CHAPTER III 



EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY ON THE FARM 



More and more we are coming to believe 

 that the rural district schools offer but few op- 

 poi'tunities for educating the farmers' children. 

 Various schemes have been recommended for 

 providing better and more convenient educa- 

 tional facilities. One proposition is first to 

 improve the principal highways. This, it is 

 thought, will make it possible to run 'buses or 

 carriages twice daily to transport the children to 

 and from some centrally located graded school. 

 Such schemes are usually proposed by some one 

 who has seldom seen a country school -house and 

 who is totally unacquainted with the conditions 

 which prevail in rural communities. 



Admitting, for the sake of comparison, that 

 teacher and pupil in the country are not so far 

 advanced in book- lore as they are in the city, 

 how does it happen that the country youths are 

 able to maintain themselves on an educational 

 level with the pupils of the graded schools when 

 they meet them in the academy and college ? Is 

 it not quite possible that the wide opportunities 



(43) 



