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duce tliese Lessons as texts into siicli rural schools as desire to take up 

 distinctly agricultural work, and this endeavor has been approved by 

 Hon. Charles R. Skinner, Superintendent of Public Instruction. 



While we desire to reach all the scliools with the purpose of 

 improving country life, we do not believe it to be wise to make 

 the teaching of technical agriculture compulsory in any school, not 

 even in the rural districts. To force the teaching of agriculture 

 is to make it perfunctory and of no avail. The teacher must be 

 trained. Public sentiment must be awakened. A desire must be 

 created. It is a question whether any technical or professional 

 work should be introduced into the elementary schools ; but it is 

 always advisable to awaken the pupil's interest in the things with 

 which he lives. 



How to make the rural school more efficient is one of the most 

 difficult problems before our educators, but the problem is larger 

 than mere courses of study. Social and economic questions are 

 at the bottom of the difficulty, and these questions may be beyond 

 the reach of the educator. A correspondent wrote us the other 

 day that an old teacher, in a rural school, who was receiving $20 a 

 month, was underbid 50 cents by one of no experience, and the 

 younger teacher was engaged for $19.50, thus saving the district 

 for the three months' term the sum of $1.50. This is an extreme 

 case, but it illustrates one of the rural school problems. 



One of the difficulties with the rural district school is the fact 

 that the teachers tend to move to the villages and cities, where 

 there is opportunity to associate with other teachers, where there 

 are libraries, and where the wages are sometimes better. This 

 movement is likelv to leave the district school in the hands of 

 younger teachers, and changes are very frequent. To all this there 

 are many exceptions. Many teachers appreciate the advantages of 

 living in the country. There they iind compensations for the lack 

 of association. They may reside at home. Some of the best work 

 in our nature-study movement lias come from the rural scliools. 

 We shall make a special effort to reach the country schools. 

 Yet, it is a fact that new movements usually take root in the city 

 schools and gradually spread to the smaller places. This is not the 



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