PREFACE.
Less than eight years ago the State Association of county secretaries (commissioners) appointed a committee of five of its members to prepare a “State Manual and Course of Study” for the use of the rural schools of the State. The main purpose of the work was to provide a plan that could be followed in all the schools of the
State, aiding teachers and school officers in becoming a part of a system and encouraging pupils to perform a definite amount of work before leaving the district school. The persons appointed on the committee were five of the most efficient of the secretaries of the State as follows: Orr Schurtz, Eaton county; C. L. Bemis, Ionia county; R. A. Culver, Calhoun county; Ashley Clapp, Kalamazoo county, and P. M. Brown, Mecosta county.
To these men the teachers of the State are indebted mainly for the Manual that has ever since been so effectively used that in 1896 no less than 5,844 of our rural schools were reported by the commissioners as properly classified.
In preparing this fourth edition of the State Course of Study, it has been thought best to depart somewhat from the previous editions. The reasons for this may be briefly stated:
First—The interest taken in rural schools by leading educators has developed advanced ideas concerning their scope and management.
Second—The average district school teacher has reached a point where he, too, stands upon the area of advanced ideas, and demands their incorporation into every educational line. While we should not be in too great haste to discard the old and embrace the new, the inspiration born of new ideas oftentimes compensates for the errors which they may contain, but which use may eliminate.
Third—We may be pardoned for acknowledging a desire to keep Michigan in the van of educational progress; and, believing firmly in the new education, we have made such changes as we think will be accepted and pplied by the mass of our teachers.
