The Rural School Problem

THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Delos Fall has published a small bulletin designated "A Study of the Rural Schools of Michigan" which every man, woman and child interested in this question would do well to read. It is a fact which few will care to dispute that our rural schools as they are organized and managed today are not returning the results they should. The boys and girls who are educated in them are not holding their own with their more favored brothers and sisters who are sent to the city and village high schools.  It is a demonstrated fact that the best progress is not to be obtained in the small school with a dozen to eighteen pupils.  The wide awake, alert, progressive stimulus of numbers is lacking and the necessary equipment is also lacking.  But unless these conditions are overcome, the young people of the rural districts are going to be compelled to enter upon the duties of life with less equipment than their more fortunate fellows who have the advantages of good, high schools.  On this point Superintendent Fall speaks as follows:

"A more alarming and serious fact is that while a small percentage of our rural young people are thus receiving the training and culture of the high schools, a much larger class cannot afford the expense of going away from home for that purpose.  They know as well as their more favored friends that the times demand at least the education which the high schools give; but they are not financially able to obtain more than that afforded by the district schools at home.  This condition of things will gradually give rise to a class distinction.  The bright and promising young men will drift to the city and the less ambitious will remain behind.  I have been told by observant farmers that this kind of differentiation is already taking place and that it is now clearly manifest in some localities.  It is certain to be much more apparent in another generation.  The reverse should be true; the country needs the presence and influence of the brightest and best of its young life."