present indications it would seem that the number will not be reduced to any great extent. We must continue to provide for their needs and to make them equal to the demands which the community may impose.

1. The course of study for the district school, where there is but one teacher, should be different from the one used in town or city schools. While the integrity of the grades should not be wholly destroyed, the grading should be flexible; and there must be combination, correlation, and alteration in order to reduce the recitation periods to a reasonable number. Close grading in the rural school has multiplied the recitation periods to such an extent that but a few minutes can be given to each. A little bite here and there, with no time to assimilate, has given ground for the charge that school work lacks thoroughness, and there is much force in the criticism. To be able to think quickly and accurately and to act honestly and courageously is one of the chief requirements made of American citizenship, and consequently is the principal demand in school work. A rural school program which provides for thirty or more recitation periods gives so little time for each lesson that nothing more can be done than to test the memory, and this tends to reduce the bulk of school work to a memory plane. The period for the recitation must be made longer and this cannot be done unless we provide fewer recitations.

2. What should be the extent and the content of a course of study for district schools? This question suggests a funny interview between the late President Lincoln and one of his callers at the White House. The stranger facetiously asked: "Mr. President, how long should a man's legs be ?" Mr. Lincoln replied that he had given the matter but little consideration, but on slight reflection, he thought they ought to reach from the body to the ground. Any course of study must keep constantly in mind the pupil, who needs to know, on the one hand, and the world, which is his field of knowledge, on the other. The child must know the world in all its phases in order to have the fullest dominion and become lord of what he surveys. This earth is his home and he must become acquainted with its civilization that he may fit into its conditions with the least friction. We are told that there are five distinct phases of knowledge, viz.: (1) human thought; (2) mathematical relations; (3) natural phenomena; (4) human action, and (5) ethical and aesthetic qualities. Any course of study, whether limited or otherwise, must keep in mind these phases in order that our instruction may reach and develop each. We see how the coordinate grouping is made to correspond to these phases and how school subjects are classified under these five groups in such a way as will make the quickest and most effectual device for mastering the world's knowledge.

Dr. Payne, in his excellent book recently published, Public Elementary-School Curricula, makes this statement: "The school is fundamentally a social institution set up by society for its own protection, i. e., for the preservation of the best of its experience and ideals. It is, in short, the function of the school to adjust or relate the individuals of the social group to the social whole, of which they are parts. In this fact, we find the controlling standard in the selection of the subject matter in education. Briefly stated, this principle is that the needs of society should determine the selections of the subjects and topics of study in the elementary school. These needs are discovered by observing the activities of society. What the adult group is doing and thinking in life the child will in all likelihood have to do and think. Therefore, if society controls the school, it should mould the curriculum."

Formal studies and abstract work have enjoyed too much prominence in our instruction. The normal child must do something. He must not only have something to think about in the realm of abstraction, but he must have something to do in the sphere of the concrete. This explains why the percentage of time given to formal studies has greatly decreased and that given to content studies increased, proportionately, during the past decade.

If we define content studies as those which lead more directly to an insight into the

structure of society, we will find that the curricula of some of our European countries are given over to such studies to the extent of more than 65 per cent. Only during the past fifteen years has manual training been included in school instruction in the American schools. When we combine with manual training the related subjects of drawing and construction work, the schools of New York City devote to this more than 15 per cent. of the recitation time. Then there are other new subjects, among which must be included in any course of study for elementary schools, nature-study, elementary science, civics, and English. While these studies have been added, we seem to have lost no reverence for the formal studies, because none have been omitted.

3. In the American schools we are still giving about 60 per cent. of our time to what we may appropriately call the three R's; but the emphasis today, in our teaching, is upon the content or concrete, as distinguished from formal or abstract studies. I find there is much more said in the course of study and in educational meetings about the importance of the content studies than is done by the average teacher in the schoolroom. Not many school buildings are arranged so that instruction in this class of studies is easy. Professor Bailey of Cornell University is right when he insists that in every school building there should be at least two good-sized rooms-one for the formal study work, such as we now have, and another room, which should be a veritable workshop, for manual and industrial training, nature-study, drawing, construction work, and experimental science. If the school is to attach the pupil to the community and provide for the "sociological and psychological aspects of human life," it must surround itself with those adjuncts which are necessary to engraft such an education. The country school needs this content element of the course more than ever before. Very many of the occupations, where at least the beginnings of trades and vocations could be learned and some manual dexterity acquired, have faded from community life and have been absorbed by industrial combinations. Nothing has come to take their place; hence the school must provide for that instruction, which, in the good old days, was provided out of school. At a small additional cost the "workshop room may be included in the school plant.

4. There should be such a combination, correlation, and alternation of subjects in the district school as will reduce the number of recitation periods to twenty. There are many helpful suggestions in Dr. Emerson E. White's three-group program published in his book on school management. The plan, in its entirety, deserves careful consideration, although some of the combinations seem inexpedient. The integrity of the grades may be somewhat better regarded, as there should be separate reading and spelling classes for each grade, to and including the fourth; and the arithmetic may also continue as a grade study. A little pamphlet, published for the consideration of the Maryland teachers, contains a program of recitations based on Mr. White's three-group plan, and should anyone here care to look over the details of that schedule, a copy may be found on Superintendent Miller's desk. It has not been made the course for our country school yet, but every teacher in our state is or should be examining it, so as to endorse or criticize it before the close of the present year.

The object in view is to provide a minimum sacrifice of the pupil's individuality and at the same time to preserve the sequence and co-ordination of school subjects to the end that all the activities may be more or less regarded.

5. If we are to accept the Herbartian idea of native interest and self-activity as the primary principle in education, we must not forget that this depends rather on the selfactivity of the teacher. The country schools need the best elementary teachers and their salary ought to be the highest.

One mild criticism on the teacher. There has been very little study by teachers of educational theory, because they have been absorbed in practice work. As has been said, the course of study is a prescription for the child's needs. It was prescribed by our most learned doctors of pedagogy. It represents the accumulated experience of the best

teachers of all ages, and it comes to us as a sort of an abridged edition of the history and philosophy of education. But that history has no life nor its philosophy any meaning if we cannot hold it up to the mind's eye, see it in all its parts, and understand the reasons which led to its adoption. Rural-school teaching will make distinct gains when all teachers know what the course of study is and what it is meant to accomplish.

MANUAL TRAINING IN RURAL SCHOOLS

ARTHUR H. CHAMBERLAIN, DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, THROOP POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, PASADENA, CAL.

There is a growing disposition of late, on the part of those in the city, to discuss the problems of the country school. There is a conviction abroad that the good things in education are to be found in the city, and that it is only fair and just that the country boy and girl be given a chance at the educational grab-bag and an opportunity to share in the mental wealth handed out from the urban schoolhouse. To one acquainted with the ups and downs, and the ins and outs of both country and city schools, a striking parallel to the belief just mentioned seems to be found in the foreign missionary field. We grow enthusiastic when we consider the work done for the glory of God by our own self-sacrificing, unselfish men and women in distant lands, and then, as we turn a corner of the street, we are shocked by coming face to face with a condition or circumstance of which there are thousands similar in every city. For a moment at least we are convinced that all our time, energy, money, intellect, and love are needed at home to assist in cleaning up our own back yards. The grass in the other fellow's pasture always appears greener and sweeter than that in our own.

Perhaps the advantages the country child enjoys make his school life fully as enviable as that of the city boy and girl. In any event there is sufficient need of improvement all along the line.

Our topic, "Manual Training in Rural Schools," might well be amplified to read, "How May the Rural School Be Made More Efficient ?"; in other words, how may new life be injected into the schools of the rural communities, so as to induce the pupils to remain for a longer period; and not only to remain longer, but to have offered them work more real, less artificial than now, and that shall fit the students to cope successfully with the problems of the rural community, and create in them dispositions less dissatisfied with country ways and less willing to leave the seeming dead level of life on the farm for the fuss and feathers of city existence?

In the short time at my disposal I cannot presume to discuss, were such discussion necessary here, even a portion of the great questions and issues involved. The reasons for the introduction of manual training into rural schools, the kinds and forms of activity desirable, whether boys and girls should receive, each the same kind of instruction, the reasons such work is not more universally found to exist, the chief obstacles in the way of the introduction of the industrial processes, how to obtain teachers possessed of a knowledge of the subject and sufficiently skilled to carry the work successfully, how to create public sentiment and to raise public funds, whether the pupil or the school shall furnish the tools and materials necessary to the work, whether the trade or utilitarian idea upon the one hand or the so-called educational or formative phase upon the other shall be given place, these are suggestive of the matters to be considered in such a discussion as the one before us.

Some years ago I was free to join my voice with others in insisting that manual training was not demanded by the country child. His out-of-door life gave him the physical exercise so essential to his best development; plain, wholesome food and pure air and water contributed to his needs in this direction; the common household duties in which the girls had a part and the tasks upon the farm and the working with tools and machines under

taken and shared by the boys-these, we insisted, gave to the country child that necessary training called manual in character, that came to the city boy or girl only through superficial means or was embodied in manual-training courses. The common argument as against this latter view, however, is that the work in rural communities, while healthful and of great value, is not directed, lacks in scientific treatment, accuracy, and unity; in short, is haphazard.

Again I found my views dovetailed with those of the multitude in insisting that what was "sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander." If a given line of industrial work met the needs of the boys, it would, perforce, prove just as beneficial for the girls. This argument, if legitimate, applies with equal force to the country and city child alike. We are now sure, however, that this philosophy was not even good theory. Each environment demands a treatment and interpretation distinctly different from that given elsewhere. Not only must differentiation begin early, boys to be treated as boys and girls as girls, but the problems of the country being widely diverse from those of the town, the work must be different even though the principles are the same. And finally, each boy being cut on his own bias, the needs, abilities, and desires of each are not to be ignored. There is no doubt in my mind that each school in a rural community should offer instruction in industrial education, including domestic science, domestic art, and household economy for girls; agriculture and tool practice for boys, and an appreciation and understanding of applied design and of color and harmony in flower cultivation and garden making for all. But how can all this be done; where are the teachers who can instruct in the work; and do the rural communities desire such a plan?

After a thorough investigation of the conditions as they exist in rural California (and the locality, in this particular, is quite typical of that in any section of the country) the findings of a committee appointed for this purpose are most noteworthy and suggestive. It would appear that it is lack of favorable sentiment rather than scarcity of funds that has in most places deterred the introduction of such work. The rural folk, keen, analytic and practical, and ofttimes well read, fail to see in the results achieved in schools where manual training is given, satisfactory reasons for its introduction into the rural schools. Naturally enough, investigation by committee or school board is carried on in the town or city. Here they observe practices that are restricted and unreal. Most of the articles made have no apparent value or use. The work is shilly-shally and bric-a-brac. Too much fine, delicate construction, they find, with the main emphasis upon technique and finish and too little attention to strength and character of construction and to thought values. They can see no bridge between the industrial work done and the probable field of activity in the life of the future citizen. The reach, if there be one, is too great, and they say, "The game is not worth the candle;" the time and money could better be spent in other lines of work. Of course the view-point here may be cloudy as these people are looking upon work presumed to be adapted to the needs of the city boy. I am inclined to the belief, however, that there is reason for their dissatisfaction, and so long as the industrial training offered in the majority of city schools is of the present character, the rural communities will find it rather an argument against the introduction of courses in their schools.

There are scores of rural schools where industrial training in some of its phases would long ere this have been introduced, had sentiment been favorable. The financial side can, in most instances, be easily satisfied. The people must be convinced of the value of the instruction offered in industrial lines. Such instruction must appeal to them from the utilitarian side. While the trade school is not needed in this connection, nor is trade instruction demanded, the work should always be eminently practical, that is, useful. In the country, in industrial training, we should "never work contrary to trade practice," says one who has studied the question thoroughly. Whatever tool is used should be a tool the tradesman would use for a like purpose. Special or miniature tools should have no place. The method of procedure employed should also be that of the man of the

trade, while the material upon which the students work should be such as an expert would select in the world of activity. In other words, the boys and girls should, by reason of the industrial training carried on at school, have nothing to unlearn when they face the searchlight of actual living.

In a study of literature in the school only the best is chosen, that which in style, composition, force, and power to instruct and uplift is pre-eminently superior. That which in mature years will appeal to the individual as literature is studied as such in the school. So it should be with the industrial forms of work—its tools, its methods, its materials, its output. A process is not necessarily lacking in educational value simply because it possesses commercial worth and is made after the shop pattern or is given the handling of the craftsman. Depend upon it, those who work day by day at a given process or along a given industrial or technical line are, broadly speaking, using the most economic methods, the most desirable tools, the most satisfactory materials. To be sure the educational principle should be applied in the school, but always in the light of the practice of the tradesman.

There is, of course, another side to the question. A false standard is often placed by the parent of the country child. "I had to work for a living when I was a boy," is the popular cry; “I had no schooling, and I want my son to have better things and to enjoy the advantages of an education." Since most of those who have had to work for a living on the farm did not study Greek or Latin, the assumption is that to be educated one must be learned, and that such learning consists in an acquaintance with Greek and Latin. It should not be necessary to discuss the fallacy of such a view or to point the necessity for all boys, sons of rich and poor alike, being on speaking terms with the industrial world through the industrial processes.

The work of such men as Stetson, of Maine, Bayliss and Kern, of Illinois, Harvey, of Wisconsin, Miller, of Iowa, Hartranft, formerly of Washington, and Robertson, of Canada, and many others, has demonstrated beyond peradventure the value of industrial training in the rural school, and they have blazed some of the lines along which such training should be directed. Instead of cutting out a corner lot 300 x 200 feet at a convenient crossroads, planting the schoolhouse in the center, and artistically filling the space left with a green pump and fuel, and outhouses at the several corners, leaving scarcely sufficient room for a game of "anti-over" or "three old cat," two acres or three or five or eight should be had where land is cheap. This will give opportunity for experimental and practical agriculture, not of the play garden type. The growing of fruits and vegetables and flowers can also receive attention. This will necessitate the securing of the services of some boy who will care for the gardens through the summer months.

If the school has a basement it can be used as a shop. If thoroughly drained and cemented a kitchen may be located here. In new buildings provision should be made for additional room, and in districts where no space in the present house is available, a small addition may be constructed or a separate building erected, well lighted, and weatherproof. Such a building, if used for shop purposes, may be made with sides that can be raised, so that in fine weather the pupils will have all the advantages of working out of doors.

In dealing with this problem in the rural school it is not safe to attempt to educate the taxpayers to the value of making things that have no utility and such as possess no beauty, nor intrinsic worth. We must proceed rather from the standpoint of values as held by the community members. There are schools where the course of study in manual training is on such a scientific and pedagogic basis and so educational in its applications, that should a boy bring from home a hammer that he desires to rehandle, he will be allowed this mark of privilege only as he completes successfully a definite model or exercise in a prescribed series. The procedure should be directly reversed. The handling of an ax or hammer, the mending of a window sash, the rehanging of a door, the doweling of an umbrella handle, the glueing of a picture frame, the splicing of a plow beam or the mend