No. 6. . DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 45 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



Rural Schools. 



The past year marks an era ia the history of the education of 

 country children iu Pennsylvania. An examination of the conditions 

 which have existed in the country school® by which the teacher was 

 required to hear an average of twenty-seven classes each day, with 

 only the present limited course of study, made it clear to the Legisla- 

 ture that something should be done to relieve the country school 

 teacher of this burden, and at the same time provide for the giving of 

 a course of study to children in the country districts equal to that 

 found in the best town and city schools. This was accomplished by 

 making an appropriation of |50,000 for the carrying, of the Township 

 High School Law of June 2Sth, 1895, into effect, and by the passage 

 of an act providing for consolidating the township schools into a 

 single central graded school and for the transportation of scholars 

 to and from this central school. The operation of these two laws will 

 make it no longer necessary for parents to send their children to the 

 town or city schools to be educated, but their academic training, pre- 

 paratory to entrance into college, can be had in every community. 

 Necessary additional studies can now be introduced, and the children 

 can have more of the teachers' time and attention than was possible in 

 the isolated school. The deep interest which exists among country 

 people in regard to the new law providing for the consolidation of the 

 schools, is seen in the farmers' institutes which were held in the past 

 autumn. Expressions of gratification are heard in every institute 

 meeting, and numerous inquiries come to the Department asking for 

 documents explaining precisely the method of carrying the law into 

 effect. 



No State has now more advanced legislation in this direction than 

 ours, and no law passed by any legislature since the enactment of the 

 consolidation act of 1854, is more valuable to country people. This 

 one act, in the interest of agriculture, is worth, in my judgment, all 

 that the Legislature of 1901 cost to the people of the State. 



