The St. Johns herald., 1922-12-14
The Improvement of Rural
 Schools. BY. ELDWooD P. CUBE ERLEY
THE PROBLEM

instruction by modifying and enriching it, and by adjusting it more fully to the needs of country life. This was fruit ful idea. During the late nineties, a form of generalized nature study was introduced into many rural schools. An attempt has since been msde to transform this into instruction in agri- culture Economic needs have greatly stimulated this movement and no addi- tion to our elementary school sytem has ever been adopted with the rapidity or the enthuiasm winch has been witness ed in the case of agriculture. State and county courses of study have re- quired such instructions to be given, state laws have added the subject to thr list of examination subjects for teachers certificates, and many normal schools have added courses in it to their cirriculum. The general intro duction of the subject has been so rapid that both normal schools and teachers have found themselves unprepared to give the instruction. The net result. however, has been to awaken a new in- terest in the rural school, and to awaken a new interest in the rural school, and to reveal more clearly the need of further reorganization of it.
 Manual training, domestic science. and household arts have also been seen to have real value in the education of country boys and girls, but the pro- blems of how to introduce this new in- structiou is still in large part unsolved. In most cases the mere recognition of the need and the value of such instrue- tions has only served to reveal more clearly the utter inadequacy of the present rural school organization to cope successfully with constructive problems. Something has been accom- plished, of course, but nothing of what might have been done under a better form of organization and management.
 Recently attempts have been made to improve the trustee, feeling that per haps the source of the trouble lay there. In some states trustees day has been set apart in connection with the county teachers institute, and, in a number of others, within the past four or five years, annual county conventions of school trustees have been provided for. Under the latter plan one trustee at least from each board is expected to att tend, usually one-day session, and he is paid his expenses and a small per diem allowance for attendance. Cues tiOns of school management and finance are considered, the aim being to get the trustees present to see and lo provide for some of those common needs of the rural school that, to the county superin- tendent, are almost self-eyident No doubt much is learned by the trustees present, and the net result probably will be slow improvement in rural school conditions. But the method is a slow one, and the trustees change about
 
 One of the most serious obstacles to educa tioral progress in the rural schools is presented by these hundreds of school trustees, who, as a rule, know little about educational needs or. progress. As body they are exceedingly conser- vative, and hard to educate; they usual ly possess important powers; and, be- cause they control the purse-strings, they frequently assume an authority unwarranted by their knowledge of school work. Whatever is 2 ain e d through school trustees conventions is of course direct gain, but it is tonic rather than cure, and no great or rapid progress in rural education, organization or management can be expected from this source. The problem of the i'm provement of the rural schools is alto gether too deep-rooted problem to be solved by any such superficial remedy.
 Something has been done to improve the schools, too, through legislative limitations. In most of the states the old district meeting, once so common, so powerful, and a source of so much ill feeling, has been reduced in f1nc- tions until an annual school election is about all that is left of it. The power of the district meeting to designate the teacher has gone, and the power of the district trustees to employ almost any kind of teacher at low wages is fast dis appearing.
 To Be Continued.