Rural education and the consolidated school

Front matter

RURAL EDUCATIO THECONSOLIDA

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Book ^Aj

Preface

MUCH has been written of late concerning the Rural School Problem. All students of country life seem to agree that a radical readjustment of the entire rural educational and social system, to fit modern conditions, is imperative ; but while a few of the leaders have hewn close to the vital spot, none so far have gone straight to the heart of the subject.

The author is convinced that the time has come when we must insist upon a full program of reconstruction from the ground up, and begin to build at once. The gist of the problem is to establish a new school in which the essentials of a modern education can be taught. The old school, as still found in over ninety per cent of the rural districts, does not lend itself to such a program ; and no amount of repair, addition, varnish, or veneer will transform it into an efficient, modern institution. Rebuilding is absolutely essential.

Some friends of the rural school advocate comprehensive changes in the curriculum and justly demand that the training of country boys and girls shall culminate in a complete industrial and vocational education, adapted to twentieth-century life. They are agreed that rural teachers must measure up professionally and otherwise to their colleagues in our best school systems ; they recognize that salaries paid must be adequate to insure high-class training and instruction ; and yet — they fail to see that these things are impossible in an obsolete school system in which the first elements of success are wanting.

The one-room school must go. It cannot provide the education to which country boys and girls are entitled and which the welfare of the country demands. Contrary to some excellent authorities on rural schools who have given

[vii]

PREFACE

the matter careful consideration, but who have overrated the obstacles to consolidation, it is quite probable that at least eighty per cent of all the country schools can be reconstructed to meet the new demands and that all but twenty per cent of the one-room schools can be merged into high-class, graded, consolidated schools. Abundant proof is available in every state today, showing that supposed obstacles to this revolutionary change have existed largely in the minds of the rural people. The immediate and paramount duty of every leader in rural education, therefore, is to clarify the public mind on the subject and compel attention and unbiased consideration. Progress in consolidation is now so rapid and so uniformly successful, and its blessings are so obvious, that rural teachers and superintendents alike should become enthusiastic disciples of the new school.

Absolute faith in the idea and efficacy of consolidation is preeminently the message of this little volume. If the criticism of the present rural school system herein expressed will be received in the same kindly spirit in which it is offered, the book's mission has been accomplished. May it receive and merit the careful reading and consideration, not alone of rural teachers, superintendents, supervisors, and students of rural education, but of that vast body of American farmers of whose very life, thoughts, and ideals it endeavors to treat candidly, fearlessly, and sympathetically.

Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the several state departments of education, county superintendents, teachers, and friends who have given valuable information, suggestions, and criticism. To lend a helping hand in solving the rural school problem is the object and aim of Rural Education and the Consolidated School.

J. B. Arp

[ viii ]

Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. Rural Education and Rural Life 1

II. Rural Readjustments 11

Chapter One

"TTTHAT the best and wisest parent wants for his ▼ ▼ own child, that must the community want for all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely. Acted upon, it destroys our democracy." x This beautiful conception of the mission of the public school as expressed by Dr. Dewey is a worthy ideal to place before the American people ; but to Education and educate all the people of a democracy to a democra cy full realization of such a standard, and £ desire for it, would be little short of reaching the millennium. We may well set it up as a beacon light for the nation; but let us not deceive ourselves by thinking that it is a goal within easy reach. The best we can hope for is to keep the road to this ideal open for all the people, and the best we can do is to strive to increase the number of citizens sufficiently intelligent and eager to want such an education for themselves and their children. Meanwhile, the number who actually reach the higher level in our educational system is, and will continue to be, comparatively small. Our school problem, therefore, is not so much to take care of the favored ten per cent at the top of the educational ladder as to minister to the ninety per cent struggling below. In so far as we succeed in providing an adequate education for this overwhelming majority — an education that shall be practical, sane, * Dewey, The School and Society (University of Chicago Press), page 19.

and well rounded — and in so far as we succeed in placing it within the reach of all the children of all the people, in just so far shall we make our country a democracy in fact as well as in name.

That, at present, we are far from this essential condition of a true democracy, no one who is familiar with our public school system, or its product, will attempt to deny. Misconceptions, inequalities, and defects are found in the best-conducted school systems of the nation, when measured by the test of real democracy ; but there is no defect more glaring today than the inequality that exists between the educational facilities of the urban and the rural communities. Rural education in the United States has been so far outstripped by the education of our urban centers that, from an educational standpoint, the country child is left far behind in the struggle of life. It will take the wisest educational leadership of the present to remove this serious menace and avert ultimate disaster to the rural population. The greatest educational problem now facing the American people is the Rural School Problem. It must be solved, and it must be solved by the friends of the rural school who understand its needs.

The social, economic, and industrial changes of the last fifty years have been marvelous indeed. Agricul- Some factors tural methods had been slowly improving to be con- since ancient times, but of late progress has

been so rapid that many have failed to grasp its significance and its bearing upon life and society. Consider for a moment certain facts. In the time of Nero, with the crude tools at his command a Roman slave spent the equivalent of three days of irksome toil to produce a bushel of wheat. With more modern agricultural appliances, in the days of Abraham Lincoln, it was possible for the farmer to accomplish this feat in three hours. Today, thanks to the genius of the McCormicks, Stephensons, Fords, and other master minds, with the aid of binders, steam threshers, gas tractors, and quick communication, the same work may be done by one man in less than ten minutes ! With such strides in the cheap and rapid production of foods and other agricultural products, significant changes and readjustments have taken place. The ability to supply necessities of life cheaply and in abundance has caused a marked shifting of population from country to city, and from an agrarian people with simple habits we have become, in large measure, an urban people with a highly complex social and industrial life.

Furthermore, prosperity has given rise to leisure, and leisure has been followed by spiritual improvement, comforts, and pleasures. The effect of all this has been felt more quickly in the city than in the country. The reason is that city life is adapted to teamwork and demands it, while the more or less isolated life of the rural community tends toward conservatism, individualism, and fixed habits of thought and action. Rural people have, therefore, been as tenacious in resisting changes as city people have been willing and eager to adopt them. Consequently, an unfortunate line of cleavage between the two has created a class distinction threatening the future welfare and tranquillity of our commonwealth.

In a land of freedom which boasts of equal opportunity for all, it is unthinkable that any pronounced and abiding privileges shall be enjoyed by one class of citizens and denied to another, whether such distinction be due to economic, social, educational, or other conditions. The constant aim of a true democracy should be to reduce distinctions and privileges to the minimum, and to seek the welfare and happiness of all the people, in all walks of life, at all times, in all circumstances, with equal care, solicitude, and justice. To do this requires the wise leadership of men and women who are devoted to the principles and the spirit of democracy and brotherhood. Especially are such leaders needed in the training of the young, from whose ranks the citizenship of a nation is constantly recruited. Whenever we differentiate greatly between the education of boys and girls in the country and those in the city, we are in danger of engendering class distinctions, castes, and social strata that work dissension and strife. Rural life and rural education are at present suffering from lack of real leadership, and the country boys and girls of America are not getting a square deal. While the education of the urban child has kept pace with the progress of the age, that of the country child is still primitive and inadequate. Why is this?

To get a clear conception of the rural school problem, its history must be understood. "The little red schoolhouse" of bygone days, that played so weakness of prominent a part in pioneer life, has been rural school lauded in song and story and has won for

system

itself a place in the hearts and affection of the common people. It had a unique setting, was peculiarly an American institution, and was a distinct adjunct to pioneer rural life. In Europe, particularly in western Europe, the rural population is concentrated in villages ; and just as its social life is the group life, so its school system is the graded system. One-teacher schools are established only where the number of pupils is not sufficient for a graded school, and where they do exist, they are put in charge of mature, forceful teachers, equal in training and ability to those in similar grades of the larger systems. Quite the reverse is true in America, [4 ]

and the explanation is found in the conditions attending the settlement of the country.

In very early colonial days, the danger of attack by hostile Indians, the weakness of the individual settlements, and the necessity for cooperation, all compelled people to live in close proximity to one another and thus build up villages and towns; but soon afterwards the sturdy American pioneer pushed on fearlessly and single-handed into the wilderness of forest and plain. There he settled, either upon his "clearing" or upon his prairie claim, often separated by many miles from his neighbors and friends. Under such conditions the number of children found in any community was seldom large enough to form a permanent school in a definite spot. Moreover, the majority of the early settlers, being poor, had to struggle hard for the bare necessities of life. Consequently, school terms were short, attendance was low, and teachers were miserably paid and poorly qualified for the work. The whole school was crude and primitive in the extreme, but as life in those days was exceedingly simple, in both the open country and in the towns, and school work did not go far beyond the "three R's," a school of this kind served the needs of the people fairly well. Its fundamental defects were not recognized until much later, when the children trained in such schools faced the altered, complex life of a modern community.

As long as towns were mere hamlets, similar in manner of life to the open country and with school systems but slightly graded or slightly different from the typical rural school, the discrepancy between village and rural schools was not striking. Later, however, when villages and cities grew rapidly, they developed not only first-class graded elementary schools, but secondary schools as well. Meanwhile the one-room country schools continued as before and became so firmly rooted in our great agricultural sections that nothing short of heroic effort could convince the rural communities of the inherent shortcomings of this school system. Custom, with a grip of steel, held to the original conception of this school, though in the external and minor details it changed somewhat. The little log schoolhouse had been replaced by the little red schoolhouse, and this, in turn, had been painted white or some other color. It was also a little more spacious and pretentious, but its essential nature had not been altered in the least. To win the approval of the patrons, three requirements had to be met : (1) it must be within walking distance of every home, (2) it must be subject to local control, and (3) it must be a one-room school. Any departure from this ideal was viewed with suspicion and alarm. To break away now from a system so firmly established and so widely distributed over the country is a task that has tried, and will continue to try, the souls and patience of consecrated men and women; but it must be accomplished in order to redeem the rural school from stagnation and inefficiency, and to save rural life from monotony and worse social ills.

Education and life are firmly knit together. The more closely they articulate, the better for the people. As why the one- l° n & as coun try life was primitive and simple, room school is there was little need for technical, specialized, or so-called higher education. A thorough training in the "three R's" and sound instruction in morality and the principles of democracy sufficed for the limited needs of the time. Thus equipped, a man could cope successfully with his fellows in the race of life ; and where, a generation or two ago, these schools were placed in charge of strong and virile young men, they served their purpose admirably. But with the highly complex social organizations of modern times, the country school with one teacher is entirely inadequate to meet the demand for technical skill, or to lay the foundation for a successful life. Its inefficiency is due, however, to a totally different condition of life and society rather than to a poorer teaching force. On the whole, the rural teacher of today is greatly superior to the pedagogue of fifty or even of twenty-five years ago, although it is to be regretted that the low salaries paid and the insecure tenure of the position do not warrant young men of ability in entering the ranks. The majority of the country teachers now have a better academic and professional training than their predecessors. They are more mature when entering the service, and they labor under more favorable environments. Buildings, equipment, and books are vastly better than formerly, and our teachers are not lacking in energy, diligence, devotion, and eagerness to succeed, nor in a proper conception of their duty. They are simply facing a task so tremendous that no man or woman can master the situation until the rural school has undergone a complete transformation.

Little by little we have added subjects to the rural school curriculum until the country teacher is now expected to train her pupils thoroughly in the following studies : reading, writing, drawing, spelling, arithmetic, language, geography, history, grammar, music, physiology and hygiene, civil government, agriculture, domestic arts, manual training, and kindred industrial subjects. Moreover, many of these must be subdivided to fit the various ages and grades of the pupils who attend the one-room school. Consequently, the daily program of the average country teacher is loaded down with twenty -five to thirty-five daily recitations which cover the entire field of primary, intermediate, and grammar grade work.

It would take a person with an iron constitution, and one endowed with a wonderful adaptability, to handle a range of subjects from the kindergarten to the high school with any degree of success. Even if one could endure the physical strain of such a task, time is lacking to hear the recitations properly, supervised study is out of the question, and intensive work along any line becomes a mere dream.

The problem confronting the rural teacher is a problem of the division of labor. The system is at fault and must be reorganized until every rural school, not absolutely isolated by the physical conditions or topography of the country, shall become a part of a larger school system, having a graded school of more than one teacher — in brief, a centralized or consolidated school. , Not until President Roosevelt appointed the Country Life Commission and its comprehensive report was given such wide publicity, did the country realize better school that a nation- wide crisis existed in rural-life system conditions. He struck the keynote of the

situation himself when he said, in making the appointment, " Good crops are of little value to the farmer unless they open up the door to a good kind of life on the farm." In other words, the human interest transcends the material. Men are worth more than money, and a happy home is more to be desired than silver and gold.

Judging from government reports, the American farmer was at that time apparently on the highroad to success, and his financial status was good. The wealth of the farms was measured in billions of dollars; crop yields — at least in the aggregate — were on the increase ; and labor-saving machinery had taken away some of the drudgery and had made farming more profitable than ever before. But when the report of this commission laid bare the real conditions in which the American farmer, in too many cases, was compelled to live and raise his family, it was both a revelation and a shock to the people. From every corner of the land echoed and reechoed the voice of the reformer, and platform, pulpit, and press let loose a flood of suggestions — good, bad, and indifferent — for the improvement of rural life. Newspaper men and magazine writers penned elaborate articles on the newly coined catch phrase, " Back-to-thefarm," and offered scores of visionary schemes for relieving a bad situation. In the minds of the novices was a hazy picture showing the arrested influx of people from the country to the city, a counter current started from the city to the country, and the unemployed of the congested urban centers made over, in some miraculous manner, into successful and contented farmers.

The superficial nature of this view of the problem was soon exposed by those who had given the matter earnest and thoughtful attention. A careful analysis of the report left no doubt that the remedy lay in another direction and called for a redirected rural life. It also made the two chief causes of the cityward movement stand out in bold relief; namely, (1) an unsatisfactory social life, and (2) an antiquated and inefficient rural school system. Fully four out of every five persons who gave their reasons for leaving the farm and moving to the city, laid the blame at the door of the rural school. This indictment has since challenged the attention of men and women everywhere. Can any one seriously defend a school system of today which offers to the rural people (who compose nearly fifty per cent of the entire population) nothing more than an eighth-grade education, with a school term so short and other conditions so unfavorable that seventy-five per cent of the twelve million American country school children do not complete the work of the grades? Is such a system in keeping with the demands of our twentieth-century civilization ?

O. J. Kern, in his book, Among Country Schools, observes : "If I were to formulate an educational creed for the country school, it would contain but two articles; namely, (1) the country child is entitled to every whit as good an education as that enjoyed by the most favored child attending the American public school ; (2) to secure this right for the country child, the country people must expend more money on the country child and expend it in a better way." Likewise, Professor Ellwood P. Cubberley says, in his Rural Life and Education: "About one lialf of the school children of the United States are enrolled in the rural schools, and perhaps ninety per cent of the children of the rural population receive no other education. That the education provided for such children is what it ought to be, or might easily be made to be, few will maintain. Rural children are entitled to something better." Similar thoughts are now expressed by scores of the best educators of the nation ; and hopeful signs of an awakening in rural districts lead one to believe that the dawn of a better day for the education of country boys and girls is at hand.

Chapter Two

IN the final analysis, all animal life, including the human, is dependent upon plant life for its existence ; and very early in the history of the race man came face to face with the problem of supplementing nature's store of plant food by systematic tilling of the land The importance and crop production. Not until the race of a s riculture knew how to get a living from the soil with some degree of certainty, by cultivating plants to feed both man and beast, could habitations be fixed, governments be permanently established, and civilization take shape. Nor were leisure, improvement of the mind, and a higher level of life possible until food was produced in abundance and the struggle for existence became less acute. The plow has broken the ground for civilization; without the perfection and multiplication of farm tools in modern times, our twentieth-century culture would have been impossible. Behind all the progress of man, lies the unfolding and the unfolded agriculture of the ages.

Fortunate, indeed, is the land that is blessed with broad and fertile fields which furnish ample stores of food, clothing, and shelter for its people. The lack of striking these has for generations menaced the very illustrations existence of less favored nations, and looms like a dark cloud on the horizon of a thickly populated country whenever the arteries of trade are clogged by war or other obstruction. The acute shortage of food which prevailed throughout the leading nations of Europe beginning with the third year of the great world war, when each party to the struggle resorted to a relentless blockade of the enemy's coasts and frontiers, is a vivid illustration of the importance of agricultural resources to any land. Another

\ 11 1 modern example where a nation's food supply was seriously threatened for want of agricultural lands occurred recently in Japan. Its population had increased very rapidly after the empire threw open its doors to the world ; and by 1908 Japan had a population of more than 49,000,000, or 336 people to the square mile. Since a large part of the islands is unfit for agriculture, the average holding of land per family was but two and one half acres. This was not sufficient to feed its people, and unless the importation of foodstuffs could be relied upon, Japan faced the alternative of seeing some of her citizens starve or of finding an outlet for her surplus population. This finally culminated in the annexation of Korea and was the basic reason for the Russo-Japanese War. 1 Whatever else may be the duties of a government toward its people, the first and primary duty is to feed, clothe, and shelter them.

Our own agricultural wealth and fertile farming lands have in the past seemed so abundant that we have been extremely wasteful in the production of crops and lavish in the distribution of rich farm lands at almost nominal prices. This God-given heritage we have continued to exploit by a system of soil robbery until, with the swift changes of the last two decades, serious consequences are beginning to threaten. To the superficial observer it must indeed seem strange that a country capable of producing during the season of 1916 more than five billion dollars' worth of wealth from its four principal crops — corn, cotton, wheat, and hay — and increasing that yield to the enormous total of over eight billion dollars during the season of 1917, the first year of our war against Germany, should be concerned about supplying its own population. But if the present rate of increase of city people over country people continues, the American farmer must

1 See Alfred Stead's Japan by the Japanese. Dodd, Mead & Co., 1904.

change his methods and largely increase his production per acre, or fail to raise sufficient food for the nation. 1

The United States is now without a rival in the production of food supplies, but it is far from being an efficient agricultural country. To make such a claim, her farmers should be able, with more intensive cultivation and a fully developed scientific agriculture, to double, or even treble, the nation's agricultural production of today. This is

1 Statistics Covering a Few of the Leading Farm Products op the United States as Estimated by the Secretary op Agriculture

FOR THE SEASON OF 1916

Product

Corn

Wheat .

Oats . .

Potatoes

Barley .

Hay . .

Cotton .

Total Production (Bushels)

2,583,241,000

639,886,000

1,251,992,000

285,437,000

180,927,000

Average

Yield

PER

Acre

24.4 bu.

12.1 bu.

30.1 bu.

80.4 bu.

23.6 bu.

1.64 tons

156.3 lb.

Average

Price per

Bushel on

December 1

$.889 1.693

.524 1.461

.196 per lb.

Total Value Based on Price of

December 1, 1916

$2,295,783,000

1,025,765,000

656,179,000

417,063,000

159,534,000

1,008,894,000

1,080,000,000

FOR THE SEASON OF 1917

Produc

Total Production

Average Yield per

Average Price per

Total Value Based on Price op

(Bushels)

Acre

Bushel on December 1

December 1, 1917

Corn

. 3,159,494,000

$1,283

$4,053,672,000

Wheat .

650,828,000

2.009

1,307,418,000

Oats . .

. 1,587,286,000

.669

1,061,427,000

Potatoes

442,356,000

1.229

543,865,000

Barley .

208,975,000

1.137

237,539,000

Hay . .

1.22 tons

1,567,325,000

Cotton .

.277 per lb.

1,451,819,000

Beans .

6.52 per bu.

102,426,000

(six state s)

not only possible, but may even be accomplished in the next generation. The startling revelations about a world shortage of food supplies soon after we entered the war in the spring of 1917, and the appeal that came to us from the Allies across the Atlantic, were but powerful reminders to the American people that this country was regarded as the granary of the world and the savior of hungry and starving Europe at that critical time. More important still was the lesson it taught us that, as a permanent food producer, America must be aroused to the urgent and immediate need of modern scientific, intensive, and efficient farming, both in war and in peace.

Professor Cubberley, in his Rural Life and Education, has divided American country life into four general periods, Changes in each of which differed markedly from the rural conditions others. The first was the period of the pioneer, extending from colonial days until 1830 ; the second was the period of transformation and expansion, between the years 1830 and 1860 ; the third period, from 1860 to 1890, was characterized as that of the home builder ; and the fourth may be termed the period of commercial farming, accompanied in certain sections by a rapid increase in tenantry. This last period extends from 1890 to the present day, and its latest aspects are scientific agriculture and social cooperation.

In a somewhat similar classification Dr. Warren H. Wilson l divides the American country community into the periods of the Pioneer, the Land Farmer, the Exploiter, and the Husbandman. Of these he says in substance :

The Pioneer lived alone from choice. "He placed his cabin without regard to social experiences, and self-preservation was the struggle of his life." He hunted, plowed, harvested, reared his family, lived, and died alone. 1 The Evolution of the Country Community. Pilgrim Press, 1912.

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"The Land Farmer was the typical American countryman who succeeded the Pioneer, swarmed over the country, and sought everywhere the first values of a virgin soil. His ambition was to make his own farm and his own family group prosperous without regard to neighbors or community. The Land Farmer had no idea of community prosperity."

The Exploiter has been designated as "the tuberculosis of American farm life." He was not a farmer or a tiller of the soil, but a land speculator, bent on frequent buying and selling of land, "bulling the market and living on the unearned increment of farm lands." Next to the saloon keeper, the Exploiter has perhaps been the greatest single factor in the increase of poverty and the creation of slums, both rural and urban.

The Husbandman was the last to come on the scene. He is the scientific farmer, wedded to the soil, a home builder and a community builder as well. He is not only a scientific producer, but a scientific manager. He has the larger view of community life, happiness, cooperation, prosperity, education, citizenship, and personal worth. He is the future American farmer.

The changes in American rural life during the four periods just mentioned were most profound and have, in the aggregate, produced effects little short of Meaning of an agricultural revolution. Especially strik- these changes ing are the following : (1) the shifting of population from rural sections to urban centers, (2) an altered rural social life, and (3) an economic evolution. In 1790, only about three persons in a hundred lived in a city of eight thousand inhabitants or more; and such cities were less "urban" in those days than places of a thousand inhabitants are today. Ten years later, in 1800, only 4 per cent of the people were urban and 96 per cent were rural; nor did this ratio change much until 1830. By 1880, however, the city population had increased to 29.5 per cent, and by 1910 to 46.3 per cent of the total population, while the rural population had correspondingly decreased from 70.5 per cent to 53.7 per cent, with the movement still continuing in the same direction. More astonishing still is the fact, based on the above figures, that while in 1880 about 44.4 per cent of the population were actual producers and feeding the remaining 55.6 per cent of nonproducers, in 1910 only 32.9 per cent were engaged in feeding the remaining 67.1 per cent. 1