CHAPTER VIII 



THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RURAL 

 SCHOOL 



THE country districts are slowly waking up to an 

 appreciation of the fact that within their bounds lie, 

 not only all the elements fundamental to the material 

 wealth of the world, but that they also contain in a 

 more or less dormant form all the essential factors of 

 intellectual and spiritual wealth. The rural school 

 is theoretically the best place on earth for the educa- 

 tion of the child, not only because of its close proxim- 

 ity to the sources of material wealth, but because of 

 the openness and comparative freedom of its sur- 

 roundings. Then, the country school is especially 

 effective as a place of instruction on account of its 

 happy relation to work and industry. Too often the 

 boys and girls of the town school go unwillingly to 

 their class rooms with the feeling that the lessons are 

 heavily imposed tasks. 



But in the typical country school the pupils are 

 young persons who have already experienced much of 

 the strain of work and who go somewhat eagerly to 

 the schoolroom, because it is in a sense recreative to 

 them, and because of their being in a position to see 



101 



