360 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



higher state authorities to fulfill its function properly. But if the 

 church, being a voluntary institution, should happen to have in 

 its membership the more enlightened and progressive part of the 

 community, it may begin a work of social regeneration which 

 would be impossible for the school. But, of course, if the church 

 should be in the control of the least intelligent and least pro- 

 gressive part of the community, as is sometimes the case, it 

 possesses all the disadvantages and none of the advantages 

 of the school. 



The country school is, of course, primarily an educational 

 institution, and as such must give its attention mainly to in- 

 struction in certain conventional subjects which the world has 

 come to regard as the necessary basis of an education, or as the 

 essentials of a preparation for life. Remembering always that 

 every kind of- productive work is social service, we need have 

 no difficulty in seeing that the first duty of the school is to fit 

 its students for individual success in some line of production, 

 and that the line for which the rural school is best fitted to pre- 

 pare its pupils is agricultural production. But inasmuch as our 

 present purpose is not to discuss the general problem of rural 

 education, but only to consider how the rural school may be 

 made a factor in developing a more wholesome and agreeable 

 social life in the country, we need not consider the rural-school 

 curriculum. 



There is already an admirable interest in the school as a 

 means of developing patriotism. The flag raisings, the celebra- 

 tion of national holidays, the reading of patriotic literature, the 

 memorizing of national classics, all are excellent, and show how 

 thoroughly awake our people are to some of the broader aspects 

 of the problem. Much remains yet to be done, however, in 

 giving definiteness and concreteness to the patriotic sentiments 

 which we are trying to develop. It is one thing to develop 

 patriotism as an abstract virtue ; it is quite a different thing to 



