Society: Its Origin and Development Part 10

CHAPTER XIX

THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL

132. =Nature Study in the New Rural School.=--In striking contrast to such a defective rural inst.i.tution as has been presented is the new rural school and the country-life movement of which it is a vital part. The first step in the new education is a growing recognition of the function of the school to relate its courses of study and its activities to the daily experience of the pupil. The background of country life is nature; therefore nature study is fundamental in the new curriculum. Careful observation of natural objects comes first, until the child is able to identify bird and bee and flower. To knowledge is added appreciation. The beauty of fern and leaf, of brookside and hillside, of star-dotted and cloud-dappled sky, is not appreciated by mere observation, but waits on the education of the mind. This is part of the task of the teacher. The economic use of natural objects and natural forces is secondary, and should remain so, but the new education takes the knowledge which has been gained by observation and the enthusiasm which has been distilled through appreciation, and applies them to the social need. Agriculture comes to seem not only an occupation for economic ends, but a vocation for social welfare also. With all the rest there is a moral and religious value in nature study. Nature is pre-eminently under the reign of law; obedience to that law, adjustment to the inexorable demands of nature, are essential to nature's children. No more wholesome moral lesson than this can be taught to the present generation of children. Nature ministers also to the spiritual. Power, order, beauty, intelligence speak through the language of the natural world to the human soul, and the thoughtful child can be led to see through nature to nature's G.o.d. Such a G.o.d is not a theory; in nature the divine presence is self-evident.

All theory in the new rural school is based on experimentation.

Together the new teacher and the pupils beautify the grounds and the interior of the school building; they plan and make gardens and try all sorts of gardening experiments; they grow the plants that they study, and, best of all, they see the process of growth; from the use of soil and seed and proper care they learn lessons in practical agriculture that give satisfaction to all employed as book studies alone never could, and they make possible a far better type of agriculture when the pupils have fields of their own. Nor is it necessary for pupils to wait for their maturity, for many a lesson learned at school and demonstrated in the neighborhood is promptly applied on the neighboring farms.

133. =The Study of the Individual.=--A second subject of study in the new rural schools is the individual. Nature study is essential to a rural school, but "the n.o.blest study of mankind is man." Though it is highly important that the individual should regard social responsibility as out-weighing his own rights, it would be unfortunate if the importance of the individual were ever overlooked. The nature of the physical self, the requirement of diet and hygiene, the moral virtues that belong to n.o.ble manhood and womanhood, the possible self-development in the midst of the rural environment that is the pupil's natural habitat are among the worthy subjects of patient and serious study through the grades. Neither physiology, psychology, nor ethics need be taught as such, but the elementary principles that enter into all of them belong among the mental a.s.sets of every individual.

134. =Rural Social Science.=--In the same way it is not necessary and perhaps may not be advisable to teach rural sociology or economics by name, even in the high school. With the extension of the curriculum to include agriculture, there is need of some consideration of the principles of the ownership and use of land, farm management, and marketing. Practical instruction in accounts, manual training, and domestic science find place in the new school. Fully as important as these is it to explain the social relations that properly exist in the home, the school, and the neighborhood, to show the mutual dependence of all upon one another, and to point out the advantages of co-operation over a prideful individualism and frequent social friction. Along with these relationships, or supplementary to them, belong the larger relations of country and town and the reciprocal service that each can render to the other, the characteristics and tendencies of social life in both types of community, and the effects of the changes that are taking place in methods of doing business and in the nature and characteristics of the people of either community.

Following these topics come the problems of rural socialization through such agencies as the school, the grange, and the church, and the application of the principles already learned in a study of social relations.

135. =Improvement in Economy and Efficiency.=--While the curriculum of the schools is being fitted to the needs of the community, it is desirable that there should be improvement of economy and efficiency in the whole system of education. This is being accomplished partly by better supervision and teaching, but also by a consolidation of schools which makes possible better grading, an enlarged curriculum, improved teaching, and a deeper interest among the pupils. But one of the best results that come from school consolidation is to the community itself. A consolidated school means a larger and better-equipped building. It often has a large a.s.sembly hall, a library, and an agricultural laboratory. The new school has within it tremendous potencies. It may become under proper direction an educational centre for people of all ages and degrees of attainment.

Continuation schools for adults, especially the young and middle-aged people, who were born too soon to enjoy the advantages of the new education, are possible in the late autumn and winter. Popular lectures and demonstrations on subjects of common concern and entertainments based on rural interests find place at this centre.

Mixed occasionally with a rural programme belongs instruction in wider social relations and world affairs.

136. =The Teacher a Community Leader.=--With the consolidated school comes the well-trained teacher, and such a teacher deserves new recognition as a community leader. In Europe and in some parts of rural America the teacher has a permanent home near the schoolhouse, as a minister has a parsonage near the meeting-house. Such a teacher has an interest in community welfare, and a willingness to aid in community betterment. Whether man or woman, he becomes naturally a community leader, and with the backing of public sentiment and adequate support a distinct community a.s.set. Such a teacher is more than a school instructor. He becomes a social educator of the people by interpreting to them their community life; he becomes a social inspirer to hope, ambition, and courage as he unfolds possible social ideals; he becomes a guide to a new prosperity as he defines the methods and principles on which other communities have worked out their own local successes. Through the medium of the teacher the neighborhood may be brought into vital contact with other communities in a district or whole county, and may be brought together to consider their common interests and to try experiments in co-operation, first for educational purposes and then for general community prosperity.

At first the rural teacher in many localities will have enough to do with securing proper accommodations for the children in school, for good buildings frequently wait for a teacher who has the courage to demand and persist in getting them; but the larger work for the community is only second in importance and adds greatly to the responsiveness of the older people to the suggestions of the teacher.

One great weakness in the past has been the short term of service of the average teacher. It takes time to accomplish changes in a conservative community, and the new education will be successful only as the new teacher becomes a comparative fixture. To build oneself into the life of a rural community as does the physician, and to enn.o.ble it with new ideas and higher ideals, is a missionary service that can hardly be surpa.s.sed at the present time in America.

137. =Higher Education.=--The normal school, the rural academy or county high school, and the college have their part in rural education. It rests with the normal school to supply the trained teacher and the normal schools rapidly are meeting the demands of the present situation. Training cla.s.ses for rural teachers have been established in high schools or academies in twelve or more States.

More and more these higher schools are relating their courses of study to the rural life in which so many of them are placed.

138. =What the University Can Do.=--An increasing number of young people from the country are going to college. The college was founded on the principle of educating American youth in a higher culture than local elementary schools could provide. It is the function of the college and the university to open wider vistas for the individual mind than is otherwise possible, to do on an infinitely larger scale what the teacher is attempting in the elementary grades. These higher schools are pa.s.sing through a humanizing process; they are making more of the social sciences and the art of living well; and they are allying themselves with practical life. In the case of established inst.i.tutions with traditions, and often with trustees and alumni of conservative tastes and tendencies, there are difficulties in the way of their rapid adaptation to vocational needs. It is probably best that a certain cla.s.s of them should stand primarily for intellectual culture, as technical and agricultural schools stand for their specialties, but the true university should be representative of all the social interests of all the people in the State.

An ill.u.s.tration of what the university can do in social service for a whole State occurs in the recent history of the University of Wisconsin. It conceived its function to be not solely to educate students who came for the full university course. It considered the needs of the people of the State, and it planned to provide information and intellectual stimulus for as wide a circle as possible. It provided correspondence courses. It sent out a corps of instructors to carry on extension courses. It made affiliations with other State inst.i.tutions. It reached all cla.s.ses of the people and touched all their social interests. It became especially useful to the farmers. In spite of scepticism on the part of the people and some of the university officers, those who had faith in the wider usefulness of the university pushed their plan until they succeeded in organizing a short winter course in agriculture for farmers' sons and then for the older farmers, branched out into domestic courses for the women, and even made provision for the interests of the boys and girls.

Reaching out still further, the university organized farmers' courses in connection with the county agricultural schools, established experiment stations, and encouraged the boys to enter local contests for agricultural prizes. By these means the university has become widely popular and has been exceedingly beneficial to the people of the State.

139. =The Public Library.=--While the school stands out as the leading educational inst.i.tution of the rural community, it is by no means the sole agency of culture. Alongside it is the library. Home libraries in the country rarely contain books of value, either culturally or for practical purposes. Circulating libraries of fiction are little better. School libraries and village libraries that contain well-selected literature are to be included among the desiderata of every countryside. A few of the great books of all time belong there, a small collection of current literature, including periodicals, and an abundant literature on country life in all its phases. It is the function of the library to instruct the people what to read and how to read by supplying book lists and book exhibits, and by demonstrating occasionally through the school or the church how books may be read to get the most out of them. In the days before public libraries were common in this country, library a.s.sociations were formed to secure good literature. Such a.s.sociations are still useful in small communities that find it impossible to sustain a public library, and they serve as a medium for securing from the State a travelling library, which has the special advantage of frequent subst.i.tution of books. Or the school library may be the nucleus of a literary collection for the whole community--advantageously so if the school building is kept open as a community centre.

140. =Reading Circles and Musical Clubs.=--The value of the library to the public consists, of course, not in the presence of books on the shelves, but in their use. Such use is encouraged by the existence of literary or art clubs and reading circles. They supply the twofold want of companionship and culture. The proper basis of a.s.sociation is similarity of interests. Local history or geology, nature study, current public events in State or nation, art in some of its phases, or the literature of a particular country or period, may be the special consideration of a club or reading circle; in every case the library is the laboratory of investigation. One of the conspicuously successful organizations of the last thirty years, showing how organization grows out of social need, is the Chautauqua movement.

Starting as an undertaking in Sunday-school extension by means of a summer a.s.sembly and local reading circles, in which the study of history, literature, and science was added to Bible study, the movement has grown, until it is represented by a thousand summer inst.i.tutes, with numerous popular lectures and entertainments, and it is one of the most useful educational agencies anywhere in the United States.

Every community is interested in music. Music has a place on every programme, whether of church, school, or public a.s.sembly. A musical club is one of the effective types of organization for those who are like-minded in country or town. There are two varieties of organization, the first of persons who join for the pleasure that comes from agreeable society, the second of those who enter the organization for the musical culture to be obtained. Whether for diversion or study, a musical club is well worth while. Under the influence of music antagonisms soften, moroseness disappears, and sociability and good cheer take their place. The old-fashioned singing-school was one of the most popular of local social inst.i.tutions; something is needed to fill its place. A club or band for the serious study of instrumental music not only gives culture to individuals, but is also an a.s.set of increasing value to a church or community.

141. =Woman's Clubs.=--These have become so common that they need no special description, but as a social phenomenon they have their significance. They mark a new era in the emanc.i.p.ation of ideas; they are indicative of a new interest and ambition, and they are training-schools for future citizenship. They are of special value because of the wide areas of human interest that are brought within scope of discussion. For rural women they are a great boon, and while they have been most numerous in the larger centres, they may easily become a universal stimulus and guide to higher culture everywhere. In the absence of a grange they may serve as a centre of farm interests, and discussion may be made practical by the application of acquired knowledge to local problems, but their great value is in broadening the women's horizon of thought and interest beyond their own affairs.

If rural men would organize local a.s.sociations or brotherhoods for similar a.s.sembly and discussion of State and national interests they could multiply many times the benefits that come from the a.s.sociations and discussions that occur on special days of political rally and voting. The rural mind needs frequent stimulus, and it needs frequent a.s.sociation with many minds. For this reason the cultural function is to be provided for by a method of congregation and organization approved by experience, leadership is to be provided and occasional stimulus applied, and life is to be enriched at many points. It is for the people themselves to carry on such enterprises, but the initiation of them often comes from outside. Usually, perhaps, the number of people locally who have a real desire for culture are few, but it is through the training of these few that judicious, capable leaders of the community are to be obtained.

READING REFERENCES

HART: _Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities_, pages 197-277.

CUBBERLEY: _Rural Life and Education_, pages 161-347.

CARNEY: _Country Life and the Country School_, pages 336-340.

DAVIS: _Agricultural Education in the Public Schools._

EGGLESTON AND BRUeRE: _The Work of the Rural School_, pages 193-223.

HOWE: _Wisconsin: an Experiment in Democracy_, pages 140-182.

_Country Life_, pages 200-210.

FOGHT: _The American Rural School_, pages 254-281.

CHAPTER XX

RURAL GOVERNMENT

142. =The Necessity of Government.=--Inst.i.tutions of recreation and culture are in most cases the voluntary creation of local groups of individuals, except as the state has adopted a system of compulsory education. Government may be self-imposed or fixed by external authority, in any case it cannot be escaped. It can be changed in form and efficiency; it depends for its worth upon standards of public opinion; but it cannot cease to exist. As the activity of the child needs to be regulated by parental control in the home and by the discipline of the teacher in the school, so the activity of the people in the community needs to be regulated by the authority of government.

Self-control on the part of each individual or the existence of custom or public opinion without an executive agency for the enforcement of the social will, is not sufficient to safeguard and promote the interests of all. Government has everywhere been necessary.

143. =The Reign of Law.=--The existence of regulation in the community is continually evident. The child comes into relation to law when he is sent to school to conform to the law of compulsory education. He goes to school along a road built and maintained by law, takes his place in a school building provided by a board of education or school committee that executes the law, and accepts the instruction of a teacher who is employed and paid according to the law. His hours of schooling and the length of terms and vacations are determined by the same authority. During his periods of recreation he is still under the reign of law, for game laws regulate the times when he may or may not hunt and fish. When he grows older and a.s.sumes the rights of citizenship he must bear his part of the burdens of society. He has the right to vote as one of the lawmakers of the land, but he is not thereby free to cast off the restraints of law. He must pay his proportion of the taxes that sustain the government that binds him, local, State, and federal taxes. He must perform the public duty of sitting on a jury or administering civic office if he is summoned thereto. Even in his own domicile, though he be householder and head of a family, he may not injure the public health or morals by nuisances on his own premises, his financial obligations to creditors are secured against him by law, even the possession of his acres is made certain only by public record. It makes no difference whether the legal restrictions under which he lives are local or national, they are all a part of the system for which he and his neighbors are responsible, and which as citizens they are under obligation to maintain.

144. =Political Terms.=--It is important to understand and use correctly certain terms which occur in this connection. The state is the people organized for the purpose of exercising the authority of social control. In its sociological sense it is not restricted to a large or small area, but in political parlance it is used with reference to a large district which possesses a certain degree of authority over all the people, as the State of New York, or the sovereign state of Great Britain. Government is the inst.i.tution that functions for social control in accordance with the will of the people or of an individual to whose authority they submit. Politics is the science and art of government, and includes statesmanship as its highest type and the manipulation of party machinery as its lowest type. Law is the body of social regulations administered by government ostensibly for the public good. Each of these may be and in the past has been prost.i.tuted for private advantage. In the state one man or a small group has seized and held the sovereign power through the force of personal ascendancy or the prestige of birth or wealth, and has used it for himself, as history testifies by numerous examples. The forms of government in many cases have not been well adapted to the functions that they were designed to perform. The despotic administrative agencies that were overthrown by the French Revolution were ill-adapted to the governmental needs of the lower cla.s.ses. Much of the governmental machinery of the American republic has not matched the const.i.tutional forms that were originally provided, and the Const.i.tution has had to be stretched or amended if the government of the founders of the republic was not to be revolutionized. So law and politics have had to be reorganized, revised, and reinterpreted to fit into the social need. Law is a conservative factor in progress, but it adapts itself of necessity to the demands of equity.

145. =The Will of the People.=--On the continent of Europe rural government is arranged usually by the central authority of the nation; in America it is more independent of national control. On this side of the water the colonial governments often interfered little with local freedom, and after the Revolution the people fashioned their own national organization, and in giving it certain powers jealously guarded their own local privileges. They were willing to sacrifice a general lawmaking power and grudgingly to permit the nation to have executive and judicial authority, but they retained the management of local affairs, including the raising and expenditure of direct taxes.

Local government, therefore, has continued to reflect the mind of the community, a mind occasionally swayed by emotional impulse, but usually controlled by a love of order, and by an Anglo-Saxon pride in self-restraint. The will of the people has made the government and sanctions its actions. It may be that the will is not fixed or united enough to force itself effectually upon a set of public officials, and may await reform or revolution to become forceful, yet in the last resort and in the long run the will of the people prevails. By the provisions of a democratic const.i.tution judgment is frequently pa.s.sed by the people upon the administration of government, and it is within their power to change the administrative policy or to reject the agents of government whom they have previously elected. Locally they have the advantage of knowing all candidates for office. The efficiency of rural government depends much on its revenue, and farmers are reluctant to increase the tax rate; slowly they are learning the value of good roads and good schools.

146. =The Ancient History of the Community.=--The government of the rural community has a history of its own, as has the community itself.

This government gradually fits itself to meet local needs, but it is slow to put away the survivals of earlier forms and customs that have outlived their usefulness. The history of the community goes back to primitive times, when the clan group recognized common interests and acknowledged the leadership of the chief or head man. Custom was the law of the clan, and its older members a.s.sisted the chief in interpreting custom. Government in the community developed in two ways, one along the path of centralization of authority, the other in the growth of democracy. One tendency was to attach an undue importance to ancient custom, and to throw about it a veil of sanct.i.ty by connecting it with religion. Such a community in its conservatism came to possess in time a static civilization, but it lacked virility and commonly fell under the control of a neighboring energetic community or prince. This is the usual history of the Oriental community. The other tendency was to adapt local law and organization to changing circ.u.mstances, and to make use of the abilities of all the members of the community, to give them a voice in the local a.s.sembly, and a right to hold public office. Such progressive communities were the city states of Greece, the republic of Rome, and the rural communities of the barbarian Germans before they settled in the Roman Empire. When the Greek communities became decadent they fell under foreign dominion; Rome imperialized the republic, but never forgot how to rule well in her munic.i.p.alities; the Germans pa.s.sed on their democratic ways to the English, and from that source they were brought to America.

147. =Two Types of Rural Government.=--In America there have been two types of rural government growing out of the manner of original settlement. In New England the colonists settled near together in villages grouped about the meeting-house. One or more villages const.i.tuted a town for purposes of government. In these small districts it was possible for all the citizens to meet frequently, and in an annual a.s.sembly the voters of the community elected their officers and adopted the necessary local regulations. Long custom transplanted oversea had kept a close connection between church and state, and until the new American principle of separation was universally adopted, the annual town meeting in Ma.s.sachusetts was a parish meeting, in which the community voted with reference to the needs of the church as well as of the state. In the South community life was less closely knit, and town meetings were not in vogue. The parish held its vestry meetings for the transaction of ecclesiastical business, for episcopacy was the established church; overseers of the poor were elected at the same meetings. There were county a.s.semblies for social and judicial purposes, but in each a few prominent people in the neighborhood managed affairs and perpetuated their privileges, as among the landed gentry of England. It was in these ways that popular government continued along the path of material and social progress in the North, while in the South a plantation aristocracy conservatively maintained its colonial ideas and inst.i.tutions, including slavery.

With wider settlement there was an extension of these sectional differences, except near the border of both, where a blending of the two took place to some extent. County organization was necessary for a time, while the country was thinly settled, but neighborhoods organized as school districts, and by a natural process the school district became the nucleus of a township government, at first for school purposes and later for the self-government of the whole community. In some cases, as in Illinois, it was made optional with the people of a county whether they would organize a township government or not, but wherever the two systems entered into comparison and compet.i.tion the township government proved the more popular. As long as pure democracy remains there must be a small local unit of government, and the New England town meeting seems wonderfully well adapted to the purpose of self-government. The recent tendency to extend democracy in the form of political primaries and the referendum is a stimulus to such organization, and it may be expected that the town system will continue to extend, even in the South.

148. =Town and County Officials.=--The town meeting is held in a public building. In colonial days the close connection between church and state made it proper that the meeting should be in the meeting-house; in the West, where the school was the nucleus of local organization, the schoolhouse was the natural voting place. In present-day New England even a small village has its town house, containing a large hall, which serves for town meetings and for community a.s.semblies for various social purposes. In the town meeting the administrative officers, called selectmen, are chosen annually, and minor officers, including clerk, treasurer, constables, and school committee; there the community taxes itself for the salaries of its officials, for the support of the town poor, for the maintenance of highways, and for such modern improvements as street lights and a public library. Personal ability counts for more than party allegiance, though each political party usually puts its candidates in the field. An important function of the local voters is the decision under the local-option system that prevails in the East, as to whether the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be licensed for the ensuing year; under an increasing referendum policy the acts of the State legislature are frequently submitted for review to the local voters.

Where the town system does not exist or is part of a larger county, officers are elected for more extended responsibility. The functions of county officers are mainly judicial. Among the county officers are the sheriff elected by the people to preserve order and justice throughout the region, the coroner whose duty has been to investigate sudden death or disaster, and to hold an inquest to determine the origin of crime if it existed. The county commissioners or supervisors are executive officers, corresponding to the selectmen of the town; the clerk and treasurer of the county have duties similar to the town officers with those t.i.tles.

149. =Political Relations and Responsibilities.=--The local community, alike under township and county government, is a part of a larger political unit, and so has relations with and responsibilities to the greater State. The town meeting may legislate on such matters as the erection of a new schoolhouse or the building of a town highway, but it cannot locate the post-office or change the location of a State or county road. It may make its local taxes large or small, but it cannot increase or diminish the amount of the State tax or regulate the national tariff. The townsman lives under the jurisdiction of a law that is made by his representatives in the State legislature or the national Congress, and he is tried and punished for the infraction of law in a county, State, or national court. As a citizen of these larger political units he may vote for county, State, and national officials, and may himself aspire to the highest office in the gift of his countrymen.

150. =Political Standards.=--To a foreigner such a system of government may seem exceedingly complex, but by it self-government is preserved to the people of the nation, and a good degree of efficiency is maintained. There are problems of social control that need study and that produce various experiments in one State or another before they are widely adopted; there is corruption of party politics with unscrupulous methods and machinery that is too well oiled with "tainted" money; but local government averages up to the level of the intelligence and morals of the community. If the schoolhouse is an efficient centre for the proper training of boys and girls to understand their social relations and civic responsibilities, and if the meeting-house is an efficient centre for the discussion of social ethics and a religion that moves on the plane of earth as well as heaven, then the town house will give a good account of itself in intelligent voting and clean political methods. If the school-teacher and the minister have won for themselves positions of community leadership, and are educators of a forceful public opinion, and if the community is sufficiently in touch with the best constructive forces in the national political arena to feel their stimulus, the political type locally is not likely to be very low. A self-governing people will always have as good a government as it wants, and if the government is not what it should be, the will of the people has not been well educated.

READING REFERENCES

FAIRLIE: _Local Government in Counties, Towns, and Villages._