162 The State and the Farmer 



recting number work as to make it a mighty 

 force in putting the school into relation with 

 the community. 



My reader can at once make applications of 

 this line of thought to the reading, to the 

 manual training, and to the other customary 

 work of the school. Manual training develops 

 chiefly skill : it does not articulate with life. 

 The study of history should result in better 

 local civic ideas. Text books err in merely 

 making applications of their subject here and 

 there : they need a complete change in point 

 of view and in method. 



You have only to consider the school-houses 

 to see that the rural school is in a state of 

 arrested development. Go with me from 

 Maine to Minnesota and back again and you 

 will see in the open country practically one 

 kind of school-house, and this is the kind in 

 which our fathers went to school. There is 

 nothing about it to suggest the activities of 

 the community or to be attractive to children. 

 Standing in an agricultural country, it is scant 

 of land and bare of trees. I think that if a 



