SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN FARMERS 615
RURAL EDUCATION
It is hardly necessary to assert that the education of that por- tion of the American people who live upon the land involves a question of the greatest significance. The subject naturally divides itself into two phases, one of which may be designated as rural education proper, the other as agricultural education. Rural education has to do with the education of people, more especially of the young, who live under rural conditions ; agricultural educa- tion aims to prepare men and women for the specific vocation of agriculture. The rural school typifies the first; the agricultural school, the second. Rural education is but a section of the general school question; agricultural education is a branch of technical training. These two phases of the education of the farm popula- tion meet at many points, they must work in harmony, and together they form a distinct educational problem.
The serious difficulties in the rural school question are perhaps three : first, to secure a modern school, in efficiency somewhat comparable to the town school, without unduly increasing the school tax ; second, so to enrich the curriculum and so to expand the functions of the school that the school shall become a vital and coherent part of the community life, on the one hand translat- ing the rural environment into terms of character and mental efficiency, and on the other hand serving perfectly as a stepping- stone to the city schools and to urban careers; third, to provide adequate high-school facilities in the rural community.
The centralization of district schools and the transportation of pupils will probably prove to be more nearly a solution of all these difficulties than will any other one scheme. The plan per- mits the payment of higher wages for teachers and ought to secure better instruction; it permits the employment of special teachers, as for nature-study or agriculture ; it increases the effici- ency of superintendence; it costs but little, if any, more than the district system ; it leaves the school amid rural surroundings, while introducing into the schoolroom itself a larger volume, so to speak, of world-atmosphere; it contains possibilities for com- munity service; it can easily be expanded into a high school of reputable grade.
