Certainly, the boys in a farming community, brought up on the farm, naturally become farmers, yet in the interim, between babyhood and farmer life, they go to school. How absurdly easy the task of the school—to determine that they shall be intelligent, progressive, enthusiastic, up-to-date farmers. The girls, too, marry farmers, keep farmers’ homes and raise farmers’ sons. How simple is the duty of seeing that they are prepared to do these things well!
The task of the city school is complex because of the vast number of businesses, professions, industrial occupations and trades which children enter. In comparison the country school has the plainest of plain sailing. What are the ingredients of successful farmers and farmers’ wives? What proportion of physical education, of mental training, of technical instruction in agriculture, of suggestions for practical farm work, of dressmaking, sewing and cooking, enter into the making of farmers’ boys and farmers’ girls who will live up to the traditions of the American farm? To what extent must the school be a center for social activity and social enthusiasm? How shall the school make the farm and the small country town better living places for the men and women of to-morrow?
The duty of the country school is simple and clear. It must fit country children for country life. First it must know what are the needs of the country; then, manned by teachers whose training has prepared them to appreciate country problems, it will become the power that a country school ought to be in directing the thoughts and lives of the community.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] An extensive reference to this school will be found in “Country Life and the Country School,” Mabel Carney, Row, Peterson & Company, Chicago, 1912.
[23] Supra, pp. 180-181.