1920.] 



Village Institutes. 



^55 



tional work in the village should be put upon a permanent 

 basis, so that in normal circumstances the village may never be 

 without some form of serious intellectual activity adapted to 

 the needs of the students as regards both subject-matter and 

 methods of treatment. In arranging educational classes, the 

 Committee thinks that it may be found necessary to devise a 

 winter session, shorter than that which has been adopted in 

 the towns, and the normal winter class might well be of twenty 

 weeks' duration. 



Classes. — The Committee is inclined to think that there should 

 be some half-way house between the one-year class and the 

 tutorial class meeting for three winters of twenty-four meetings 

 each. A modified university tutorial class meeting for twenty 

 weeks during two consecutive winters might be found to meet 

 a real need in rural districts. 



While it is important that stud}^ circles and classes should, 

 as far as possible, be arranged in every village, such a network 

 of activity would by no means fully meet the needs of rural 

 areas. It is desirable that the market towns and larger villages 

 should become the centres of educational activity and that 

 classes, week-end conferences, exhibitions, and similar projects, 

 should be arranged in them with the co-operation of the sur- 

 rounding villages. It is in these rather larger centres of 

 population that the Committee expects tutorial classes, or the 

 modified form of tutorial classess suggested above, to be held. 

 These centres would also meet the special needs of those for 

 whom it is impracticable to make adequate provision in their 

 own villages. The market towns and larger villages would 

 naturally become the focus of the educational work carried on 

 in the surrounding villages, and would provide the opportunity 

 for that co-operation between various groups which the Com- 

 mittee regard as essential. 



Importance of Association and Voluntary Org^anisation. — The 

 Committee feels convinced that a rural educational move- 

 ment would be short-lived, unless classes and groups of students 

 were associated together in some way and imbued with a cor- 

 porate spirit. It is desirable that voluntary organisations in 

 rural areas should co-operate with a view to federating adult 

 educational work within their districts. 



It is proposed that "summer" schools and "summer" 

 meetings, which have usually been carried on during the summer 

 months, but which may be extended to the winter months, 

 might form an integral part of the general educational scheme. 

 Federated groups of students would make arrangements for 



