592 EXPERIMENT STATION RECOED. [Vol. 36 



His analysis reveals the fact that the increase of 11,826,000 for the urban 

 districts consisted of 924,000 persons added by incorporation, 4,849,000 by immi- 

 gration, 3,637,000 by rural migration, and 2,426,000 by natural increase. The 

 increase of 4,151,000 in the rural districts was due to additions by migration 

 of 1,290,000 and a natural increase of 2,861,000. 



Some ecouom.ic factors which influence rural education in Wisconsin, E, 

 IMeisritt and K. L. Hatch {Wisconsin Sta. Research Bui. 40 (1916), pp. 51, 

 fiijs. 20). — In this study, conducted in cooperation with the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, it was found that the number of farms in the northern portion 

 of the State were increasing while in the southern portion there was a decrease 

 in the number, the decrease being due to the elimination of farms containing 

 between 20 and 99 acres. The size of the farm family was decreasing, due to 

 the fact that the rural population contained a smaller percentage of those of 

 foreign birth than formerly. 



In the extreme northern and southern parts of the State there were a large 

 number of schools which had an enrollment of 15 pupils or less. Apparently 

 these small schools in the southern part of the State were results of not only 

 a decrease in the number of farms but also in the size of the farm family. In 

 the northern portion of the State the small school was due to the sparse settle- 

 ment of the rural districts. 



An effort was made to ascertain the relationship between tenantry and rural 

 education. It was found that there were two classes of tenants in Wisconsin, 

 those who are related to the owners of the farms and those who are not. The 

 former, as a rule, are a more or less permanent class in a community and 

 therefore have a vital interest in the system of education which is being 

 developed. It was found also that the percentage of the total farmers who 

 were tenants and married a specified number of years decreased as the number 

 of years married increased. In other words, there is a ladder by which the 

 tenant farmer passes from the tenant class into that of the farm owner. Since 

 the tenant, as a rule, has been married a smaller number of years than the 

 owner, he naturally has a smaller number of children and a large proportion 

 of them are not of school age. 



In the study of the school attendance it was found that the city children 

 vvere attending school in relatively greater numbers than rural children between 

 the ages of 6 and 14, while the reverse was true for those between 15 and 20 

 years of age. The economic conditions under which the country boy and girl 

 live apparently enable them to attend school in larger numbers in the more 

 advanced years, whereas the smaller cliildren in rural districts are unable to 

 attend on account of the distance that many of them live from the schools and 

 the poor conditicm of many of the country roads. 



The system of education carried on by the public schools and the extension 

 department of the agricultural college was found to provide no training for the 

 boy after he left school until he takes up farming on his own account. This 

 period is generally between the ages of 18 and 25. The returns also indicated 

 that the girls were leaving farms faster than the boys, and that the children 

 were leaving the smaller farms faster than those living on the larger ones. 



Data as to the value of a high-school education indicated that it was a good 

 investment for the farmer. It also paid the boy who intended ultimately to be 

 a farmer to stick by the farm rather than to engage in another occupation. 



Additional information was obtained to ascertain what were the sources of 

 incentive to adopt the more progressive agricultural practices, labor incomes 

 of farmers with different types of education, costs of instruction in difTerent 

 types of agricultural schools, etc. 



