702 BOAKD OI* AGUtCtrLTtlRE. 



Perhaps the greatest Aveakiiesses in our country schools are those 

 which can be remedied by parents themselves. They are, irregular attend- 

 ance and the lack of punctuality. See that your child is in school evei*y 

 day and on time witli proper Iwoks, and the schools will do the rest. 



A teacher in u good position to know says, "Add to the rural school 

 the punctuality and the regular attendance of the city school, and at 

 fifteen years of age, the average boy or girl of the rural school, with 

 a six months' term will have accomplished as much as the city cousin 

 will liave accomplished at fifteen years of age in the city schools having 

 a nine months' term." I have seen nundjers of boys and girls who have 

 tramped for a luile or half a mile at least, through mud and snow on 

 country roads to a district school. I have seen them enter the town 

 schools, and, in clearness of thought and strength of mind, stand side l)y 

 side, and even stand ahead of bright town boys and girls of the same age, 

 who have never walked more than five squares to school in their lives. 

 Understand us, we are casting no reflection upon our town and city 

 schools, nor upon the patrons, pupils or teachers of said schools. They 

 are all to a great extent victims of environments which they are striving 

 manfully to counteract, and teachers of city schools work harder than 

 the district teacher does to accomplish the same results. 



School is the recreation of the country child, therefore, he is fully 

 interested in it and loves it. Often to the town child, school is a drag 

 because of the many other things which claim a share of his thoughts. 

 The industrial life of the farm proves a good discipline, which cultivates 

 wholesome haltits, sucli as application to work and will power to accom- 

 plish whatever is undertaken. In' the large cities it has been found help- 

 ful to the schools to introduce in them industrial work to educate the 

 hand— manual training for boys; cooking for girls. The chores and other 

 work on the farm are productive of l)etter results than those obtained 

 from manual training or cooking schools. David Starr Jordon said, "I 

 value no part of my own education more than what I learned on the 

 farm. Not that I want to do any of those things now, ))ut that the habit 

 of meeting things scpiarely and doing them was a vital part of my educa- 

 tion." If a good man or woman was ))orn and raised in the country, 

 the biographer points with pride to the fact that he or she was raised 

 on a farm. Dewey, Sampson, Lincoln, (Jrant, Garfield, Greeley, Tilden, 

 Hayes, Whittier, Ilowells, Mary Lyons and tliousands of others in all 

 ages of the world, have risen to eminence and have possessed those 

 sterling qualities that in some form or other have made the world better 

 and themselves heroes of men. Was not, then, farm life their school of 

 severe discipline? At a recent meeting of the business men in Chicago, 

 they recommended young people taught in the district schools for clerks 

 or assistants, stating that they found them to be accurate and practical. 

 This is quite a compliment, both to country youth and to their teachers. 

 There is no place better than the farm to cultivate in children a love for 



