348 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



length of service in the same community. This is only fair, 

 since teachers of the right sort will unquestionably grow in 

 value to the community year by year. (2) The entire school 

 plant should be reconstructed to answer present needs and be 

 attractive and sanitary. This would be another inducement for 

 the teacher to spend his best years in the open country. (3) 

 The community should be obliged by legal enactment to erect 

 a teacher's cottage close by the modern school building and pref- 

 erably upon the same grounds. (4) Teachers' colleges, normal 

 schools, and other schools with teacher-training classes should 

 be encouraged to organize distinct departments in rural life and 

 rural teaching, from which to draw teachers prepared and will- 

 ing to undertake work in the new farm schools. 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 1 



GEORGE H. BETTS AND OTIS E. HALL 



WILLINGNESS of the rural community to provide high school 

 education for its youth is one of the first tests of its right to 

 the loyalty of the young people. The four years of school 

 privileges above the elementary grades now so generally avail- 

 able to urban children must be similarly open to country boys 

 and girls, else we can not blame them for deserting the farms 

 for the better educational opportunities afforded by the town. 

 The high school must be free and must be accessible to the boys 

 and girls of the farm. 



The high school is not yet free to the majority of rural chil- 

 dren, even if they are willing to go to town for their high school 

 training. In many states the rural youth must himself pay a 

 tuition of from three to five dollars a month if he attends the 

 nearest town high school. His district disclaims all responsibility 

 for his education after he completes the elementary school. Some 

 states, as Iowa, for example, have recently provided that grad- 

 uates of rural schools may attend the nearest high school, the 

 district to pay the tuition fees. But in the Iowa law, reasonable 



i Adapted from "Better Rural Schools," pp. 258-202. The Bobbs-Mer- 

 rill Company, Indianapolis, 1914. 



