THE TRAINING OF FARMERS 



own country problems, but with the train- 

 ing of many persons who swell the popula- 

 tion of cities. The country school is within 

 the sphere of a very definite series of life 

 occupations. 



The subjects taught in the common run 

 of country schools are not the essentials; 

 the school does not represent or express 

 the community. I do not know that any 

 schools teach the essentials, except as in- 

 cidents or additions here and there, and 

 * (essentials cannot be taught incidentally or 

 accidentally. Arithmetic and like studies 

 are not essentials, but are means of getting 

 at or expressing the essentials. The first 

 effort of the school should be to teach per- 

 sons how to live. 



The present methods and subjects in the 

 rural schools have come to the schools 

 from the outside. If we begin the school 

 work with the child's own world, not with 

 a foreign world or with the child's world 

 as conceived of or remembered by the 

 teacher or the text-book maker, it is plain 

 that we have by that very effort started a 

 revolution. 



138 



