DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



43 



It may not be out of place briefly to summarize the benefits and ad- 

 vantages of consolidation here: (1) The pupils enjoy and profit by that in- 

 terest and enthusiasm and confidence which numbers always bring; (2) 

 pupils can be better classified and graded; (3) tardiness and irregular 

 attendance are reduced to the minimum; (4) no quarreling, improper con- 

 duct or improper language, so common among children on their way to 

 school; (5) no wet feet or wet clothing, nor colds resulting therefrom; 

 (6) pupils have the advantage of better schoolrooms, better lighted, better 

 heated, better ventilated; (7) it makes possible a modern course of study, 

 including agriculture, manual training and home economics; (8) this plan 

 will result in better teachers, better paid; (9) it will provide through its 

 school building an assembly room for the community meetings and school 

 entertainments, thus making the schoolhouse a civic and social center that 

 will give rural life the best things of the city without the city's tempta- 

 tions. 



The consolidation of the rural schools makes possible the readjustment 

 of their courses, as to give the farmers and farmers's wives of the future 

 the kind of education necessary to fit them for the actual duties of every- 

 day life as American citizens. 



On this problem of the rural schools, permit me to quote the United 

 States Commissioner of Education. He declares: 



"The farmer and the farmer's wife who live on and by their farm 

 need a higher, deeper, broader, more varied and more fundamental educa- 

 tion than men and women engaged in any other occupation. The most im- 

 portant question of citizenship in these United States is the improvement 

 of the public schools for the better and fuller education of the boys and 

 girls of the country. The most difficult and pressing phases of this im- 

 portant problem consist in the readjustment of the content of the courses 

 of study on the basis of what the men and women in the country need to 

 know and in putting into the schools and keeping there teachers prepared 

 to teach these things skilfully and well." 



No one has pointed out more forcefully the great mistake in American 

 education, especially as concerns the rural school, than President Roosevelt 

 did in his address at the meeting of the Department of Superintendence 

 of the National Education Association held at Washington in February, 

 1908. He said: 



"In the first place I trust that more and more of our people will see 

 to it that the schools train toward and not away from the farm and work- 

 shop. We have spoken a great deal about the dignity of labor in this 

 country, but we have not acted up to our spoken words, for in our educa- 

 tion we have tended to proceed upon the assumption that the educated 

 man was to be educated away from and not toward labor. The great 

 nations of mediaeval times who left such marvelous works of architecture 

 and art behind them were able to do so because they educated alike the 

 brain and hand of the craftsman. We, too, in our turn, must show that we 

 understand the law which decrees that a people which loses physical ad-, 

 dress invariably deteriorates, so that our people shall understand that the 



