district additional expense, and measure all values by this one criterion. These are the ones who seek the teacher willing to accept the lowest salary, who oppose improvements in building or equipment, and whose first question concerning any new plan is whether it will result in greater expense.

tional revival

What the rural community needs more than anything else is an educational revival that will touch the pocketNeed of an educa- books, causing the taxpayers to see in the school an opportunity for financial investment, and also an opportunity to pay the debt that society owes to the children. Good schools yield an abundant return in dollars and cents, but this is not the only reason they should be well supported; they also pay as great returns in largeness of life, happiness and efficiency. And it is good for a community to conceive its school in this light as well as in the other.

The rural schools require better financial support; there is abundant wealth to supply this support. The problem is to make this need clear to those who control the pursestrings, to convince them that money spent on education is well invested, and finally to arrange our tax machinery better so as to equalize the financial burden of supporting the schools.

FOR TEACHERS' DISCUSSION AND STUDY

1. What reasons lie back of the fact that the rural schools have lagged so far behind the town schools in financial support? Are the farmers as well able to pay a reasonable tax rate as city people?

2. School-tax rates in towns and cities usually average from two to three times as high as in the country. Com

pare the rates for a township in your county. (The assessor or county auditor can supply rate.)

3. Make a somewhat detailed comparison of all lines of recent improvement in town and rural schools of your county. Also compare school interest and loyalty. How do you account for the difference? What needs to be done?

4. What has been the trend in salaries in your county recently? Is it fair to demand better preparation of teachers if salaries are to be raised, or are present standards high enough?

5. Where does your state rank (according to the chart shown in the chapter) in the proportion of its total wealth going into education? Do you think the people should be taught to want to spend more for education?

6. Can you state the argument for and against a county versus a township basis for school taxation? For a large proportion of state tax going to support schools? (See Cubberly as cited in chapter.)

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CARE OF BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS

New methods must obtain in providing for the care of rural-school buildings and grounds. Three factors have Factors demanding arisen that render this imperative: change of methods (1) The increased burden and responsibility thrust on the teacher by the addition of new subjects to the curriculum and the demand for higher standards of teaching; (2) the growing insistence for improved hygienic conditions in the school, which entails much additional work in the care of the building; (3) the larger size of the rural-school buildings and the greater amount of equipment demanding care and attention.

From time immemorial a part of the rural teacher's duties have been to serve as school janitor. In early New England this custom extended to village schools also, and not infrequently the schoolmaster had not only the care of the schoolhouse, but of the church as well. That there might be no question that he fully earned his salary, the task of digging the village graves was often added to his responsibilities. But with the passing of the pioneer days, the town and city teachers have escaped the demands of manual labor about the buildings. Such work has been handed over to janitors employed especially for this service.

But this is not the case in rural schools. More than ninety per cent. of the rural teachers of the United States

are still expected to do all the janitor work required by the school, and in most cases without extra compensation This is to say that the

Rural teachers and therefor.

janitor service rural community has not yet come to look on teaching as skilled labor, much less as a professional occupation, since a considerable portion of the time for which the teacher is employed is required in the simplest kind of manual work.

The rural teacher should not be required nor allowed to perform the janitor service for any school. This is not a question of the teacher being above the manual work involved; there is nothing degrading in the mere fact of sweeping and dusting a room and starting a fire. The question is rather one of business and professional expediency. Can the district afford to have the teacher devote time and energy to such employment, and can the teacher afford to spend his time and energy in such a manner?

It is a very serious problem that the rural teacher of the present confronts in making daily preparation for his work. In the district schools he is attempting to teach twenty-five or more recitations a day. These classes embrace almost the whole scope of the elementary curriculum and deal with children of all ages from five or six years up to fifteen or eighteen. In the old-time school, the teacher who was prepared in arithmetic, reading, writing and perhaps geography, had covered the range required of him. Preparation for the day's work, therefore, included only these few branches. There were no nature study, agriculture and domestic-science lessons to plan. Literature, history, art and music demanded none of his attention. Corn clubs, canning clubs and school gardens made no inroads on his time. There were no scientific

experiments to prepare, no home projects to supervise, and no language themes to correct or examination papers to grade.

The rural teacher of to-day has all these demands on his time and strength. The burden is already far too Whole of teacher's great, and much heavier than we ask time and energy of teachers in any other section of our belong to teaching school system. The rural teacher should therefore have thrust on him no outside duties that will take his time, distract his attention, endanger his health, or in any way lower his energy; for the problems of teaching require every resource of mind and body. It is a short-sighted policy and a false view of economy that permit a school board to devote any part of the teacher's time to such work as sweeping, dusting and the care of the room. For these things can be done equally well by less expensive labor.

The time that thousands of rural teachers are required to spend each morning in building the fire and getting the Time required for room ready for the day's work is one preparation or of the best hours of the day for the recreation study and planning of lessons. This time should be devoted to preparing for higher efficiency in teaching-to reviewing for the recitation, to outlining new projects of work, to professional reading and thought. When the teacher arrives at the building in the morning he should find it well heated, cleaned and aired, and all in readiness for beginning the day. He should have no more direct responsibility for the care of the schoolroom than has the town teacher. To violate this simple and obvious business principle shows an out-ofdate and narrow policy that ill matches the progressive spirit now ruling in commercial and industrial affairs.