CHAPTER XVI 



WHAT SCHOOLING SHOULD THE COUNTRY 

 BOY HAVE? 



IT is a well-known fact that rural life conditions 

 have been changing rapidly within the past decade 

 or more. It has taken us a long while to get away 

 from the thought that the farmer is to be anything 

 other than merely a plain, coarse man, comparatively 

 uneducated and innocent of the ways of the world. 

 But we are at last seeing the light in respect to this 

 and many another such traditional belief of a men- 

 acing nature. We are now looking forward ex- 

 pectantly to the time when the rural community 

 shall contain its proportionate share of people 

 educated or cultured in the full sense of either of 

 these words. 



CHANGES IN RURAL SCHOOL CONDITIONS 



Many of those now in middle life can easily 

 remember when the farmer boy was sent to school 

 only during the time when his services were not 

 required for the performance of the work about the 

 field and the home. This period was narrowed down 

 to about three months in the year. After the 

 corn was husked in the fall, he entered school, usually 



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