SCHOOLS AND FARMING 



the country school that has not been seen. 

 The country school has not even begun to 

 fulfil its mission. Hitherto all schools 

 have been alike, city, country, and town. 

 Their province has not been to educate, to 

 develop boys and girls into men and women, 

 but simply to impart facts of arithme- 

 tic, geography, and history. The coun- 

 try has had such schools, but they have 

 never recognized their distinctive environ- 

 ment or let it make any difference in their 

 mode of procedure. They have never real- 

 ized that their problem is a distinct one, 

 nor that the means are peculiar. The far- 

 mers could not solve the problem: they 

 have their own work to do, and it is not 

 their business; and educators have wor- 

 shiped tradition so long that it has been 

 almost impossible for them to look fairly 

 and squarely at the nature, conditions, en- 

 vironment, and needs of a child and let 

 these determine the process and means of 

 education. 



"Now, with the school as the center of 

 township life, economic, social, and educa- 

 tional interests can work out the solution 

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