140 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



prepared to teach nature study or elementary agriculture. A school 

 garden should be maintained in connection with this school where the 

 practical work could be carried on. This would bring those prepared to 

 teach into sympathy with country life. They would bring to their work 

 in after years knowledge and inspiration, which is now very rarely found. 

 Nature study has been prated before the public for the last few years. 

 Much has been claimed for it, but I think it is generally conceded that so 

 far all efforts to introduce nature study into public school work have been 

 failures. The reason for this is easily discovered. Like every other sub- 

 ject, those giving instruction on this line must have preparation. We 

 might as well expect an instructor who had not learned the multiplication 

 table to give instruction in arithmetic as to expect a teacher to instruct 

 others in nature study who had not herself had thorough training in this 

 line. 



These schools should be able to turn out a class of teachers who would 

 be able to show country children the beauties with which they are sur- 

 rounded, and thus enable them to grow in sympathy more and more with 

 country life. One such training school in a county with a two-year course 

 should ordinarily have enrolled fifty students, twenty-five of whom would 

 graduate each year. Fifty such schools would turn out over twelve hun- 

 dred trained teachers each year for our rural schools. This is a large 

 number but it is doubtful whether it would supply the demand. Fifteen 

 hundred dollars from the State in addition to the part borne by the city 

 would seeiji to be an adequate sum for carrying on the work of each 

 school. 



Even if fifty schools were established the expense to the State would not 

 be greater than that now required to carry on a first class normal school. 

 If our country schools are to do the work which will be demanded of 

 them in the future, some such plan must be adopted. The time is fast 

 approaching when the country boy and girl will demand as good instruc- 

 tion as that given to the city cousin. If the State can afford to establish 

 normal schools to prepare teachers for our city schools, so can it afford 

 to assist training schools for rural teachers. It is a right which belongs 

 to the rural communities and thej should no longer delay in making their 

 needs known, and in applying for the help which this State has so gener- 

 ously given to other educational enterprises. 



There is a bill before our legislature authorizing the establishment of 

 a country training school somewhat along the lines indicated in this 

 paper. It should receive the support of every farmers' organization, and 

 every supporter of our rural schools. 



In the past too many of our young people have left the farm home at the 

 first opportunity because a higher life could be found in villages and 

 cities. Many farmers have abandoned their homes and sought residence 

 in the city because of better school facilities. With better trained teach- 

 ers our country schools would render as high a degree of usefulness as 

 our city schools, and would tend, more than any other one thing, to 

 bring to our rural communities those educational advantages the lack 

 of which in the past have been the most serious objection to country life. 



