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COLLEGE OFjL A6?UCULTU<? 

 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 



TEACHERS' COTTAGES. 



THE PROBLEM IN RURAL EDUCATION. 



The Superintendent of Public Instruction of the state of Wash- 

 ington, Mrs. Josephine Corliss Preston, states a vital problem in a 

 few words, when she says : 



"The greatest problem in education today is the rural 

 school. The greatest need is for teachers with initiative, leader- 

 ship, experience, high ideas, character, broad sympathy and 

 education. Where shall we get them?" 



There are more than 200,000 rural school districts in the United 

 States, and over 16,000,000 children of school age who either live 

 in the country or in towns of less than 2,500 population. In a large 

 number of these districts it is absolutely impossible to get and keep 

 teachers of the character so well stated by Mrs. Preston. Practically 

 one-third of the rural teachers in the United States have had no 

 professional preparation for their work. An examination of the 

 conditions quickly shows the reasons for the acknowledged failure 

 of rural education to keep pace with the progress in city schools. 



In the usual country school district, no residence is supposed 

 to be beyond walking distance from the schoolhouse. However, it 

 is very largely a matter of chance as to whether any of the scattered 

 farm houses are close enough to the school to be convenient for the 

 teacher, and a still greater matter of chance as to whether a farm 

 house so located has room enough to take care of a teacher, or occu- 

 pants who desire a boarder. Many farm houses have no accommo- 

 dations whatever for a teacher, and often kitchen, living room, and 

 dining-room are combined in one, with no heat in any other room 

 in the house. The farmer and his family have to spend most of their 

 time working indoors or out, eating and sleeping. Their occupa- 

 tions and hours of labor in no way correspond to those of the teacher, 

 which increases the difficulty of fitting the teacher 's necessary habits 

 to those of the farmer w r ith any satisfaction to either. A good 

 teacher must spend a considerable amount of time almost every 

 evening upon school work, for which a quiet, comfortable room is 

 essential. If she insists upon such a room when she goes to board 

 in the country she is likely to be considered "stack-up" and exclu- 

 sive. If she gets a room by herself it is often unheated and too un- 

 comfortable for study in cold weather. On the other hand, if she 

 is forced to spend her entire time in the living room with the rest 

 of the family she has no opportunity to prepare properly for her 

 school duties, and is also very likely to be drawn unavoidably into 

 neighborhood gossip and factional disputes, of which unfortunately 

 there are altogether too many. Many of the better situated fami- 

 lies in the country districts who have the facilities, do not care to 



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