The American rural school, its characteristics, its future and its problems

Front matter

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Book

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Preface

This book is intended for rural school teachers, superintendents, and schoolboard members ; for teachers' reading circles, normal school training classes, and all the public at large who are interested in the profound movement to make our American rural life richer and its labor more effective by means of schools adapted to the changing needs of rural society and the demands of modern life.

So far as the public school is concerned the term movement is here used advisedly. It is not used in the destructive sense. It does not seek out a new base for school conduct, nor does it run counter to established laws of life and growth. On the contrary, it is constructive in its use. It aims at fundamental harmony by facing the rural school away from the many artificial interests which have hampered the usefulness of this institution in the past. Indeed, the new movement strives to place the school where the school inherently belongs — in the midst of natural interests where it can prepare the youth for sane, wholesome lives on the farm — the only normal American life of our day.

Vlll PREFACE

Broadly speaking, no other subject is now engaging so much public attention as is the movement to organize rural life. With his usual clearness of vision, President Roosevelt sizes it up in these words: " With the single exception of the conservation of our natural resources, which underlies the problem of our rural life, there is no other material question of greater importance now before the American people." Our National Executive some time ago appointed a commission of experts on rural life to investigate and report its needs, with recommendations for improvement. This commission has just made a voluminous report which sets living and achieving in rural communities in their right relation to our national life. While sensible and suggestive rather than drastic and revolutionary, the report is so thoroughgoing in its questionings that we may indeed look to see " the benefits of organization, of cooperation, of quick travel, of swift communication, all the machinery to prevent waste of time and effort," which are even now part and parcel of urban life, applied to the entire length and breadth of rural life.

The social philosophers have outlined for us our task. They have indicated needed reforms and suggested remedies. They may even induce government to furnish the material means of reform. But it is the rural teachers, after all, who must bear the brunt of the change. The real reform must begin with the hearts and minds and hands of the rural youth. To make them receptive to the con-

PREFACE IX

templated changes, to fit them to make use of the material means placed at their disposal, to inspire them with a genuine love for the soil and all that goes with it — these, and many similar problems, are, and must largely remain, the teachers' work.

It is the author's conviction that teachers should be more conversant with rural school history and know more about the educational problems now looking toward solution. If they were generally familiar with the educational activities and impulses manifesting themselves in other rural communities, teachers could cooperate to better advantage and accomplish better results. The same is true of all others whose interests lie in the schools. If superintendents had a stronger grasp on the many perplexing problems come from supervision of schools; if school boards realized as they should the surpassing importance of their duties in the administration of school affairs; if the general laity could but half know the dire consequences of parsimony and closefistedness in school support, — if all these were so, many of the stumbling blocks in the way of rapid improvement would be cleared away.

This book was penned in the hope that earnest teachers and school officers might find in it some help in solving the questions set forth above. It is not a treatise on school methods nor yet on school management. It partakes more of the nature of an educational history, setting forth what has already been accomplished, indicating what is

X PREFACE

yet to be done. It points out shortcomings in prevailing systems and suggests, wherever possible, remedies which can be applied profitably.

The author realizes that he is not the pioneer in this field. Others have been here before him. He has made free use of the experience and conclusions of all such, adding his own mite when and where he could. The book shall not have been in vain if he succeed in some small measure in shedding light on this greatest of twentieth-century problems.

H. W. F.

Atchison, Kansas, July, 1909.

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

Chapter I Page

Introduction: The Problem Stated i

Pathetic story of the rural school — All rural schools not bad ; all rural teachers not inefficient — Causes of these conditions — Disintegration of rural population — Changes in industrial life

— The city a positive menace to country life — "The city and country express the equation of life" — The United States preeminently agricultural — The twentieth-century problem — The ideal twentieth- century school — The complete country life — Rural schools must be better organized and have better administration — More money must be spent to provide and maintain the schools — Instruction must become professional — Supervision must be more efficient — A twentieth-century school plant demanded — School exteriors — School interiors — Practical courses of study — Consolidation of schools a panacea for existing ills.

Chapter II

General statement — School district organization — Objections to the district unit — Great spread of the district system

— Change from district to township system of organization — Township organization — Respects in which the township system is superior to the district system — County organization — Necessary reforms in the county system — The community system

— The board of education; its function — Work of the board depends upon the size of geographical unit — Difficulty in procuring " good " board members — Board members might be trained — What an active board can accomplish.

Xll ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

Chapter III Page

Rural school maintenance ; general statement — Colonial support of public schools — Creation of a permanent school fund

— Permanent school funds inadequate — The state a logical taxing unit — State taxation not on the increase — County^ and township taxation — Conclusion drawn.

Chapter IV

General statement ; the business side — City supervision vs. rural supervision — Origin of school boards and school superintendents — The question of supervision unit — Township and district superintendents in New England — In Massachusetts — In Connecticut — Frank O. Jones on the Connecticut and Massachusetts systems — In other New England states — The county superintendency — County supervision as it often is — Proposed remedies — What some states are accomplishing for better county supervision — The superintendent must be removed from party politics — How elected in New Jersey and Pennsylvania

— Ringing words from North Carolina — The Minnesota Educational Association's plan — The Kansas plan of 1908 — Present conditions ; a lack of qualifications of superintendents — A summary of what is being done for rural supervision.

Chapter V

The Rural School Teacher — his Training .... 69 The perplexing teaching problem — " Born " teachers and " made " teachers — The high calling of the teacher — Academic training — Professional training — Rural teachers must make the school an expression of life on the farm — Aids to teachers already in rural schools — Summer schools — Teachers' institutes

— The Nebraska Junior Normal — State Superintendent J. B. Aswell on institutes and summer schools — Teachers' meetings

— Reading circles — State normal schools and rural teachers — The N. E. A. Normal School Report, page 29 — Rural model schools in state normals — Agriculture in state normals — A

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS Xlll

PAGE

summary of what the state normals are doing for agricultural teaching — County training schools in Wisconsin — State Superintendent C. P. Cary on the Wisconsin training school — County normal training classes in Michigan — Training classes in New York high schools — Other states which maintain high school training classes.

Chapter VI

General statement — Compensation of European and American teachers compared — Conclusion drawn — Reasons for better salaries in Europe — Salaries of teachers and other workers in various parts of the country — How the rural teachers make ends meet — Education bill vs. drink and smoke bill — Low rural taxation — Superintendent O. J. Kern on rural school maintenance — The law of salary regulation — The threatened "feminization" of the schools — Teaching must become a profession — The teacher's social recognition; what it depends on — Enlighten the public — Enact minimum salary laws — A long tenure for rural teachers.

Chapter VII

Rural School Buildings: Architecture and Sanitation . 116 Spiritualization of rural life — The rural schoolhouse of song and story — State law to prescribe rules for site — Arrangement of floor space — Library, rest room, and cloak rooms — Basement ; its uses — Proper heating and ventilation — Construction of the ventilating stove — Correct lighting — Blackboards and chalk rails — New sanitary appliances — Outhouses made decent — The pressure tank and sanitary plumbing — Schoolhouse construction must combine utility with adornment.

CHAPTER VIII Indoor Furnishing and Art 134

The old school vs. the new — The rural school must again become the rallying point of country interests — Superintendent L. B. Evans on the importance of aesthetic environment —

XIV ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Walls and woodwork — Furniture — Necessary equipment — Superintendent O. J. Kern on throwing away good coin of the realm — Choice of pictures ; things to be considered — Every picture selected should have educative value — Plaster casts — The School Improvement League of Maine — What can the individual teacher do ? — What the plucky teacher can accomplish — Art programmes and basket suppers — Programmes of similar nature — What the county superintendent can do for art in rural schools.

CHAPTER IX Nature Study and School Grounds 154

Our school work too formal and bookish — Nature study defined — How nature study is valuable to the rural child — Economic — Esthetic — Social and Ethical — Religious — Educational — Syllabus of nature study — Ideal school grounds — Preparing the soil — Planning and Platting — Walks and drives — Playgrounds — Planting — Hedges — Trees — Shrubbery — Vines — Flowers — Birds and bird houses — Toads and toad hatcheries — A campaign of education — Arbor Day an appropriate time for planting — President Roosevelt's letter to the American school children — Books dealing with nature study and school grounds.

Chapter X

Early school gardens — The German states — Austria — Sweden — France — Russia — Other European countries — The British Empire — Purposes of European school gardens — European emigrant farmers in competition with native farmers — History of school gardens in the United States — Practical value of city school gardening — Rural school gardens — Two difficulties which must be met — Training teachers in elementary agriculture — Steps preparatory to making the garden — Bowesville, Ontario, school gardens — Experimental plots and individual plots — School gardens during vacation — How to arrange the garden — Books dealing with school gardens.

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XV

Chapter XI Page

Elementary Agriculture and Industrial Clubs . . . 205 Agriculture the dominant interest in the rural community — Objections to agricultural trend not insuperable — Elementary agriculture in European schools — France — Belgium and Holland — Denmark — Other countries — The British Empire — The United States — Rapid spread of movement North and South — Interest of the agricultural colleges in the movement

— What may reasonably be expected of the one-room school

— Some objections answered — What is actually accomplished in the one-room school — Example of Susie Miller — District No. 29, Pawnee county, Nebraska — Working aids; books, bulletins, etc. — Origin of boys' and girls' industrial clubs — Influence of such organizations upon education — General plan of boys' corn clubs illustrated in the Hamilton county, Indiana, club — Object

— Meetings — " Corn boys" in scoring contests — " Corn boy " vs. farmer — Good seed corn — Excursions to Purdue University — Teaching the fathers scientific farming — Statewide boys' and girls' associations in Nebraska — State Superintendent E. C. Bishop on object of the associations — Annual industrial contest for Minnesota boys and girls — This chapter addressed to teachers of one-room schools — Books dealing with elementary agriculture and industrial clubs.

Chapter XII

Manual training defined — Its early history — Manual training in the United States — Growth of manual training ideas — Philosophy of manual training — Aims of manual training in rural communities — Combination of art and manual training — N. E. A. Committee on industrial education — The one-room school and manual training — The great mistake of waiting for consolidation — Case of District No. 4, Monroe township, Howard county, Indiana — Results from such informal work — How to begin — How to win; a case to the point — In conclusion — A selected list of books, etc., dealing with manual training.

XVI ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

Chapter XIII Page

General statement ; intimate relation of school to reading — The true teacher sees education in its entirety — Text-books mere compendiums of facts and general notions — What the library will do for the child — Early history of the library — " School libraries " — Library advantages at the disposal of the city child — The library and the rural child — Rural school libraries — What some states are accomplishing — States working under conditional library laws — States having no library provisions — Library Day in West Virginia — The Winnebago county twentieth-century forward library movement — First Young People's Reading Circle — The place of the traveling library — Objects — To furnish good literature — To strengthen small libraries — Rapid spread of the traveling library — Progress by states, gleaned from reports of 1907 — Rural teachers should understand library economy — A summary — First one hundred books for the children's library.

Chapter XIV

Modern conception of education emphasizes care of human body — Twofold emphasis on modern ^physical education — Defectives and low standards of work — Boston school nurses — Relation of general intelligence to physical education — The teacher's responsibility for his pupils' physical and mental health

— The teacher's place in the struggle against disease — How disease germs are transmitted — Drinking cups, pencils, books, etc. — Rural teachers their own medical inspectors — The four agencies of physical education — Function of play — Gymnastics

— Gymnastics in every rural school — Gymnastics in European rural schools — Physical education and morals.

Chapter XV

General statement — Aim of our free schools : " Equal rights to all " — What consolidation contemplates — Great waste in

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XV11

PAGE

the small school — Early history of consolidation — Passing of the "little red schoolhouse" — Consolidation in Massachusetts

— Elsewhere in New England — The progressive Middle West

— The South — The West — Partial consolidation — Complete consolidation — The Wea Consolidated School — Village type of consolidation — Burns Consolidated School — The purely rural type — John Swaney Consolidated School — High school work in the John Swaney School — Consolidation : advantages and objections — A closing word — A selected reference list of books, etc., on consolidation.

Appendix 335

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Beach Glen School, Clay County, Kansas 20 >

A One-room Schoolhouse of the Modern Type 20 •

A Well-kept Rural School in Illinois 34

Schoolhouse built in Fillmore County, Minnesota, in 1858 . . 34

Schoolhouse in Clark County, Ohio ....... 34

Old Schoolhouse at Holden, Logan County, West Virginia . . 34 Schoolhouse in Northeastern Ohio ....... 34

A Dilapidated Schoolhouse in Eastern Kansas .... -34

Model Rural School on the Campus of the Missouri State Normal

School, Kirksville 51

Interior of Country Training School, Western Illinois State Normal

School, at Macomb ......... 79

Mode of Conveying Normal School Students to the above Training

School 79

Manual Training at the Dunn County School of Agriculture and

Domestic Economy, Menomonie, Wisconsin . . . Ill u Sewing at the Dunn County School of Agriculture and Domestic

Exterior of Rural Schoolroom, showing Fresh Air Intake of Stove . 125 Interior of Rural Schoolroom, illustrating the " Smith System " of

Heating and Ventilation . . . . . . . .125

Model Country Schoolroom shown at a Recent Illinois State Fair . 143

School District 25, Turner County, South Dakota .... 143

Children at Work in the Garden of the Sheridan School, Denver . 163 Irrigated Rural School Garden at Gilpin, Colorado . . . .163

This Remarkable Picture illustrates School Garden Work at the

Macdonald Consolidated School, Guelph, Canada . . 193

The Same Garden at Harvest Time, in September . . . . 193

xix

XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

An Average Corn Exhibit at the Annual Contest of the Hamilton

County, Indiana, Boys' Corn Club ...... 224

Sectional View of Pawnee County, Nebraska, Corn Growing and

Girls at Work in Domestic Economy Rooms, Macdonald Consolidated School, Guelph, Canada . 241

Boys in Manual Training Department, Macdonald Consolidated

School, Guelph, Canada , 24.1

Manual Training in a Small Rural School, Edgar County, Illinois . 241^

One of the Dover Township Schools, Union County, Ohio . . 275 v-

Headquarters at Topeka, from which many hundred traveling libraries are annually sent to every County in Kansas . . . 275 '

Exhibit made by the Illinois State Board of Health, at the Illinois

State Fair, 1909 288

Illustration showing a large mass of adenoids growing in the nasopharyngeal cavity of the throat 291

Pneumonia Germs from a Public School Drinking Cup . . . 291

Microphotograph of Decaying Human Cells on a Drinking Cup . 291

Gymnastics at the Dunn County School of Agriculture and Domestic

Economy, Menomonie, Wisconsin ...... 297

Consolidated School at North Madison, Madison Township, Lake

County, Ohio 324

The John Swaney School, District 532, McNabb, Illinois . . . 324

TWENTIETH-CENTURY NEEDS OF AMERICAN COUNTRY LIFE

As discovered by the Country Life Commission and summarized by President Roosevelt in a special message to Congress in 1909 : —

" First, effective cooperation among farmers, to put them on a level with the organized interests with which they do business.

" Second, a new kind of schools in the country, which shall teach the children as much outdoors as indoors and perhaps more, so that they will prepare for country life, and not, as at present, mainly for life in town.

" Third, better means of communication, including good roads and a parcels post, which the country people are everywhere, and rightly, unanimous in demanding.

" To these may well be added better sanitation ; for easily preventable diseases hold several million country people in the slavery of continuous ill health."

CHAPTER I Introduction: The Problem Stated

It is conceded by students of education generally that the great desideratum of the times is a proper solution of the rural school problem. Secondary and higher education within our country have attained a satisfactory degree of excellence and efficiency. Modern unification and standardization have wrought marvelous things for the internal development of such institutions. Public liberality and private philanthropy have succeeded in making the schools an expression of the great material prosperity, and forward and upward movement so peculiar to our present-day American civilization. The universities, denominational colleges, and professional schools are definitely established and have acquired an educational momentum sufficient for all purposes. Graded schools, in city and village alike, have reached a stage of development or evolution so satisfactory that their future is practically assured.

Pathetic Story of the Rural School. — While the public attention has been centered on work and plans for the improvement of city schools, a great factor for or against the public weal has been sadly neglected. This is the rural school. All well-informed persons agree that conditions in the rural schools are not to-day what they should be for the proper training of the twelve million boys and girls growing up in rural communities. One half of our entire school population attend the rural schools, which are still in the formative stage. And at least 95 per cent of these children never get beyond the district school. The country youth is entitled to just as thorough a preparation for thoughtful and intelligent membership in the body politic as is the city youth. The state, if it is wise, will not discriminate in favor of the one as against the other; but it will adjust its bounties in a manner equitable to the needs of both.

Heretofore, the rural schools have received very little attention from organized educational authority. Whatever has been accomplished may be credited to local initiative; whatever has been neglected may be traced to general apathy and indifference. As a result, in some sections of our broad land, there has long existed a state of affairs bordering dangerously close on educational coma. It is not putting facts in too strong a light to say that vast numbers of our rural boys and girls are annually turned out by the schools systematically dwarfed through more or less purposeless courses of study, leaving them poorly prepared for the life struggle.

All Rural Schools not Bad ; all Rural Teachers not Inefficient. — Of course, all district schools are not bad and all rural teachers are not inefficient. We have, indeed, many excellent schools in farming communities. Many capable, painstaking teachers are spending their lives there, giving the best there is in them for the children of the farm. Yet the fact remains that a majority of rural schools are badly equipped for school purposes, and a majority of teachers are lacking in both academic and professional training. It is conceded, too, that a great many men of eminence, scholars, statesmen, and professional men got their early training, and in many instances all their training, in the old-fashioned district school. But this can hardly be taken as proof of the general efficiency of such schools. Many things conspire to prove that these men had the native ability and talent to succeed not so much on account of the district schools as in spite of them.

Cause of these Conditions. — These unsatisfactory educational conditions must not be charged as a reflection on the character or public spirit of our farm population, as they are largely the result of unavoidable circumstances. The early settlers on the Atlantic seaboard had their battle with the wilderness. Then the period of intense struggle before and after the Revolutionary War kept the impoverished people in no condition to solve effectively the educational problem staring them in the face. Ever since the first hardy pioneers crossed the Alleghenies on their westward march, like conditions have prevailed. On prairie and plain every energy has been centered on redeeming the soil to the cause of civilization. Under such stress of economic and social effort the rural school has been sorely neglected. But now, with the opening of the new century, the great westward migration is nearing the end, and we are to all practical purposes a settled people. Under such circumstances we might soon, with reason, look for a fixity of conditions in rural communities, such as is found in urban centers. But, unfortunately, other factors of far-reaching consequences upset our expectations, the chief being, perhaps, the startling disintegration of rural population and influx to the larger cities.

Disintegration of Rural Population. — Man is by nature gregarious. He only follows natural instincts when he seeks the large centers of population where he can enjoy a keener social existence. In primitive times agricultural tribes reared walled towns for defense against predatory tribes. These became the cradles of industrial, commercial, and political life. The city and city state have from the beginning played an important role in history, though it was not before the opening of the last century that the growth of urban life at the expense of rural communities became in any way marked.

For a half century the cityward movement has been on the rapid increase. This is to-day a universal condition. European countries are all experiencing an unexampled growth of cities. In the United States the problem is even more serious. The affixed table illustrates graphically the startling urban tendencies in our country: —

Year

Urban Population

Number of

Per cent of

Population of Cities of 8000

Places

Urban Total

3,929,214

3-4

23,191,876

2,897,586

12.5

38,558,371

8,071,875

20.9

50,155,783

22.6

62,622,250

18,272,503

29.2

75,468,039

24,992,199

33-1

A glance at these figures shows that the urban population has increased in a little over a century from 3.4 per cent to 33.1 per cent. Unofficial figures for 1908 indicate a further increase to about 38 per cent. The government reports take into consideration only cities with a population of 8000 and upward. If all incorporated cities were counted, the total per cent of urban growth would be materially increased.

Changes in Industrial Life. — Such phenomenal growth of cities has been coincident everywhere with growth in manufacturing industries. These latter have produced modern, labor-saving machinery for the farm, and have consequently reduced the demand for farm hands. Factory-made wares and cheap transportation have sounded the death-knell of many local industries which in the olden time flourished at every cross-road. Rural craftsmen were formerly in great demand in making and repairing farm instruments, in cabinet making, in fact, in upbuilding the entire farm place. Their occupation is now gone, and they have flocked to the cities. Worst of all, untold numbers of farm youth, without whom the rural communities will languish, are drawn thither by the glamour of city life and its many flattering opportunities for advancement.

Finally, in direct ratio as the rural population decreases the size of farms increases. The tendency is in the direction of increasingly extensive machine farming rather than toward the intensive small farming which many have long hoped to see realized, and which must be realized before the rural problem is finally settled. Figures show that for the twenty years from 1880 to 1900 the average size of farms for the whole country increased almost 10 per cent.

The City a Positive Menace to Country Life. — Just how far this depletion of the rural population shall go, no one can say. But this is certain, the present tendency is toward yet larger farming units, and every indication points toward a still further decrease in population. City life is terribly devitalizing. In its artificial, hot-house atmosphere the human organism literally starves and early deteriorates. Into this life, then, our best country boys and girls are thrown annually by hundreds of thousands — their manifest destiny to reenforce the ebbing vitality of city life. The infusion of the sturdy country stock into the city assures a continuation of city prosperity and progress. But at what an awful cost! American Medicine, an excellent authority in this field, speaks editorially thus: " City life is very deadly to the young, a fact known to anthropologists for a long time, and we are now in a fair way to explain the phenomenon. For hundreds of years country families have flocked to the towns, to die out in a few generations, so that cities are said to be the consumers of rural populations. A man raised in the country seems to stand the unknown strain, but his children sometimes perish long before he does. Every physician knows of these disappearing families where the country-bred parents survive all their city-bred children."

" The City and Country express the Equation of Life." — After such forceful statements it is in place to emphasize here that " the city and country express the equation of life, a weakness in one member means the ruin of both. Each must supplement, but not destroy, the other, and both must be preserved." Whatever may be said about the devitalizing effects of city life upon the individual from the farm, this truth remains, that the welfare of the one is closely bound up with that of the other. The farm produces the raw material and demands the manufactured product in return; the city supplies a market for the farm output and expects a market for its own finished product. We have here the ancient fable of the Body and the Members retold. As well might we expect the " body " to remain well nourished and healthy after the " members " had struck work and refused to supply the stomach with food, as to expect the body politic to thrive and wax strong while its members, the city and country, failed to work in harmony. There is every reason to believe that the cityward tide will soon abate. A state of equipoise between city life and rural life must be reached in a not distant future. Several factors are quietly at work to relieve the situation. The city will never resound with a cry of " back to the country," that is certain; those who are in the city now will remain there. But, as we shall see below, both nature and man are doing what they can to organize rural life as a perfect member in our equation of national life.

The United States preeminently Agricultural. — President Roosevelt believes that the most pressing question of a material nature now before the American people is the conservation of our natural resources. We have certainly been prodigal of the vast stores of natural wealth placed at our disposal. We have been wasteful. The proud forests exist no more; gas and oil fields are becoming drained; coal and other mineral deposits are generally exploited. We have misused the sacred right of eminent domain, and public utilities have gone to the most persistent and crafty jobber. Now we stand face to face with changing conditions. The natural competencies which the forefathers got for the taking, the sons of the later day must earn through the sweat of their brow. The future will not be chary; but she will expect labor, and intelligent labor at that, by all who would succeed. Profits are sure to become smaller, and competition keener. Gradually, it would seem, the demands for industrial labor will decline. Then the cityward migration will lessen and perhaps cease altogether. Then the agriculturist will come to his own.