m'intoshI COURSE OFSTUDYIN RURAL SCHOOLS 201 



is available under each general topic, what important facts and 

 principles are involved, the general order in which they should be 

 taken up, the method of attack and the results which should be 

 secured, and should show all of this in a very definite and specific 

 manner. 



Which of these plans is best depends on the conditions under 

 which it is to be used. 



If the teacher has the right attitude towards her work, has 

 full and well-organized knowledge of the subject-matter to be 

 taught and has the power to distinguish the basal and fundamen- 

 tal facts from those which are merely interesting and incidental, 

 and has the help of an educational expert to aid her with her dif- 

 ficulties, the outline made out in very general terms is perhaps 

 the best. If the teacher's knowledge of the subject-matter is 

 limited, if she has not the power surely to select the important 

 and fundamental facts and to distinguish them from the merely 

 interesting and incidental, if she has had little experience in deal- 

 ing with children and hardly knows what results she should 

 secure, if the supervision is very inadequate, there is no question, 

 I think, but that the more definite and specific the course the bet- 

 ter will be the results secured. Under these conditions, in a very 

 true sense, the maker of the course becomes the teacher of the 

 pupils. The selection of the material and its order of presenta- 

 tion to the pupil is made by a competent, rather than an incom- 

 petent person, and the energies of the pupil are likely to be well 

 directed. I know that some object to this, claiming that it ham- 

 pers the teacher, destroys her power of initiative, and makes her 

 imitative, but from the pupil's standpoint I am inclined to think 

 that good imitation is better than very poor initiative. 



Now it is this latter condition that obtains in our country 

 schools. A comparatively large number of country schools are 

 taught by inexperienced, untrained teachers. I do not know the 

 per cent in other counties, but in our county about 30 per cent 

 of our country schools are taught by beginners each year, and this 

 has been the condition for several years, and perhaps not more 

 than 30 per cent are taught by teachers of several years' success- 

 ful experience. I presume that something of the same conditions 

 exist in the other counties of the state. The task before these 

 teachers is not an easy one. Some have never attended a country 

 school. Many have had little or no professional training; they 

 are to teach boys and girls of all ages from the beginners to the 

 second year in the high school; they are the teacher, the superin- 

 tendent and the janitor. Possibly they go three or four miles 



