The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1915-06-15

1t seems almost Impossible 70 lnpreg-
nate him with the true cooperative
spirit-the spirit above all others
w1ich means his emancipation from
the grinding drudgery under which he
staggers and gropes and complains.
Better rural schools and churches,
better roads, better credit, better
homes, better social environment, bet
ter marketing facilities, less waste,
and bigger bank account, more leis-
ure. and more learning, all depend
upon tie proper organization and cor
rect leadership of rural communities,
and the right kind of education for
rural people.
Rural Education.
One of the chief factors in the
exodus from country to town lies in
the inadequacy, the insuficiency Of
the rural schools of the State. The
kind of education We need in the coun-
try is that which relates itself to
rural community acti7i tiles and aspir-
ations. In It's respect the rural
school of the State is falling far short.
Education, to serve a practical pur-
pose, must supply the tools, the ma
chinery, with which the perpleXing
difficulties of every day life are to be
worked out. It's curriculum, if it is a
rural school, must be made up Of such
studies as relate themselves to the
probably life work of its students.
Ninety-eight per cent of the boys and
girls of tie State go directly from the
graded and rural school into ife's
work, and yet, it is notorious fact
that the curriculum of the average
rural school is of such character as
to prepare much more nearly girls
and boys for entrance into college
tran for entrance into life, or into the
social, economic and religious actlVi-
ties of rural communities. The tend
ency is to unprepare the boy and girl
for farm life, to dissatisfy them with
it and to set their faces in other direc-
tions. TIE system as we now have,
is not especially inefficient, but it is
alphabetically insufficient It's curri-
culum in addition to being windoWed
out to make it meet the most advanced
ideas of an education must be sup
plemented with a study of agricul-
tural science and home economics.
There is more need for an understand
ing of domestic science, farm manage
ment and marketing, rural sanitation,
and rural cooperation-and these
things can never come to pass ex-
cept through the processes Of educa-
tion-than tcere is for an understand
ing of Greek roots and Latin verbs.
These last have their place in a COM
plete education, but they should not
be permitted to occupy the whole pic
ture to the exclusion of that training
which fits for the most effective, eff
cient, and intelligent handling of rural
problems in the most comprehensive
meaning of that term.
Need for Rural Teachers.
The q ief difficulty in redirecting
the rural school so as to more nearly
make it meet the needs of rural life,
is to be found in lack Of compe-
tent teachers of agricultural and do
mestic science. The institutions of the
State equipped for the preparation of
teachers in agriculture and home eco
nomics cannot now, or at any time IN
the near future, meet TIE demand for
such teachers. Until the time comes
when such teachers may be had, we
shall have to rely for the teaching
of these branches upon the consolidat-
ed rural school and the itinerant
teachers provided under the terms OF
the recently enacted agricultural ex-
tension act. This act when it fully
natures, will provide a fund, if the
States do tier part Of $8,600,000 an
nually for the employment of timer
ant experts in home economics and
agriculture. These trained men and
women will take the accumulated
knowledge of all the ages from its
central reservoirs, and disseminate it
in ineligible form to the rural man
and woman, the rural boy and girl
under their own especial, peculiar and
individual social, economic and bust
ness environment. 1t will, as near as
it is possible to do, take the agricul-
tural college, and normal college, to
the farmer upon his own farm. This