practise of medicine. His sole preparation was a few months' study of veterinary medicine. He found it more profitable to practise on people than horses, and there was no law to prevent. Before he could enter on the practise of medicine to-day he would be required in most states to have four years at high school; and in some states in addition to spend from two to four years in college; and finally three or four years in the medical school. Similar changes have come about in the requirements for law, the ministry and commercial occupations. And the trades and other industrial vocations also demand a correspondingly increased degree of preparation and skill.

But perhaps the greatest changes of all have come in the field of agriculture. It means much more to be a New standards in farmer now than even a generation agriculture ago. The difference is at least as great as in the case of the doctor, the lawyer, or the worker in a technical trade. Land has doubled, trebled, or quadrupled in value, while at the same time losing something of its original productivity. It must therefore be so farmed as to overcome this loss, and return a fair interest or rent on a valuation of from one hundred to two hundred dollars an acre.

The successful farmer must be something of a scientist. He must master the principles underlying the rotation of crops. He must know the nature of the different soils and their adaptability to the various plant products. He must understand the cultivation and growth of the different grains, grasses and vegetables. He must be familiar with the weeds and the insects that prey on his fields. He must have a knowledge of the breeding and the care of stock. He must be a business man, and understand the

markets for his grain and his stock. He should also be a mechanic, and understand the building, draining and other improvements necessary to the farm.

Farm children's need of education

The old type of rural school can not prepare for the problems of the modern farm. It has therefore had its day. It belongs with the period of home-made shoes, the scythe and the stone churn. It is not capable of supplying the education required by the twentieth-century rural boy or girl. They need, and have a right to, a better education than their parents or grandparents had. They require a preparation that will fit them to understand and carry out all the problems of successful present-day farming. They should also have their interests broadened and their minds developed through a knowledge of the world's great literature, its science, its history, its art and its music. Given material surroundings and equipment almost infinitely in advance of those possessed by the former generation, they must also be given the mental training to match, else they will find themselves handicapped in the presence of the new conditions, and will desert the farms for other lines of occupation.

The farmer's school has always been, and should continue to be, the rural school. But it must be a rural school that is abreast with the times, and not one on the level of a former century. It must keep step with the progress that is taking place in other lines, and with the new demands being made on agriculture. It must be able to educate the children of to-day for the farms of to-day. The rural school must be able to offer the farm child as good an education as that available to the town or city child, though this education will of necessity be in part a different education.

Can the rural schools as they average over our country now measure up to the new requirements being placed on them? Have they kept pace with Can the rural school meet its de- other lines of social and industrial mands? progress? Is the education afforded the farm boy and girl in our present rural schools as much better than that given their parents or grandparents as the present demands on education are greater than the former demands? Is the rural child now receiving relatively as good an education as the rural child of the earlier day? Has he provided for him as good an education as the town child receives? Is the rural school as good as the rural community can afford?

It is to be feared that such questions will in the main have to be answered in the negative. It is true that in Rural and town some regions of the country the rural schools compared schools have been improved and developed until they now afford at least the rudiments of an excellent education for the children of the farm. But this is the exception rather than the rule. The old type of rural school is altogether too common in most parts of the country. While the town and city schools have been advancing in efficiency, the rural school has in too many cases stood where it was a lifetime ago. The town schools of the present day are generally housed in excellent buildings, planned both for architectural beauty and adaptability to the work of the school. The equipment is modern and efficient. The rooms are well decorated, and made attractive and homelike. Libraries are stocked with books, and laboratories adequately supplied with apparatus and material. The schools are well graded and managed, trained and efficient teachers are employed, and fair salaries paid,

Present status of rural schools

But it is not so in the rural school. Too many rural schools are still sheltered in the pitiful little one-roomed building, ugly in appearance, heated by an unprotected stove in the middle of the room, lighted by opposite rows of shadeless windows, and ventilated hardly at all. The grounds are usually as desolate as the building, covered with unmown grass and weeds, and destitute of shade trees. The interior of the room is often dingy and dirty, the windows and floor are unwashed, and the walls are without decorations. There are but few books, often no apparatus, and not infrequently a shortage of all supplemental supplies necessary to teaching. The school is of necessity poorly classified, since the one teacher has all the grades under her charge. The teacher is usually overworked, often undertaking to hear as many as thirty recitations a day. She has, as a rule, had but little experience, and no special training for her work. Too often she comes from a town or city home with no knowledge of farm life or conditions, and little interest in country boys and girls. Thus the gap between the farm home and the school is still further increased. If the whole truth be told, thousands of our rural schools are not faring as well as they did fifty years ago. For then there were fewer graded schools and high schools to tempt the best teachers away from the district school. Hence a good teacher could often be kept for years in the same rural school; now he is soon called to the town or city, and the rural school must take a young and an inexperienced teacher, or be satisfied with those who remain after the city has had its pick.

Nor is the actual amount of education received by the rural child to-day greatly in advance of that of the