possible, forming a valuable preparation for the study of agriculture in the upper grades.

Is it too much to say that nature study that prepares not children for real life by enabling them to gain an understanding and mastery of the physical conditions of life and the varied utilities of life is of little worth? Is it asking too much to ask that nature study work develop self-reliance, respect for labor and teach that only by one's self action can one hope to be of service? It is too much to ask that a work so beautiful in itself, so filled with good and so essential to child development should be so constructed as to be a beautiful and solid foundation from which may rise an edifice not only of structural beauty, but an edifice that will contribute to the future welfare of American citizenship?

Nature study offers a rich practical field, and through nature, sympathy and observation children will have a foundation for science and scientific agriculture. Accurate knowledge of nature, however simple it may be, is essential.

Nature study is based on truth, not imagination, not sentimentality. Nature study develops mind, soul and body. It lays the foundation for the greatest of all industries, an industry absolutely essential to national prosperity, an industry in which every child as producer or consumer is an economic factor.

Theorizing on what should be will amount to but

little unless it causes an awakening of those most concerned. Rural people must work out their own problems.

The rural people have made great progress and have made it under adverse conditions. These conditions are peculiar to rural life, and many of the attendant hardships are the unavoidable results of these conditions.

It is absolutely necessary that an agricultural district be less densely populated than are manufacturing and commercial districts. The fact that rural districts are sparsely inhabited throws responsibility upon few instead of many. Tax is paid by the few, and the territory served is so great that city standards for public improvements are prohibitive for rural improvements.

It is beyond reason to expect that rural roads shall equal city streets, or that the country roadsides shall be as well kept where one man is responsible for one hundred and sixty rods, as is the parking along a city street where one man usually has the care of less than sixty feet. It is unnecessary and undesirable that city standards should prevail in rural places, and this applies to rural schools, rural churches and rural society as well as to rural roads.

The parent has a responsibility for his child's future welfare, and nowhere so much as in rural

places does this responsibility extend to the neighbor's child as well.

The sparsely settled condition of rural communities makes those living in those communities more dependent socially than are those living in towns and cities. Here it is less possible to choose one's associates, and here as nowhere else can one suffer neglect without all being affected. It is therefore imperative that there be a closer organization and a more united effort among rural people than there have been in the past. Owing to adverse conditions it will require a greater effort, a greater expenditure of energy, time and money to make this organization and effort effective than would be required for a similar effectiveness under urban conditions. The foregoing will illustrate fundamental difficulties in nearly all rural problems and suggest that these problems be attacked with a thoughtfulness, earnestness and determination that will inevitably bring solutions of all great world problems.

The activity herein suggested must be purposeful. First of all there must be unmistakable recognition of certain needs, clear and definite objects to be accomplished.

Farming, after all, is a means to an end. The farmer with children has for his purpose the rearing of these children to become intelligent, useful, happy, contented citizens; and neither happiness nor

contentment comes to those who feel that their lots are harder than others have to bear, or their opportunities less favorable.

Better means of transportation, automobiles and good roads are bringing happiness and contentment to many rural homes. Social differences and social distinctions are rapidly disappearing on account of these. Ministers are beginning to recognize that they have no longer two classes of people in their congregations. Everyone recognizes the church as a powerful socializing influence, but in this it will not stand comparison with the school. The school is a territorial institution, and our only really democratic institution, but the school does not measure up to the church as a social institution except in the most progressive and educated communities. Any community can be educated and progressive, provided it wants to be, a simple case of heart and treasure being in the same place. For the accomplishment of these results there must be a passion for real productive achievement along definite lines.

It is no less unkind than untrue to say that rural people do not realize their responsibility to their children; or that they are less sacrificing than are the urban parents. Rural people have made greater sacrifices for their children than have people in other industrial lines, and these sacrifices have been rewarded with incommensurate returns.

CHAPTER XX

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS

THE rural schools must be reorganized; they must have consolidation so that they can have a larger school unit, so they may employ more teachers and better teachers, so they may be able to keep their teachers for a longer time, and so they may have more comprehensive courses of study, offering those things which do function with the business of the community. The open country and the school of the open country as well as the church are looking to the rural town. And by the rural town is meant a town of 2500 or smaller population. Our rural towns must furnish the basis or the nucleus for the first consolidated schools. These towns already have schools of such proportion as to afford splendid opportunity for their own students and for those of the open country. It has been argued by some that the rural school should not be connected with the rural town school because the interests of these two peoples are so widely different, but the interests of these two peoples are not widely different and the small town problem is not going to be benefited by the establishment of consolidated schools. In fact, the establishment of consolidated schools in the open country is likely to increase the number of small