STUDENTS AND THE RFKAL PROBLEM 21!) 



your youth may have been spent in the country. One 

 does not know forestry because he roamed the woods 

 in childhood with delight. A knowledge of the rural 

 social status — of depletion, for example — is not instinc- 

 tively acquired. Residence in the country does not 

 nmke one an adept in the social psychology of rural 

 life, in isolation and its results, for example. '' How 

 can even rural teachers learn to appreciate the social 

 function of the rural school, except they be taught ?" 



Your work calls for knowledije of the forces which 

 make or mar country life. You need to know the coun- 

 try's needs, to recognize the less patent as well as the 

 apparent ones. What, for instance, is lacking that so 

 many of our country boys take so little interest in school 

 studies ( What are the successive unmet needs indi- 

 cated in these verses: 



Poor wee Sandy, he wanted to play, 

 But the bairns on the village green warned him away, 

 For Sandy was always more ragged than they — 

 Fearful wee, tearful wee Sandy! 



Poor boy Sandy, alack and alas! 

 At school he was always the dunce of the class; 

 " That thick-hoad''d laddio no standard could pass " — 

 Cowering, glowering Sandy. 



Poor lad Sandy, he never could learn 

 Any buslnf-Hs by which he a living might earn; 

 And the world with her weak ones is angry and stern — 

 Wondering, blundering Sandy. ♦ 



What would play luivo done to briirhtcii, })rightnes8 to 

 educate, education to employ, unhelped Sandy? 



And you (iced to know the country's wealth. Say 



• Anonymous, In " Social Advance," by David Watson, p. 252. 



