434 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



When we learn that the township lines sometimes stand in the way 

 of the development of efficient secondary education, when we learn 

 that the high school or vocational school of the open country must 

 be a school which serves a certain community instead of a set area 

 of land, then and only then, as I see it, will we have a school that will 

 not only equal the good high school of the city, but, in some cases, 

 surpass it, because we have facilities in the country, when we once 

 learn to make use of them, that the city will never have. The joint 

 school of the country, as it will prove to be in many cases, will give 

 us a high school or a vocational school of such size that we may have a 

 faculty of four, five, six or seven teachers in this particular group. 



The faculty in the vocational school in one of tlie west central coun- 

 ties. In this group are three college graduates, one man trained in 

 agriculture, a man who was born and raised on a farm and a man who 

 has had teaching experience, a man who is a graduate of our State Col- 

 lege of Agriculture, and two of the others were especially trained 

 along the lines of music and drawing. We can never hope to get a 

 faculty of that size, having the training and ability I have just men- 

 tioned, in our small, third class high schools. Splendid work has 

 been done by the school districts in the country, don't misunder- 

 stand me; splendid work has been done in the development of the 

 high schools of this State but it is only a beginning, it is a step 

 towards something else still better. This is a group of students in a 

 secondary school of higher vocational education. Schools like this 

 right out in the open country will make some things possible that 

 never will be possible in any one teacher third grade high school. 



It seems to me that if we are going to have well trained teachers 

 in the country, there are two or three things at least that are vital. 

 In the first place, we must pay such salaries that we can attract and 

 demand well trained teachers, teachers that are trained for this line of 

 work, prepared for this line of work. The compensation must be 

 adequate enough to hold the good teachers, those that prove them- 

 selves to be successful; and third, we must have teaching conditions 

 attractive enough at least to hold the teacliers in the country. What 

 the country needs all teachers who know the needs of the country, 

 who understand conditions, v>'ho have lived in the country, who will 

 come out in the country and live there, not board there, not stay just 

 during the day, but who will come out and live in the community and 

 become one of the people. I believe that is essential. There are those 

 educational leaders who believe that in order to get this we shall 

 have to provide homes for our teachers. That may be a disputed 

 question at the present time; I merely call your attention to it. 



This happens to represent a home belonging to a school district and 

 the Board of School Directors have placed this home at the disposal 

 of the principal of a consolidated school. Now there are some people 

 who may think that in a public school the teaching of agriculture 

 is more or less new. I want to again emphasize the fact that agricul- 

 ture as it is being taught in our schools, is no newer than the need, 

 the realization of the need for agricultural information. In 1825, 

 there was an agricultural school established in Maine; in the year 

 1916 agriculture is taught in the public schools of every state; it is 

 taught in over two thousand high schools in Pennsylvania; it is 

 taught in twenty -one counties on a vocational basis. I realize, as well 



