New Ideals in Rural Schools

by George Herbert Betts

The rural school cannot extend the scope of its curriculum simply by inserting in the present curriculum new studies related to the life and work of the farm. The modification must be deeper and more thoroughgoing than this. A full elementary course of eight years and a high school course of four years should be easily accessible to every rural child. Less than this amount of education is inadequate to prepare for the life of the farm, and fails to put the individual into full possession of his powers. Nor, in most instances, should the high schooling be left to some adjacent town, which is to receive the rural pupils upon payment of tuition to the town district. Unless the town is small, and practically a part of the rural community, it cannot supply, either in the subject-matter of the curriculum or the spirit of the school, the type of education that the rural children should have. For in so far as the town or city high school leads to any specific vocation, it certainly does not lead toward industrial occupations, and least of all toward agriculture. It rather prepares for the professions, or for business careers. Its tendency is very strongly to draw the boys and girls away from the farm instead of preparing them for it.

While the rural child, therefore, must be provided with a better and broader education, he should usually not be sent to town to get it. If he is, the chances are that he will stay in town and be lost to the farm. Indeed, this is precisely what has been happening; the town or city high school has been turning the country boy away from the farm. For not only does what one studies supply his knowledge; it also determines his attitude.

If the curriculum contains no subject-matter related to the immediate experience and occupation of the pupil, his education is certain to entice him away from his old interests and activities. The farm boy whose studies lack all point of contact with his life and work will soon either lose interest in the curriculum or turn his back upon the farm. If the boys and girls born on the farm are to be retained in this form of industry, the rural school must be broadened to give them an education equal to that afforded by town or city for its youth. If the rural community cannot accomplish this end, it has no claim on the loyalty and service of its youth. Rural children have a right to a well-organized, well-equipped, and well-taught elementary school of eight years and a high school of four years, with a curriculum adapted especially to their interests and needs.

It is not meant, of course, that the rural school, with its present organization and administration, can extend the scope of its curriculum to make it the equal of that offered in the grades of the town or city school. Radical changes, such as those discussed in the preceding chapter, will have to be made in the rural district system before this is possible. That these changes are being made and the full elementary and high school course offered in many consolidated rural schools, scattered from Florida to Idaho, is proof both of the feasibility of the plan and of an awakened public demand for better rural education.

The broadened curriculum of the rural school must contain subject-matter especially related to the interests and activities of the farm; upon this all are agreed. But it must not stop with vocational subjects alone. For, while one's vocation is fundamental, it is not all of life. Education should help directly in making a living; it must also help to live. Broad and permanent lines of interest must be set up and trained to include many forms of experience. The child must come to know something of the great social institutions of his day and of the history leading to their development. He must become familiar with the marvelous scientific discoveries and inventions underlying our modern civilization. He must be led to feel appreciation for the beautiful in art, literature, and music; and must have nurtured in his life a love for goodness and truth in every form. In short, through the curriculum the latent powers constituting the life capital of every normal child are to be stimulated and developed to the end that his life shall be more than mere physical existence—to the end that it shall be crowned with fullness of knowledge, richness of feeling, and the victory of worthy achievement. This is the right of every child in these prosperous and enlightened times,—the right of the country child as well as the city child. And society will not have done its duty in providing for the education of its youth until the children of the farm have full opportunities for such development.

The rural elementary school curriculum

By the elementary school is meant the eight grades of work below the high school which the rural school is now meant to cover.

Whatever is put into the curriculum of a nation's schools finally becomes a part of national character and achievement. What the children study in school comes to determine their attitudes and shape their aptitudes. The old Greek philosophers, becoming teachers of youth, turned the nation into a set of students and disputants over philosophical questions. Sparta taught her boys the arts of war, and became the chief military nation of her time. Germany introduces technological studies into her schools, and becomes the leading country in the world in the arts of manufacture. Let any people emphasize in their schools the studies that lead to commercial and professional interests, and neglect those that prepare for industrial vocations, and the industrial welfare of the nation is sure to suffer.

The curriculum of the rural school must, therefore, contain the basic subjects that belong to all culture,—the studies that every normal, intelligent person should have just because he belongs to the twentieth-century civilization, and in addition must include the subjects that afford the knowledge and develop the attitude and technique belonging to the life of the farm. Let us now consider this curriculum somewhat more in detail.