THE SOCIAL SIDE OF FARM LIFE 395 



The deficiencies of the country school have been generally 

 perceived, and the remedies are fast being applied. One 

 question, however, still remains unanswered: whether the 

 larger country school of the consolidated graded type shall be 

 organized with little regard to the larger community of business, 

 or whether it shall be an integral part of a community system, 

 leading up to a community high school offering vocational 

 courses. Perhaps this undetermined question is fundamentally 

 a problem of democracy, and may be stated thus : shall the farm 

 child grow up in an educational democracy, or shall he be 

 trained in a group of farm children, somewhat aloof from the 

 children of tradespeople, artisans, professional people? 



It may be that the country school which shall be organized 

 with respect to natural population grouping will be found to be a 

 school of large neighborhood, and contain only, or quite largely, 

 farm children ; but it may also be found that it is wholly within 

 one business community, and is correlated with a local commu- 

 nity high school. 



The problem of educational organization will have one im- 

 portant question to determine, namely, whether the farmers' 

 high school shall be apart in the open country, or whether it shall 

 be democratic and be located in a town center. Both farmers 

 and townsmen are parties to this problem. The nation demands 

 workable democracies; but it also demands that each class of 

 workers shall be so protected that neither they nor their work 

 shall suffer. If a democratic high school can be operated so 

 as to be fair at every point to farming as an occupation, and to 

 farm people as a class, then a high school in town will be no 

 more objectionable than a bank in town. But if such a high 

 school shall act practically as a sponge to take up the children 

 from the land and squeeze them into the city for life, then a 

 high school in the country will be the chosen alternative. 



Business institutions. How far can the farm get on without 

 the traditional mechanisms of economic exchange? Is the 

 retail town a necessity for farming? Or could farmers better 

 do with the mechanisms of a metropolitan trade center, mail 

 agencies, parcels post, express, freight? These are questions 



