3. A third method is through co-operation between the home and the school, between the teacher and pupils on one side, and parents and taxpayers on the other side. Parents sometimes complain that the average school is a sort of mill, or machine, into which their children are placed and turned out just so fast, and in just such condition. But if this is the case, it is partly the fault of the parents who do not keep in close enough touch with the work of the school. It is not that parents are not interested in their children, but it is rather that they look at the school as something separate from the ordinary affairs of life. Now, nothing can be more necessary than that this notion should be done away with. There must be the closest co-operation between the home and school. How can this co-operation be brought about? Frequently parents are urged to visit the schools. This is all right and proper, but it is not enough. There must be a closer relation than this. The teacher must know more about the home life of her pupils, and the parents must know far more about the whole purpose and spirit, as well as the method, of the school. A great deal of good has been done by the joint meeting of teachers and school officers. It is a very wise device, and should be kept up. But altogether the most promising development along this line is the so-called "Hesperia movement," described in another chapter. These meetings of school patrons and teachers take up the work of the school in a way that will interest both teachers and farmers. They bring the teachers and farmers into closer touch socially and intellectually. They disperse fogs of misunderstanding. They inspire to closer co-operation. They create mutual sympathy. They are sure to result in bringing the teacher into closer touch with community life and with the social problems of the farm. And they are almost equally sure to arouse the interest of the entire community, not only in the school as an institution and in the possibilities of the work it may do, but also in the work of that teacher who is for the time being serving a particular rural school.
4. A fourth method is by making the schoolhouse a meeting-place for the community, more especially for the intellectual and aesthetic activities of the community. A good example of this kind of work is the John Spry School of Chicago. In connection with this school there is a lecture course each winter; there is a musical society that meets every Tuesday evening; there is a men's club that meets every two weeks to discuss municipal problems and the improvement of home conditions; there is a woman's club to study for general improvement and social service; there is a mothers' council meeting every two weeks; there is a literary and dramatic society, meeting every week, composed of members of high-school age, and studying Shakespeare particularly; there is a dressmaking and aid society meeting two evenings a week, to study the cutting of patterns, garment-making, etc.; a food-study and cooking club, also meeting two evenings a week; an inventive and mechanical club, meeting two evenings a week, and tending to develop the inventive and mechanical genius of a group of young men; an art club; and a boy's club, with music, games, reading-lessons, reading of books and magazines, intended for boys of fourteen or fifteen years of age. These things are all under the direction of the school, they are free, they are designed to educate. It will not be feasible for the rural school to carry out such a programme as this, but do we realize how large are the possibilities of this idea of making the rural school a community center? No doubt one of the advantages of the centralized rural school will be to give a central meeting-place for the township, and to encourage work of the character that has been described. Of course, the Grange and farmers' clubs are doing much along these lines, but is it not possible for the district school also to do some useful work of this character? Singing-schools and debating clubs were quite a common thing in the rural schools forty years ago, and there are many rural schools today that are doing work of this very kind. Is there any reason, for example, why the country schoolhouse should not offer an evening school during a portion of the winter, where the older pupils who have left the regular work of the school can carry on studies, especially in agriculture and domestic science? There is need for this sort of thing, and if our agricultural colleges, and the departments of public instruction, and the local school supervisors, and the country teachers, and the farmers themselves, could come a little closer together on these questions the thing could be done!
5. Fifth and last, as a method for making the school a social center, is the suggestion that the teacher herself shall become something of a leader in the farm community. The teacher ought to be not only a teacher of the pupils, but in some sense a teacher of the community. Is there not need that someone should take the lead in inspiring everyone in the community to read better books, to buy better pictures, to take more interest in the things that make for culture and progress? There are special difficulties in a country community. The rural teacher is usually a transient; she secures a city school as soon as she can; she is often poorly paid; she is sometimes inexperienced; frequently the labor of the school absorbs all her time and energy. Unfortunately these things are so, but they ought not to be so. And we shall never have the ideal rural school until we have conditions favorable to the kind of work just described. The country teacher ought to understand the country community, ought to have some knowledge of the problems that the farmers have to face, ought to have some appreciation of the peculiar conditions of farm life. Every teacher should have some knowledge of rural sociology. The normal schools should make this subject a required subject in the course, especially for country teachers. Teachers' institutes and reading-circles should in some way provide this sort of thing. This is one of the most important means of bringing the rural school into closer touch with the farm community. Ten years ago Henry Sabin, of Iowa, one of the keenest students of the rural-school problem, in speaking of the supervision of country schools, said:
The supervisor of rural schools should be acquainted with the material resources of his district. He should know not only what constitutes good farming, but the prevailing industry of the region should be so familiar to him that he can converse intelligently with the inhabitants, and convince them that he knows something besides books. The object is not alone to gain influence over them, but to bring the school into touch with the home life of the community about. It is not to invite the farmer to the school, but to take the school to the farm, and to show the pupils that here before their eyes are the foundations upon which have been built the great natural sciences.
The programme needed to unite rural school and farm community is then, first, to enrich the course of study by adding nature-study and agriculture, and about these co-ordinating the conventional school subjects; second, to encourage the co-operation of the pupils, especially for the improvement of the school and its surroundings; third, to bring together for discussion and acquaintance the teachers and the patrons of the school; fourth, so far as possible to make the schoolhouse a meeting-place for the community, for young people as well as for older people, where music, art, social culture, literature, study of farming, and in fact, anything that has to do with rural education, may be fostered; and fifth, to expect the teacher to have a knowledge of the industrial and general social conditions of agriculture, especially those of the community in which her lot is cast.