New Ideals in Rural Schools | Page 7

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