DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



41 



Within the heart of every honest parent there awakes with his first 

 babe's first cry the noble wish to give his child a better bringing-up than 

 his has been. Consider the opportunities for such a laudable ambition 

 under a system of city schools like that of Wichita — second to none in the 

 United States — and like that in hundreds of other cities and towns of 

 Kansas, and weigh also the lack of such advantages in hundreds of weak 

 rural school districts in this state, and you will discover the principal cause 

 for the rush from the country to the city during the past two decades, not 

 only in Kansas, but in all the states, north, south, east and west; for, what 

 is true in Kansas is practically true of every other state. 



The country school of today is not in its interest to pupils what it was 

 twenty-five to forty years ago. A generation ago, young men and young 

 women attended the country school. There was a sufficient number of 

 pupils brought together to create interest in the work of the school, in its 

 plays and games and in the community activities through the school. The 

 spelling bees, the ciphering matches, the writing schools, the singing 

 schools, and the school exhibitions may have been old-fashioned, but they 

 were the chief features of entertainment for old and young, and they were 

 considerable means of instruction for both. A generation ago, nearly half 

 of the schools in the rural schools were men. Wtih all due respect and 

 credit for the work the women teachers are doing in the rural schools 

 today, I am persuaded — and I believe the women will agree with me — that 

 the loss of men teachers from the rural schools is one of the greatest 

 calamities that has ever come to the rural schools. 



Today there are hundreds of rural schools in Kansas, and in each of 

 the other states, with an average daily attendance of five or less; and, if 

 you make the average daily attendance from five to ten, the rural school 

 districts in Kansas, and in a great majority of the other states, will be 

 numbered by the thousand. In thousands of rural schools in nearly every 

 state of the Union, there are not a sufficient number of pupils brought to- 

 gether to create interest in either work or play. 



The number of juvenile recruits who are permitted to enter upon the 

 responsible work of teaching in the rural schools of the United States 

 each year — with only an eighth grade rural school education, and in sev- 

 eral states, only a seventh grade rural school education, obtained under 

 teachers with no better equalifications than their own — with no professional 

 training — is at least twenty-five thousand. Nearly one-third of the rural 

 teachers of the United States have little or no professional training. 



On the other hand, the growth of the city school — and especially the 

 American high school — is the marvel of the age. It has had funds for its 

 needs. It has learned the value of efficiency in its business administration 

 and of expert supervision of professionally trained teachers. It has mod- 

 ernized its courses of study. Everything that money could provide and 

 human genius devise for its improvement has been given freely and lav- 

 ishly; for it could tax banks, and stores, and real estate, and great rail- 

 ways, including their terminals, and often at a much higher legal rate of 

 taxation than was permitted in the rural school districts. No wonder that, 



