THE COUNTRY SCHOOL 349 



as the demand on the district is, the liability is limited to three 

 dollars and fifty cents a month, any amount in excess of this de- 

 volving on the pupil. 



But even where the rural district freely pays the tuition in 

 the town high school, such a situation is far from satisfactory. 

 The high school training afforded rural children should be in 

 rural high schools arid not in town and city schools. Not only 

 in curriculum but in spirit and in teaching, the rural high school 

 should represent the life and activities of the farm. If the rural 

 high school is to maintain an adequate standard of efficiency, 

 if it is to serve its patronage aright, it must take into its pro- 

 gram of studies training in the concrete affairs awaiting its 

 graduates. There are at present more than two thousand public 

 and private high schools in the United States teaching agricul- 

 ture, but comparatively few of these have actual country environ- 

 ment, most of them being situated in towns and cities. Such 

 is also true of the more than one hundred special agricultural 

 schools of secondary grade 'located in seventeen different states. 

 While the agricultural ^courses taught in the city school are val- 

 uable as educational material and well worth while from the 

 standpoint of general culture and development, yet of neces- 

 sity they lack the vitality and concreteness possessed by similar 

 courses taught with an immediate environment of farm life and 

 conditions. In the reorganization of rural education that is now 

 going on, therefore, there must be definite provision for the in- 

 stallation of high schools as a part of the rural system. 



The rural high school is a natural outgrowth of the movement 

 toward consolidation. It need hardly be argued that the one- 

 room school can never support a high school course, nor ought 

 it under any circumstances to undertake the teaching of high 

 school branches, except in rare instances where a number of the 

 elementary grades are lacking from want of younger children 

 in attendance. It has been almost uniformly found that the 

 consolidating of a number of elementary schools into one school 

 has brought about a demand for the introduction of high school 

 subjects. Hence a large majority of the fully consolidated 

 schools are now offering two or even four years of high-school 

 work. Not a few of the consolidated rural schools in Indiana, 

 Ohio and many other states, are fully equal in the scope and 



