its problem 17
2. The rudimentary education received by rural children 17
3. Failure of the rural school to participate in recent
educational progress 18
4. The rural school inadequate in its scope 19
5. Need of better organization in the rural school 20
6. Inadequacy of rural school buildings and equipment 21
7. The financial support of the rural school 22
8. Summary and suggestions 23
II. THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
=The Rural School and the Community=
1. The fundamental relations of school and community 25
2. Low community standards of education 25
3. The rural community's need of a social center 26
_a._ Its social isolation a serious drawback 27
_b._ Grave moral dangers arising from social isolation 28
_c._ Rural environment more dangerous to youth
than city environment 29
_d._ Effects of monotony on adults 30
4. The rural school as a social center 30
5. The ideal rural school building and equipment 32
6. Social activities centering in the school 33
7. Reorganization needed to make the rural school
effective as a social and intellectual center 34
=The Consolidation of Rural Schools=
1. Consolidation the first step toward rural school
efficiency 35
2. Irrationality of present district system 36
3. Obstacles in the way of consolidation 37
4. The present movement toward consolidation 38
5. Effects of consolidation 40
_a._ On attendance 41
_b._ On expense 41
_c._ On efficiency 42
6. The one-room school yet needed as a part of the
rural system 42
=Financial Support of the Rural School=
1. Lack of adequate financial support of rural schools 43
2. Difference in city and rural basis for taxation 44
3. Low school tax characteristic of rural communities 45
4. State aid for rural schools 46
5. Safeguards required where the principle of state
aid is supplied 47
6. Summary and conclusion 48
=The Rural School and its Pupils=
1. The spirit of the pupils as a test of the school 50
2. The negative attitude of rural pupils toward their school 51
3. Causes of this defection to be sought in the school 51
4. The problem of poor rural school attendance 52
5. The consolidated school as a cure for indifferent
attitude and poor attendance 53
III. THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
=The Scope of the Rural School Curriculum=
1. The modern demand for a broader education 57
2. The meagerness of the rural school curriculum 58
3. The rural child requires full elementary and high
school course 60
4. Disadvantages of sending rural child to town school 60
5. Necessary reorganization in rural school offering
broadened curriculum 62
6. General nature of the new curriculum 62
=The Rural Elementary School Curriculum=
1. Relation of the curriculum to social standards
and ideals 64
2. The mother tongue 65
_a._ Necessity for its mastery 65
_b._ Learning the mechanics of the language 66
_c._ Developing the art of expression, oral and
written 67
_d._ Creation of love for reading 67
_e._ Formal grammar out of place in the elementary
school 68
3. Number 69
_a._ The prominent place occupied by arithmetic 69
_b._ Importance of development of the number concept 69
_c._ An undue proportion of time devoted to arithmetic 70
_d._ Desirable changes in the teaching of arithmetic 71
4. History and civics 71
_a._ The right and duty of every person to know
the history and government of his country 72
_b._ History not to deal chiefly with war and
politics, but to emphasize the social and industrial side 72
_c._ The library of historical books 73
_d._ Functional versus analytical civics 73
5. Geography and nature study 74
_a._ Advantage of the rural school in this field 74
_b._ The social basis of geography 75
_c._ Application of geography and nature study
to the farm 75
6. Hygiene and health 76
_a._ Criticism of older concept of physiology for
the elementary school 76
_b._ Content of practical course in hygiene 77
_c._ Application of hygiene to the child's health
and growth 77
7. Agriculture 78
_a._ Adaptability to the rural elementary school 78
_b._ Content of the elementary course in agriculture 79
_c._ Relation to farm life 79
8. Domestic science and manual training 79
_a._ Place in elementary rural school 80
_b._ What can be taught 80
_c._ Its practical application 80
9. Music and art 81
_a._ Necessity in a well-balanced curriculum 81
_b._ Appreciation rather than criticism the aim 81
10. Physical training 81
_a._ Need of physical training of rural children 82
_b._ Rural school athletics 82
=The Rural High School Curriculum=
1. Rural high schools not yet common 83
2. The functions of the rural high school 84
3. English in the rural high school 84
_a._ Its aim 85
_b._ Points of difference from present high school
course 86
4. Social science to have an applied trend 86
5. The material sciences as related to the problems
of the farm 87
6. Manual training and domestic science 89
7. A modified course in high school mathematics 89
8. Foreign language not to occupy an important place 90
9. The high school course to include music and art 90
IV. THE TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL
=The Importance of Teaching=
1. Teaching the fundamental purpose of the school 92
2. The child and the subject-matter 92
3. The teacher as an intermediary between child
and subject-matter 93
4. Hence the teacher must know the nature of the child 94
5. The teacher must know the subject-matter of education 95
6. Failure to measure up to this requirement 97
=Teaching in the Rural School=
1. The degree of training of rural teachers in the
subject-matter 98
2. Present lack of professional training 100
3. The effects of inexperience 101
4. Short tenure of service in rural schools 102
5. Level of teaching efficiency low 103
6. Improvement through consolidated schools 104
=The Training of Rural Teachers=
1. Inexperienced and untrained teachers begin in
the rural schools 105
2. Normal schools supply few teachers to rural schools 106
3. A reasonable demand for training of rural teachers 107
4. Rural teacher training in normal high schools 107
5. The rural teacher's training must be adapted to
spirit of rural school 108
=Salaries of Rural Teachers=
1. Salary as a measure of efficiency 109
2. Salaries of rural teachers compared with town
and city teachers 110
3. Necessity of increased salaries 111
4. Increase in salary and in efficiency must go together 111
5. Salaries in consolidated schools 112
=Supervision of Rural Teaching=
1. Impossibility of giving district schools efficient
supervision 112
2. Obstacle in number of schools and frequent
change of teachers 113
3. Comparison of work of county superintendent
with city superintendent 114
4. Political handicaps on county superintendent 115
5. The necessity of better educational standards
and better salary for the county superintendent 116
6. Women as county superintendents 116
7. Efficient supervision possible only under a consolidated
system 117
RIVERSIDE EDUCATIONAL MONOGRAPHS
_GENERAL EDUCATIONAL THEORY_
DEWEY'S MORAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATION .35
ELIOT'S EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY .35
ELIOT'S TENDENCY TO THE CONCRETE AND PRACTICAL IN MODERN
EDUCATION .35
EMERSON'S EDUCATION .35
FISKE'S THE MEANING OF INFANCY .35
HYDE'S THE TEACHER'S PHILOSOPHY .35
PALMER'S THE IDEAL TEACHER .35
PROSSER'S THE TEACHER AND OLD AGE .60
TERMAN'S THE TEACHER'S HEALTH .60
THORNDIKE'S INDIVIDUALITY .35
_ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION OF SCHOOLS_
BETTS'S NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS .60
BLOOMFIELD'S VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE OF YOUTH .60
CABOT'S VOLUNTEER HELP TO THE SCHOOLS .60
COLE'S INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS .35
CUBBERLEY'S CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION .35
CUBBERLEY'S THE IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS .35
LEWIS'S DEMOCRACY'S HIGH SCHOOL .60
PERRY'S STATUS OF THE TEACHER .35
SNEDDEN'S THE PROBLEM OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION .35
TROWBRIDGE'S THE HOME SCHOOL .60
WEEKS'S THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOL .60
_METHODS OF TEACHING_
BAILEY'S ART EDUCATION .60
BETTS'S THE RECITATION .60
CAMPAGNAC'S THE TEACHING OF COMPOSITION .35
COOLEY'S LANGUAGE TEACHING IN THE GRADES .35
DEWEY'S INTEREST AND EFFORT IN EDUCATION .60
EARHART'S TEACHING CHILDREN TO STUDY .60
EVANS'S TEACHING OF HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS .35
FAIRCHILD'S THE TEACHING OF POETRY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
HALIBURTON AND SMITH'S TEACHING POETRY IN THE GRADES .60
HARTWELL'S THE TEACHING OF HISTORY .35
HAYNES'S ECONOMICS IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL .60
KILPATRICK'S THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM EXAMINED .35
PALMER'S ETHICAL AND MORAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS .35
PALMER'S SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH .35
SUZZALLO'S THE TEACHING OF PRIMARY ARITHMETIC .60
SUZZALLO'S THE TEACHING OF SPELLING .60
RIVERSIDE TEXTBOOKS IN EDUCATION
Edited by ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY, Head of the Department of Education,
Leland Stanford, Jr., University.
* * * * *
The editor and the publishers have most carefully planned this series to
meet the needs of students of education in colleges and universities, in
normal schools, and in teachers' training courses in high schools. The
books will also be equally well adapted to teachers' reading circles and
to the wide-awake, professionally ambitious superintendent and teacher.
Each book presented in the series will embody the results of the latest
research, and will be at the same time both scientifically accurate, and
simple, clear, and interesting in style.
The Riverside Textbooks in Education will eventually contain books on
the following subjects:--
1. History of Education.--2. Public Education in America.--3. Theory of
Education.--4. Principles of Teaching.--5. School and Class
Management.--6. School Hygiene.--7. School Administration.--8. Secondary
Education.--9. Educational Psychology.--10. Educational Sociology.--11.
The Curriculum.--12. Special Methods.
Now Ready
*RURAL LIFE AND EDUCATION.
By ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY. $1.50 _net_. Postpaid. Illustrated.
*THE HYGIENE OF THE SCHOOL CHILD.
By LEWIS M. TERMAN, Associate Professor of Education, Leland
Stanford Junior University. $1.65 _net_. Postpaid. Illustrated.
*THE EVOLUTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL.
By MABEL IRENE EMERSON, First Assistant in Charge, George Bancroft
School, Boston. $1.00 _net_. Postpaid.
*HEALTH WORK IN THE SCHOOLS.
By ERNEST B. HOAG, Medical Director, Long Beach City Schools,
California, and LEWIS M. TERMAN. Illustrated. $1.60 _net_.
Postpaid.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
The HOUGHTON MIFFLIN PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY
For Teachers and Students of Education
* * * * *
_THEORY AND PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION_
AMERICAN EDUCATION
By ANDREW S. DRAPER, Commissioner of Education of the State of New
York. With an Introduction by NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, President of
Columbia University. $2.00, _net_. Postpaid.
GROWTH AND EDUCATION
By JOHN M. TYLER, Professor of Biology in Amherst College. $1.50,
_net_. Postpaid.
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION
By M. VINCENT O'SHEA, Professor of Education in the University of
Wisconsin. $2.00, _net_. Postpaid.
THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
By WILLIAM C. RUEDIGER, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of Educational
Psychology in the Teachers College of the George Washington
University. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE MAKING
By EDWIN A. KIRKPATRICK, Teacher of Psychology, Child Study and
School Laws, State Normal School, Fitchburg, Mass. $1.25, _net_.
Postpaid.
A THEORY OF MOTIVES, IDEALS, AND VALUES IN EDUCATION
By WILLIAM E. CHANCELLOR, Superintendent of Schools, Norwalk, Conn.
$1.75, _net_. Postpaid.
EDUCATION AND THE LARGER LIFE
By C. HANFORD HENDERSON. $1.30, _net_. Postage 13 cents.
HOW TO STUDY AND TEACHING HOW TO STUDY
By FRANK MCMURRY, Professor of Elementary Education in Teachers
College, Columbia University. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
The HOUGHTON MIFFLIN PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY
For Teachers and Students of Education
* * * * *
BEGINNINGS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
By PAUL H. HANUS, Professor of the History and Art of Teaching in
Harvard University. $1.00, _net_. Postpaid.
PRACTICAL ASPECTS AND PROBLEMS
ETHICS FOR CHILDREN. A Guide for Teachers and Parents
By ELLA LYMAN CABOT, Member of the Massachusetts Board of
Education. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
CHARACTER BUILDING IN SCHOOL
By JANE BROWNLEE, formerly Principal of Lagrange School, Toledo,
Ohio. 16mo. $1.00, _net_. Postpaid.
HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN
By SARA CONE BRYANT. $1.00, _net_. Postpaid.
TALKS ON TEACHING LITERATURE
By ARLO BATES, Professor of English Literature in the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Professor Bates is also the author of
"Talks on the Study of Literature," "Talks on Writing English,"
etc. $1.30, _net_. Postpaid.
LITERATURE AND LIFE IN SCHOOL
By J. ROSE COLBY, Professor of Literature in the Illinois State
Normal University. $1.25, _net_. Postpaid.
THE KINDERGARTEN
By SUSAN BLOW, PATTY HILL, and ELIZABETH HARRISON, assisted by
other members of the Committee of Nineteen of the International
Kindergarten Union. With a Preface by LUCY WHEELOCK and an
Introduction by ANNIE LAWS, Chairman of the Committee. 16mo. $1.25
_net_. Postpaid.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO