20 The Ottawa Naturalist [April 



condition of life call for a new spirit in education from the earliest 

 years upward. A vast body of new knowledge has to be brought 

 into educational account The old tradition has to be examined, 

 readjusted to new needs, and in part discarded, new studies have 

 to be introduced, and scientific thought has to be given to the 

 training of the senses. Science has furnished an immense amount 

 of usable information that has practically revolutionized the 

 older methods of agriculture ; and it is very important that the 

 coming rural citizens should enter into the possession of this 

 information with the ability to apply this new knowledge to 

 practical ends, to bring together different portions of knowledge 

 into new combinations, to realize quickly the bearing of new 

 developments of knowledge upon customary ways of doing 

 things and upon the probable demands for new kinds of service." 

 Besides a trained intelligence, the rural citizen should have a 

 sympathetic interest in the world of nature about him ; he should 

 see something of the beauty of the web of life, and understand 

 that his physical welfare depends largely upon his obedience 

 to the laws of nature that he has tried to grasp. More than this, 

 the cultivators of the soil require training in organization and 

 co-operation, for these spell success in agricultural as they do 

 in other commercial lines. 



For ages the farmer did not feel much need for co-operation ; 

 he required little beyond his own farm; he was self-contained. 

 His earnings were small in spite of the hard work, and he had 

 no desire to speculate, lest he lose his hard earned money. He 

 became independent, but his independence prevented him from 

 getting all he could from his land. He shunned co-operation 

 in matters of common interest to all his neighbors. The products 

 of his farm went to the market alone, very frequently in incon- 

 venient and unattractive forms. Latterly, however, through 

 the desire to have good roads, good local government, good 

 schools and good churches, the spirit of co-operation is invading 

 the communities. 



Good rural schools, however, imply good teachers teachers 

 able "to articulate the country school closely and smoothly with 

 the country home, the neighborhood and the country at large; 

 only so can the instruction of the school take on the reality 

 needed to make it vigorously and practicallv effective. The 

 teachers should be able to utilize the local community life, its 

 occupations, resources, organisations, traditions and customs, 

 for the rural school." 



But again back of this, properly prepared rural teachers 

 must be trained at suitably equipped and suitably located 

 normal schools. Our city normal schools have failed to a large 



