1. The greatest social need of the century is the organization and consequent upbuilding of the rural life of America.

2. This must be the outgrowth of the self-activity of rural life forces.

3. Outside forces can only assist in this work.

4. There is a need of raising the general level of living in the country in order to keep the brightest and best people from leaving the country in too great numbers.

5. To educate the young in the schools, to elevate their ideals, to arouse their ambitions without raising the level of living and offering them a broader field for the exercise of their talents may do as much harm as good.

6. The school is only one of these agencies for community upbuilding.

7. There must be a cooperation among the rural life forces, all working together for a common end.

8. The farmer, the country woman, the country teacher, the country editor, the country doctor, the country business man, and the country preacher shall and must all join hands for a hard pull, a long pull, and a pull all together for better living along every line in the country.

9. The community is the proper unit for rural development.

10. The community must learn how to educate, to organize, and to develop itself.

CONFERENCE OF STATE RURAL SCHOOL SUPERVISORS.

The first national conference of State supervisors and inspectors of rural schools was held under the auspices of the United States Bureau of Education at Louisville, Ky., April 6-9, 1914. The conference devoted its time to a discussion of the topic "The best methods for the improvement of the rural schools through State supervision," under the following subtopics: (a) Through demonstration schools; (b) through local supervisors; (c) through consolidation; (d) through standardization; (e) through preparation of rural teachers; (f) through improvement of teachers in service; (g) through community activities; (h) through county industrial supervisors.

After devoting the first three days of the conference to a thorough discussion of these topics, committees were appointed to bring in reports embodying a consensus of the opinion of the conference on each question. The fourth day was devoted to a discussion of the reports, a summary of which follows:

Demonstration schools. We recognize in the demonstration school or school for special demonstration purposes a splendid way of showing the people in a definite and concrete way what a school can do for a community.

Local supervision.-There should be a much closer local supervision of the school than has hitherto existed in the majority of the States. There should be in each county, township, or parish, as a minimum supervisory force, a superintendent of schools, and under his direction, a supervisor of schools, a director of agricultural education, a director of education in household science and arts, and an office clerk. Consolidation. We indorse the consolidated school as one of the greatest single factors in rural school improvement.

Standardization.-As fundamental principles of standardization we recommend the following, viz, (1) minimum material equipment; (2) minimum qualification for teachers, including or looking toward a degree of physical training; (3) closer and

abler rural school supervision; (4) compulsory education, or a high rate of enrollment based on enumeration, and a high rate of daily attendance, based on enrollment; (5) a minimum length of school term; (6) an approved State and local course of study, and it is agreed that in the work of standardization we can not get beyond requirements for material features until schools are adequately supervised by State supervisors of rural schools.

Preparation of rural teachers.-The new farm school calls for a new kind of teacher, professionally prepared, who shall understand the difficult problems of present-age life and shall have the right vision of this life and be willing to live it in the midst of the country community.

Such teachers should (1) be community leaders, (2) be masters of the subject matter taught, and (3) strong in modern rural school organization and administration.

We urge the State normal schools and other schools whose province it is to prepare elementary and secondary teachers to organize, as soon as practicable, distinct and complete departments for the preparation of rural teachers. We further urge such agricultural colleges as do not now offer professional preparation in agricultural education to add a professional staff to their faculty, to the end that the future agricultural teachers in our farm schools may have a pedagogical as well as a technical foundation for successful work; and, finally, we urge the importance of establishing schools or departments of schools in which country-life leaders and agricultural experts of every kind may be prepared for their important work.

Training the untrained teachers now at work in country schools.-The following have been found successful in training the rural teachers at work:

1. The county supervising teacher: The county supervising teacher visits the school of the novice at the beginning of the session, helps her organize her school, classify her pupils, make her daily program, and demonstrates correct methods of teaching, especially with the beginners.

2. The demonstration school: Every county should have several country schools under the charge of especially efficient, experienced teachers. The untrained beginners should be given an opportunity to visit these schools and observe the work.

3. The teacher's manual: The teacher's manual should not be merely an outline of the course of study. It should constitute an elementary pedagogy of the country school and should offer concrete suggestions adapted to the particular needs of the State for which it is designed.

4. The county institute: The short-term county institute, held just previous to the opening of the school year, gives the county superintendent and supervising teacher an opportunity to correct many of the mistakes which would otherwise be made by untrained teachers.

5. The county teachers' association: The programs of the county teachers' associations should deal with the practical workings of the schoolroom. These programs should frequently include model lessons, followed by free discussion.

6. The teachers' reading circle: The teachers' reading circle offers to the young teacher an opportunity of enlarging and organizing her experience.

7. The summer school for teachers: Thousands of teachers have, through summer schools, been given an opportunity to study educational principles and practices. Community activities.-From the standpoint of the pupils, the school should have courses in agriculture, domestic science, and manual training; public debates and amateur plays, school exhibits and fairs, and organized play, including county field days. The school should encourage the organization and direct the work of corn and canning clubs.

From the standpoint of the adults, the schoolhouse, should be open at least one evening each week for lyceums, free lectures, discussions of civic and economic questions, and for social and recreational gatherings. In order to carry out the pro

gram, there should be organized in each school a community club consisting of all the adults of the community. This organization should adopt a constitution, elect officers, hold regular meetings, and outline each year a program of work for community improvement.

Improvement of rural schools through county industrial supervisors.-We recognize the necessity of making the rural schools more useful in building up a better rural civilization, and we recognize the fact that the limitations of the average country school are such that the teacher can hardly break away from the traditional character of work without personal aid and demonstration from outside sources.

1. We therefore indorse the work of the county industrial supervisor in introducing the arts pertaining to home making, cooking, sanitation, and farm life into the rural schools.

2. We recommend that such a supervising industrial teacher be employed for the entire year.

3. We recommend that club work, such as the organization of boys' and girls' clubs, and demonstration in the growing and canning of fruit and vegetables, be a part of the work of this teacher; and that such a teacher should promote citizens' leagues to organize and improve the social life of the community, as well as to assist in improving school facilities.

4. We recommend that this teacher be employed by the county school authorities, and work under the direction of the county superintendent.

5. We recommend that the State supervisor cooperate with the county superintendent and assist in planning and directing this work.

6. We indorse the work of the Jeanes fund in cooperating with the county superintendents in employing supervising industrial teachers for the negro rural schools of the South.

7. We indorse all philanthropic efforts to supply State and county supervision looking toward the betterment of the rural schools, but we believe that eventually all such supervisory work should become a part of the public-school system.

TEACHER TRAINING FOR RURAL SCHOOLS.

I. First national conference.-At the first national conference on teacher training for rural schools in Chicago, September 24-26, called by the United States Commissioner of Education at the request of several of the State departments of education, the following resolutions were adopted:

Whereas an investigation recently conducted by the National Bureau of Education discloses the fact that 32.7 per cent of the rural teachers now in service in the United States have had no professional preparation for their work; and in view of the accepted significance of rural education to our national life, and as the success of all rural education depends to a large extent upon the teacher: Therefore be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of this conference that all educational institutions which can readily lend themselves to such purpose be utilized to train teachers for the rural schools:

1. Universities and colleges throughout the country where consistent with practical administration, that these services be interpreted to include the establishment of high standards of rural life and education and the actual work of training for rural leadership.

2. State and private normal schools in special departments of rural education, and in the preparation of teachers for teacher-training departments in high schools and county normals.

3. State agricultural colleges in their departments of education through the right training of men and women to teach in the secondary schools such subjects as agriculture, manual training, and home economics; that the agricultural college is also doing a proper work in this direction when it is promoting the idea of vocational education in the minds of all the people-patrons, teachers, and children; that the agricultural college should be looked to as the authoritative source of agricultural knowledge; the agricultural high schools should not only have for their highest purpose the training of young people for the farm and home and in the promotion of vocational education, but they should be expected to add much professional work for effective teaching in the rural schools.

4. That the preparation of teachers for rural schools in county training schools and in teacher-training classes in high schools is approved as a policy where more extensive training is not at present feasible; and it is recommended that such training in high schools should not be given before the junior year and no diploma of graduation be granted before the twelfth school year is finished.

5. That the need for professionally trained teachers to take charge of teacher training in high schools and in county normals is very keenly felt, and hence we urge upon institutions engaged in the training of teachers the necessity for their offering suitable training for such positions.

6. That we urge upon normal schools, colleges, and universities the reasonableness and justice of admitting high-school training-class graduates with rights and privileges equal to those extended to other high-school graduates.

7. That we commend the extension work, the rural school and rural life conferences, and summer sessions of our normal schools, colleges, universities, and agricultural schools as a means for the improvement of rural teachers in service, the promotion of agricultural education, and the betterment of rural life through the home, school, and church.

8. That the training of teachers for the rural schools should be such that they will be fitted to utilize the boys' and girls' home-project work as a means of motivating the industrial, social, and educational life of the school, the home, and the community.

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9. That the use of the public schoolhouse as a civic center should be correlated with its use for children's instruction in both country and town. * * We recommend that when the public schoolhouse becomes the polling place and civic forum of the community the school principal, or other responsible employee of the school board associated with the school principal, be authorized to serve as the civic secretary of the community and made responsible for the systematic organization and direction of all of the uses of the public-school property. We further recommend that the administrative organization necessary for the systematic development of the use of the public-school buildings and grounds as civic, social, and recreation centers be incorporated with and made a part of the work of the departments of public-school administration in city, county, and State.

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* That we request the Commissioner of Education to call this conference in annual session from year to year as a clearing house for information to guide us in a nation-wide campaign now begun, which we pledge ourselves to continue through the best agencies possible until there shall be a sufficient number of properly trained teachers for the rural schools of the United States.

The conference was unanimous also in making the plea of J. Sterling Morton for professionally trained teachers the platform on which to wage a national campaign for professionally trained teachers for the rural schools of the United States:

We demand professionally trained teachers, men and women of irreproachable character and well-tested abilities. We demand from our legislature laws raising the standard of the profession and exalting the office of the teacher. As the doctor of medicine or the practitioner at law is only admitted within the pale of his calling upon the production of his parchment or certificates, so the applicant for the position of instructor in our primary and other schools should be required by law to first produce his diploma, his authority to teach, from the normal schools.

We call no uneducated quack or charlatan to perform surgery upon the bodies of our children, lest they may be deformed, crippled, and maimed physically all their lives. Let us take equal care that we intrust the development of the mental faculties to skilled instructors of magnanimous character that the mentalities of our children may not be mutilated, deformed, and crippled, to halt and limp through all the centuries of their never-ending lives. The deformed body will die, and be forever put out of sight under the ground, but a mind made monstrous by bad teaching dies not, but stalks forever among the ages, an immortal mockery of the divine image.

II. In public high schools.-Teacher training in public high schools was not only indorsed by the two conferences already mentioned, but also by the Southern Education Association and the Conference for Education in the South at Louisville, Ky., in April, 1914.

It was the consensus of opinion among those at the conferences most deeply interested in the problem of the rural teacher that teacher training in public high schools is one of the most effective, economic, and popular agencies available. Maryland and Ohio established teacher training in their public high schools by legislative act in 1914; Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia are the Southern States that had already taken up the work. In the New England States, Vermont is leading in teacher training in her high schools; Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin are the States of the Central West that have had teacher training in their public high schools for some years. As other States are now seriously considering this policy as a means of providing professionally trained teachers for the rural schools, it seems fitting to review this subject at this time.

Teacher training in high schools is not a new thing; it was established by legislative act in New York State as long ago as 1827, or 12 years before the establishment of the first State normal school in America at Lexington, Mass., and in the last 25 years New York has appropriated $100,000 annually for this work. Practically all the laws on this subject in other States have been patterned after the New York act. In all of the States making a success of this work, it has been found necessary to have State aid for its support. The appropriation in such States is from $50,000 to $100,000 annually.

Those who are opposed to teacher training in high schools usually base their argument upon the theory that it will lower the standard of scholarship and professional training, and that high-school pupils are not sufficiently mature to profit by a study of pedagogy. Yet in practice, according to President D. W. Hayes, of the State Normal