EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 345 



tively greater than in more populous states. The 

 population having more than doubled in the last 

 twenty years (Chapter IV), the popular demand 

 for vocational training having been met as far as 

 possible and the compulsory requirement that all 

 youth shall attend schools until sixteen years of age 

 are among the fundamental facts which constitute 

 a demonstration that California must make new pro- 

 visions of equipment and expenditure to justify and 

 maintain her old standards of State policy in public 

 instruction. 



What these standards have been in the past and 

 especially the relations to rural life of the chief char- 

 acteristics of the public school system are pictur- 

 esquely outlined by the late Edward Hyatt, Super- 

 intendent of Public Instruction 1907 to 1919, as 

 follows : 



"The most striking characteristic of California 

 schools, perhaps, lies in the provision and care of 

 the children in the remote rural regions. No moun- 

 tain top is too inaccessible to have its school ; no plain 

 too distant; no sage brush desert too far removed. 

 Where half a dozen children dwell there you will find 

 a district school. And mark this : this remote school, 

 so far away, so small, so weak has a standard school 

 house, a standard teacher, a standard equipment and 

 a standard length of term. There will be eight or 

 nine months of school in a year. The teacher will 

 have the same education and the same certification 

 as in the proudest city. The books, apparatus and 

 other educational appliances will be of the same 



