Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 301 



REPORT OF SESSION DEVOTED TO THE RURAL 

 SCHOOL AND THE FARM HOME. 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM. 



(R. H. Emberson, Department of Rural Education, University of Missouri.) 



People are beginning to realize that there is a country school 

 problem. Before much can be done in the way 

 of improvement, the actual conditions of these 

 schools, their inefficiency, their failure to meet 

 community needs, must first be made known. 

 One of the most difficult things to accomplish is 

 to get people to realize that these schools have 

 not kept pace in the general progress of the 

 country; as educational institutions they are in 

 a state of arrested development. 



The rural school of pioneer days served its 



Prof. Emberson. 



purpose. Then the mother m the home and the 

 father on the farm gave instruction in practical economics and 

 manual training. Under those conditions the "three R's" were 

 sufficient, as the real training in life was imparted in the home. 



That the rural school does not meet the demands of modern 

 conditions must be evident to everyone who has given the matter 

 any consideration. With the coming of scientific inventions and 

 scientific farming it has ceased to hold its place as an educational 

 and social factor. Farmers are interested in good roads, rotation of 

 crops, maintaining the fertility of the soil and improving the breeds 

 of live stock, but it is very seldom that a community is vitally inter- 

 ested in building up the rural school. 



No one favors consolidation of rural schools more than myself. 

 I have advocated this plan in season and out of season and have 

 worked with untiring energy for such organizations. I challenge 

 anyone to show a more active interest in the matter of consolidation 

 than myself. "Yet, I am frank to say that there is still a place for 

 the one-room rural school. If these schools could be housed in 

 comfortable buildings, given good equipment and a good well- 

 trained teacher they could do much to prepare the children for 

 their place in modern life. 



In order to arrive at a more definite understanding of the 

 conditions of the rural schools of this State I recently sent out 250 



