Evening star., 1915-12-14
RURAL LEDUCAT|0N|S
!. FEATURE OF REPORT
Secretary Lane Advocates
Model Schools in Various
Parts of Country.
TEACHING BY EXPERIENCE
WOULD CONVERT STATES
Government Must Give Leadership If
1t Is to Realize Hopes for Peo-
pie Skilled and Happy.

It Is to Realize Hopes for Peo-
pie Skilled and Happy.
Esta ablishment of model rural schools
| in various parts of the country, to
which rural teachers could be taken
and enthused with the modern idea of
rural education, is advocated by Secre-
tfary Franklin X. Lane of the Interior
Department in his annual report a por-
tion of which was made public today.
| There is no such lesson" he saws,
as the one that is taught by expert
ence. Lectures, moving pictures and
books may aid. But to see and be part
of a movement or life is to make it
ones own. II ten live men or women
were taken from each state to some
one of the two or three most modern
rural schools. and there for a month
were initiated into the art of teaching
out of life. by doing things and not
reading about things being done, and IL
each of these ten went home mission
AIRY for the new idea. how long would
it be before the states were converted
and old methods Abandoned And once
the right kind of school were started
in any state how long would it take
others to follow? This thing can be
done. and by methods that are SO SIM
pie and direct that they will be star
tling. The need is immediate, and
surely it would be a shame to let a
generation waste itself while the idea
slowly creeps on all fours through a
country that has invented wireless
telephony.
School Heart of Community.
The Secretary says that while educa-
tion is the foremost industry of the
| country. it has made less progress in
the past thirty years than any of the
other industries. He says the Ameri-
can people are not Indifferent to their
schools, for they pay as much for them
as they do for the support of the entire
federal government.
Here and there" said the Secretary.
under rare leadership may be found
/ in this country the most striking proofs
of what can be done to tie our schools
to our life. The hope is eventually to
make the school what it should be, and
easily may be made to be. the very
heart of the community-social club
and cooperative center as well as
school.
There would seem to be nothing
visionary in such a hope. To effect
| this evolution there is needed pri-
| marily leadership. and this the gov
ernment must give il it is to realize
| it's desire for people who are both
skilled and happy. The spirit of our
people is against paternal govern
| ment We do not take with kindness
| to an authority that is mandatory
There is a sound belief that people
| who make their own way are in the
end ripper and of stronger fiber than
| those who accept what is not the re-
| suit of common determination.
Substitute for Alsolutism.
But this spirit of intense individual
ism does not make US independent of
or Indifferent to useful methods and
helpful standards. And it is these that
we can reveal. 1t is these that We
should find and place in service, rather
than force the disconnected schools of
the land to feel their way out or mud
die through We may not command.
but we may show how. This IS
democracy's substitute for absolutism
| in the effort to secure efficiency. FOR
such policy of helpfulness there Is
abundant precedent. not only in the
action of Congress in making minor
appropriations for the work OF the
bureau of education on precisely these
lines, but in the activities of other De-
partmentS.
II have said in a previous report that
the bureau of education should either
be abolished or put to serious high pur-
pose. believe the latter to he the
wise in fact, the necessary, course. l
would erect the bureau OF education
into a bureau of educational methods
and standards, in which would be gath
cred the ripe fruit of all educational
experiments, upon which the, schools OF
the country could draw. This is a wide
country, and there is need for a ma
tional clearing house where can be CEN
tered and exchanged the results of the
most remote experiments.
Rural Community Problem.
"There is no Disgusting the fact that
we have a most difficult problem in the
United States-and 1 cannot believe 1t
is ours alone-in the rural community.
A majority of our school children are
in rural schools The query arises, Are
our rural schools doing their part in
making life in the country desirable!
An ambitious people VIII go where
educat atidn can be had for their chill
dren There is no sense in talking of
the charms of country life and the in
dependence and dignity OF producing
from the soil if the school at command
is no more modern than wooden ploW-
The old fashioned one-roomed school
house, which holds forty or fifty un-
teacher who knows nothing but books.
is not modern institution. though
great men have issued from it's door
'One needed reform in the school
system is in the elevation of teaching
into a real profession. as in older coun.
tries. AS it is now, teacher is al
most without status in our society Ana
this, in addition to the inadequacy of
the pay, has drawn to the profession
those who use it only as a makeshift
and those who. out of a spirit of self
sacrifice and love for the work, serve
in the highest way the pubic good. or
the former class we need fewer, and to
the latter should come increasing
honor.
Experimental Work Done.
THE teachers. the superintendents
and the school boards need leadership: T.,
they need an authoritative statement OF
conclusions by the wisest and most
practical men in the land; they need to
be shown the better way. And with
even as little as a hundred thousand
dollars a year for two or three years
we could, l believe. conduct a campaign
for a new kind of rural school that
would work little less than revolution
in rural life. Our aim would be to iden-
tify the school with the farm and tSie
village, and develop new respect in
fathers and mothers for the school as
a practical and not a mere scholastic
..The problem is only one of populari-
zation. The experimental work has