RURAL AMERICA 



planting and other facts connected with the garden. Thus 

 arises the necessity for reading and writing. The recipes in 

 the school kitchen, and the directions of the day, written on 

 the blackboard, serve as reading lessons. On the library table 

 are displayed attractive books that deal with the things the 

 children are studying in the gardens and on the play-grounds. 

 The child who has been watching the mocking-bird build a 

 nest in the peach tree eagerly reads the bird primer. The 

 group that has found a cocoon and has watched the butterfly 

 emerge from it, listens attentively to the story from the but- 

 terfly book. In that school the school-house is like a country 

 home, with its gardens, its kitchen, its shop and its living 

 room. Much of the day the children spend in the open air, 

 either in the garden itself, or on the big piazza. In the shop 

 there is a little formal manual training, but with simple tools 

 the boys and girls make the things needed in their work. In 

 the kitchen the luncheon for the children and teacher is pre- 

 pared and cooked during the progress of the school day. 

 Much of the food is produced in the garden, and the children 

 thus study all the processes connected with its production 

 and preparation." * 



The same writer concludes his article with the two following 

 paragraphs : 



" The new country school will always have an auditorium 

 that may be used as a community meeting place. There the 

 school gives its entertainments; the community literary so- 

 ciety, the farmers' organization, and the women's clubs meet 

 there; in it are held the lyceum attractions that are gradually 

 spreading into the country districts. In addition to its grounds 

 and gardens, the country school will have its experimental 

 and demonstration plots, under the direction of the principal 

 and the teacher of agriculture, and there the farmers of 

 the community will meet at intervals for conference and 

 instruction. 



" The school farm will be tilled with the help of the school 

 horses that pull the wagons in which the children are brought 



1 W. K. Tate, " The New Country School," p. 4. 



51 



