102 The Transformation of the Rural School 



more clearly what substantial training is to mean to 

 them in the future. That is to say, a distinctive 

 difference between the typical country child and the 

 typical city child is this : the former believes that he 

 is pursuing the course of instruction in a more volun- 

 tary spirit and for the sake of his own personal in- 

 terests and upbuilding, while the latter is inclined 

 to feel that he is performing the school tasks for the 

 sake of some one else and because of the strict re- 

 quirements of outside force or law. 



RADICAL CHANGES IN THE VIEW-POINT AND METHOD 



But if the theoretic worth of the rural school is 

 to be made at all actual, some very radical changes in 

 view-point and method must come to pass. First 

 of all, we must keep asking the question, What is 

 education for ? And perhaps we must accept the 

 answer that in its best form education serves the 

 higher needs and requirements of the life we are 

 trying to live to-day. In case of rural teachers and 

 parents it has been too common a practice to urge 

 the child on in his lesson-getting with the statement, 

 or at least the suggestion, that lessons well mastered 

 in time furnish a guarantee of a life of comparative 

 ease and freedom from heavy toil. The sermonette 

 preached to the boy in this situation is too often 

 substantially as follows : " Go on, my boy, master 

 your lessons, pass up through the grades, and be 

 graduated. Behold So and So, a great captain of 



