246 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



eral policy in research, in relating parts of the system to 

 one another and to the whole, and particularly in ex- 

 tension teaching. But bureaucratic methods should be 

 avoided and the widest liberty recognized as a right of 

 the local establishment. 



The rural school system needs a complete overhaul- 

 ing. First of all, we should have a national rural 

 school policy and program, formulated by educators in 

 close sympathy with rural affairs, but with the approval 

 of representative farmers. In most states a larger 

 measure of state aid for small schools will be found 

 necessary. The American farmer believes in the es- 

 sential justice of the dictum, " All the wealth of the 

 state must be available for the education of all the chil- 

 dren in the state." The country child is entitled to as 

 good an education as the city child. We may find that 

 appropriations from the federal treasury are necessary 

 in order to secure adequate state support and full recog- 

 nition of rural school needs. There is little doubt that 

 the consolidated school offers manifest advantages over 

 the traditional one-room district school and should soon 

 become the prevailing type of rural school. Better 

 paid and better trained teachers, greater permanence of 

 tenure of teaching, closer and more consistent super- 

 vision, redirection of studies to meet the peculiar needs 

 of rural pupils, are essential to efficiency. One of the 

 most serious defects in our rural school system is the 

 lack of good high schools. Provision should also be 

 made for continuation or part time schools. More- 

 over, the schools should be used as centers for adult 

 study through lecture courses, reading clubs, study 

 clubs, correspondence courses; they should minister to a 

 great advance of solid study and thinking among the 

 farmers and their families, not only on agricultural 



