FIFTY MILLION STRONG 



the most important is that of the schools. So the Rural 



School will be considered first. 



* 



A. The Rural School 



The writer recently had the privilege of talking to an 

 elderly lady nearing the century mark whose mind is as clear 

 as a bell on the happenings of eighty-five and ninety years ago. 

 The principal topic of conversation was the country school. 

 In her youth America was a rural nation, and the few schools 

 of the open country and the schools of the towns and cities 

 were, in respect to their courses of study, very much the 

 same, the only difference being the time required to complete 

 the courses. Manufacture and industry played a minor part 

 in the national life in those days. The rule was thousands 

 of scattered units supplying the needs of the people. Rural 

 America and Urban America were one and the towns and cities 

 might have been designated trading points and commodity 

 clearing-houses for all the people. The work of the country 

 showed fully as much diversity as that of the town and city, 

 since the farmer was in those days both producer and manu- 

 facturer. Social intercourse was continuous. One never 

 heard of the lure of the city; the civilization of the nation 

 was distinctively a rural civilization. 



What a change this elderly lady has witnessed ! And one 

 of the unfortunate things respecting the change is that, 

 although all the schools of her youth fairly well met the 

 requirements of the nation, in the meantime the town and city 

 schools have made tremendous progress, adapting their 

 courses to the needs of the pupils, while the country schools 

 have lagged behind. Had the country schools gone forward 

 like the city schools there would not be today in Rural Amer- 

 ica a school problem that is engaging the attention of the 

 whole country, and life in the open country would be vastly 

 different if, in the passage of the years, the rural educa- 

 tional system had kept pace with that of Urban America. 



The schools of Urban America have advanced along three 

 very important lines. First, towns and cities have for years 

 vied with one another in the erection of school buildings con- 



