FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 37 



We have teachers' institutes, and they are good so far as they go; but 

 these things have not solved the problem, so what we are trying to do is 

 to establish country training schools for teachers. Two such schools 

 have been in existence two years, and by next fall we will have six. Each 

 one of these schools is for a single county and admits students only from 

 that county. Each school gives a year's course of study in the art of 

 teaching. The county furnishes the books. Many of these pupils live at 

 home and drive to the school exery day. Most of the schools are located 

 in towns where board and lodging are obtained at a low figure. The 

 schools give training in the common school branches, and aim to fit teach- 

 ers for country school teaching. The experiment has gone far enough 

 to prove to us beyond all question that the plan is a success. In the two 

 counties where the schools have been established for two years, the 

 schools are supplying enough graduates each year to fill the needs of 

 those counties, and the boards of education now" appreciate the value of 

 this training, and actually will not employ any teachers for the district 

 schools unless they are graduates of these normal training schools. 

 In other words, the normal training school of the county is supplying 

 all the new teachers for the rural schools of the county. These counties 

 have the best class of teachers they have ever had. 



We are also trying in Wisconsin to consolidate schools. The legis- 

 lature makes a grant directly to graded schools that are not connected 

 with high schools. We have established 280 such schools recently. As 

 an inducement to consolidation. flOO of state money is furnished yearly 

 to a two-room school and |200 to a three-room school. 



There is another important fact to which I wish to call your attention, 

 and that is the fact that today country school pupils are mere children. 

 In one case in Wisconsin out of eighteen schools visited, we found that 

 practically all of the pupils were only twelve years old or younger. Only 

 two, I think, in these eighteeu schools were over that age. Why is this? 

 Are the older pupils in the high schools of the towns and cities? No, 

 they are not. Our statistics show that only 3 or 4 per cent of the total 

 enrollment of the country schools are non-resident pupils in the city 

 schools. We have to face the fact that most country pupils stop their 

 school attendance at twelve years old, but in the towns and cities they go 

 on to much further than this. 



One of the important tilings in connection with this whole subject is 

 that of arousing public opinion so that farmers may realize that their 

 children are being sent out with inadequate equipment. I confess that as 

 educators we have not heretofore reached the farmers with educational 

 questions. We are trying to do this in Wisconsin. We are trying to make 

 farmers see that education pays. We even talk education on the dollar 

 and cent basis, and we are having no difficulty in arousing the interest of 

 farmers, many of whom drive for miles to listen to discussions on edu- 

 cational topics. 



You are doubtless aware that there is a demand in many states for the 

 teaching of the elements of agriculture in the rural schools. I agree 

 with the advocates of this plan in their criticism of present school work, 

 I am free to admit that much of our public school work both in the 

 primary schools and in the high schools is not of sufficient practical value, 

 or of sufficient training value. I like to divide people into about four 

 classes; people who think and never do anything; people who never think 

 about what they are doing; people who never think or never do anything; 



