THE COUNTRY SCHOOL 341 



We must fall back upon the rural school as the only agency 

 which fulfills all the fundamental conditions necessary to equip 

 it for the work of educating the rural population up to the new 

 requirements of country life in our day. The rural school, under 

 proper conditions as to organization and curriculum, should be 

 able to give this information most effectively to the largest num- 

 ber and in the shortest time. Therefore all reforms of the rural 

 school should aim directly or indirectly at functionalizing its 

 curriculum. The changes which might be immediately brought 

 about in the rural school's course of study, without arousing un- 

 necessary opposition or disturbance, are three in number. 



1. Certain of the old and well established subjects, such as 

 arithmetic, grammar (language study), biology (nature study), 

 geography and physiology (sanitation and hygiene), should be 

 brought down to practical and local application. Educational 

 theory as applied to the rural community has already gone this 

 far. It is only necessary to infuse the political state educational 

 administrations with the knowledge of the desirability of this 

 change to make it fairly effective, and there is some cause for 

 encouragement in believing that this desired end may be at- 

 tained even before politics is eradicated from these state educa- 

 tional administrations. Some text-books and teaching outlines 

 looking in this direction have already been prepared in each of 

 the subjects mentioned. The general effect of such a change 

 would be to bring the formal instruction of many of the standard 

 courses in the rural school into direct and functional contact 

 with the techniques of the occupation of farming. Nor would 

 any general or cultural educational values adhering to these sub- 

 jects be lost, for the general underlying principles of knowledge 

 in each would of course remain the same. Only the illustrative 

 material would change. 



2. The courses mentioned above can at their best be made to 

 deal only with the techniques of production and sanitation. 

 They can not be made to reach over into the constructive eco- 

 nomic and social activities of country life. 



At present there are no courses in the country school which 

 perform this wide function, and such courses must be introduced. 

 The knowledge for which there is now the most crying need in 

 the rural community is that which will enable the farmer to 



