74 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



closer sympathy with the life around them and enabling them to 

 understand it better. 



Another thing: Take the teaching of arithmetic. It is a 

 simple matter of fact that most people know enough about numbers 

 to be able to use arithmetical calculations if they would, but very 

 often they fail to do so, they fail to apply what they know to the 

 work that they are engaged in. Now, that comes naturally from 

 the fact that during their school years they did not learn how to 

 make use of what was taught them. How often in the rural school 

 will the pupil and teacher be found at work on problems that would 

 help farmers to understand whether a certain line of farming is 

 profitable? Now, I have known a farmer who did not know whether 

 certain lines of farming were profitable or not. You know, because 

 you have studied the matter. But I expect that some of you know 

 farmers who are carrying on lines of farming without ever having 

 made an estimate as to whether the cost of production is greater 

 or less than the returns. That may come from the fact that while 

 children at school, they never learned to make use of the principles 

 they were taught in arithmetic, whereas it is tlie most natural 

 thing in the world. That is what the school is intended for: To 

 enable the pupil to make use of these simple numbers in daily tasks. 

 If the community is one in which there is lumber and the manu- 

 facture of lumber is of fundamental importance, then the arithmet- 

 ical work should be directed toward that, and this will not tend 

 in the least to detract from its thoroughness, but will give it greater 

 significance. 



But the pupil in the rural school must also be taught what is 

 going on outside of his neighborhood. We don't want to have school 

 work confined to the activities in the country district, or in the city, 

 or in any particular community. The school must not confine its 

 operations to the conditions that affect its own community. The 

 pupil in the school needs to know something about the farming ac- 

 tivities and farming possibilities of other communities; he needs 

 to know something about where the articles he uses are manufac- 

 tured and made into the finished product, and he needs to know and 

 understand about transportation from one section to another. But 

 nevertheless, this simply* serves to show how important it is that 

 the school life should be centered in the community. I had an ex- 

 perience in teaching history in an ungraded school. There were 

 two boys in one class — twin brothers working together — and thev 

 were supposed to study colonial history. It is usual for a teacher 

 to begin teaching a subject by directing the pupils to get books. 



