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students carrying out different home projects in agriculture as a part of their regular school requirement. The high school fully maintains its standard among urban high schools of its locality. It is offering for the first time this year a normal course designed to prepare teachers for the rural schools, and especially to give them preparation in agriculture and domestic science. In connection with the high school are given winter short courses in agriculture and stock raising which are largely attended by the farmers of the vicinity. Short farmers' institutes are also held on the school grounds with addresses and demonstrations given by experts from agricultural schools and colleges. The domestic-science classes have been utilized in serving lunches to visitors and patrons on gala days, thus gaining practise for themselves and still further interesting the community in their school work. It is freely admitted that this high school is doing more than any other factor of its locality to break up the isolation and social monotony of the rural community, and replace it with a neighborhood spirit of cooperation and good-will.

As an illustration of some of the practical activities of the school, there are made in the laboratory each year some two hundred tests of milk and cream coming from the farms of the community. Before a farmer buys a cow, he obtains a sample of her milk and sends it to the school for a test. Cream shippers are also asking for tests of their cream in order to make sure of its passing the inspector. Growing out of such work, the neighborhood has organized a cow-testing association of about a dozen enterprising dairymen, who have stopped guessing about their stock and insist on knowing by means of scientific measurements.

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Loyalty of the patrons

The principal of the school, who is a graduate of one of the leading agricultural colleges, is constantly called on for his judgment concerning flowers, trees, shrubs and the insect enemies of the region. His advice is sought with reference to the rotation of crops, drainage, stock and all other matters connected with the agricultural interests of the community. All these things go to indicate the intimate connection which has been set up between the school and its patrons. The farmers have come to recognize the school as their own, and both its future and its usefulness are now fully assured.

Outlook for the rural high school

Scores of similar illustrations from different sections of the country could be given to show the part that may be played by the high school in rural life and education. Wherever the high school has been installed as part of the rural system, it has rapidly grown in favor among its constituency, and has gained a permanent hold on their loyalty and support. Once the farming community comes to see the necessity and value of secondary education for its children, the country child will have as favorable an opportunity for high-school training as the city child. Only when this has been accomplished will our system of rural schools have fulfilled their obligation to the children of the farms. For only then will the country boys 'and girls have available the amount and type of education necessary for a successful career, and requisite to a full development of their own powers and capacities.

FOR TEACHERS' DISCUSSION AND STUDY

1. What proportion of the boys and girls in your township between fourteen and twenty-one years of age

either are in high school, or have had a high-school education? Why is not the proportion larger?

2. How many boys from your township have in the last five years attended a town high school? How many of them plan to take up farming as a vocation? Is it true that the town high school leads away from the farm?

3. Do country children in your locality have their tuition paid by the district, if the district has no high school of its own? Is there any reason why graduates of rural schools should not have high schooling supplied at public expense, as well as town children?

4. What is your judgment of the high-school course outlined in the chapter? Does such a course supply as thorough an education as the ordinary town high-school course?

5. Latin as a requirement is rapidly dropping out of many high-school courses. Do you believe that this is a mistake?

6. Count the number of boys and girls in your township who have now quit school, but who probably would have had a high-school education had a rural high school been available.

7. Account for the fact that well-established consolidated schools almost always result in the addition of a high school as a part of the consolidated school.

8. What advantage can you urge for rural high schools like those described in the chapter against town. or city high schools as a place to educate farm boys and girls? What disadvantages? Do you think country boys and girls are to be blamed for tiring of the average rural school?

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CONSOLIDATED BUILDING AND EQUIPMENT

Consolidation is resulting in better buildings and equipment than have heretofore belonged to rural education. First of all, the building must in nearly all cases be new. And school standards and schoolhouse architec

Consolidation is

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ture have advanced to the point where a certain disgrace is coming to be felt by those who favor or condone inadequate or unsuitable buildings or equipment. The consolidated school usually serves a territory large enough to supply a reasonable amount of money for school purposes without making the tax burdensome. It represents a constituency progressive in school affairs, and hence desirous of securing the best their means will afford for their children. The consolidated buildings therefore show a vast improvement over the old type of country schoolhouses.

Many still too small

One of the most frequent mistakes being made in erecting consolidated buildings to-day is in making them too small. It is thought that the rural population, unlike the city population, is not likely to increase, and that therefore the building capable of accommodating the present children of the territory will be adequate for the future. Almost universally, however, it has been found that the con

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The cost of this building is approximately twelve thousand dollars.

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