Live Stock Breeders' Associoiion. 71 



certain phase of the activities that were formerly carried on, and 

 they get in return for the products of the soil the manufactured 

 i^rticles that are made for them sometimes in remote parts. 



As I can not speak to you this morning in regard to any topic 

 that directly affects the work of tilling the soil, or the rearing of 

 stock, in any way that would be interesting or enlightening, I am 

 going to say a word about the rural school, a subject which I know 

 is of interest to you, because you are also educators. We are all 

 educators — all interested in the development of youth. Our eco- 

 nomical activities, and the economic results of our labors will, after 

 all, turn in the main in the direction of rearing and educating chil- 

 dren, and as I had my first experience as a teacher in a rural 

 school, I want to take a moment to call your attention to some prob- 

 lems that we are facing in that phase of our rural activities and 

 rural life. 



The rural school, at one time, was counted the typical and 

 natural school, and I claim that it is still. Education began in the 

 home or perhaps at times it was even less formal than that, but 

 was brought about through the plays of the children — carried on 

 at moments when not busy with something else ; but with the earli- 

 est dawn of civilization the family had to begin the education of 

 the children, and they got in the home the best and most funda- 

 mental training. 



The next step, where the community grew large enough for 

 the people to wish to unite, and when civilization advanced enough 

 so that the family could not carry on all the education of the chil- 

 dren, then a few families united to employ a teacher and bring him 

 mto the community. He boarded around from house to house and 

 was, as it were, a representative of the families that had united. 

 My older brothers went to a school of that sort, and I can remem- 

 ber hearing my father tell of how they had employed a teacher and 

 paid him $8 a pupil, and that he came into the community when a 

 certain number of pupils were guaranteed him, and he lived from 

 house to house. 



The next kind of school was the rural school to which every- 

 one in reach of the school could send a pupil whether they could 

 pay anything or not. Our city schools, with their graded system, 

 with two or three different stages in the first grade and two or 

 three for each of the grades, making in all 16 or 17 grades — all 

 that is a product of recent times, and I want to say I think the city 

 school as usually organized, is abnormal. As the family is the 

 natural educational institution, so the rural school, where boys 



