Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1885-03-20
SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTRY.
A TREATISE BY THE NATIONAL
BUREAU OF EDUCATION.
What Is Needed TO Make Rural
schools Efficient i'm Every Re-
kneci-InIeresainn- GIaIi.tic.-

What Is Needed to Make Rural
schools Efficient i'm Every Re-
Spect-Interesting Statistics.
The National Bureau of Education has
issued very interesting treatise upon
rural schools, their progress in the past,
and means of improvement in the future.
1t places great stress upon the fact that
the rural schools should be made as
efficient as possible. They furnish in
struction for more than half the school
population, all the formal instructions
that they ever receive. The type pre-.
| sented is familiar one:
"a school composed of scholars of
both sexes, ranging in study anywhere
from the primer To Euclid, honsed in a
school house and provided with one
teacher, upon whom devolves all the in
struction and discipline. Possibly the
teacher changes every term; probably no
systematic record of studies, classes or
progress is kept, and each teacher takes
up the work as if nothing were to fol-
low. The teacher may be person of
excellent education, wise, conscientious,
firm, loving and versatile; many such
there are, and their works do praise
them;' but school may be favored in
this respect one term and the next pass
into the charge of callow youth,
crude girl, or a man or a woman of in
terior mind and harsh, unsympathetic
nature, who, for consideration, makes
confusion worse confounded in juvenile
intellects. Of supervision there is lit
tie, of inspection less, and of standards
of scholarship and tests of work none
but those the teacher has wit enough to
supply"
This picture, while it may be drawn
too harShly to correctly represent excep-
tional instances, is certainly truthful in
the main. Many of the best and great
foundation upon which their fame is
builded in the country school, the Gilt
tie red school house" dear to the heart
and celebrated in song and speech; but
that the possibilities of the rural school
are susceptible as a rule to great i'm.
provement is an undoubted fact. One
great drawback to the greatest success
of the rural schools as educational fac
tors is that the best teachers have not
been obtainable. In 1881, in Rhode
Island, thirteen per cent. Of the teachers
had only a common school education.
In Georgia out of 6,128 teachers, 5000
were possessed of only limited educa-
tion. In all the States it has been diff
cult to ind candidates for teachers who
can easily pass the moderate grade re-
quired. In Michigan, in 1881, the State
superintendent reported that twenty, six
per cent. of the applicants failed in the
lower grade or first trial, and that
+ twentyone per cent. were unable to
stand the test of the final trial or exami-
nation. 1t is easy to see that there must
be better teachers before we can have
better schools.
The normal schools are great helps in
improving the standard of school teach
ers, but the normal school system is now
far from complete. There are 293, 1884
school teachers in the United States
Of course a large proportion of these
are employed in ungraded schools.
There are ninety ght normal schools in
the country, with an attendance of
10000. AS thirty per cent. of the
teachers are changed annually, it is easy
to see that the normal schools afford but
small part of the provision required for
training teachers. No doubt the small
salaries usually paid the teachers of
country schools has great effect in low
ering the standard of the teachers OBJ
tainable. Special training is needed.
The teacher who has normal school
education cannot be secured for the
country schools, because his talent is
better paid elsewhere. To obtain better
teachers, better salaries must be paid, and
there must be more schools for the train
ing of teachers. Communities should
take livelier interest in their schools,
and aid their teachers by all legitimate
means in their power 1t is only by
united action that the best success
can be obtained, and country
and city and county and State should
work together in harmony, with the
same high objects in view. Teachers
should not be the creation of accident
nor made by the force of circumstances
They should be especially fitted for the
great work of education. Though the
common schools are among the proudest
boasts of the country, yet they may be
said to be almost in their infancy as
tagards their possibilities. Teaching is
profession in itself, and requires apti-
tude and preparation as much as any
other.
There is hardly anything in which
time and money can be more proftably
spent than in improving the country
schools, in teaching and the methods of
study, and it is to be hoped that far
more attention will be paid to the sub
.ect than is now the case. e.-Bwliagton
HaaOkeye.