The Covington leader. (Covington, Tenn.) 18??-current, 1914-12-31
BETTER SCHOOLS.
(By T. F. Peck, Commissioner of Ag-
riculture.)

There isn't as much dissatisfaction
with rural schools as some folks would
have US believe. There isn't enough
dissatisfaction with them. The aver
age rural school is, as one well-known
modern writer puts it, "a bad copy of
the city school," 1t needs fixing.
A rural school should be rural in the
best meaning of the word. It should
develop in the children love of farm
life, and fit them to meet and master
the problems which farm life presents.
l don't mean that we should try to
make farmers of all the boys who go
to rural schools, nor farmers wives of
all the girls. But no matter what
place our children fill in the world
they will fill it better if they have an
appreciation of the soil and a good
working knowledge of farm life.
How many of the children now 60
ing to your district school will ever
go to high school, or college? A very
small percentage, unless it is an ex-
ceptional district. Most of the child
rem must get all the education they
will ever get in the little white school
house. That means that most of them
must help to do the worlds everyday
work. 1t will be better for them and
society in general if they do that
work on the farm. The cities are
overcrowded. Rural life needs young
blood. Yet the tide of youth that has
been flowing from the farm to the city
will continue until we show the young
folks that farm life is best. There is
no better instrument for that purpose
than good school. The school fails
in its highest purpose if it fails in
this.
What is the remedy? We might
begin right now by taking more in
terest in the schools as they are. We
must study them to find out how to
make them better. Visit the school
once and awhile. The children will
take more interest in their work If
father and mother come in occasion
ally. And you ought to get acquaint-
ed with the teacher, because you
should know what kind of a human
influence your children are under five
days in the week. Get the teacher
interested in your community life.
Ruralize him all you can and he will
pass enthusiasm and interest on to
the children-to the end of ruralizing
the school.
Too often a district regards their
work as completed when the teacher
is hired. He is left as something
apart from the community life-alone
with the book and the children. It is
big mistake. The more closely we
relate the school to the farm the bet
ter will be the results. The teacher
is the medium through which this
must be accomplished. Get acquaint-
ed with him. Get him interested in
local farm problems. Be sure he is
the right kind-then keep him as
long as he can be persuaded to stay.
Next to the mother, the teacher has
the biggest influence over your childS
rem.
The real solution of the rural school
problem is the high school. BY copk
solidation we can get it at hardN
greater cost than we bear now. III trg
consolidated school all of the things
may be taught and all of the atten-
ton given the individual child, for
which there is not time in the little
one-roOm school with a teacher who
IS often overworked.
Many parents who are financially
able to do SO, hesitate to send their
boys and girls away to the city high
school. They are afraid of the city
influence. And it is SO seldom that
the children come back to the farm.
Why should they, when all of their
training has given them other am
billions?
The consolidated school will solve
this problem. 1t may not keep all Of
the boys and girls on the farm. That
is neither necessary nor best. But
they will be hept at home during the
years in which they need home train
ing and influence. Those who have
the blessed instinct that loves the
soil and growing things will become
farmers and farmers wives of the
best kind. And every child will be
better prepared for a useful life
work, no matter where he goes or
what he undertakes.