754 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 



powerful factor in rural progress. The Grange is, perhaps, too con- 

 servative in its administrative policy. It has not at least succeeded 

 in converting to its fold the farmers of the great Mississippi Valley. 

 But it has workable machinery, it disavows partisan politics and 

 selfish class interests, and it subordinates financial benefits, while 

 emphasizing educational and broadly political advantages. It 

 seems fair to interpret the principles of the Grange as wholly in line 

 with the premise of this paper, that the farmers need to preserve their 

 status, politically, industrially, and socially, and that organization 

 is one of the fundamental methods they must use. The Grange, 

 therefore, deserves to succeed, and indeed is succeeding. 



The field of agricultural organization is an extensive one. But 

 if the farm problem is to be satisfactorily solved, the American 

 farmers must first secure reasonably complete organization. 



Rural Education 



It is hardly necessary to assert that the education of that por- 

 tion of the American people who live upon the land involves a 

 question of the greatest significance. The subject naturally divides 

 itself into two phases, one of which may be designated as rural 

 education proper, the other as agricultural education. Rural 

 education has to do with the education of people, more especially of 

 the young, who live under rural conditions; agricultural education 

 aims to prepare men and women for the specific vocation of agricul- 

 ture. The rural school typifies the first; the agricultural school, the 

 second. Rural education is but a section of the general school 

 question; agricultural education is a branch of technical training. 

 These two phases of the education of the farm population meet at 

 many points, they must work in harmony, and together they form 

 a distinct educational problem. 



The serious difficulties in the rural school question are perhaps 

 three: first, to secure a modern school, in efficiency somewhat com- 

 parable to the town school, without unduly increasing the school 

 tax; second, so to enrich the curriculum and so to expand the 

 functions of the school that the school shall become a vital and 

 coherent part of the community life, on the one hand translating 

 the rural environment into terms of character and mental efficiency, 

 and on the other hand serving perfectly as a stepping-stone to the 

 city schools and to urban careers; third, to provide adequate high- 

 school facilities in the rural community. 



The centralization of district schools and the transportation of 

 pupils will probably prove to be more nearly a solution of all these 

 difficulties than will any other one scheme. The plan permits the 

 payment of higher wages for teachers and ought to secure better 



