MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 155 



schools of the State, whether in city or county, will be held to the same standards of schol- 

 arship. Then all teachers will be required to have a general knowledge of the whole in- 

 dustrial fabric of the community, State and nation. It is now thought necessary for all 

 teachers to have in addition to a general knowledge of industrial matters a more detailed 

 and applied knowledge of the particular industries establishing the conditions- in which 

 their children live. This demand of up-to-date education opens great possibilities to the 

 rural teacher whose children live largely by the one industry of agriculture. A veteran 

 Michigan teacher has suggested that all teachers graduated from count}' normal training 

 classes and the rural school courses of the State Normal Schools l)e recjuired to spend at 

 least a summer term in residence at the State Agricultural College for the purpose of 

 getting an introduction to agriculture. 



Men who have directed the observation and practice work of teachers in preparation 

 for service in the ungraded country schools say that part if not all of this work demands 

 a separate and characteristically different training school. Dr. W. T. Harris, the U. S. 

 Commissioner of Education, says that a distinct difference should be made between train- 

 ing teachers for a school having a few large classes all within one or two grades and a school 

 having many small classes scattered through six or eight grades. 



Dr. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, after 50 years of close familiarity with the develop- 

 ment of Normal School work, looked upon the raising up of teachers adapted to country 

 service as an unsolved problem. There is at present a growing conviction that observa- 

 tion and training in the practice school should, as far as may be po.ssible, be carried on 

 under the same general conditions which the teacher will find in the real school where his 

 service is to be rendered. 



One of the Michigan Normal Schools is making a definite, studied attempt to inculcate 

 the spirit of social service in all the students who are taking the two years' rural school 

 course. This work is not fully developed; but a beginning has been made by organizing 

 what is called a Rural Sociology Seminar. This organization meets for a two hours' ses- 

 sion one afternoon in each month. The programs for two meetings each term consist 

 of music, recitations and papers by students. The papers are reports of progress in the 

 historical and current industrial, social and spiritual phases of rural life. 



The third and last meeting of each term affords an opportunity to invite experienced 

 rural teachers, county commissioners, grange and farmers' club leaders, and normal school 

 and Agricultural College professors to talk to the students. 



The work of this seminar will be supplemented near the end of the course by a regular 

 course in rural sociology and a trip to the State Agricultural College. It is believed that 

 the students will l)y this means discover in advance many ways in which they can make 

 their schools, the rural schools in which they are to teach, serve the communities in which 

 these schools are located. 



Furthermore, it is believed that devoted and enthusiastic leadership for two years in 

 this seminar will qualify and inspire these young people to be privates, corporals, lieu- 

 tenants and captains in the developing campaign for rural progress. 



There is great reason for encouragement in the matter of trained teachers for rural 

 schools. The prospective graduation of rural teachers this year from the twenty Normal 

 Training Classes and the State Normal Schools offering the rural school course is 425. 

 This is two and one-half times as many teachers as were prepared for rural schools last year. 



This is the beginning of that glad time for which multitudes of Michigan's best men 

 and women have worked, paid and waited. The accvmiulated investment by rural com- 

 munities of more than $1,000,000 in the State Normal School .system is a matter of great 

 pride, and it is becoming a source of intelligent satisfaction because these schools are re- 

 turning to rural communities an increasingly respectable annuity of service. 



Better even than this is the prospective working out in rural schools of this fundamental 

 principle of real progress: "It is impossible to develop an expert of high efficiency with- 

 out raising the general plane of excellence in the class to which he belongs." This time 

 proven general principle makes positive promise that out of the present accelerating 

 movement for trained teachers in rural schools there will emerge expert students of rural 

 conditions, then from this vanguard of experts there will arise a man or a woman with the 

 inspiration and the condition mastering constructive ability to found a distinct profession 

 of rural school teachers, and through the life long services of such a body of teachers the 

 rural schools will accomplish their full fruition. 



Kalamazoo, Mich. 



