72 Missouri Agricultwal Report. 



come together from the ages of 6 to 14, and have the privilege of 

 the experience of those older and younger than themselves, is the 

 natural type of school for the person to attend during his growing 

 years; and it seems to me that this is one of the problems that is 

 of interest not only to farmers, not only to those who live in the 

 rural communities, but to those who are interested in American 

 civilization — this question of rural schools and what is to be done 

 about them. 



When I go to teachers' associations, I hear the discussions 

 turn on grading that school and keeping the records in that school, 

 and make it like the city schools, and I say to myself (although I 

 dare not say it aloud) they are forgetting that the rural school is 

 one that should be adapted to rural life and ought to be made better 

 adapted to rural life instead of trying to make it like the city 

 school. One of the best things I can remember in the old rural 

 school was the association with pupils older and younger than my- 

 self, and another great thing was the very fact that I was thrown 

 on my own responsibility, and was forced to work independently. 

 There was often only one or two persons in a class, and then the 

 teacher came into direct, sympathetic touch with the pupil. The 

 whole school was in a sense a class, and the pupils got individual 

 help, and I claim that the rural school, although more or less un- 

 graded and without system, even chaotic perhaps, is the most valu- 

 able place for the real, vital education of boyhood ; and it seems to 

 me that we ought to turn our attention first to improving the vital- 

 ity of our rural school without changing the whole organization. 



Another trouble with the rural school is that it has failed to 

 change and advance as the life on the farm has advanced. The 

 work in arithmetic, for instance, that I had in the rural school, was 

 based upon commercial methods and business activities that were 

 carried on in England about the time the American colonies were 

 planted, and arithmetic books of today are still to some extent 

 based upon such out of date methods and conditions entirely dif- 

 ferent from what they are today. 



It has not occurred, apparently, to the teachers, that the best 

 way to make the schools successful in the country districts is for 

 the teacher herself to understand country life and be in sympathy 

 v/ith it, and utilize the opportunities in the school hours to make 

 the pupils better able to interpret life around them. That is what 

 education is for. It is for the development and growth of minds, 

 but, as I understand it, it is also to provide an appreciation of the 

 life that is lived around us today ; and so the rural school, in order 



