232 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



of rural education. We are training laborers for the upbuilding 

 of the nation along agricultural lines. We will have a great place in 

 the world along these lines, and this is only one plea among 

 many in the claim for rural education. 



Today I spent a few hours at the National Farm School, near 

 Doylestown, in this State, where we have an institution which is 

 training city boys to be farmers. Now, that is an important evolu- 

 tion, and it seems to me they are doing it very well there to a limited 

 number of boys from the town. There is, as you know, a consider- 

 able movement of the people from the city to the country, and we 

 will all undoubtedly agree that there is a place for this farm 

 school for city boys, but in between the Agricultural College and 

 this Farm School for city people, there is a great loss to our coun- 

 try people, and we must have other institutions to give them the 

 education they need to fit them for country life, and so I wish to 

 speak tonight briefly concerning this phase of rural education, 

 which we should have in connection with the common schools and 

 the secondarj^ schools. 



It will not be necessary now to state why we should have a 

 change in the common schools of the country, but I will say simply 

 that the chief preliminary is to so grade our common schools 

 that they will adapt themselves to the education, the elementary 

 educational study of the modern phases of country life. The con- 

 ditions under which you are farming, as the older member of this 

 assembly at least, will strongly recognize, are quite different from 

 the conditions which existed in the country in past years. Now, 

 to make these country schools what they should be, it is not, in 

 my judgment, necessary that we reorganize our school system. We 

 should rather build on what we already have, and make such 

 changes from time to time as will strengthen our schools and make 

 them better adapted to modern conditions. Some of the changes, 

 how^ever, which I think will necessarily come in the character of 

 these schools are very important in their character. For example, 

 the course of study in our country schools has been one that has 

 tended to draw people away from the country into the city. That 

 has come about naturally enough, because the teachers in these 

 schools have mostly been educated along these lines w^hich are best 

 adapted to city conditions, and w^e must change that; w^e must bring 

 into these schools teachers in touch with country life; and coun- 

 try conditions, and we must so grade our schools that 

 they will tend to the promotion of country life, rather than be 

 the instrument for taking people as rapidly as possible away from 

 the country. 



There must be, and will come a general improvement in the 

 country elementary schools. There must be some regrouping to 

 make them more efficient. We have heard a great deal about the 

 consoilidation of schools. Now, there is no magic in that, and I do 

 4Dt[TthinkMit, is a panacea for the ills of our country schools, but 

 it'®rfemsi'to;me) that in thinking about that, we must face the situa- 

 tion as it is. 'If we could have the ungraded school with forty or 

 fifty fiicholar's as they ."used to have it in old days, and with a well- 

 bdiicatedl man as.-.tlve teaicher of that school, who had the power to 

 ib»pJreiilii9Tflipil^i».iid: direct them in useful lines, then we should 

 iu9)tyBeed)(td()]Tt)?op!(is«i[th3a± Im'^e re-group our schools, but, actually, 



