no THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



But it would be absolutely mischievous to plan the rural 

 school system on such a basis as to direct all the boys 

 and girls back to the farm and to make it difficult or 

 impossible for them to compete with the city boy or 

 girl in other professions and occupations of life. One 

 reason for introducing agriculture into the grades of 

 the country schools is the educational value of using 

 the surroundings of the pupil as a means of education. 

 Natural scenery, the business of the community, prob- 

 lems of the adults, are the real materials of education. 

 The pupil is to be encouraged to ask questions about 

 these things, to get the meaning of them, to see if he 

 himself has any relation to such questions. It is fre- 

 quently asserted that the course of study and the text 

 books used in the country schools are of such a charac- 

 ter that the pupils are becoming interested in the prob- 

 lems of the city rather than the problems of the coun- 

 try; many teachers in the country schools are them- 

 selves looking toward the city. This is a sound crit- 

 icism, but the remedy may be carried too far. An 

 assumption that the schooling of the country boy and 

 girl should merely train for life in the country is disas- 

 trous. If one were required to choose between a coun- 

 try school that gave a first class general education, but 

 with no agriculture, and a technical or vocational course 

 without the facilities of a general education, there 

 would be no hesitation in the decision. Far more im- 

 portant than a specialized training for agriculture, is a 

 real, thorough, vital education. Fortunately we need 

 not be obliged to make such a choice, because a really 

 good system of rural education will include an ample 

 amount of training for the business of agriculture, and 

 a good training for farming will not neglect to teach the 

 pupils that man does not live by bread alone. 



