Farm Boys and Girls
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Title: Farm Boys and Girls
Author: William A. McKeever
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Transcriber's note:
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The Rural Science Series
Edited by L. H. Bailey
FARM BOYS AND GIRLS
* * * * *
The Rural Science Series
THE SOIL.
THE SPRAYING OF PLANTS.
MILK AND ITS PRODUCTS.
THE FERTILITY OF THE LAND.
THE PRINCIPLES OF FRUIT-GROWING.
BUSH-FRUITS.
FERTILIZERS.
THE PRINCIPLES OF AGRICULTURE. 15th Ed.
IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE.
THE FARMSTEAD.
RURAL WEALTH AND WELFARE.
THE PRINCIPLES OF VEGETABLE-GARDENING.
FARM POULTRY.
THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS.
THE FARMER'S BUSINESS HANDBOOK.
THE DISEASES OF ANIMALS.
THE HORSE.
HOW TO CHOOSE A FARM.
FORAGE CROPS.
BACTERIA IN RELATION TO COUNTRY LIFE.
THE NURSERY-BOOK.
PLANT-BREEDING. 4th Ed.
THE FORCING-BOOK.
THE PRUNING-BOOK.
FRUIT-GROWING IN ARID REGIONS.
RURAL HYGIENE.
DRY-FARMING.
LAW FOR THE AMERICAN FARMER.
FARM BOYS AND GIRLS.
THE TRAINING AND BREAKING OF HORSES.
_Others in preparation._
* * * * *
[Illustration: PLATE I.
FIG. 1.--At least once each day the busy farm father may think of a way
to combine his work with the children's play.]
FARM BOYS AND GIRLS
by
WILLIAM A. McKEEVER
Professor of Philosophy
Kansas State Agricultural College
New York
The Macmillan Company
1913
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1912,
by the Macmillan Company.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1912. Reprinted
August, 1912; January, June, 1913.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
DEDICATED
TO THE SERVICE OF THE
TEN MILLION BOYS AND GIRLS
WHO ARE ENROLLED IN
THE RURAL SCHOOLS
OF AMERICA
PREFACE
In the preparation of this book I have had in mind two classes of
readers; namely, the rural parents and the many persons who are
interested in carrying forward the rural work discussed in the several
chapters. It has been my aim to give as much specific aid and direction
as possible. The first two chapters constitute a mere outline of some of
the fundamental principles of child development. It would be fortunate
if the reader who is unfamiliar with such principles could have a course
of reading in the volumes that treat them extensively. Nearly every
suggestion given in the main body of the book is based on what has
already either been undertaken with a degree of success or planned for
in some rural community.
I am very greatly indebted to the following persons and firms for their
kindness and generosity in lending pictures and cuts for illustrating
the book: E. T. Fairchild, State Superintendent of Public Instruction,
Topeka, Kansas; J. W. Crabtree, Principal State Normal School, River
Falls, Wisconsin; George W. Brown, Superintendent of Edgar County,
Paris, Illinois; O. J. Kern, Superintendent of Winnebago County,
Rockford, Illinois; Miss Jessie Fields, Superintendent of Page County,
Clarinda, Iowa; A. D. Holloway, General Secretary, County Y.M.C.A.,
Marysville, Kansas; Dr. Myron T. Scudder, of Rutgers College; Doubleday,
Page & Company, Garden City, New York; _Rural Manhood_, New York City;
_The Farmer's Voice_, Chicago, Illinois; _The American Agriculturist_,
New York City; _The Oklahoma Farmer_, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; _The
Inland Farmer_, Lexington, Kentucky; _The Farmer's Advocate_, Winnipeg,
Canada.
My thanks are also due _Successful Farming_, of Des Moines, Iowa, for
permission to use excerpts from President Kirk's article on the model
school, and portions of a series of brief articles written for the same
magazine by myself.
The references given at the close of the chapters have been selected
with considerable care. It will be found in nearly every case that they
give helpful and more extended discussions of the several topics treated
in the preceding chapter.
WILLIAM A. McKEEVER.
MANHATTAN, KANSAS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BUILDING A GOOD LIFE 1
What is a Good Life? 2
1. Good Health 3
2. Usefulness 3
3. Moral Strength 4
4. Social Efficiency 5
5. Religious Interest 5
6. Happiness 6
Is the Human Stock comparatively Sound? 7
II. THE TIME TO BUILD 12
What of the Human Instincts 12
The Dawning Instincts 12
Social Sensitiveness Helpful 19
III. THE RURAL HOME AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 26
What Agencies build up Character? 26
1. Play 27
2. Work 30
3. Recreation 33
Moving to Town for the Children 36
A Back-to-the-country Club 38
IV. THE COUNTRY MOTHER AND THE CHILDREN 41
Poor Conditions of Women 42
For the Sake of the Children 44
1. Surplus Nerve Energy 44
2. A Rest Period 45
3. The Home Conveniences 46
4. The Mother's Outings 47
5. The Home Help 48
6. The Children shield the Mother 49
7. Planning for the Children 50
8. A Common Conspiracy 51
V. CONSTRUCTING THE COUNTRY DWELLING 54
Plans and Specifications not Available 55
What appeals to the Children 57
The House Plan 59
How One Farmer does It 60
Outbuildings and Equipment 61
Human Rights prior to Animal Rights 61
The Children's Room 64
The Evening Hour 67
VI. JUVENILE LITERATURE IN THE FARM HOME 69
How Good Thinking grows up and Flourishes 70
Types of Literature 72
A Selected List 75
Literature on Child-rearing 79
1. Periodicals on Child-rearing 80
2. Books on Child-rearing 80
VII. THE RURAL CHURCH AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 82
Decadence of Rural Life 83
Work for the Ministry 84
The Country Minister 86
A Mistake in Training 89
Rural Child-rearing 90
The Churches too Narrow 92
Constructive Work of the Church 93
An Innovation in the Rural Church 95
Spiritualize Child Life 97
A Summary 98
VIII. THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 101
Radical Changes in the View-point and Method 102
All have a Right to Culture 103
Work for a Longer Term 105
Compulsory Attendance Laws Needed 106
Better Schoolhouses and Equipment 107
1. Location 108
2. The Water Supply 109
3. Size and Adaptation of Grounds 109
4. Improvement of School Grounds 110
A Model Rural School 112
The Cornell Schoolhouse 115
Help make a School Play Ground 117
General Instruction in Agriculture 120
Domestic Economy and Home Sanitation 122
Consolidation of Rural Schools 123
More High Schools Needed 124
Better Rural Teachers Needed 125
IX. THE COUNTY YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 129
Boys leave the Farm too Young 130
Purposes of the County Young Men's Christian
Association 131
How to organize a County Organization 132
1. Select a Good Leader 133
2. Local Leaders Necessary 134
3. A Committee on Finance 134
4. Little Property Ownership 135
How to conduct the Work 136
1. Local and County Athletic Clubs 136
2. Debating and Literary Clubs 137
3. Receptions and Suppers 138
4. Educational Tours and Problems 138
5. Camping and Hiking 139
6. Exhibitions 139
Spirituality not lost Sight Of 141
Work in a sparsely Settled Country 143
X. THE FARMER AND HIS WIFE AS LEADERS OF THE YOUNG 146
Preparation for the Service 147
Work persistently for Social Unity 149
Corn-raising and Bread-baking Clubs 150
Other Forms of Contests 151
The Improvement of the School Situation 152
Home and School Play Problems 154
A Neighborhood Library 156
Holidays and Recreation for the Young 158
Many over-work their Children 160
Federation for Country-life Progress 161
The Vocations of Boys and Girls 162
Other Local Possibilities 164
The Boy Scout Movement 165
Rural Boy Scouts in Kansas 166
XI. HOW MUCH WORK FOR THE COUNTRY BOY 171
See that the Work is for the Boy's Sake 172
Not Enforced Labor, but Mastery 174
Provide Vacations for the Boy 176
A Tentative Schedule of Hours 178
Think out a Reasonable Plan 179
XII. HOW MUCH WORK FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 183
A Balanced Life for the Girl 185
Work begins with Obedience 186
Working the Girls in the Field 188
Some Specific Suggestions 189
Do you Own your Daughter? 190
Difficult to make a Schedule 191
Teach the Girl Self-supremacy 192
Summary 194
XIII. SOCIAL TRAINING FOR FARM BOYS AND GIRLS 197
A Happy Mean is Needed 197
A Social Renaissance in the Country 199
Conditions to guard Against 200
1. The Social Companionship of Girls 201
2. Bad Companionships for Boys 202
3. Secret Sex Habits 204
4. The So-called Bad Habits 205
A Center of Community Life 207
Invite the Young to the House 208
How to conduct a Social Entertainment 209
What about the Country Dance? 211
Additional Forms of Entertainment 212
1. The Social Hour at the Religious Services 212
2. A Country Literary Society 213
3. The Social Side of the Economic Clubs 215
Some Concluding Suggestions 215
XIV. THE FARM BOY'S INTEREST IN THE BUSINESS 220
What is in your Boy? 220
Much Experimentation Necessary 221
1. Willingness to Work 222
2. Ability to Save 223
Start on a Small Scale 224
Give your Son a Square Deal 225
Keep the Boy's Perfect Good Will 226
Some will be retained on the Farm 227
The Awakening often comes from Without 229
An Awakening in the South 229
Partnership between Father and Son 231
Summary and Concluding Suggestions 232
XV. BUSINESS TRAINING FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 235
Is the Country Girl Neglected? 236
Why the Girl leaves the Farm 237
Certain Rules to be Observed 239
1. Teach the Girl to Work 239
2. Teach her Business Sense 240
3. Train her to transact Personal Business 241
4. Make her the Family Accountant 242
5. Miserliness to be Avoided 243
6. Teach her to Give 244
7. Teach the Meaning of a Contract 245
8. Prepare her to deal with Grafters 246
Should there be an Actual Investment? 247
XVI. WHAT SCHOOLING SHOULD THE COUNTRY BOY HAVE 250
Changes in Rural School Conditions 250
The Boy a Bundle of Possibilities 252
Classes of Native Ability 253
The Great Talented Class 254
Round out the Boy's Nature 256
Other Important Matters 257
Develop an Interest in Humanity 259
XVII. WHAT SCHOOLING SHOULD THE COUNTRY GIRL HAVE 262
Special Problems relating to the Girl 262
Protecting the Girl at School 263
Lessons in Music and Art 265
The Reward will come in Time 267
The Mother's Office as Teacher 268
Home-life Education 270
Education for Supremacy 271
An Outlook for Social Life 272
XVIII. THE FARM BOY'S CHOICE OF A VOCATION 275
Should the Farmer's Son Farm? 275
Impatience of Parents 276
What of Predestination? 277
Three Methods of Vocational Training 279
1. The Apprentice Method 280
2. The Cultural Method 280
3. The Developmental Method 281
The Farmer Fortunate 282
What College for the Country Boy? 283
The Foundation in Work 284
Clean up the Place 285
Money Value of an Agricultural Education 286
A Successful Vocation Certain 287
XIX. THE FARM GIRL'S PREPARATION FOR A VOCATION 290
What is the Outlook? 290
Desirable Occupations for Women 292
1. May teach the Young 293
2. May take up Stenography 294
3. May do Social Work 295
4. May secure Clerkships 296
A College Course for the Girl 298
Associations with Refined Young Men 299
Make the Daughter Attractive 300
Summary and Conclusion 301
XX. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE OUTLOOK 306
Strive for Preconceived Results 306
Consult Expert Advice 308
Meet Each Awakening Interest 310
Work for Social Democracy 311
The Outlook very Promising 312
The Modern Service Training 314
The State doing its Part 316
The New Era of Religion 319
Final Conclusion 319
INDEX 323
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
I. Fig. 1. At least once each day the busy farm
father may think of a way to combine his
work with the children's play _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
II. Fig. 2. Canadian boys breaking young oxen 6
III. Fig. 3. An attractive Kansas home 28
IV. Fig. 4. A day nursery in the country 42
V. Fig. 5. A rural home in the South 56
VI. Fig. 6. A well-equipped farmhouse 64
VII. Fig. 7. Children playing under the shade trees 72
VIII. Figs. 8-9. Rural church, Plainfield, Illinois 86
IX. Fig. 10. Village church at Ogden, Kansas 92
X. Fig. 11. Corn Sunday in an Illinois church 96
XI. Fig. 12. A country schoolhouse in California 108
Fig. 13. Type of model rural school used in
Kansas 108
XII. Fig. 14. Model rural school at Kirksville, Missouri.
Normal 112
XIII. Fig. 15. Rear view of the Kirksville school 114
XIV. Fig. 16. Using Babcock tester 120
XV. Figs. 17-21. Consolidated school and those it
displaced 124
XVI. Fig. 22. The Cornell rural schoolhouse 126
XVII. Fig. 23. A.Y.M.C.A. play club 132
XVIII. Fig. 24. Y.M.C.A. Convention in Ohio 138
XIX. Fig. 25. Jerry Moore, champion corn raiser 150
XX. Fig. 26. A lonely schoolhouse 164
XXI. Fig 27. Tennis in the country 180
Fig. 28. Country play festival 180
XXII. Fig. 29. Industrial exhibit in rural school 192
XXIII. Fig. 30. Agricultural and domestic science club 208
XXIV. Fig. 31. School and church in Canada 212
XXV. Fig. 32. Kansas prize winners 230
XXVI. Fig. 33. Girls' doll display 238
XXVII. Fig. 34. Boys whittling 252
XXVIII. Fig. 35. Study of corn 256
XXIX. Fig. 36. School gardeners 270
XXX. Fig. 37. Country schoolgirls 290
XXXI. Fig. 38. A girls' class in sewing 300
XXXII. Fig. 39. Girl sowing seed 312
Fig. 40. Boy thinning vegetables 312
FARM BOYS AND GIRLS
CHAPTER I
_BUILDING A GOOD LIFE_
If you were about to begin the construction of a dwelling house, what
questions would most likely be uppermost in your mind? If this house
were intended for your own use, you would doubtless consider among other
important matters those of comfort, convenience of arrangement,
attractiveness of appearance, strength, and durableness. The great
variety of dwellings to be seen on every hand is outwardly expressive of
the great variety of ideals in the minds of the people who construct
them. No matter what means there may be available for the purpose, it
may be said that he who builds a house thereby illustrates in concrete
form his inner character.
With practically the same quality of materials, one man will construct a
house apparently with the thought that its chief purpose is to be looked
at. Much work and expense will be put upon outer show and embellishment,
while in its inner arrangements it may be exceedingly cramped and
thoughtlessly put together. Another will erect his building with a
thought of placing it on the market. Cheap workmanship, weak and faulty
joinings, and the like, will be concealed by some thin covering meant to
last until a profitable sale has been made and some innocent purchaser
caught with a mere shell of a house in his possession. Occasionally,
however, there is found a man whose plans conform to such ideals as
those first named.
WHAT IS A GOOD LIFE?
As with the construction of a house, so it is in some measure with the
building of a character. Some lives apparently are constructed to look
at; that is, with the thought that outer adornment and a mere appearance
of worth and beauty constitute the essential qualities. Other lives are,
in a sense, made to sell. Not infrequently parents are found developing
their boys and girls as if the chief purpose were to place them
somewhere or other in the best possible money market. A life is worth
only as much as it will bring in dollars and cents, is apparently the
predominating thought of such persons. And then, occasionally, a life is
built to _live in_; that is, with the idea that intrinsic worth
constitutes the essential nature of the ideal character.
But what _is_ a good life? And why is not this precisely the question
for all parents to ask themselves at the time they begin the development
of the lives of their own boys and girls? Assuming a fairly sound
physical and mental inheritance on the part of the child and the given
environment as the raw materials of construction, what ideals should
parents have uppermost in mind before undertaking the tremendously
important and interesting duties of constructing worthy manhood and
womanhood out of the inherent natures of their children?
1. _Good health._--It is a difficult task to develop a sound, efficient
life without the fundamental quality of good health. So it may be well
to remind parents of this fact and to urge them especially to avoid in
the lives of the children, first, the beginnings of those lighter
ailments which frequently grow into menacing habits--for example, the
diseases that become chronic as a result of unnecessary exposure to the
weather--and second, those various contagious diseases which so often
permanently deplete the health of children, such as scarlet fever and
whooping cough. It is now held by medical authority that every
reasonable effort should be made to prevent children from taking such
infectious ailments--that the so-called diseases of children can and
should be practically all avoided.
2. _Usefulness._--The newer ideals of character-building call for the
early training of all children as if they were to enter permanently upon
some bread-winning pursuit. Such training is a most direct means of
culture and refinement, provided it be correlated with the proper amount
of book learning and play and recreation. Such uniform and
character-building discipline tends to preserve the solidarity of the
race, and to acquaint all the young with the thoughts and feeling of the
great productive classes. It may be this is now regarded as both a
direct means of culture and of leading the young mind into an intimate
acquaintance with the lives of the masses. Such training is regarded
also as one of the best means of preserving our social democracy.
Therefore, although on account of inherited wealth the child may
apparently be destined for a life of comparative ease, even then there
is every justification for teaching him early how to work as if he must
do so to earn his own living. Much more will be said about this point
later.
3. _Moral strength._--In the construction of a good life, moral strength
must be estimated as one of the important foundation stones. But this
quality is not so much a gift of nature or an inheritance as it is an
acquisition. It cannot be bought or acquired through merely hearing
about it, but it must come as a result of a large number of experiences
of trial and error. The child acquires moral self-reliance from the
practice of overcoming temptation in proportion to his strength, the
test being made heavier as fast as his ability to withstand temptation
increases. As will be shown later, it proves weakening to the character
of the growing child to keep him entirely free from temptation and the
possible contamination of his character in order that he may grow up
"good."
4. _Social efficiency._--The good life is not merely self-sustaining in
an economic way, but it is also trained in the performance of altruistic
deeds. In building up the lives of the young it will be necessary and
most helpful to think of the matter of social efficiency. Therefore, it
will be seen to that the child have practice in assuming the leadership
among his fellows, in taking the initiative on many little occasions,
and in some instances to the extent of standing out against the combined
sentiment of his young associates. Of course, during all this time he
will be backed strongly by the advice and the insistent direction of his
parents, the idea being to induce him to think out his own social
problems and to carry forward any suitable plans of a social nature that
he may devise.
5. _Religious interest._--Few parents will deny that religious
instruction is just as essential to the development of a good society as
is intellectual instruction. Indeed, there is much evidence to bear out
the conviction that religion is a deep and permanent instinct in all
normal human beings. This being the case, it is fair to say that such an
instinct should have some form of awakening and indulgence in the life
of the child. However, there is no thought or intention of prescribing
any particular form of religious faith. He might at least be sent to
Sunday school and to church regularly where he may be led to do a small
amount of religious thinking on his own account.
6. _Happiness._--The good life is a happy life. But nearly all the
students of human problems seem to think that happiness eludes the grasp
of the one who seeks it in a direct way. "I want my children to be happy
and enjoy life," is often the remark of well-meaning parents. They then
proceed as if joy and happiness could be had for money. It is true that
during his early years of indifference to any serious concern or
personal responsibility, the child may be made extremely happy by giving
him practically everything his childish appetites may call for and
allowing him to grow up in idleness. But there comes a time when the
normal individual begins to question his own personal and intrinsic
worth. The instincts and desires of mature life come on and if there be
not available the means for the realization of the better instinctive
ambitions, then bitterness and woe are likely to become one's permanent
portion.
However, it may be put down as a certainty that happiness and
contentment will naturally come in full measure into the life that has
been well built during the years of childhood and youth. If the good
health has been conserved, a life of usefulness and service prepared
for, moral strength built into the character, social efficiency looked
after continuously, and something of religious experience not
neglected--it will most certainly follow as the day follows the night
that the wholesome enjoyments and the durable satisfactions of living
will come to such an individual.
[Illustration: PLATE II.
FIG. 2.--These Canadian lads are enjoying their first lessons in
live-stock management. We call their conduct play, but surely no one
was ever more in earnest than they.]
IS THE HUMAN STOCK COMPARATIVELY SOUND?
There are now among the students of the home problems many who are
seriously interested in the matter of breeding a better human stock.
Many noteworthy conclusions have already been reached, and ample proofs
have been produced to show that the human animal follows the same
general lines of evolution as do the lower animal orders. It is shown in
general, for example, that little or nothing that man has learned or
acquired during his life is transmitted to his offspring. That is, even
though a man devote many years to the intensive study of music or
mathematics or the languages, such study will not affect the ability of
his child in the study of the specialized subject. The same unaffected
result obtains in respect to any other form of expertness of the merely
acquired sort. For example, the fact that a man through long practice
becomes expert in the use of the typewriter does not affect the
character of the child in respect to such ability. It is a no less
difficult task for the child to learn to master the use of the
typewriter keyboard.
On the other hand, it is shown very conclusively that physical and
mental characters inborn in the life of a parent tend at all times to be
transmitted to the child, although many traits are known to be wanting
in the first generation of children and to appear in the second or
successive generations. According to the law of Mendel, the traits of
the parents are transmitted to the child about as follows: one-half of
the elements of one's physical and mental natures are inherited from his
parents, one-fourth from his grandparents, one-eighth from his
great-grandparents, and so on. In any given case, however, there might
be great variation from this rule of the averages, just as actual men
and women vary more or less widely from the average human height of so
many feet and inches.
There is no thought here of discussing the intricate problems of
eugenics. The purpose of this brief dogmatic sketch is that of
attempting to induce parents to believe that the great mass of our
American-born children are comparatively sound in their physical and
mental inheritances. The pathologists profess to be able to prove that
nature is most kind to the new-born child in respect to inheritance of
disease. In fact, it is shown that very few diseases are directly
transmitted through the blood, and that many once so regarded are now
found to be infectious in their natures. There is considerable
indication, however, that the children of the diseased--tuberculous
parents, for example,--inherit a weakened power of resistance for such
disease. But this matter is somewhat foreign to our present discussion.
Best of all, for our present consideration, is the great mass of
evidence sustaining the theory that about ninety-nine per cent of our
new-born infants are potentially good in an economic and moral sense.
That is to say, this great majority of the young humanity have latent
within their natures at the beginning of life the possibilities of
development into sound, self-reliant manhood and womanhood.
So, the writer of these lines would gladly lead rural parents to the
point of being very courageous and optimistic about their infant
children. He would have them see in the latter all the possibilities of
good and efficiency that they may care to attempt to bring out by
thoughtful and conscientious training. For that matter, it can be shown
that many of the leaders of men are constantly springing up out of the
ranks of the common masses and from those of humble parentage. Some of
these great leaders, it is true, are what may be called accidental
geniuses in respect to their native strength and their persistent life
purposes. But many others, and perhaps the majority of them, are merely
men and women who have been reasonably sound at birth and who have been
trained from childhood to maturity in a manner that best served to build
up strong, efficient character.
REFERENCES
The references given at the close of each chapter are meant
to direct the reader to specific treatment of the topics
named. It is thought that nearly every chapter or book
referred to will be found helpful and instructive to such
persons as may naturally become interested in this volume. In
some instances a line of comment is given to make clearer the
contents of the reference.
Must Children have Children's Diseases? Newton. _Ladies' Home
Journal_, April, 1910.
_Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette._ Gazette Publishing Company,
New York. $1 per year, monthly.
The Miracle of Life. J. H. Kellogg, M.D. Good Health
Publishing Company, Battle Creek, Mich. Read especially pp.
363-388, "How to be Strong."
Our Duty to Posterity. Editorial. _The Independent_,
February. 1909.
Relation of Science to Man. Professor A. W. Small. _American
Journal of Sociology_, February, 1908.
Character Building. Marian M. George. A. Flanagan Company.
Treats the ethical problems of the home.
Through Boyhood to Manhood. Ennis Richmond. Chapter 1,
"Usefulness." Longmans.
Making the Most of Our Children. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D.
Chapter IX, "Keeping the Boy on the Farm." McClurg.
Youth. G. Stanley Hall. Chapter XII, "Moral and Religious
Training." Appleton.
The Contents of a Boy. E. L. Moore. Chapter VI, "Social
Interests." Jennings & Graham, Cincinnati.
Mind in the Making. E. J. Swift. Chapter II, "The Criminal
Natures of Boys." Scribners.
The Young Malefactor. Dr. Thomas Travis. Chapter II, "The
Child born Centuries Too Late." Crowell.
The Family Health. M. Solis-Cohen, M.D. Chapter I, "The
Preservation of Health." Penn Publishing Company,
Philadelphia.
The Durable Satisfactions of Life. Dr. Charles W. Eliot.
Crowell. Points out ably the higher way.
The Study of Children. Francis Warner, M.D. Chapter IV,
"Observing the Child. What to Look at and For." The
Macmillan Company.
What makes a Liberal Education. Editorial. _The Independent_,
July 1, 1909.
Relation of the Physical Nature of the Child to His Mental
and Moral Development. George W. Reed. _Annual Report
National Educational Association_, 1909, p. 305.
CHAPTER II
_THE TIME TO BUILD_
We shall continue to assume that the reader, if a parent, is thinking of
his child as being in the position of one whose character requires
constant attention in order that it may be built up through the right
sort of training and the right sort of practices. Just as certainly as
there is a best time in the season to plow corn and also a time not to
plow, as there is a time to plow deep and another time to plow shallow,
so there is unquestionably a best time to give the child any particular
form of training or to withhold it. In general, it may be said that the
most effective training in respect to the human young is that which
centers most closely around the childish interests and instincts.
WHAT OF THE HUMAN INSTINCTS
By observing critically for a few days the conduct of an infant child,
one may notice two or three pronounced instincts at work producing
helpful results in the little life.
1. There is the instinct to nurse, which is so fundamental in securing
the food with which to sustain and build up the body.
2. There is the accessory instinct of crying, also often necessary as
nature's signal for another intake of the food supply. Associated with
these two instincts are a number of reflexes which take care of the
important organic processes, such as digestion, assimilation, and
excretion. Now, we have practically all there is to the "character" of
the human infant. He has, as yet, no instinct for fighting, for sexual
love, or for business. And any effort to arouse and make use of the
last-named dormant qualities would be futile as well as ridiculous. In
respect to a vast majority of the things to be learned, the child is a
mere bundle of potentialities, all of which must bide their time for an
awakening. In short, wise parents soon learn that the center of life in
the infant child is in the stomach, and that if he be fed rightly, kept
much in the open air, clothed comfortably, and bathed frequently, the
body-building processes will usually go on in a satisfactory manner.
3. Although the little life seems so tiny and the daily round of
infantile activities so simple and monotonous, the character-developing
processes are already making their subtle beginnings. For example, the
first lessons in habit are being inculcated through the comparative
rhythm in the infant's life. It will be found both conducive to good
health and helpful to character-development to attend to all the
infant's needs with strict regularity. Let us follow the new-born child
around his little cycle and see what happens. First, he is given a
hearty meal, which is followed at once by perhaps two hours of profound
sleep. Then, there is a gradual waking, the body writhes and wiggles
slightly, and then more, and then still more, until a loud cry is set
up. Under healthy conditions the crying should go on for a very few
minutes, as it helps to send the good blood through every part of the
body, purifying and building up the parts and carrying out the effete
matter. The function of excretion is not only thus much aided, but the
nervous equilibrium is completely restored. The little life has now
swung completely round to the beginning point of two hours previously
and it is ready to start on another journey with the intake of another
hearty meal.
It will be found that the life circle described above continues with
slight variations for the first few weeks, the child sleeping probably
twenty to twenty-two hours out of twenty-four, if it be in a natural
state of health. But slowly the conduct of the infant will become more
complex, and that in response to the growths and changes taking place
within his body. It will be found that he can take a heartier meal, can
stay awake longer, kick harder, wriggle more, and cry louder as the days
multiply. In a month or so his eyes will be seen following some
brilliant or attractive moving body, while the impulsive movements of
the hands will begin to suggest some slight definition of their conduct.
Not long thereafter, the baby smile will break out in a reflex fashion
and the hands will likewise grasp objects placed in the little palms.
Coordinate with these new activities, nature is at work storing up new
nerve structures and cells, especially in the region of the spinal cord
and the cranial centers.
4. The child is all the while learning. As yet, there is little for the
caretaker to do other than to feed the infant with exceeding care and
regularity, and to enjoy the awakening of the new infant activities. In
four to six months, the young learner will lead a much more complex
life,--sitting alone, holding things in his hands, and looking about the
room. But it must be understood that he still hears and sees very few
things in a definite way. Then, in the next two or three months he will
first creep,--he should in time be induced to do so if possible for the
sake of his health,--at length he will stand upright, and finally walk.
None of these processes must be hastened, although they may be aided
when the inner prompting and strength warrant such conduct.
5. During the second year there will probably break out with sudden and
surprising strength the new instinct of anger. It has been latent there
all the time, but the low degree of intelligence and of nerve structure
has not given it proper support and indulgence. But on an occasion there
is perhaps taken from the child some cherished plaything, when he
suddenly flies into a rage, yelling, screaming, kicking, and growing red
in the face. This outburst of rage is a most interesting and enjoyable
aspect to the parent who rightly understands children, although some
ignorantly make it a matter of deep concern, regarding it as significant
of a vicious character in the coming boy and man.
The purpose of this present discussion is to illustrate how the human
instincts come into their functions at various times during the life of
the growing child. And the further purpose is to urge that such thing be
_watched for and met with just the sort of training necessary for
permanent and helpful results_.
Now, let the little child fly into a rage two or three times and have
his anger appeased through indulgence in the thing he cries for, and he
has acquired his first lesson in the management of the parent or nurse.
He has learned that if he wants a thing, all he needs to do is to squall
or yell and the desired results will be forthcoming. But this childish
rage really furnishes the occasion for the beginning of some
disciplinary lessons. "Should I give the child everything he cries for,
or withhold the desired object until he quits?" asks an anxious parent.
Neither rule is necessarily the right one, and yet both, on occasions,
may be correct. Suppose, instead of the infant you have a five-year-old
boy who cries for a loaded revolver he happens to see in your hand.
Would you give it to him to stop his crying, or withhold it? Suppose
again he should cry for the return of his own plaything which some one
unjustly snatched from him. Would you return his plaything to stop his
crying, or let him cry it out? Now, here is implied the correct answer
in dealing with the outburst of anger in the infant. It is all a matter
of justice and fairness. If some agency, human or otherwise, snatches
his food from his mouth, and the child squalls for its return, indulge
the infant at once. If he has been well fed, comfortably clad and
bathed, and under every proper consideration should lie still and behave
himself, then do not run and take him up because he happens to be trying
your patience with his squalling. Hold him to it and let him bawl it
out. There is really nothing better coming to him if you are thinking of
the development of his character--and your own.
6. So, somewhat later on you will find this same instinct of anger
showing itself in the various forms of fighting and quarreling. The
parent who understands the true natures of healthy children will not
worry for a moment because the children show natural dispositions for
contention and combativeness. On the other hand, it will be understood
that these very tendencies furnish the occasion of many a lesson in
social ethics. How can the child ever learn to be just and fair to his
mates or square and considerate in his dealings with adults unless it be
through the give-and-take experiences that come from attempting to get
more than his share,--and failing much of the time,--and from attempting
to over-ride the rights and privileges of others, and having such
attempts properly thwarted? Indeed, it may be regarded as a great
misfortune to the child if he has to grow up as the only one in a home
and is denied the daily companionship of those of his own age from whom
he may learn justice and fairness as a result of his attempts to get
more than is just and fair for himself.
7. The watchful parents will observe that perhaps some time during the
second half year, and with some pronounced repetitions later, there will
be clear manifestations of the instinct of fear on the part of the
child. Again, there is nothing for deep concern other than to meet this
instinct in a general way as has been observed for the others named and
to give the proper training. Fear must have been a human necessity
during many years of savagery and barbarism. It still has its positive
and negative values in the development of character. It serves as a
deterrent from dangerous and criminal acts. It is also found to deter
the growing infant from doing many a thing which he ought to be learning
to do. Fear shows its most interesting aspects in the form of what has
been called social sensitiveness; that is, bashfulness, shyness,
reticence, and the like.
Parents should by all means watch closely the various childish and
youthful tendencies to fear, allowing those fears which promise to be
helpful to remain in the life or to die out slowly through counteracting
conduct; and eliminating those other forms which would seem to serve no
useful purpose. Examples of the latter sort would be the fear of
ferocious animals and of murderers. Such mortal enemies are so uncommon
in this civilized land that fear of them will probably be of no service
to life. On the other hand, it may stunt and deter the development of
courage. Especially do such fears tend to induce the habit of
unnecessary concern and deep worry, thus destroying the peace and
happiness and cutting off the length of years of many members of our
society.
8. There is no questioning the value of social sensitiveness in respect
to the development of character in the young. Some degree of bashfulness
and embarrassment in dealing with people, especially those regarded by
him as of superior worth, may be considered an actual asset in the life
of the growing boy. This bashfulness will give him a rich inner
experience of doubts and fears, and of hopes and triumphs. Slowly, under
proper guidance and direction, the sensitiveness wears away through
repeated experience of a contrary sort, and such qualities as create a
self-reliance take its place.
On the other hand, it is doubtless a misfortune, especially for the boy,
to become blase--indifferent and unembarrassed in the presence of people
of all ranks and conditions--while he is yet a mere lad. Under our
present organization of society, the boy who would win the life race
must have much experience of trial and error, of failure and success,
and of tribulation and triumph; and all that for the sake of a
self-reliant character. Now, the boy who has lost all sense of
embarrassment in the presence of others is likely to be denied the
stirring inner experiences just named, and to settle down in an
indifferent, self-satisfied attitude toward the big problems of human
conduct. It may be counted, therefore, as an indication of much promise
and advantage that the country youth and the country maiden continue to
be comparatively "green" and bashful during the period of their
adolescence.
9. The instinct of sexual love will manifest itself at the proper time
and age. Before so doing, certain organic changes and inner nerve
developments must take place. Parents may learn some lessons from
observation of this instinct that will apply to practically all the
others. For example, there should be no attempt to hurry the
manifestation and the functioning of the instinct, nor should the
training necessary for its development and refinement be denied or
withheld. Of all the many inner awakenings that come to the developing
human being, there is probably none that quite matches the surging
energy of sexual love in healthy young manhood and womanhood. And to an
extraordinary degree, opportunities for instruction and development of
the character become present at this time.
First of all, parents need to be reminded of the naturalness and
wholesomeness of the sex instincts in adolescent boys and girls. They
must be urged to provide carefully for its natural growth through the
proper commingling of the sexes in a social way, and yet there must be
preserved in the young lives just enough strangeness and mystery about
the sex matters as to indulge the poetic and the romantic aspects of the
unfolding natures. It need not, therefore, be a matter of worry and
unusual concern to parents if their fifteen-year-old son and a
neighbor's thirteen-year-old daughter show pronounced tendencies to be
"crazy in love" with each other. However, this situation furnishes most
fitting opportunities for teaching the boy courtly manners, gallantry,
consideration for women of all ages; and that through and by means of
his own personal experience. In fact, this stirring period of sex-love
opens up in the mind of the boy reflections that tend to run out into
every possible avenue of his future life.
Likewise, the girl. That same little girl who shortly ago hated boys and
declared she would never have anything to do with them is now
manifesting much interest in the youth of her acquaintance. This thing
cannot be laughed to scorn, or scolded away, or whipped out of the life
of either boy or girl. Its roots are in the sex organs as well as in the
heart. This first love period furnishes the rarest opportunities for
teaching the girl proper lessons in respect to her comeliness, her
purity of thought, and the sweetness of her own personal character. If
during this time she be withheld entirely from wholesome association
with boys and young men, there is a probability that she may become a
drone or a mope, and especially that she may lose valuable training in
the acquisition of those winsome ways so helpful to young women in the
matter of their obtaining suitable life companions.
Perhaps less need be said in respect to giving the growing son those
forms of social training which make it possible for him to win to his
side an attractive helpmate. But beyond the question of a doubt there
can and should be much done by way of training the daughter in this
respect. In addition to her good health, her moral self-reliance, and
those other desirable qualities illustrated in a preceding paragraph,
the young woman who is thoroughly prepared for meeting successfully the
issues of life has had careful training in all the practices that refine
and beautify her character.
This duty of rural parents to the growing daughter is no less imperative
than in the case of city parents. It may be considered as an excellent
way of planning for the future happiness and well-being, not merely for
one, but doubtless for an entire family, if the growing girl be indulged
and directed reasonably in social matters during this period of
greatest strength of her natural sex instinct. This thing cannot be
safely put off a few years with the thought that the family will move to
town and then the girl may have her proper opportunities of training.
After such procrastination and neglect, it becomes too late ever to
correct the many faults of omission.
10. There develops somewhat late in the lives of young men and young
women what might be called the "homing" instinct, which amounts to
nothing other than a deep and pronounced prompting from within to set
definitely about the matter of getting into a home of one's own and
providing for and building it up. This is different from the mere sex
instinct named above, although perhaps an outgrowth of it. It must be
noted in passing that this homing instinct, when at its strongest,
furnishes the proper occasion for instruction in respect to the home and
the home-building affairs. Happy indeed is the young man or the young
woman who, after a period of such instruction, may have the opportunity
of settling down in a suitable dwelling place and there beginning the
establishment of the ideal family life.
11. Unquestionably there dawns in the life of normal young men--and
perhaps to a milder degree in respect to young women--a pronounced
instinct of a business and economic sort. This inner prompting is
doubtless associated with the two last named. It may be observed by any
person who knows how to study the lives of children and young people
that some particular youth who a few months ago was a spendthrift,
indifferent of his future needs and welfare, is now heard to declare
emphatically again and again that he must get into business, must save
and invest his means and provide for his future needs. So, there is not
a little evidence in effect that we have here another inner development
of the nerve mechanism. And the time is most fit and opportune for the
parents to exhaust every reasonable effort to discover what the youth is
best suited for as a life practice and to guide him on toward the
realization of that purpose. Much more will be said in another chapter
in respect to the choice of a vocation.
REFERENCES
Rural parents who develop an intensive interest in the
child-training problems will find it most profitable to read
somewhat extensively in the texts that are not too direct but
that give a careful treatment of the fundamental principles
of child psychology. King's and O'Shea's books listed below
are of this special character. For a fuller list, see Chapter
VI.
The Child: A Study in the Evolution of Man. A. F.
Chamberlain. Chapter IV, "The Period of Childhood." Scribner.
A sound and somewhat scholarly treatment.
Boy Wanted. Nixon Waterman. Chapter I, "The Awakening";
Chapter II, "Am I a Genius?" Forbes & Co., Chicago.
Education of the Central Nervous System. Reuben P. Halleck.
Chapter VII, "Special Sensory Training." American Book
Company.
The Moral Life. Arthur E. Davies. Chapter V, "Motive: The
Beginnings of Morality." Review Publishing Company,
Baltimore.
Psychology. J. R. Angell. Chapter XVI, "The Important Human
Instincts." Holt.
Essentials of Psychology. W. B. Pillsbury. Chapter X,
"Instinct." Macmillan. Rural parents will find this entire
text a non-technical and fundamental help.
Development and Education. M. V. O'Shea. Chapter XII, "The
Critical Period." Houghton, Mifflin Company.
Psychology of Child Development. Irving King. Chapter on
"Instinct." University of Chicago Press.
Your Boy: His Nature and Nurture. George A. Dickinson, M.D.
Chapter II, "Elements of Character." Hodder & Stoughton, New
York.
An Introduction to Child Study. W. B. Drummond. Chapter XII,
"The Instincts of Children"; Chapter XIII, "Instincts and
Habit." Longmans. The book is worthy an entire reading.
A Study of Child Nature. Elizabeth Harrison. Chapter I, "The
Instinct of Activity." Chicago Kindergarten College.
Observing Childhood. A. S. Draper. _Annals American Academy_,
March, 1909.
Are we spoiling our Boys who have the Best Chances in Life?
Henry van Dyke. SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE. October, 1909.
How to civilize the Young Savage. Dr. G. Stanley Hall. _Mind
and Body_, June, 1911.
CHAPTER III
_THE RURAL HOME AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT_
That the farm home is an ideal place in which to build up the lives of
growing boys and girls has become almost a trite saying. But that rural
parents are yet failing to realize the child-nurturing possibilities of
such a place may be exemplified in thousands of instances. When we point
to the farm home as being the best possible place for rearing children,
we mean that it contains all the crude materials for such work, and that
there must be in charge of that work some one who is conscious of the
many aspects of the problem. So we hope to show the fathers and mothers
of the farm community, not what they might do if they were differently
situated, but as specifically as possible what there is in the present
rural home situation that can be made directly available in the
construction of the lives of their children.
WHAT AGENCIES BUILD UP CHARACTER?
First of all, we must ask, What are the ordinary forces which need to be
brought into service in the development of children? At the head of the
list, we should name play, as furnishing a great variety of instructive
activities; then, work and industry; after that, the recreation that
comes properly after the performance of work. So, we have with all their
implied meanings the three great child-developing agencies: play, work,
recreation. Now the question naturally presents itself, Can the ordinary
farm life be made to furnish in right amount and proportion these three
essential elements of character development?
1. _Play._--The necessity of indulging and training properly the play
instinct of the child is becoming so fully appreciated of late that many
of the state legislatures, and even the national Congress, have seen fit
to make it a matter of deep concern. In order that all children may have
full exercise of the divine, inherent right to play and to learn through
play, many so-called child labor laws have been passed. These enactments
have prescribed conditions under which children will be permitted to
work at gainful occupations, and in the majority of cases they have
strictly forbidden such child labor below the ages of fourteen to
sixteen.
But the foregoing efforts in behalf of the young have been of a somewhat
negative sort, merely guaranteeing the child the right to play. On the
positive side, much is also being done. The scientific students of child
life have been pointing to the great benefits of play and to the
present need for larger means and fuller opportunities for play on the
part of the masses of children. As an outcome of all this research and
public agitation, there is now in progress a general movement which
looks to the placing at the disposal of children everywhere the
equipment and apparatus necessary for building up the character by means
of play experience. The large cities are expending millions of dollars
on municipal playgrounds, and the towns and rural communities are
catching the spirit also.
It has been shown beyond a question that adult life can be prepared for
and enriched in many ways by means of scientifically provided play
during childhood. Two or three results are especially sought through the
playground training: (1) better physical health and increased power to
resist disease; (2) enlarged opportunities for the outlet of the
spontaneous activities through the use of the hands and other parts of
the body; (3) the provision of a powerful deterrent of evil thought and
deed and of juvenile crime; (4) the manifold opportunities for learning
how to get along with one's fellows and to treat them in fairness and
justice.
[Illustration: PLATE III.
FIG. 3.--This beautiful Kansas home, with its large orchard and many
shade trees adjoining, was constructed "away out on the barren plains
where no tree will grow." In this place an excellent family of nine
children grew up.]
It has already been urged that sound health constitutes one of the
foundation stones of good character. Play is especially conducive to
sound health. Some may think that work without much if any play will
bring about the same results in the child life, but such proves not
to be the case. The monotony and drudgery of enforced labor have been
crushing the lives of children everywhere, especially until the wise
legislation of very recent years prevented such thing. Strange to say,
the same amount of exertion in spontaneous play may build up and
strengthen the physical and mental life of the child. What is the secret
of the striking difference in the result? Spontaneity! is the answer.
The child goes at his play with a joy and an eagerness which are
entirely absent from work--a sufficient guarantee that his nature is
being fed upon the very stuff which his soul craves. It is true that
children will play in a bare room containing nothing more than a pile of
trash, but such a situation is woefully lacking on the side of
instruction. Very little will be learned from a year of such
ill-provided play.
So, there is every necessary reason for urging that the farm home
provide not only the time and the occasion for the play life of the
children, but that the means and proper materials also be looked after.
At a certain rural home in the state of Michigan, where two boys and one
girl were growing up, were found the following nearly ideal arrangements
for the play life: a small clump of trees, which afforded opportunities
for climbing and ample shade during the warm weather; a swing hung
between two of the trees; a pole serving as a horizontal bar between
two others; and a ladder leading to a rude playhouse constructed between
the forks of a branching maple tree. Thereabout were seen also a boy's
wagon, two home-made sleds and other materials of this same general
class, not to mention a fairly well-kept lawn, where the children could
romp.
Now the cost of all the foregoing materials would be trifling in a money
sense and not very expensive in point of preparation and work, while
they would pay for themselves a hundred-fold in their results for
character-development. If necessary, it could even be shown how just
such provision for the play of the boys and girls on the farm will in
time add to the actual cash value of the place and to the money-earning
power of the boys and girls whose lives are being served. It seems
altogether fitting to remind rural parents of their duty in respect to
their children even though the mortgage may not yet have been lifted,
and even though some of the live stock may have to suffer a little, and
some of the farm crops deteriorate slightly. Let there be provided,
first of all, some adequate materials for the indulgence of the play
instinct of the child.
2. _Work._--This term implies a wide meaning, and deserves a lengthy
discussion. In a chapter to follow under the title "How Much Work for
the Country Boy," we shall give due attention to it. The purpose here is
to advise the parent to make a study of the situation and to make
provision for the amount and kind of work and industry necessary for
the proper culture of the growing child.
First of all, there must be appreciated the sharp distinction between
work and play. The latter is spontaneous, allowing the child to follow
his caprice of mind. He may take up one play activity and drop it at any
moment that another appeals to him more strongly. But with work, the
situation is different. The purpose is outside of and not within the
performance, as in the case of play. The work looks toward some end
necessary of achievement and carries with it the elements of sacrifice,
of giving out of one's life something that is his very own in order that
some other thing may be acquired. In the case of work the normal child
probably at first finds almost any assigned task irksome. He feels that
he is being more or less unfairly or unnecessarily driven to it and that
when he grows to be a man, he will have a lot of money and hire somebody
else to do the work.
All natural, healthy-minded boys are at first somewhat stubborn and
rebellious in regard to work. No matter how good their parents may be,
if merely turned loose in the world without direction and the spur of
authority, they will almost invariably avoid manual labor. So it might
as well be put down at once as a rule that every boy who is to become a
real worker and an industrious character must be set definitely at his
tasks while a mere child and held strictly to their performance. After
much persistent urging, the young worker begins to forget the thought
of being driven to his duty and to acquire instead a habit of industry.
By slow degrees he develops within a sense of obligation in relation to
work, also a feeling of responsibility for tasks done or left undone.
Finally, after years of this sort of experience, the young industrialist
reaches a point in his life when he can throw himself enthusiastically
into some sort of well chosen occupation. And then and there emerges
from his inner consciousness the exceeding great joy known to so many of
the industrious men and women whose worthy life-long devotion to work is
constantly reconstructing this good world in which we live.
It will be understood, of course, that the term work as here used
includes the school training. The ordinary child regards the appointed
duties of lesson getting in the nature of work and feels the same
pressure of insistence and compulsion in relation to them.
Unquestionably, the ordinary school course goes part way toward
furnishing discipline in industry. The course of the newer schools about
to be instituted throughout the country will reach still farther in this
direction. It is very encouraging indeed to observe that the public
school curriculum is destined to include, not only the study of books
and the recitation of lessons learned from books, but also the many
forms of manual labor and industry applicable to the character of the
growing child. But until the public school authorities have provided
such an ideal course of training, parents must see to it that the
class-room duties be thoroughly supplemented with carefully assigned
home tasks of the industrial training sort. In a later chapter specific
attention will be given the question of the schooling of the country boy
and the country girl.
3. _Recreation._--What a vast amount of misunderstanding and misuse
there is of this term! Observe, if you will, the real meaning of the
term or of the kindred word, to re-create. It implies in this use that
the body has been depleted, worn out, or fatigued by work and that there
is to be a rebuilding of the same. But it is amusing--or would be if it
were not so pathetic--to see how city parents often bestir themselves in
an effort to provide recreation for their idle boys. Many of these boys
who are seen loafing about the home town during practically the entire
summer vacation period are given an outing in order that they may thus
be furnished "recreation"--from indolence.
But farm parents are inclined to err on the other side. That is, they
tend to over-work their boys and not to give them enough outings to
furnish proper recreation and renewed zeal for the work required of
them. Hence, the need of carefully considering the matter of the outings
for the farm boy and girl. It can most probably be shown, for example,
that the boy who works on the farm five and a half days of the week and
who is given the other half day for rest and recreation--that he does
more work in the five and one-half days and does it better than he would
do in six full days without the half-holiday. The question here is that
of a balanced schedule. How long should the boy be held to his task
before being allowed a holiday or recreation period?
Just how can these half-holidays, outings, and the like, be worked into
the farm boy's program so as to make them contributive to the
up-building of his character? What of this sort can be done to cause him
to return to his assigned tasks with greater zeal and enthusiasm? How
can it be provided that the boy may look forward to these outings with a
thrill of joy during the long days he has to spend behind the plow or in
the harvest field? Finally, how can these recreation periods, large and
small, be so associated with his work-a-day tasks that he may come to
regard farm life as a wholesome type of vocation--one that he may follow
with pleasure and profit for himself, and one in which he may succeed so
well as to make his achievements constitute a living commendation of
such a calling to others? In a later discussion there will be shown many
methods whereby the recreation experience of the farm boys and girls may
be properly looked after.
Few persons seem to appreciate the value of solitude as a means of
recreating and building up the inner life. Probably one of the greatest
agencies in the development of many a powerful personality is the fact
that its possessor was compelled by force of circumstances while young
to spend much time in the company of his or her own thoughts. It is
impossible to think intelligently while one is doing any body-straining
work; for example, wood sawing or hay pitching. But there are many forms
of occupation for boys and girls on the farm which permit of comparative
rest of the body. So the foundations of many a worthy career have been
laid in the silent reflections of the boy spending the day alone in the
woods or on the prairies with his cattle and dog and pony, or sitting on
the seat of the riding plow.
Likewise, the farmer's daughter, during the performance of many simple,
non-fatiguing tasks, reflects perforce upon the larger meanings of life
and makes out in mind many plans for the time when she hopes to
undertake the mastery of various trying and interesting problems. Lack
of this enforced solitude and its attendant reflections--lack of the
discovery of the joy of being at regular intervals alone with the great
soul of Nature and with one's inner consciousness--doubtless contributes
in some measure to the undoing of city boys and girls. The constant
turmoil of the street, the excitement of the ever changing scenes and
situations, give an over-indulgence to the senses, ripen the judgments
too early, and rob the character of those soberer habits which later
enable one to find good in the common situations and the common people
of the world.
It is, therefore, recommended that farm parents provide for a part of
the sterner duties of the boys and girls such tasks as will allow for
comparative rest of the body while the mind may tarry undisturbed with
the reflections of the inner life.
MOVING TO TOWN FOR THE CHILDREN
The practice of the well-to-do farmer who moves to town to "educate his
children" is an old story and is fraught with many a hidden tragedy, to
say nothing of the impoverishment of the land and of the social order
left behind. Why cannot the intelligent farmer remain on the home place
and join a movement having for its purpose that of making the
neighborhood a more desirable place of human habitation?
One of the dullest places in the world is the country town which has
been filled up with retired farmers. These are usually men who came into
the place for the purpose of getting all the possible advantages at the
lowest possible cost. In the typical case the new city dweller of this
class secures a very good residence, and that often, if possible, just
outside the city limits, in order to avoid local taxes. He takes little
or no interest in the town's municipal affairs and votes against nearly
all proposed improvements. He keeps his own cow, horse, chickens, and
garden, and brings extra supplies in from the farm. Gradually he takes
on a few of the city ways. That is, he uses less home produce and does
some buying at the stores. But for want of stimulating employment he
gradually grows stouter and mentally more stupid, sleeping away many of
the hours of the day in his chair--an indication that he is dying at the
top and that he is soon to be cut down. Really, the retired farmer is a
nuisance to the town and the town is a bore to him.
But what of the children whom he brought in to "educate"? They learn
rapidly, soon taking on the city manners. The natural restraints from
evil conduct, which the farm home furnished, are now wanting. The blare
and bluster of the town both excite and delight them, while the parents
have positively no rules or standards by which to govern and direct
their young in the new situation. All the boys and girls need to do in
order to gain parental consent for going out at night is to declare that
"everybody is going" or that they are "expected" to be there, and the
thing is settled. Thus the young ruralists newly come to town go dancing
and prancing off into a veritable world of sweet dreams and
delights--spoiled forever for any service that they might have rendered
in building up the country community--and finally destined to become
mere cogs in the ever grinding wheel of some city.
A BACK-TO-THE-COUNTRY CLUB
Nearly every town and city of the United States has had a so-called
Commercial Club. This has been in reality a boosters' club bent first of
all on bringing big business to the place and thus opening the way for a
bigger population. Anything for the sake of more people has been the
watchword. Now, I would reverse this order of things. Nearly every one
of these towns and cities needs a club or committee that might have for
its purposes: (1) to show the would-be retired farmer how to shift the
burdens from his wife as housekeeper, how to provide better social and
intellectual advantages for his children and yet _stay on the farm_; (2)
to find means and methods whereby to plant in the rural community those
persons of the city population who are not making a fair living in their
present positions, seeking first of course to choose those who are
capable of transplanting and then preparing them with care for the
change.
I am satisfied that this thing can be successfully thought out,--that
is, how the worthy poor city family may be removed to the country and
there through hard work gradually acquire enough land whereon to earn a
fair living at least. This end will never be accomplished by merely
driving out the poor families, but rather by means of scientific and
sympathetic practice of re-establishing them. Well-conducted research
shows that these poor people are nearly all constituted of good, sound,
human stock. So, if transported under the conditions named, there may be
expected to come forth in the second generation a splendid crop of rural
boys and girls.
REFERENCES
Report of the Commission on Country Life. Introduction by
Theodore Roosevelt. Sturgis-Walton Company, New York. A brief
but epoch-making book. The student of rural problems will
find it a splendid outline guide.
Cutting Loose from the City. E. G. Hutchins. _Country Life_,
Jan. 1, 1911.
Back to the Farm. J. Smith. _Collier's_, Feb. 25, 1911.
Value of a Country Education to Every Boy. _Craftsman_,
January, 1911.
Why Back to the Farm? Editorial. _Craftsman_, February, 1911.
The Country-Life Movement. L. H. Bailey. The Macmillan Co.
Contains a contrast of the back-to-the-land movement and the
country-life movement.
Drift to the City in Relation to the Rural Problem. J. M.
Gillette. _American Journal of Sociology_, March, 1911.
The New Country Boy. _Independent_, June 22, 1911.
Overworked Children on the Farm and in the School. Dr. Woods
Hutchinson. _Annals American Academy_, March, 1909.
Why One Hundred Boys ran away from Home. L. E. Jones.
_Ladies' Home Journal_, April, 1910.
The Country Girl who is coming to the City. Batchelor.
_Delineator_, May, 1909.
Play and Playground Literature. For most helpful and
inexpensive literature on this subject address: The
Playground Association of America, 1 Madison Ave., New York
City.
Conservation in the Rural Districts. James W. Robertson,
D.Sc. The Association Press, New York.
Education for Country life. Willet M. Hays. Free Bulletin,
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Treats ably consolidation
and rural agricultural high schools.
Child Problems. George B. Mangold. Ph.D. Book II, Chapters
I-II, "Play and the Playground"; Book III, Chapters I-V,
"Child Labor Problems." The last reference contains accurate
information as to child-labor legislation up to date of
publication.
Influence of Heredity and Environment upon Race Improvements.
Kelsey. _Annals American Academy_, July, 1909.
Burning up the Boys. Editorial. _North American_, September,
1910.
CHAPTER IV
_THE COUNTRY MOTHER AND THE CHILDREN_
Greater attention needs to be given to the conservation of the farmer's
wife. Although there are many other justifications for giving more
thought to the care and the comfort of the country mother, the single
fact of her very close relation to the children growing up in the home,
and of her peculiar responsibilities as center of life there, warrant us
in devoting a chapter to her interests. Recently, while passing upon a
country highway, the author met a funeral procession. A little inquiry
revealed a pathetic situation, one that has been repeated thousands of
times throughout the length and breadth of this fair country. The
deceased was the wife of a young farmer, both of them under thirty-five
years of age, hard working and ambitious for success, but thoughtless of
their own health and comfort. Their farm was somewhat new and
unimproved, there were hundreds of things to do other than the routine
affairs of home keeping and crop raising. Worst of all, there was a
mortgage to be lifted. After all reasonable improvements were made and
the mortgage paid off, then, according to their plans, they were going
to take matters easy. But the delicate cord of life suddenly broke in
the case of the wife, and left the young husband as overseer of the farm
and home and sole caretaker of three little children.
How can parents hope to produce a better crop of boys and girls in the
farm communities so long as the typical farm wife is crushed into the
earth with the over-weight of the burdens placed upon her? A few
minutes' enumeration in this same rural neighborhood brought out the
startling fact that in fully half of the homes a scene similar to the
one just described had been enacted during the last score of years. That
is to say, during the twenty years, fully one-half of the farm mothers
living in that particular neighborhood had died before their time from
one cause or another. In most instances the death occurred during what
we usually speak of as the prime years of life, and at a time when the
rose bloom should naturally be fresh upon the cheek. Fortunately, this
serious condition, still present in some communities, is being gradually
improved by the improved methods.
POOR CONDITIONS OF WOMEN
The report of the Country Life Commission makes the following
suggestions:--
"The relief to farm women must come through a general elevation of
country living. The women must have more help. In particular these
matters may be mentioned: Development of a cooperative spirit in the
home, simplification of the diet in many cases, the building of
convenient and sanitary houses, providing running water in the house and
also more mechanical help, good and convenient gardens, a less exclusive
ideal of money getting on the part of the farmer, providing better means
of communication, as telephones, roads, and reading circles, and
developing of women's organizations. These and other agencies should
relieve the woman of many of her manual burdens on the one hand and
interest her in outside activities on the other. The farm woman should
have sufficient free time and strength so that she may serve the
community by participating in its vital affairs."
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
FIG. 4.--A day nursery at the Country Social Center. It may be otherwise
called "an institution designed to lengthen the lives of tired country
mothers."]
In discussing this same matter, Henry Wallace, a member of the
Commission, says in his paper, _Wallaces' Farmer_:--
"They have been saying that the mother is the hardest worked member of
the family, which is often and we believe generally true. They have been
saying that in the anxiety of the farmer to get more land, he not only
works himself too hard, but his wife too hard, and the boys and girls so
hard that the boys get disgusted and leave the farm, and the girls marry
town fellows and go to town.
"Now the farmer's wife is really the most important and essential person
on the farm. As such she needs the most care and consideration. You are
careful, very careful, not to over-work your horses. How much more
careful you should be not to over-work the mother of your children. You
rein back the free member of the team. You take special care of the
brood mare, and the cow that gives three hundred pounds of butter. Have
you always kept the freest of all workers, your wife, from doing too
much? How about this?"
FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN
But this chapter, as well as the entire book, is being prepared in the
interest of boys and girls. So we shall attempt to show a number of
specific conditions that may be sought as tending to conserve the
strength and the life of the rural mother, with a view to her continuing
to be in every best sense of the word a caretaker and conserver of the
lives of her own children.
1. _Surplus nerve energy._--However it may be achieved, the thing to
work for in this connection is a surplusage of nerve energy. If the
child training is to go on in a satisfactory manner, the mother
especially, and if possible both parents, must have stated times and
occasions for looking after such training and for inculcating a series
of important fundamental lessons. The first and best test of this
child-rearing situation may be made at evening. If, after the work of
the ordinary day, the mother is still fresh enough to take a real
interest in the children's affairs, to read to them briefly and perhaps
tell them a story or two, or to read for further preparations of her
work with them,--then it may be said that her life energies are being
conserved in a fairly satisfactory manner. The children will most
certainly reap the benefits. But if the close of the ordinary day's work
finds the farm mother suffering from physical and nervous exhaustion,
cross and impatient with the other members of the family, depressed in
spirit and gloomy as to the future, these are signs which should give
alarm to the head of the household and arouse him to the point of
looking into such distressful conditions, and setting them right.
2. _A rest period._--How would it do to plan for the mother a daily
period of rest and relaxation? Would not such a program furnish
something of a guarantee of length of life in her own case and of peace
and contentment in the home, and of improved well-being in respect to
the children? How shall we state this question? Must the very lives of
the rural mother and her children be run through the mill of over-work
as a grist for the improvement and up-building of the farm animals and
the farm crops? Or should all of these material things be valued only in
proportion as they contribute to the happiness and contentment and the
long life of the members of the family? Too many farmers seem to say, as
expressed by their conduct: "I _must_ lift that mortgage this year! I
_must_ market so many bushels of corn and so many head of live stock!
So here goes my wife, and here go my children into the hopper! Perhaps
they will have to give up their lives. At any cost I _must_ make this
thing pay!"
Then, how would it be to set apart an hour or more each day, regularly,
for the rest and relaxation of the mother, and call it "Mother's hour"?
During that time let it be the policy of the entire family to require no
work, no assistance, no favors of her, unless it be in case of illness.
During such a time of recuperation, the delicate organism of the
ordinary woman would tend to regain its poise. The nerve energy would be
more or less restored, while she would tend to view the better things of
life more nearly from their right angle. Best of all, she would regather
during the hour not a little strength to be used later in the caretaking
of her children. Try it for a week.
3. _The home conveniences._--This is not the place for a detailed
discussion of what might or ought to be put into the house for the sake
of the convenience of the home-maker. But if such materials be
thoughtfully arranged, they may be made most effective, even though they
be small and inexpensive. A little inquiry among the ordinary homes will
show what is meant here, by either the presence or the lack of the
things indicated. It is not so much a question of expense as it is one
of thoughtful provision. The guiding principle of the home convenience
is that of saving and conserving the strength of the housekeeper.
There is especially one day in the week which might be appropriately
called the "mother-killing day." That is the occasion of her doing the
washing and ironing for the family. Not infrequently two or three days
thereafter are required for the restoration of her normal strength and
health. Now, it is clearly the specific duty of the farmer to take hold
of just such matters as this and attempt seriously to put them right.
Doing the washing for four or five, and that with the use of the wash
tub, is a man's work so far as required muscular energy is concerned,
and very few women are able to do it regularly and live out their
allotted lives. Therefore, let the conscientious farmer see to it first
of all that some kind of machinery be installed for lightening such
wife-killing tasks as that just named. Let him provide such household
helps and conveniences _first_, and for the sake of the house mother and
her children. And then, if there be other means available, let him
provide the man-saving machinery about the barn and the fields. In the
chapter on "Constructing a Country Dwelling," fuller attention will be
given to these matters.
4. _The mother's outings._--The farmer who is seriously interested in
providing for the care and comfort of his family, and for the
instruction and intelligent direction of his children, will see to it
that his life companion be allowed her share of outings. This matter
must be just as much on his mind as that of marketing the produce. The
usual habit of the farmer's wife is to give up willingly her rights and
opportunities of this sort. But she cannot well continue to be
spiritually strong and mentally well disposed toward the world unless
she be permitted to get out among her friends and acquaintances at
frequent intervals.
So, arrange carefully a series of outings for the country mother. The
beginning of such a program is to provide that there be available for
her use and at her command a horse and carriage. This equipment need not
be of the finest quality, and it may be used for other purposes, but
when her needs appear, it should be given up to her purposes. At least
one afternoon a week she should go away from the place and be free as
much as possible temporarily from the cares of the household while she
finds congenial company among some of the neighboring women, or at the
library or elsewhere.
5. _The home help._--The unending problem of the home life throughout
much of the civilized world is that of obtaining adequate assistance in
the performance of the household work. Much of the time such assistance
from outside sources is practically unavailable. And yet something must
be done to meet the situation. If there be young girls growing up in the
home, the solution of the problem may, and should, be met by means of
requiring the daughters to assist with the home duties. But in case
there be no daughters it is seriously recommended that either the father
or the boys do certain parts of the heavier housework.
It is not necessarily beneath the dignity of the best and most brilliant
man of this country for him to get down on his knees in his own home and
help perform the menial work there which threatens to break the health
of his life companion. If there be growing sons in the family, there is
every justification for training them to assist in the housework in a
case where such assistance is needed to shield the health and strength
of the mother. It prepares for better manhood and for more sympathetic
protection of his own wife to be, if the boy be required to do such
things and thus to become intimately acquainted with what it means to
perform the many burdensome tasks that tend to wear away the lives of so
many good women.
6. _The children shield the mother._--There will perhaps be no better
occasion than this to remind parents of the necessity of carefully
training the growing children to perform such deeds as will shield the
mother in the home, and show a sympathetic interest in her welfare.
These matters will not naturally be acquired by children. The country
to-day is full of grown men whose mothers and wives have worked
themselves to death; and yet these men did not detect the seriousness of
the situation until it was too late. There are many men of this same
general class who are willing and even anxious to protect the women of
the home from the crush of over-work, but who know not how to do it.
Such faults as we have just named might easily have been avoided had
these men, during very early boyhood, been brought into an intimate
acquaintance with the burdensome tasks of the household. Especially
should they have been drilled time after time in the performance of
deeds of love and sympathy in respect to their mother. It may seem a
little thing for a younger child to rush to the table, call for and
partake of the best the table provides and, inattentive to the wants of
any other members of the family, hurry off to his play full fed and
happy. And yet this very thing may be indicative of a serious lack of
attention to the rights and requirements of others, such as may be
carried over into his future home life and there amount to serious
abuse. Again, it must be insisted that deeds of sympathy and altruism
are acquired through the actual and continued practice of the
performance of such deeds.
7. _Planning for the children._--Among the other splendid results of the
conservation of the nerve energy and the vital interests of the house
mother may be mentioned that of her ability to plan thoughtfully for the
instruction of the boys and girls. It is not an easy task to select
appropriate stories and readings for the young. It is neither an easy
nor a trifling matter for the parent to be able to read suitable
stories to them and to interpret helpfully such stories. It is not a
trifling matter for the parents to converse together an hour at evening
and there plan as to the future home instruction of their young. When
should this be introduced into the boy's life and when that into the
girl's life? What is a fair allowance for the boy for what he does and
for his spending money for the Fourth of July, Christmas, and the like?
What is a fair allowance for the girl with which to purchase her clothes
and for her pin money? When should each of them be told this and that
about the secrets of life, and where may helpful literature thereon be
obtained? Just when and how much should the boy and girl be allowed to
go among the young people of the community? When we consider the
far-reaching results which their solution may mean for the developing
young lives, these and many other such questions become exceedingly
important.
8. _A common conspiracy._--In many a farm home to-day there is a secret
compact which goes far to shape the destiny of a great number of lives.
Go if you will to the farm home where the life of the mother is being
gradually crushed out by the over-work and the lack of sympathetic
protection on the part of the husband, and you will almost invariably
find a secret understanding between the mother and the growing children
in reference to the future careers of the latter. It is implied by
these words put into the mouth of the mother: "Your father is too
ambitious about the work and in his desire for accumulating wealth about
the farm. He is over-working me, is thoughtless of me, and indifferent
to your present needs and your future welfare. Work on as you must,
driven by him, but do as little as you can and grow up to manhood and
womanhood. Study your books, get through with your schooling, and in
time find something easier for your own life work. Perhaps we can
persuade him to give it up after a while and move to town, where you can
go out more, dress better, and get more enjoyment out of life." Thus,
the children grow up to mistrust and dislike their father, and to
despise the vocation in which he is engaged. Such a state of affairs
will precipitate their flight from the home nest. This will take place
at the earliest possible moment and will often be in the nature of a
leap into the dark, anything to get away from the drudgery of the farm.
Mark you this situation well, you farm fathers, and attack it in all
possible haste with the best available relief. A happy, contented,
well-protected farm mother almost certainly means the same sort of farm
children, while the converse situations will also run in the same
unvarying parallel. Do not satiate your desire for more hogs and more
land with the sacrifice of the peace and happiness and the very
life-blood of your wife and children!
REFERENCES
The Nervous Life. G. E. Partridge, Ph.D. Sturgis-Walton
Company, New York. This book is especially recommended as an
aid to the relief of the tired farm mother.
Parenthood and Race Culture. Charles W. Saleeby, M.D. Chapter
IX, "The Supremacy of Motherhood." Moffat, Yard & Co., New
York. This is a book of great value for students of race
improvement.
From Kitchen to Garret. Virginia Van de Water. Chapter I, "A
Heart-to-Heart Talk with the House Wife." Sturgis-Walton
Company. Wholesome advice concerning the conservation of the
mother's strength.
Proceedings of Child Conference for Research and Welfare,
1910. L. Pearl Boggs, Ph.D. Page 5, "Home Education." G. E.
Stechart & Co., New York.
The Efficient Life. Dr. L. H. Gulick. Chapter XVIII, "Growth
in Rest." This entire volume is highly recommended as being
suitable for over-worked mothers.
What the Farmer can do to Lighten his Wife's Work. T. Blake.
_Ladies' Home Journal_, Feb. 15, 1911.
The Higher Tide of Physical Conscience. Dr. L. H. Gulick.
_World's Work_, June, 1908.
Education for Motherhood. Charles W. Saleeby. _Good
Housekeeping_, April, 1910.
The Profession of Motherhood. Dr. Lyman Abbott. _Outlook_,
April 10, 1909.
Power Through Repose. Annie Payson Call. Chapter XII,
"Training for Rest." Little, Brown & Co.
_Wallaces' Farmer_, Des Moines, Ia., is especially to be
commended for its editorial championship of The Farm Mother.
The Freedom of Life. Annie Payson Call. Chapter IV, "Hurry,
Worry, and Irritability." Little, Brown & Co.
Ideas of a Plain Country Mother. _Ladies' Home Journal_, May
1, 1911.
_American Motherhood_. Coopertown, New York Monthly, $1. This
magazine publishes many short articles bearing on the subject
of this chapter.
How to conduct Mothers' Clubs. (Pamphlet No. 302, 8 cents.)
_American Motherhood_. Coopertown, New York.
CHAPTER V
_CONSTRUCTING THE COUNTRY DWELLING_
Much has been written in books, and more has been spoken from platform
and pulpit, relative to the patriotism of the American people. In
addition to all this the public schools of city and country have been
consciously instructing the children with a view to laying a permanent
foundation in their lives for love of the native land and for defense of
the national ideals. But it seems to me that the best word on the
subject of patriotic instruction has never as yet been given wide
publicity. So long as a boy has to grow up in a home where there are
meanness and turmoil and strife and hatred and degradation, one may
point a thousand times with pride to our great nation, display again and
again before his eyes the proud banner of freedom, sing with him
numberless times the patriotic songs eulogistic of the fatherland and
its national heroes,--under such circumstances a boy can never be
expected to develop into anything other than a superficial patriot. But
give him a good home, simple and unadorned though it may be, where love
reigns, where his childish needs are thoughtfully ministered unto,
whereinto he may go at nightfall after a hard day's work and find rest
and peace and comfort; a home whereinto he may take his childish cares
and perplexities and place them before the affectionate consideration of
his parents and perhaps his elder brothers and sisters; a place where he
is carefully taught the rudiments of filial respect and a wholesome
regard for work and industry,--bring up the boy in the midst of these
plain, sympathetic situations, and you have a real patriot. Although he
may be reminded only occasionally of the meaning of the national flag,
and although he may read with no unusual interest about the blood that
was spilled on the national field of battle, a life so reared would mean
that the love of home has become rooted in the heart of the young
patriot, and that he would rise up if need be and give his life in
defense of that home. In such a case, only a small stretch of the
imagination would make it possible for the youth to regard the nation as
his home in the larger sense, while his willingness to defend that home
in time of real need would be none the less present and strong.
PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS NOT AVAILABLE
There are hundreds of types and thousands of varieties of rural dwelling
houses. It would perhaps be impracticable to attempt to furnish definite
plans and specifications in connection with this chapter. The wide
variation in the nature of the selected sites, in the means available
for building the home, in the size of the family to be accommodated, and
the like, would hinder us in the attempt. But there are certain
principles that may perhaps apply in nearly every instance and that
especially in thought of serving the first and best needs of the
juvenile members of the household.
It is altogether possible to make a two-room cottage out on the open
prairie a place suggestive of repose, of beauty, and of other high
ideals. So, no matter how small and inexpensive the rural dwelling may
be, let the builders work first of all for that simple beauty and
attractiveness which may most certainly invest the heart of the
indweller with a feeling of comfort and satisfaction. Let it be a place,
though humble, that may soon become to the members of the family the
most beloved spot on earth. For, after all, the best things of life
cannot possibly be bought with money. There are often misery and
dissension and bitterness in the finest palatial dwelling, while the
essential elements of beauty and worth may have lodgment in the hearts
of the humblest cottage dwellers. However, it is not the intention here
to argue any one into the thought of building a humble cot for the mere
sake of humility. The point we desire to make is merely this: that,
although possessed of very meager means with which to build, one can
actually construct a home in which the inhabitants thereof may dwell
in peace and contentment, and a place over which the Spirit of the
Most High may brood in great strength and beauty.
[Illustration: PLATE V.
FIG. 5.--An attractive old country residence in the South, built in
1854. At least one good family has been matured therein. And to them
"How many sacred memories
Bring back those childhood scenes."]
WHAT APPEALS TO THE CHILDREN
In the selection of a location and a site for the dwelling the welfare
of the children must be thought of, second only to that of the house
mother. Now, what material arrangements will appeal to the growing
children and add much interest and romance to their lives as in future
time they view them in retrospect? First of all, perhaps, a broken
landscape might well be mentioned, a hill or two near by the place, with
a sharp cliff or embankment to the crest of which the children may climb
and there cast down missiles. Such things tend to add a charm to the
young lives. And then, if possible, have a brook or larger stream of
fresh running water. A large river is less desirable on account of the
danger to child life. But a stream which may furnish, not merely water
for the live-stock, but a swimming and bathing place for the children in
summer and a skating pond for them in winter, to say nothing about the
pleasures of fishing and boating--these will appeal most strongly to the
boys and girls. And then, the woodland, or at least the shady grove with
trees to climb, and possibly nuts and wild flowers to gather--a place
where chipmunks and song birds and the like may have their natural
habitat, and wherefrom there may proceed the weird and doleful sound of
the night owl and the whip-poor-will; herein one may find many of the
crude materials well suited to give proper nourishment to the souls of
the young.
But the things just named will not nearly always be accessible.
Throughout many of the commonwealths there are vast stretches of level
plateaus with scarcely a hill or woodland in sight, and yet covered with
a rich, tillable soil. These places may for good reasons be selected for
the site of a dwelling. But they demand more work and heavier expense of
money and time before the best material surroundings of an ideal home
for boys and girls may be realized. Before the house is scarcely laid
out in such a place, the shade and ornamental trees should be planted,
selecting for part of the planting a quick-growing species that may be
removed later after more permanent and more valuable trees have reached
a suitable height. Of course, a stream of water cannot always be
diverted so as to make it pass the place, but a fair substitute may be
had by the construction of a pond. And this thing should be accomplished
at the earliest possible moment. If there be a small dry ravine, dam it
up with concrete and catch it full of surplus water during a rainy
season. It is a positive injustice to boys and not a little unfair to
girls to require them to grow up without any access to open water of
some kind. And it is almost a matter of criminal neglect to require
children to live permanently in a home about which there are no trees
growing. So it is recommended, even if the house construction must in
part be delayed or cut off, that the surroundings just named be sought
in all earnestness.
THE HOUSE PLAN
In planning and arranging the house, the matters to be thought of in
addition to those named above are convenience and comfort. While it is
somewhat important that the house look well to those who may be passing
upon the highway, it is vastly more important that it be good within and
serve such needs of the home-maker and the children as will conserve the
strength of the former and render the lives of all happy and contented.
In addition to the matters just named, that of placing the dwelling to
face in the right direction will be thought of. That is, arrange the
house so as to take advantage of the morning sunlight, the evening
shade, the winter blasts and the summer breezes. While for the sake of
entertainment it may be well to place the rural dwelling near the public
highway, rather than sacrifice the child-developing factors of shade
trees and streams and the like, it is often better to build back from
the road and make a private lane leading thereto.
In arranging for the heat and light in the house, think first of all of
the health and sanitation of the family. Ordinarily, the windows of the
farmhouse are too small; while worse still, many of them, even in the
bed chambers, are permanently nailed down. So, if the health and the
general well-being of the boys and girls, as well as the parents, are
worth anything at all, attend religiously to these small and inexpensive
conveniences, not neglecting to provide most carefully for keeping out
flies and other insects. The wise farmer will find the secret of getting
along with his own household and of rearing a strong, healthy family to
lie in the strict attention he gives to just such small matters as
these. The things that overstrain the physique, that try the temper and
patience of the housewife, must especially be looked after and something
of a better nature substituted for them.
HOW ONE FARMER DOES IT
Mr. W. F. Mottier, living in Ford County, Illinois, gives in _Farmer's
Voice_ his plan of providing for the children, as follows:--
"I have always tried to farm intelligently. One of my favorite ideas in
regard to farm life is that of making the home as attractive as possible
for the children. So I put on the place all the modern improvements that
I can afford, in order that the children may not feel that town life is
the best. And our children do not have any desire to go to town. It
would bring a sad thought to me to hear my children talk against the
farm life or home life on the farm."
OUTBUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT
With few exceptions, the money available for building the home should be
expended first in putting the house into the ideal condition just named.
After that, if any means remain, the outbuildings may be constructed.
Otherwise, crude, temporary arrangements may easily suffice. There is
one thing, however, that must be provided with scrupulous care and that
is the water for the household use. It must be, first of all, wholesome
and comparatively free from impurities. Then, if at all possible, it
should be cool and taste well. Actual records have shown that one will
not drink enough water to satisfy the demands of his health in case the
taste be in any degree unpleasant to him. So the ideal water for
household use is comparatively soft, is cool, highly pleasing to the
taste, and is free from disease-carrying germs. This comparatively
simple matter of providing the water will prove most important in
relation to the well-being of the household and the up-building of the
family life. See to it at any cost that the well be situated out of the
way of seepage from any barn or outbuilding, even though it may from
such necessity be placed somewhat out of the reach of convenience.
HUMAN RIGHTS PRIOR TO ANIMAL RIGHTS
If the farmer cannot afford to erect a good barn he may take reasonable
care of his horses with the use of a cheap, improvised one. Actual test
will show that horses may be made comfortable in the summer time with
the use of a straw-thatched shed for a barn, provided the drainage be
reasonably good and the earth floor be kept in good order. The thatched
covering may be made to keep out the rain. During the winter, with the
use of a few slender poles, the entire shed may be inclosed with a hay
or straw wall and the place thus be made very satisfactory for the time
being. Similar sheds and protection may be provided for the other
live-stock, all to await the time when the means are at hand for better
conveniences. It is especially suggestive of a mean lack of
consideration of human rights in the case of the farmer who has a big,
expensive farm barn towering up beside a little dingy shanty of a
dwelling house. And yet this thing is all too common, particularly in
new prairie regions. Such is the place out of which beastliness and
criminality and anarchy tend to be germinated from the lives of boys and
girls, to say nothing about the hidden tragedies that surround the lives
of the many women who are forced to put up with such an arrangement for
half a lifetime.
Just one illustration of a situation of the sort described will suffice
to point out the moral. On an occasion two strangers drew up to a
farmhouse. One of them was a land agent, and the other a home seeker.
Their mission was that of purchasing a farm. The owner of the farm
showed them about the place with considerable enthusiasm, but his heart
swelled with pride when he reached the magnificent barn, one side of
which was devoted to the propagation of a high-grade strain of Duroc
Jersey swine. Every convenience and comfort for the hogs was provided.
He boasted about his success with them, showed an affectionate regard
for the different individuals, calling them by name. The horses, too,
might have aroused the envy of the entire neighborhood. They were sleek
and well-fed, full in flesh and fair in form. There was provided every
convenience for feeding and caring for the horses and the hogs, so that
the hired men found the work about the barn exceedingly easy and
pleasant.
Then the attention of the visitors was turned to the farmhouse. Yes, it
was small and run down and poor, the intention being to build a larger
one "some time." But that same intention was known to have been
expressed repeatedly for a period of twenty years past. And where were
the boys? Well, that was the trouble, and furnished the excuse for his
willingness to sell the place. He simply could not induce the boys to
stay there and take an interest in things. Two of them, barely more than
boys, had left the home nest in its meanness and degradation and hired
out in town. The mother of the boys was living there because she had to,
but upon her face were lines of suffering and disappointment and
degradation. Yet in the midst of it all, strange to say, the father
seemed to blame the boys and their mother for having conspired against
the interests of the farm home and plotted to get away. In the course of
his conversation he made it somewhat evident that he would have sold out
and left sooner had the other members of the family not been so urgent
about the matter, and that he was now holding on partly to indulge his
spite and feeling of stubbornness in reference to them.
The cheap novels one may pick up depict many a fictitious tragedy. But
in the place just described lies the typical scene of thousands of real
tragedies during the course of which numberless lives of boys and girls
have been wrecked forever,--lives latent with possibilities of goodness
and beauty, of mental and moral strength. And then, the bitterness and
anguish of soul of the mothers of these lost members of a high
humanity--what of that? The silent walls of an untimely grave in many
cases closed them in, while much of the memory of their secret suffering
lies buried with them.
THE CHILDREN'S ROOM
Even though the means available will not allow for more than the
humblest sort of cottage, there should be definite thought of providing
therein some room or niche or corner to be considered as the private
property of the children. In a three-room dwelling on the Kansas prairie
in which lives a happy family of five, and about which thrifty young
shade trees and orchards are growing, there may be seen a children's
room that would surprise and inspire any ordinary observer. In a little
attic room facing the east and reached by a mere step-ladder
arrangement, may be found the "den," which is the private place of the
three children. A small window opens out to the east and a small
improvised dormer window about twelve by twenty inches admits light and
air from the south. There is no plastering or other expensive covering
upon the sloping roof walls, but the artistic mother has provided dainty
white muslin for concealing the rough places, and with the help of the
children she has decorated the little room in a manner that would
attract the very elect. None of this has required a money cost, but it
has all been done beautifully at the expense of thought and good sense
and artistic taste, prompted by rare consideration for the needs of the
boys and girls.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.
FIG. 6.--A commodious farmhouse in Canada, equipped throughout with a
complete water system. Many farmers waste enough trying to build a house
without a modern plan to pay for this extra convenience.]
The two little girls and their brother, ranging in age from five to ten
years, spend many a happy hour in their attic chamber. The heat from the
room below comes through a small aperture and warms the little place in
winter time, while the breeze passes through the little windows in
summer, tempering the room satisfactorily excepting upon extremely hot
days. Upon the walls are arranged beautiful post cards, larger pictures
gathered from magazines and other sources, and small though beautiful
home decorations of every conceivable sort. The little seven-year-old
boy has a small assortment of curios collected from the hills and
streams, while the girls have a small display of their childish
needlework, their dolls, and some of their best school drawings. How
suggestive and how helpful it would be if this little den could be
displayed before the eyes of all the humble cottagers throughout the
rural districts!
Yes, the hogs may live out-of-doors and the horses get along very well
indeed with a temporary barn thatched with straw, but the places of the
boys and girls must be looked after and that in the interest of making
them happy, of filling their lives with every good, clean sentiment, and
of preparing them for that large sphere of usefulness which may mark
their future. If the house be larger than the one we have described,
then provide accordingly for the children. Give them a good room of
their own. Put their ornaments and playthings in it. If there be space,
provide a library containing a few suitable volumes. And after this
thoughtful provision has been made, see to it carefully that their
schedule for work, schooling, and the other duties allows for ample time
and opportunity for their enjoyment of the apartment set aside for them.
In years to come, that sweet poetic sentiment running back to the home
of one's childhood will be given greater strength and beauty because of
the fact that this thing just urged has been done. And more than that,
the man (or woman) who has the blessed privilege of recalling these
bygone scenes of childhood receives from such contemplation a new sense
of inner strength and new enduement of power to go on with life's
struggle and master the larger problems that come to him.
THE EVENING HOUR
No matter what the cares of the day may have been, how many things may
have gone wrong, how much hay left out in the field unprotected from the
rain, how many acres of corn unplowed and losing in the battle with the
weeds, how many items of household duties unperformed--there is every
justification for laying aside these work-a-day affairs at the approach
of bedtime and for the spending of a precious hour with the problems of
the children. Farm parents as well as other parents can thus preserve
their youth and add immeasurably to the joys of their own lives. This
thing of being with the children at evening may seem slightly awkward
and prosaic at first, but it will slowly grow into a habit and will
become transformed into an experience of great charm and beauty. Best of
all the high refinement, potential in the lives of the children, will
thus be gradually brought to an expression, and the foundation stones of
substantial manhood and womanhood will be laid in their lives. Yes, it
is true, even farm parents may learn to lay aside their cares and
perplexities and enjoy the splendid privilege of getting intimately
acquainted with the hopes and desires and aspirations of their boys and
girls!
REFERENCES
The Outlook to Nature. Revised edition. L. H. Bailey. Page
79, "The Country Home." Macmillan.
Low Cost Country Homes. A. Embury, Jr. _Collier's_, June 10,
1911.
A Primer of Sanitation. John O. Ritchie. Chapter XXXIII,
"Public Sanitation." World Book Company, Yonkers, N.Y.
Recommended for general use.
From Kitchen to Garret. Virginia Van de Water. Chapter X,
"The Boy's Room." Sturgis-Walton Company.
Home Waterworks. Carleton J. Lynde. Sturgis-Walton.
"Comforts and Conveniences in Farmers' Homes." W. R. Beattie.
Yearbook, Department of Agriculture, 1909. Washington, D.C.,
pp. 345-356. See also in same volume, "Hygienic Water Supply
for Farms," pp. 399-408.
Water Supply for Farm Residences, The Plan of the Farm-House,
Saving Steps. Cornell Reading-Courses.
Rural Hygiene. H. N. Ogden. The Macmillan Company.
Rural Hygiene. I. N. Brewer. J. P. Lippincott Company,
Philadelphia.
Earn your Child's Friendship. J. Balfield. _Lippinott's
Magazine_, January, 1911.
Fireside Child Study. Patterson DuBois. Dodd, Mead & Co.
Home Decorations. Dorothy T. Priestman. Chapter XIV, "Rooms
for Young People." Penn Publishing Company, Philadelphia.
CHAPTER VI
_JUVENILE LITERATURE IN THE FARM HOME_
It may be truly said that the strength and impressiveness of the
personality depend on the nature of the inner thought of the individual.
Now, thoughts are not unlike the trees and the growing grain, or, for
that matter, any other living thing; unless they have proper nourishment
they wither, perish, or dwindle away to a puny shadow of their possible
selves. How shall we measure the strength and force of the human
character other than by the bigness and the purity of the daily thoughts
of the individual? It matters little what the occupation may be--a hewer
of stone, a hauler of wood, a captain of industry, or a governor of a
state--each of these may be mean and little in his respective position
provided his thoughts be sensuous and groveling. On the other hand, each
of these can shine in his allotted place in a light all his own,
provided he have the habit of entertaining clean and inspiring ideas in
his secret consciousness.
Now, one of the larger problems of the rural life is that of supplying
the many hours necessarily devoted to silent reflection with a suitable
form of thought culture. Proverbially, the farmer and his wife and their
children are hurried along with the work-a-day affairs and tend
gradually to acquire the non-reading habit. This is bad for the parents
in that it keeps their minds running around upon a little cycle of hard,
industrial facts. It is worse for the children in that it fails to
supply the proper nourishment for the dream period through which their
lives are necessarily passing. What can be done, therefore, to nourish
and build up the best possible thought activities, especially in case of
the rural boys and girls?
HOW GOOD THINKING GROWS UP AND FLOURISHES
It may not be out of place to show here somewhat more definitely how
attractive forms of literature gradually work themselves into the lives
of the young. In the first place, the young person cannot invent his own
ideas. He does not manufacture his thoughts out of something latent
within his organism. The latent situation consists merely of a nervous
system prepared to receive manifold impressions and to retain them and
give them back through the process of ideation. That is, the young
person thinks only about things that have actually happened in his life.
All he knows has come to him through the avenue of his senses; what he
has seen and heard and felt, and so on, constitutes the "stuff" out of
which his thoughts are made. So he must have the widest possible
experience, while young, in the use of his natural senses.
The literature best adapted to the child would be that which appeals to
the interests predominating in his life at any given time. During his
early years not hard, prosaic facts, but situations that stretch the
truth and sport with the fixed condition of things are especially
appealing to him. He should therefore be indulged in the classic myths,
fables, fairy tales, and the like. The parent will of course be on guard
against his acquiring any seriously erroneous beliefs in respect to such
things, and also against his receiving any serious shock or fright from
the tragic aspects of the tale. Later on, during the early teens, the
boys and girls will become more and more interested in the stories of
the wars of old and in the fact and romance of history. Stories
supplementing the text-book history of the home country may now be
introduced.
As a possible means of bringing the minds of the boys and girls into a
more intimate knowledge of the rural situation, nature studies and
nature stories should be offered. It must be remembered that it is quite
possible for the boy to grow up within a stone's throw of many of the
living things of nature and yet scarcely recognize their presence, much
less know anything definite about them. Therefore, nature-study books
and leaflets written perhaps in story form and containing attractive
illustrations of the birds, bees, flowers, and trees to be found near
about the rural home will prove most interesting and instructive to the
young. Through such helpful literature the mind will gradually acquire
the habit of casting about in the home environment for the description
of possible objects and conditions new to one.
One of the best and most helpful results accruing to the young person
who indulges the habit of reading good literature is this: he acquires a
large vocabulary of words and phrases in which to clothe his secret
thought and with which to express himself to others. All this furnishes,
not merely a splendid form of entertainment for the silent reflections,
but it also gives the thinker a sense of the power and the worth of his
own personality.
TYPES OF LITERATURE
It may be stated as a foregone conclusion that no farm is well equipped
for the happiness and well-being of those who dwell thereon unless there
be an ample supply of good literature in the house. No matter how well
stocked with high-grade farm animals, how productive in point of farm
crops, how well kept the hedges and lanes may be, secret poverty and
littleness of mind lurk in that home if the literature is wanting. So,
first of all, let us lay the foundation by means of enumerating some
periodicals and books of a more general nature.
[Illustration: PLATE VII.
FIG. 7.--It is a mistake to try to make bookworms of children. Many of
their best books are "green fields and running brooks," also frequent
opportunity to play together in groups and neighborhoods.]
1. _The best reading._--Of course the Bible might head the list. Whether
or not there be a large "family" Bible, there should be at least a text
of convenient size and form for everyday use. This book should contain a
good concordance.
Then there should come into the home a first-class weekly newspaper;
possibly the local paper will supply this need. Many farm homes now
receive a daily paper regularly.
In addition there should be available a weekly or monthly summary of the
current events of the nation and the world. The _Literary Digest_, the
_World's Work_, and the _Review of Reviews_ are examples of standard
magazines of this particular class. Either one of them will stimulate
most helpfully the quiet thought of the farmer and the members of his
family and keep one in touch with the most important movements of the
country.
Along with the foregoing, there should be kept constantly at hand a
first-class farm magazine. There are numberless periodicals of this
sort, but perhaps among those of the first rank and those which
especially give definite helps for the boy-and-girl life of the farm may
be mentioned _Wallaces' Farmer_, Des Moines, Iowa, the _Farmer's Voice_,
Chicago, Illinois, and the _Farmer's Guide_, Huntington, Indiana. Also,
the semi-official state paper well known in many of the commonwealths is
usually very helpful.
Look out for trash. There are many papers published, ostensibly in the
interest of farm life, which are in fact cheap and trashy sheets made
use of almost wholly as a medium of advertising quack medicines,
get-rich-quick schemes, and other frauds. A reliable means of testing
the value of any one of these so-called "farm" or "home" papers is to
examine the advertisements. If there be any considerable number of
advertisements which offer sure cures for chronic diseases, confidential
treatments for secret troubles, fortune telling, and attractive
high-priced articles at a trifling cost, then the whole thing is
probably fraudulent and not worthy to come into your home. Also avoid
the paper or magazine which advertises intoxicating liquors. It is very
low in moral tone, to say the least.
2. _Books for children._--In selecting a list of books for farm boys and
girls, we should make little or no distinction between them and the
children of the city homes. Their earlier literary needs are practically
all alike and their youthful minds must be nourished in about the same
fashion. In offering the lists to follow we do not pretend to have
selected nearly all the profitable books available, but rather to have
named a few examples of volumes already found enticing and helpful to
the young mind. The majority of them are standard and well known. While
the price and publisher are given in many instances, often a cheaper
edition may be had.
In order to proceed with greater certainty and economy in purchasing
books for the children, the rural parent is advised to consult some one
near at hand who is thoroughly familiar with children's literature.
Perhaps the superintendent of schools of the town near by, or some local
minister, or some well-informed leader of a mothers' club, may furnish
the desired assistance. It would also be helpful to write for the
general catalogues of a number of the large publishing and distributing
houses and from their lists select a number of suitable titles. Many of
them publish the older classics in very attractive form for ten to
twenty-five cents, the original unchanged and unabridged.
In order to stimulate interest in forming the nucleus of a home library
the farmer should either make or purchase a small set of book shelves.
Important as it may seem to build a first-class house for the
thoroughbred hogs, this matter of the children's reading is even more
important and should be attended to first, before it becomes too late to
catch the attentive ear of the boys and girls.
A SELECTED LIST
The following lists are taken chiefly from those selected by
such well-known critics as Mary Mapes Dodge, Kate Douglas
Wiggin, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and
Hamilton W. Mabie.
_Ages Four to Six Years_
VARIOUS AUTHORS. Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories.
J. L. Hammett Company, Boston. 50 cents.
BRYANT. Stories to Tell to Children. Houghton, Mifflin
Company.
HOLBROOK. Hiawatha Primer. 50 cents. Houghton, Mifflin
Company.
EGGLESTON. Story of Great America for Little Americans. 35
cents. Houghton, Mifflin Company.
SCUDDER. Fables and Folk Stories.
STEVENSON. A Child's Garden of Verses.
LANG. Blue Fairy Book.
RUSKIN. King of the Golden River.
FIELD. Lullaby Land.
WIGGIN. The Story Hour.
SEWELL. Black Beauty.
_Ages Six to Seven Years_
NORTON AND STEPHENS. The Heart of Oak Books, No. 1. 25 cents.
Heath.
GILBERT. Mother Goose.
CARROLL (CHARLES L. DODGSON). Alice in Wonderland. $3.
Harper. 35 cents. Crowell.
ANDREWS. The Seven Little Sisters. 60 cents. Ginn.
KINGSLEY. Water Babies.
KIPLING. The Jungle Book.
GREENE. King Arthur and his Court.
_Ages Seven to Eight Years_
GRIMM. Fairy Tales. Translated Mrs. E. Lucas. $2.50.
Lippincott.
GOLDSMITH. Goody Two-Shoes. 25 cents. Heath
AESOP. Fables. Selected by Jacobs. $1.50. Macmillan.
HARRIS. Nights with Uncle Remus. $1.50. Houghton, Mifflin.
BIBLE STORIES. 60 cents. A. L. Burt Company, New York.
HAWTHORNE. Wonderbook and Tanglewood Tales.
IRVING. Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or
The Sketch Book.
_Ages Eight to Nine Years_
BALDWIN. Fifty Famous Stories Retold. 35 cents. American Book
Company.
LONGFELLOW. Hiawatha, The Village Blacksmith, The Children's
Hour, etc.
MABIE. Norse Stories Retold from Edda. $1.80. Dodd, Mead.
MILLER. Out-of-Door Diary for Boys and Girls. Sturgis-Walton
Company.
_Ages Nine to Ten Years_
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 4. 45 cents.
Heath.
HODGES. The Garden of Eden. (Bible Stories.) $1.50. Houghton,
Mifflin.
MATHEWS. Familiar Trees and Their Leaves. $1.75. Appleton.
BURROUGHS. Wake Robin.
_Ages Ten to Eleven Years_
HIGGINSON. Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic.
DANA. How to know the Wild Flowers. $2. Scribner.
BLANCHAN. Bird Neighbors. 35 cents. Doubleday, Page.
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 5. 50 cents.
Heath.
CHURCH. Stories from Virgil.
MORLEY. A Song of Life.
STEVENSON. Treasure Island.
_Ages Eleven to Twelve Years_
ALCOTT. Little Women. $1.50. Little Men. $1.50. Little, Brown
& Co.
LUCAS. A Wanderer in London. $1.75. Macmillan.
ALDRICH. Story of a Bad Boy. $1.25. Houghton, Mifflin.
SHAKESPEARE. The Tempest.
SCOTT. Tales of a Grandfather. The Talisman.
EDGEWORTH. Parent's Assistant.
_Ages Twelve to Thirteen Years_
KIPLING. Just So Stories. $1.20. Doubleday, Page.
SETON-THOMPSON. Wild Animals I have Known. $2. Scribner.
WYSS. Swiss Family Robinson. 60 cents. McKay; also Dutton.
PALMER. The Odyssey. $1. Houghton, Mifflin.
GOLDSMITH. The Vicar of Wakefield.
DICKENS. A Christmas Carol. The Cricket on the Hearth.
HUGHES. Tom Brown at Rugby.
_Ages Thirteen to Fourteen Years_
SWIFT. Gulliver's Travels. $1.50. Macmillan.
LONGFELLOW. Evangeline.
DANA. Two Years before the Mast. $1. Houghton, Mifflin.
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 6. 55 cents.
Heath.
LAMB. Tales from Shakespeare.
COFFIN. Old Times in the Colonies.
FRANKLIN. Autobiography.
STOWE. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
_Ages Fourteen to Fifteen Years_
DEFOE. Robinson Crusoe. $1. McLoughlin. $1.50. Harper.
BUNYAN. Pilgrim's Progress.
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 7. 60 cents.
Heath.
AUSTEN. Pride and Prejudice.
THOREAU. Walden.
_Ages Fifteen to Sixteen Years_
COOPER. Leather Stocking Tales.
BURROUGHS. Birds and Bees. 15 cents. Strawbridge and
Clothier.
PYLE. Robin Hood. 60 cents. Scribner.
SCOTT. Ivanhoe. 60 cents. Appleton. Lady of the Lake. 35
cents.
GINN. Lay of the Last Minstrel. 25 cents. Macmillan.
_Sixteen Years Old and Older_
IRVING. The Alhambra. 25 cents. Macmillan.
MACAULAY. Lays of Ancient Rome. 75 cents. Macmillan.
KIPLING. Captains Courageous. $1.50. Century.
NICOLAY AND HAY. Boy's Life of Lincoln. $1.50. Century.
EGGLESTON. Hoosier School Boy. $1. Scribner; also Heath.
In addition to the foregoing, there is beginning to come from the press
a mass of juvenile literature that promises to furnish most practical
inspiration and guidance to the juvenile mind on the farm. Much of this
new rural life literature may be had for the asking or for the mere
price of publication. The following are recommended:--
_The Rural School Leaflet._ Edited by Alice G. McCloskey, and
issued under the general direction of L. H. Bailey at Ithaca,
N.Y.
The Country Life Publications, issued by D. W. Working,
Superintendent of Agricultural Extension, Morgantown, W.Va.
The series published by A. B. Graham, Superintendent of the
Extension Department, Ohio University, Columbus.
The annual reports of County Superintendent O. J. Kern,
Rockford, Ill., and of County Superintendent George W. Brown,
Paris, Ill.
The Wisconsin Arbor and Bird Day Annual, issued by State
Superintendent C. P. Cary, Madison, Wis.
The Extension Departments of many of the state universities and nearly
all of the state agricultural colleges are now issuing a series of small
pamphlets on such matters as stock judging, grain breeding, soil
testing, and home economics. This literature should be given the widest
possible circulation in the country home, as it will prove helpful both
to the young and to the parents in their direction of the young.
_Literature on Child-rearing_
Parents who are seriously in earnest in the matter of developing the
lives of their children will find great assistance and much inspiration
through the reading of books and magazines on the child-rearing
problems. In fact, it may be put down as a practical certainty that the
work of child training cannot go on effectively and continue in its
interest except one have some aids of the kind just named. Therefore,
the interested parent should cast about for the books and magazines that
promise to serve in the solution of the particular problems at hand. It
happens that the author has collected a large number of books and
periodicals of this class and that he has made a somewhat critical
examination of them.
In listing the titles below, a word or phrase is used to indicate the
contents or purpose of the text.
1. Periodicals on Child-rearing
_The American Baby._ American Publishing Company, 1 Madison
Ave., New York City. $1 per year, 10 cents per copy. Contains
much detailed and most helpful instruction on the care of the
child.
_American Motherhood._ Coopertown, N.Y. $1 per year, 10 cents
per copy. Helpful and sympathetic. Especially strong in
respect to health and sanitation and in methods of
instructing children in regard to the secrets of life.
_The Child-Welfare Magazine._ Official organ of the National
Congress of Mothers, 147 North 10th Street, Philadelphia. 50
cents per year, 10 cents per copy.
The educational pamphlets published by the Society of Sanitary and Moral
Prophylaxis, 9 E 2d Street, New York City. Excellent monographs, each
treating some urgent child problem in relation to morals, sanitation,
and the like.
The Home-training Bulletins, prepared and issued by William A. McKeever,
Professor of Philosophy, State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kan. 5
cents each. Each of these pamphlets contains about sixteen pages and
covers a particular home-training problem. The numbers thus far issued
are:--
1. The Cigarette Smoking Boy.
2. Teaching the Boy to Save.
3. Training the Girl to Help in the Home.
4. Assisting the Boy in the Choice of a Vocation.
5. A Better Crop of Boys and Girls.
6. Training the Boy to Work.
7. Teaching the Girl to Save.
8. Instructing the Young in Regard to Sex.
Others are in course of preparation.
2. Books on Child-rearing
HOLT. Care and Feeding of Children. $1 Appleton. Most helpful
and practical.
CURLEY. Short Talks with Young Mothers. $1.50. Putnams.
Helpful from the medical side.
HARRISON. A Study of Child Nature. $1. Chicago Kindergarten
College. Excellent. A standard help.
ALLEN. Civics and Health. $1.25. Ginn & Co. Most helpful on
the side of sanitation.
HALL. Youth. $1.50. Appleton. A great book on child study by
one of the world's leading authorities.
KING. Psychology of Child Development. $1. University of
Chicago Press. A Fundamental work for those who wish to make
a scientific study of child life.
RITCHIE. A Primer of Sanitation. 60 cents. World Book
Company. A clear, helpful presentation of the facts.
CHANCE. The Care of the Child. $1. Penn Publishing Company.
Full of detailed information about infants, especially.
MANGOLD. Child Problems. $1.25. Macmillan. Presents the
matter ably and in the light of the freshest information.
CALL. The Freedom of Life. $1. Little, Brown & Co. A great
and inspiring book. Will give rest and poise to tired
mothers.
GULICK. Mind and Work. $1. Doubleday, Page & Co. A companion
book to the one above, only more suitable for the father.
SALEEBY. Parenthood and Race Culture. $2.50. Moffat, Yard &
Co., New York. A remarkably instructive volume on race
improvement.
REFERENCES
How to Direct Children's Reading. Mae E. Schreiber. Annual
volume N.E.A., 1900, p. 637.
A Suggestive List for a Children's Library, 483 titles. Helen
T. Kennedy. Democrat Printing Company. Minneapolis.
A Mother's List of Books for Children. Catherine W. Arnold.
A. C. McClurg & Co.
Children's Rights. Kate Douglas Wiggin. Pages 69 ff. "What
shall Children Read?" Houghton, Mifflin Company.
Fingerposts of Children's Reading. Walter Taylor Field.
McClurg & Co. Gives extensive lists.
Books for Boys and Girls. Brooklyn Public Library, New York.
A carefully selected list of 1700 titles, 200 of them being
especially marked for their value.
CHAPTER VII
_THE RURAL CHURCH AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE_
There was never a greater demand for efficient leadership in the rural
communities than there is to-day. The country has continued for many
years past to become richer in farm products and equipment, but it has
steadily grown poorer in social and spiritual values. In fact we have
unconsciously acquired a distorted idea of values. Hogs are too high in
proportion to boys. Beef cattle are absorbing too much interest in
proportion to the time and money expended in perfecting the character of
girls. It has long been the proud boast of the Middle Western states
that they could feed the entire country. And we have continued so long
in this way as now to regard big crops and the great abundance of farm
animals and other such material possessions as ends in themselves. So it
is high time that we ask ourselves what this material wealth is all for.
Looked at from at least one high vantage point, it may be properly
regarded as so much encumbrance unless we shall be able to convert it
into a means to some worthy and spiritual purpose.
DECADENCE OF RURAL LIFE
The open country in the Middle Western states has for some time been the
breeding place for sterling manhood and ideal womanhood, and the
recruiting ground wherefrom have been drawn many men and women to
undertake the management of the larger enterprises of the country. The
enforced self denial and discipline of work; the continued practice of
quiet reflection; the comparative freedom from the evil and degrading
influences peculiar to much of the child life in the cities; and many
other character-building experiences could be set down on the favorable
side of rural child-rearing in the past. But this situation is rapidly
changing. The ten-year period just closing has witnessed a decadence of
country life, the rural population actually showing a decrease. Large
numbers of the best families have moved to the cities and towns, and
their places on the farm have been taken by irresponsible laborers and
transient renters.
Yes, the wealth of the rural community is still there, lying more or
less dormant, and all the other means of a splendid civilization are
there. But in the usual instance there is no one to assume the
leadership in bringing about the reconstruction of the rural life. Now
that he has accumulated such an abundance of material things, the
typical farmer needs to be shown how to deal more fairly and helpfully
with the various members of his family. Some farmers' wives are
gradually being dragged to death with the over-burden of work, which
might be obviated if the farmer and his wife were both shown
specifically a better way of getting things done. Many boys and girls
growing up in the country are being cheated out of their natural
heritage of good health, spontaneous play, and the joy of social
intercourse, all because of the fact that farm products are too much
regarded as an end rather than a means to the higher development of the
members of the rural family. So a good soil and excellent crops are
essentials for a substantial rural society, but they are not a certain
evidence of such thing. It is possible to go into some of the country
communities where these material things are accumulated in great
abundance and yet find the people there living a little, mean, and
narrow form of life, and that chiefly because they do not quite
understand how to use the splendid means at hand in the accomplishment
of some high and worthy purposes.
WORK FOR THE MINISTRY
And so we hereby issue a call and a challenge for workers to enter the
great fallow field just named and make it blossom with new social and
spiritual life. And it is the conviction of some that the ministers of
the town and village churches can undertake this work much better than
any other class of persons, for they are already in many respects
trained leaders. Let these ministers be provided if possible with an
assistant, a layman it may be, for both their town and country work.
Then let each of them have a rural appointment to which they may go from
one to four times each month; and, inspired by a vision of all the
possibilities ahead of them and endued with divine power and guidance,
enter earnestly into the great work of rehabilitating the country
community. It is evident that the minister who will leave his town
congregation with perhaps only one Sunday sermon and go to a country
church and preach to the adults, and teach and lead the young, while his
assistant takes charge of the second Sunday service at home--it is
evident that such a minister will not only wear longer in the locality
in which he is stationed, but that he will find in the rural work just
mentioned such a flood of zeal and inspiration as will more than make up
for and repay the effort. Many of the town ministers are preaching to
audiences that are more or less irresponsive to what they have to say.
Under present conditions they are compelled to preach to the same
audiences too much. Their sermons grow stale. But under the arrangement
here recommended, such conditions would not obtain. They would come back
from the rural appointment so laden with new ideas and ideals as to
appear to the home congregation in a most advantageous light.
THE COUNTRY MINISTER
There is at present not a little promise that there may be developed
throughout the country a new type of country-dwelling ministers. It is
certainly a logical position for the effective religious worker to
assume; namely, that of actually dwelling among those whom he is
attempting to serve. He acquires an intimate knowledge of their
problems, their point of view, including the status of their individual
beliefs and prejudices.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.
FIG. 8.--The fifty-year-old country church at Plainfield.
FIG. 9.--The new country church at Plainfield, Illinois, erected through
the inspiration and leadership of Reverend Matthew B. McNutt.]
As an example of what the country minister can achieve one needs to read
an account of the splendid work of the Rev. Mathew B. McNutt of
Plainfield, Illinois. Mr. McNutt was called to this charge in 1900 when
a fresh graduate from a Presbyterian seminary. At the time of his call
there was in the locality a small dead or nominal church membership and
an occasional weak, ineffective service held in the little old church of
fifty years' standing. This devoted and far-seeing man got down among
the people with whom he settled, made a careful survey of the economic,
the social, and the religious life of the place, and began his wonderful
work of reconstructing all this. The ultimate purpose was the
improvement of the spiritual well-being. He organized singing schools,
granges, literary and debating societies, sewing societies, and clubs of
various other sorts, all as a means of awakening the life of the
community and bringing the people together in a spirit of mutual
sympathy and helpfulness. After less than a decade of hard work a
marvelous transformation of the rural life thereabout was achieved.
Among other notable changes was a new church to supplant the old one.
The new building was erected at a cash cost of ten thousand dollars; has
an audience room seating five hundred or more, several Sunday school
class rooms, a choir room, a cloak room, a pastor's study and a mothers'
room, all on the main floor. In the basement below there is a good
kitchen, a dining room with equipment, also a furnace, a store room, and
the like. The church membership has grown to one hundred sixty-three
with many non-members attending, while the Sunday school enrollment
increased to three hundred.
Now there are always a few minds who wish to measure all earthly things
in terms of a money value. To such it may be shown that the land values
in the vicinity of this new country church have gone up to a marked
degree and that the economic conditions are all of a most satisfactory
nature.
As further evidence of what a rural community working together may
achieve for the spiritual welfare, there may be cited the instance of
the little side station by the name of Ogden in Riley County, Kansas.
Here the people got together and voted to build a country church, and
that without determining as to the denominational affiliation. A
committee of leaders was appointed to raise funds and to draw plans for
the building. In a short time, arrangements were perfected for
constructing the building at a cost of four thousand dollars. It was
later voted to place this new church temporarily under the direction of
the Congregational church in Manhattan, fifteen miles away.
In one or two instances the religious leaders in a country community
have succeeded admirably in establishing a "commission" form of church
administration. The method pursued has been that of having a committee
of three, each a member of a different church, to call by turn from the
towns near by the ministers of the various denominations. Further
details of the plans provide for the committee to raise funds so that
the minister may be paid a definite amount for the service conducted.
One of the first essential steps in the establishment of a rural church
is a careful survey or study of the situation. While it may be accounted
a sin against God and humanity to add another church where there are
already more than the people can support, often it will be found that
very large, well populated country districts are wholly without access
to any religious service whatever. Verily, the field is white unto the
harvest and the laborers as yet are few.
A MISTAKE IN TRAINING
Too long we have been training young people in the school and in the
home to struggle for the best of everything--a sort of rivalry that
results in envy, jealousy, and strife, and a falling apart where there
should be cooperation and sympathy and a spirit of mutual helpfulness.
The craze for clothes, the glare of the electric lights, and the lure of
the cheap theater have struck the country people and are drawing away
much of the best young blood there. It seems that we have over-done this
thing of pointing to the top and urging our young people to scramble for
that, until as a result no one is looking for a place to serve, while
all are looking for a place to shine. Now, there may be "plenty of room
at the top" for selfish scrambling, but in some respects the top is
woefully over-crowded. On the other hand, there is a vast amount of good
room at the bottom, acres of it, and we might well commend it to every
one who may be imbued with the idea of doing some effective work in the
world. All over the broad, open country, in thousands of rural
districts, the situation at the bottom is literally crying out for
constructive workers who will come in there with their good courage,
their scientific training, and in the name of the Most High get down
among the people and the common things in the midst of which the people
live and lay a substantial foundation for a new and beautiful
structure--an edifice erected out of the plain materials to be found in
any ordinary rural community, and that by means of transforming such
things and making them contributive to the high and lofty
spirit-purposes for which they are really designed.
RURAL CHILD-REARING
We are not half awake as yet to the meaning and possibilities of the
rural community as a place for rearing children. The city environment
ripens youths too fast and too early and works all the spontaneity and
aggressiveness out of the boys and girls before their mature judgments
are ready to function. As a result of this city hot-bed, we have as a
type the blase sort of young man, and a young woman who is overly smart
in respect to the "proper things to do." Either of them has little power
of initiative and less power of persistence. One of the greatest virtues
of the somewhat isolated rural home is that it matures human character
more slowly and keeps the boys and girls fresh and "green" and
spontaneous while there is being gradually worked into their characters
the habit of industry and the power of doing constructive work.
If one should desire to obtain a sterling specimen of manhood, he would
not take up with the "smart" city youth who at the age of sixteen has
had all the experiences known to men. The latter is too ripe. He knows
it all. From his own point of view, his knowledge of the world is nearly
completed. No, one would prefer to go to the most remote country
district and, if need be, lasso some green, gawky, sixteen-year-old who
is afraid of the cars and the big girls and who has never had a suit of
clothes that fits him. This scared, unbroken youth would go through a
tremendous amount of rough-and-tumble, trial-and-error experiences
during the course of his college training; and he would live intensively
and rush into many unknown places and commit many blunders, between
whiles catching countless inspiring visions of how he might be or become
a man of great strength and ruggedness of character. Such a man might be
relied upon to shoulder the heavy burdens of the world. Such a man could
be called out to join in the forefront of battle when the moral and
religious rights of the people were at issue. Such a man when fully
matured could be sent into some kind of missionary field and be expected
to labor there for a long time alone, courageous and persistent, finally
winning a very small following; then a larger number of adherents; and
then the entire population at his heels, applauding and backing him up
in his every worthy effort.
The author has long had a vision of a man trained and developed through
the seasoning experiences just sketched and who, under the inspiration
and the guidance of the Most High, will go into these rural communities
which are latent with material life, and there begin his labors in
behalf of the higher things into which all the elements of this typical
rural situation may be transformed. Just as fast as men hear this divine
call and heed it and take up this work, so fast will our country life be
reconstructed and the best that is in our society become gloriously
transformed and everlastingly saved as a heritage of the oncoming
generations. And it is evident that the rural minister, working through
the rural church, is the person to whom this divine call may most
naturally come.
THE CHURCHES TOO NARROW
Not a few of the country churches are too narrow in their limitations,
tending to chill out those who do not happen to be adherents of the
creed, and to foster dissensions and hatred among neighbors. And they
are not touching in a vital way the lives of country boys and girls.
[Illustration: PLATE IX.
FIG. 10.--This attractive and modern church building was erected by the
Christian people living in the vicinity of the country village of Ogden,
Kansas. Four different denominations participated at its dedication. Its
ruling body is undenominational.]
It will be agreed that the gospel of the Master of men may be made so
broad and inviting as to attract all who have a spark of religion in
their natures, and that means practically every one in the community.
But there is no good reason why the rural church should stand alone as
such. It should and can be made a social as well as a religious center
for the whole community. So, let there be constructed a modern building
with big windows, and several apartments for Sunday school classes,
and for meetings of social groups, such as the grange, the farmers'
institute, the sewing society, and the literary and debating clubs. Then
there should be apparatus for the preparation of meals, with a room in
which a long table might be spread as occasion demands. Outside of this
building there should be a children's playground with some simple
apparatus for play.
Not less frequently than one afternoon of the month--and twice would be
better--the people of the community should drop everything and come
together for a good social time and a general exchange of ideas. On an
occasion of this kind the town minister could be present or someone from
the outside who would bring with him at least one helpful and practical
idea about building up country life. Let this building be regarded as
the property of every man, woman, and child in the community and strive
to bring it to pass that the legitimate and worthy interest of all shall
be actually served there.
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH
This country church here thought of need be no less a religious affair,
but it must become distinctively a socializing agency. It must not
merely save souls, but it must save and conserve and develop for this
present life the bodily, the moral, and the intellectual powers of the
young. One cannot adequately develop those splendid latent powers in
young people solely by means of teaching them the Sunday school lesson
or preaching to them, no matter how true the gospel may be. The evidence
is ample to show that boys and girls who attend church and Sunday school
are nevertheless falling into many vicious habits of conduct, and are
growing up without many of the forms of discipline and training
essential for stable Christian character and social and moral
efficiency. In fact as a means of temporal salvation the old-fashioned
church and Sunday school are proving more and more a failure.
Now, as soon as the church realizes the meaning of the foregoing
situation and acts accordingly, just so soon will this splendid old
institution be enabled to do efficient work in vitalizing the practical
affairs of the community in which it is located. To illustrate this
point: The great curse of boyhood to-day is the tobacco habit, and this
vitiating practice is slowly working its way among the country youth.
The youth who acquires the smoking habit before becoming physically
matured thereby depletes his physical health to a marked degree, reduces
his mental efficiency ten to fifty per cent, and almost completely
destroys his power of initiative. Such a youth is never found contending
for any moral issue or any high and worthy cause of the people. His
constructive instinct is made more quiescent, while his disposition to
condone evil is greatly and permanently increased. Boys who attend
church and Sunday school are also, like others, falling victims to the
sex evils of various forms.
AN INNOVATION IN THE RURAL CHURCH
Perhaps there is no better illustration of how the economic affairs of
the neighborhood may be vitally linked with the church service than the
work carried on under the direction of Superintendent George W. Brown,
of Paris, Illinois. During one year Mr. Brown conducted on seven
different occasions an over-Sunday program, somewhat as follows:--
On Saturday either at the country school house or in the basement of the
country church there was arranged an exhibition of corn, while during
the day class exercises in the study of corn were in progress. On the
day following, Sunday, there were two sermons, the theme of each being
closely allied to the economic problems studied the day previously. The
ministers are reported to have cooperated enthusiastically in this work,
each one attempting in his sermon to show how better economic life may
be made contributive to a better religious life.
On the Monday following, the program was continued with a farmers'
institute representative of the several interests of the adults and the
young people. At this Monday meeting a number of the faculty of the
state university were in attendance and gave helpful addresses
appropriate to the occasion. At night the County Superintendent gave an
illustrated lecture, using the stereopticon to show the audience just
what was being done in the various parts of the county and country by
way of improvement of the social and economic conditions.
In many places in the New England and other eastern states the rural
communities are attacking the social-religious problems in practically
the same manner as is being done at Plainfield, Illinois. At Danbury,
New Hampshire, there is a Country Settlement Association, which is
accomplishing some epoch-making things. At the official building there
is provided a trained nurse to assist the entire community. The
organization conducts social-betterment work for the local neighborhood
and leads in a campaign for social reform throughout the state.
Likewise, at Lincoln, Vermont, there is an interesting example of
cooperation between the religious and social interests. Three churches
have formed a federated society. In a building maintained in common by
them, the meetings of the Ladies' Aid Society, the Good Templars, the
Grange, the Grand Army Post, and many others of a social nature are
held. Such cooperative work is certain to have a helpful and
far-reaching effect on any community.
[Illustration: PLATE X.
FIG. 11.--An illustration of "Corn Sunday," as instituted by
Superintendent Jessie Field, Clarinda, Iowa, in the rural churches
thereabout.]
SPIRITUALIZE CHILD LIFE
Above all things else, let the country church be reorganized with
reference to the interests of the young. Let the minister and the other
leaders take a firm stand for a square deal for the farm boys and girls
in respect to work and play and sociability. Let them place before
country parents clear, concrete models and methods as to how to accord
fair treatment to the children in every particular thing. Let them
organize the young people of the community into groups for play and
sociability and direct them in both of these matters.
It is high time we were considering all of our legitimate interests as a
part of our religion. Indeed, there is no good reason why the young
people could not meet together at the rural church and on the same
evening have an oyster supper and a prayer meeting. They could very
consistently discuss and participate in both a temporal and a spiritual
affair on the same occasion and in such a way that each part of the
program would be vitalized by the others. And likewise the smaller
children. It should not be considered at all irreverent for one to go
directly with them to the playground after the Sunday school lesson is
ended and there lead and direct them in their health-giving enjoyments.
Try this in your rural-church society centers and see if the boys and
girls do not run with great enthusiasm to the whole affair.
One great error committed by many of us in the past is that of regarding
work and things as arbitrarily high or low. But the author does not see
why plowing corn may not be made just as sacred and just as divine a
calling as preaching the gospel, provided the former be regarded in the
light of service of some high spiritual purpose; as indeed it may be.
So, here is a distinctive part of the function of the rural church;
namely, to spiritualize work as well as workers--to urge upon the
attention of the rural inhabitants the thought that their work must all
be regarded as a means to the transformation of the community life and
of each individual life into a thing of transcendent worth and beauty.
A SUMMARY
Now, here is the proposed plan in a nutshell. The country community is
the best place in the world for bringing up a sturdy race of men and
women and the country church is or can be made one of the greatest
agencies in the achievement of this work. But such achievement can best
be brought about only when the country church goes to work to save the
whole boy and the whole girl. And that means that the church must
understand better how human life grows up--that it must meet these
growing boys and girls on their own level of everyday interest and
socialize and spiritualize these interests through close contact with
them. Then, make the rural church a social center for the young,
including exercises in work and play and recreation, as well as a place
for religious instruction. The child is a creature of activity and not
of passivity. You cannot preach him into the kingdom in a lifetime; but
you can get down with him and work with him and play with him and guide
and direct him through his self-chosen, everyday interests, to the end
that he may afterwards enter the ranks of the Lord's anointed.
Again, it is urged, make your country church a center for the entire
life of the community. Not only have the adults bring their practical
affairs to this center for consideration, but have the boys and girls
come with their implements of work and play, with their specimens of
farm and home produce and handiwork, with their miniature menageries and
workshops--all this with joy and reverence before and after the
religious services.
REFERENCES
Efficient Democracy. W. H. Allen. Chapter X. "Efficiency in
Religious Work." Dodd, Mead & Co.
Rural Christendom. Charles Roads. Prize Essay. American
Sunday-School Union, Philadelphia.
Report of the Commission on Country Life, pp. 137-144,
Sturgis-Walton Co.
The Country Church and the Library. John Cotton Dana.
_Outlook_, May 6, 1911.
The Country Church and the Rural Problem. Kenyon L.
Butterfield. University of Chicago Press. A strong
presentation of the entire situation.
The Rural Church and Community Development. President Kenyon
L. Butterfield. The Association Press, New York. A collection
of practical papers and discussions on several important
topics.
The Day of the Country Church. J. O. Ashenhurst. Funk &
Wagnalls Co., New York. Read especially the excellent chapter
on "Leadership."
The Church and the Rural Community. Symposium. _American
Journal of Sociology._ March, 1911.
Philanthropy, A Trained Profession. Lewis. Forum, March,
1910.
_Rural Manhood._ The Association Press, New York Monthly.
This magazine publishes many excellent articles on the Rural
Church.
The Inefficient Minister. _Literary Digest_, April 10, 1909.
A report of the criticisms of Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, of the
Carnegie Foundation, and Dr. Henry Aked, of San Francisco.
_World's Work_, December, 1910. An interesting account of
Reverend Matthew McNutt's work in building up a country
church.
The Country Church. George F. Wells, in Cyclopedia of
American Agriculture, by L. H. Bailey, volume IV, page 297.
CHAPTER VIII
_THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL_
The country districts are slowly waking up to an appreciation of the
fact that within their bounds lie, not only all the elements fundamental
to the material wealth of the world, but that they also contain in a
more or less dormant form all the essential factors of intellectual and
spiritual wealth. The rural school is theoretically the best place on
earth for the education of the child, not only because of its close
proximity to the sources of material wealth, but because of the openness
and comparative freedom of its surroundings. Then, the country school is
especially effective as a place of instruction on account of its happy
relation to work and industry. Too often the boys and girls of the town
school go unwillingly to their class rooms with the feeling that the
lessons are heavily imposed tasks.
But in the typical country school the pupils are young persons who have
already experienced much of the strain of work and who go somewhat
eagerly to the schoolroom, because it is in a sense recreative to them,
and because of their being in a position to see more clearly what
substantial training is to mean to them in the future. That is to say, a
distinctive difference between the typical country child and the typical
city child is this: the former believes that he is pursuing the course
of instruction in a more voluntary spirit and for the sake of his own
personal interests and up-building, while the latter is inclined to feel
that he is performing the school tasks for the sake of some one else and
because of the strict requirements of outside force or law.
RADICAL CHANGES IN THE VIEW-POINT AND METHOD
But if the theoretic worth of the rural school is to be made at all
actual, some very radical changes in view-point and method must come to
pass. First of all, we must keep asking the question, What is education
for? And perhaps we must accept the answer that in its best form
education serves the higher needs and requirements of the life we are
trying to live to-day. In case of rural teachers and parents it has been
too common a practice to urge the child on in his lesson-getting with
the statement, or at least the suggestion, that lessons well mastered in
time furnish a guarantee of a life of comparative ease and freedom from
heavy toil. The sermonette preached to the boy in this situation is too
often substantially as follows: "Go on, my boy, master your lessons,
pass up through the grades, and be graduated. Behold So and So, a great
captain of wealth, and such and such a one, a great statesman. Now,
these persons are in a position to take life easy. They have wealth to
spend for the employment of labor and need to do little of such thing
themselves."
In other words, the view-point of the school has been radically wrong.
We have been advancing the idea that education enables one to get _out
of_ work, whereas we should have been urging that education of the right
sort enables one to get _into_ work. That is, it means enlarged capacity
for work and service and proportionately enlarged joy and contentment in
the performance of worthy work of any nature whatsoever. Let rural
parents once inculcate the last-named point of view upon their growing
boys and girls and the attitude of the latter toward the school and its
tasks will be likewise radically changed.
ALL HAVE A RIGHT TO CULTURE
And then, a second question we need to ask ourselves is, Whom is
education for? or, What classes should have the benefits of it? A close
comparison of the school ideals of twenty-five years ago with the most
progressive ones of to-day reveals a surprising situation. Without
seemingly realizing the fact, we continued for generations in this
country to tax ourselves heavily for the purpose of supporting schools
almost exclusively in behalf of the so-called professional classes. We
said, especially to the growing boy: "Now, if you wish to become a
lawyer, a physician, a minister, or a teacher, here is your opportunity.
Pursue this well-arranged course, finish it up, and that all at our
expense. But if you wish to become a farmer, a merchant, a craftsman of
any sort, then this institution is not at your service. We will teach
you to read and write and cipher, after which you may look out for
yourself." Thus we were taxing the masses for the exclusive education of
a few classes. To-day the best ideal is a radically different one, as it
attempts to serve all worthy classes and vocations through the school
administration. It assumes that artisans as well as artists and the
professional classes have the same inherent right to both the practical
aid and the direct culture which an educational course may furnish.
As a practical result of this new ideal, now rapidly advancing
throughout the country, we are about to have an age of cultured farmers,
high-minded stock raisers, refined architects and builders, and so on.
That is, our newest and best educational courses are beginning to
provide the means and opportunities for the education of all worthy
classes. So it behooves all interested rural parents to turn their best
efforts toward the transformation and the betterment of the country
school. Certain specific achievements in relation thereto are now being
planned for and in many instances accomplished. Let every one concerned
take notice of this situation and join with all possible earnestness in
the forward movement.
In his instructive monograph entitled "Changing Conceptions of
Education," Professor E. P. Cubberley states the new ideal as follows:--
"The school is essentially a time- and labor-saving device,
created--with us--by democracy to serve democracy's needs. To convey to
the next generation the knowledge and the accumulated experience of the
past is not its only function. It must equally prepare the future
citizen for the to-morrow of our complex life. The school must grasp the
significance of its social connections and relations, and must come to
realize that its real worth and its hope of adequate reward lie in its
social efficiency. There are many reasons for believing that this change
is taking place rapidly at present, and that an educational sociology,
needed as much by teachers to-day as an educational psychology, is now
in the process of being formulated for our use."
WORK FOR A LONGER TERM
One of the first steps toward a more helpful schooling for the country
youth is that of lengthening the yearly school term. In many thousands
of instances, the country school is conducted for only three to five
months during the year, and even this short term is indifferently
attended. But the actual length of the year should be seven months or
more. Many of the country districts can easily provide for eight
months. The farmer should not concern himself about a small additional
tax, but should have in mind rather the larger additional gain to the
well-being of the young in the community. If the local tax be not
sufficient for supporting a longer term and a better school, then seek
to have laws authorizing the distribution of state aid to the weaker
districts. This law has been actually passed in a number of the
commonwealths. The act in the usual case provides a general school fund
out of which the deficit for the smaller rural districts may be made up.
COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE LAWS NEEDED
The far-seeing country dweller will be glad to join in a movement in
behalf of compulsory attendance at the public schools. Already a number
of states have enacted fairly good laws on this subject, but some of
them allow "loopholes" providing for the too easy avoidance of their
requirements. Perhaps the best and most effective type of law of this
class is that which requires the child under fourteen years of age to
attend the entire term of the public schools, allowing for his absence
only in case of sickness or in cases where it is shown upon
investigation and beyond question that he is the main support and
breadwinner of a family.
In connection with the legal requirements for compulsory attendance,
there must, of course, be provision for the truant. Truant officers,
who may be required to serve only part time and who may receive pay for
actual services, are set over specified districts and required to bring
in all truant school children. Although this compulsory attendance law
has been in force only a few years, reports show an almost unanimous
belief in its effectiveness. The reader will understand the
justification of such a law to be this; namely, the inherent right of
the child to be educated whether he may appreciate such right or
advantage or not, and the implied right of the community to have his
best service as a well-educated member of society. The effects upon
crime and criminality of the neglect of the education of the young have
been so thoroughly discussed of late as to require no restatement here.
BETTER SCHOOLHOUSES AND EQUIPMENT
A survey of the entire country from one side to another reveals a
deplorable state of affairs in respect to the conditions of the typical
rural schoolhouse. In thousands of cases, there is nothing more than a
dingy, little, old one-room building, scarcely suitable as a place
wherein to shelter chickens or pigs, and with nothing in the
surroundings to suggest or even hint at a place where young minds are
taught how to aim at the high things of life. Now, these crude
structures were once a necessity. In pioneer days the little, old box
schoolhouse, or even the sod structure, served a mighty purpose in the
transformation of the plains and the wilderness. But times are now
radically changed. The wealth of the country is abundant. Improvements
of nearly every other sort have gone on as the times advanced. But too
often the little, old cheap schoolhouse on the bleak country slope
became a fixed habit. In setting forth plans for a newer and better
country school building, the author cannot improve upon those prepared
by E. T. Fairchild, State Superintendent of Public Instruction in
Kansas, and published in his Seventeenth Biennial Report. We therefore
quote as follows:--
1. _Location._--"In selecting a site for a school building, the
questions of drainage, convenience, beauty of surroundings, and
accessibility should have prime consideration. Select, if possible, some
plat of ground slightly elevated, and of which the surface may be
properly drained and kept free from mud. It should be especially seen to
that water may not stand under the building. If the elevation is not
sufficient, this trouble should be overcome by proper filling in beneath
the building. The location should be as nearly as possible central with
reference to the pupils of the district. But other things should also be
considered. It is better that some pupils should be put to a slight
disadvantage than that attractiveness of surroundings, remoteness from
environment likely to interfere with the work of the school, or other
essentials, should be sacrificed."
[Illustration: PLATE XI.
FIG. 12.--A cozy little country schoolhouse in the tall, picturesque
woods of California.
FIG 13.--This model country school building, planned by State
Superintendent E. T. Fairchild, of Kansas, is being copied in many
places.]
2. _The water supply._--The purity of the water supply for the school is
no less important from the standpoint of health than that of the air
supply. The greatest danger lies in the use of water taken from wells
that are used only a portion of the year. Such water is certain to
become stagnant. In the autumn before the term commences special care
should be taken to pump all water out of the well and to clean the same
if necessary; thereby much sickness may be avoided. The well, of course,
should be so located as to avoid any contamination owing to vaults or
drains.
3. _Size and adaptation of grounds._--The school grounds should contain
at least three acres, and five acres would not be too much. While the
cities are cramped for playgrounds and purchase them only at a high
cost, the latter can be secured in the country in sufficient size and at
a relatively small expense. Let it be kept constantly in mind that the
school grounds should be adapted for play, that they should afford a
protection from winds, and that they should also be attractive. They
should likewise be adapted for school gardening and experiments in
agriculture. For the purpose of play, the breadth should exceed the
depth where there are separate grounds for boys and girls. Where the
playground is large, the building should be centrally located with
relation to the size of the grounds and should be situated well toward
the front. This will provide two fair-sized and well-proportioned
playgrounds. Where the grounds are small and contain but one acre,
symmetry must yield to utility and the building should be located well
to the front and to one side, so as to leave one well-arranged
playground.
4. _Improvement of school grounds._--In writing of the value of
well-arranged school grounds, Professor Albert Dickens of the Kansas
State Agricultural College says:--
"This sermon on school ground improvement is one that I have tried to
preach for some time. In my judgment, it is the most important and the
most difficult of any of the problems in civic improvement. The average
country cemetery is sorrowfully neglected, as a rule, but its treatment
is careful and generous compared with the school grounds of the average
country district. Some day we shall realize that all these factors of
environment are formative influences, and shall not wonder that the
character formed in surroundings devoid of beauty has hard, coarse, and
cruel lines in its make-up.
"It is an easy matter to picture an ideal country school--its
clean-swept walk to the road, its ample playground, its windbreak of
evergreens, its groups of hard- and soft-wood species, borders of shrubs
and beds of bulbs for early spring and perennials for summer and fall.
But to get it--to find some way to overcome the serious obstacles--is
worthy the attention of statesmen and club women.
"Nearly every district has made an attempt. That is one of the hard
things to forget--one of the reasons so many districts fear to try
again. They had a spasm of civic righteousness--an Arbor Day
revival--and every patron dug a hole in the hard, dry ground; every
child brought a tree, some of which were carried for miles with the
roots exposed to sun and wind--and then they were planted and, in some
cases, watered for the summer; and the days grew warm and the weeds grew
high; and by the next fall the two or three trees yet alive were not
noticed when the director went over with his mower the Friday before
school opened; and so ended that attempt at a schoolyard beautiful.
"It ought to be possible to convince the patrons of every district that
a single acre of land is not sufficient ground upon which to grow big,
bright, broad-minded boys and girls; that two, or three, or four acres
of land, well planned as to baseball diamond, basketball court and a
good free run for dare-base and pull-away--that such would give the
state and the world better results than if the land were devoted to corn
and alfalfa. This, I believe, is the first problem of great
magnitude--to get the ground--and it must be considered. Children must
play. The noon hour, when they eat for five minutes and play fifty-five
minutes, is all-important in a child's life."
In order to carry out the suggestions given by Professor Dickens, why
not organize a general rally, perhaps on the occasion of Arbor Day, and
all hands join in preparing and planting the school grounds to suitable
shade trees, shrubs, and the like? The playgrounds could also be laid
out and equipped on this occasion. Then, after this excellent start has
been made, have the school board appoint some reliable man as caretaker
of the grounds with payment of reasonable wages for what he does. Thus
the good beginning will not be lost.
A MODEL RURAL SCHOOL
The State Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri, has built and equipped
a model rural school for use in practical demonstration work. President
John R. Kirk gives a detailed description of this building in
_Successful Farming_ (April, 1911) as follows:--
"This schoolhouse has three principal floors. The basement and main
floor are the same size, 28 x 36 feet, outside measurement. The basement
measures 8 feet from floor to ceiling. Its floor is of concrete,
underlaid with porous tile and cinders. The basement walls are of rock
and concrete, protected by drain tile on outside. The basement has eight
compartments.
[Illustration: PLATE XII.
FIG. 14.--The model rural school building, as constructed for practice
and demonstration work at the Kirkville (Missouri) Normal School.]
"1. Furnace room, containing furnace inclosed by galvanized iron, also
double cold air duct with electric fan, also gas water heater.
"2. Coal bin, 6 x 8 feet.
"3. Bulb or plant room, 3 x 8 feet, for fall, winter, and spring
storage.
"4. Darkroom, 4 x 8 feet, for children's experiments in photography.
"5. Laundry room, 5 x 21 feet, with tubs, drain, and drying apparatus.
"6. Gymnasium or play room, 13 x 23 feet.
"7. Tank room containing a 400-gallon pneumatic pressure tank, storage
battery for electricity, hand pump for emergencies, water gauge, sewer
pipes, floor drain, etc.
"8. Engine room, containing gasoline engine, water pump, electrical
generator, switchboard, water tank for cooling gasoline engine, weight
for gas pressure, gas mixer, batteries, pipes, wires, etc.
"The pumps lift water from a well into pressure tank through pipes below
the frost line. Gasoline is admitted through pipes below the frost line
from two 50-gallon tanks underground, 30 feet from building. All rooms
are wired for electricity and plumbed for gas. The basement is
thoroughly ventilated.
"The main floor contains a school room 22 x 27 feet in the clear,
lighted wholly from the north side. A ground glass in the rear admits
sunlight for sanitation. Schoolroom has adjustable seats and desks,
telephone, and teachers' desk. Stereopticon is hung in wall at rear.
Alcove or closet on east side for books, teachers' wraps, etc.
Schoolroom has a small organ, ample book cases, shelves, and apparatus.
Pure air enters from above children's heads and passes out at floor into
ventilating stack through fireplace.
"Main floor has two toilet rooms, each of these having lavatories, wash
bowl with hot and cold water, pressure tank for hot water and for heat,
shower bath with hot and cold water, ventilating apparatus, looking
glass, towel rack, soap box, etc. Each toilet room is reached by a
circuitous passageway furnishing room for children's wraps, overshoes,
etc. The scheme secures absolute privacy in toilet rooms. All toilet
room walls contain air chambers to deaden sound. The toilet rooms are
clean, decent, and beautiful. They are never disfigured with vile
language or other defacement.
"All rural schoolhouses with the comb of the roof running one way have
attics, but the attic of this rural school is the first one and the only
one that has been well utilized. This attic is 15 x 35 feet, inside
measurement, all in one room; distance from floor to ceiling 7-1/2 feet
in the middle part. It is abundantly lighted through gable lights and
roof lights. It contains modern manual-training benches for use of eight
or ten children at one time, a gas range and other apparatus for
experimental cooking. It is furnished with both gas and electric light.
It has a wash bowl with hot and cold water, looking glass, towels, etc.
It has a large typical kitchen sink and a drinking fountain, but no
drinking cup, either common or uncommon. It has cupboards, boxes, and
receptacles for various experiments in home economics. It has a
disinfecting apparatus, a portable agricultural-chemistry laboratory and
numerous other equipments.
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.
FIG. 15.--A rear view of the model rural school building at the
Kirkville Normal.]
"A rural school can be built here from beginning to completion with all
the above-mentioned equipments of every kind, including furniture, for
$2250. The heating and ventilating apparatus, the pressure tanks,
gasoline engine, water pumps, dynamo, furnace, etc., can all be easily
adapted to a two-room model, a three-room school, or a six-room school
by having each fixture slightly larger.
"This model therefore solves the schoolbuilding question for villages,
towns, and consolidated rural schools."
THE CORNELL SCHOOLHOUSE
An attractive rural schoolhouse was erected some years ago at the New
York State College of Agriculture, to serve as a suggestion
architecturally and otherwise to rural districts. It is a one-teacher
building, and yet allows for the introduction of the new methods of
teaching. It is a wooden building, with cement stucco interior, heated
with hot-air furnace, and with two water toilets attached. The total
cost was about $2000. The College writes as follows of the house:--
"The prevailing rural schoolhouse is a building in which pupils sit to
study books. It ought to be a room in which pupils do personal work with
both hands and mind. The essential feature of this new schoolhouse,
therefore, is a workroom. This room occupies one-third of the floor
space. Perhaps it would be better if it occupied two-thirds of the floor
space. If the building is large enough, however, the two kinds of work
could change places in this schoolhouse.
"The building is designed for twenty-five pupils in the main room. The
folding doors and windows in the partition enable one teacher to manage
both rooms.
"It has been the purpose to make the main part of the building about the
size of the average rural schoolhouse, and then to add the workroom as a
wing or projection. Such a room could be added to existing school
buildings; or, in districts in which the building is now too large, one
part of the room could be partitioned off as a workroom.
"It is the purpose, also, to make this building artistic, attractive,
and homelike to children, sanitary, comfortable, and durable. The
cement-plaster exterior is handsomer and warmer than wood, and on
expanded metal lath it is durable. The interior of this building is very
attractive. Nearly any rural schoolhouse can secure a water-supply and
instal toilets as part of the school building.
"The openings between schoolroom and workroom are fitted with glazed
swing sash and folding doors, so that the rooms may be used either
singly or together, as desired.
"The workroom has a bay-window facing south and filled with shelves for
plants. Slate blackboards of standard school heights fill the spaces
about the rooms between doors and windows. The building is heated by hot
air; vent flues of adequate sizes are also provided so that the rooms
are ventilated.
"On the front of the building, and adding materially to its picturesque
appearance, is a roomy veranda with simple square posts, from which
entrance is made directly into the combined vestibule and coatroom and
from this again by two doors into the schoolroom."
HELP MAKE A SCHOOL PLAY GROUND
Throughout the entire country there is at last rising a wave of
enthusiasm in behalf of affording the child a better means of play.
First the cities took the matter up, then the towns, and now the country
districts are beginning to do their part. The farmer and his wife should
feel an interest in such a matter, for they can render no better service
to their community than that of joining the district teacher in an
effort to equip the school grounds with play apparatus. As a suggestive
outline of what materials to procure, the dimensions and cost of the
same, there is given below the equipment worked out by certain
officials in Colorado and described briefly in Superintendent
Fairchild's report, as follows:--
A turning pole for boys may be made by setting two posts in the ground,
six or eight feet apart, and running a 1 or 1-1/4 inch gas pipe through
holes bored in the tops of the posts. The cost of such a piece of
apparatus should be as follows, assuming that the necessary work will be
done by the teachers and boys: Two posts, 4" x 4", 8 ft. long, 50 cents;
one piece gas pipe, 8 ft. long, 15 cents.
Teeter boards may be made by planting posts ten or twelve feet apart,
and placing a pole or a rounded 6 x 6 on top of them, and then placing
boards, upon which the children may teeter. Individual teeter boards may
be made by placing a 2 x 8 board in the ground, and fastening the teeter
board to it by means of iron braces placed on each side of the upright
piece. The cost of the above apparatus would be, for several teeters:
Two upright posts, 6" x 6", 5 ft. long, 93 cents; one piece, 6" x 6", 12
ft. long, $1.22; four teeter boards, 2" x 8", 14 ft. long, $2.50. For
individual teeter: One piece 2" x 8", 16 ft. long, 56 cents--to make
upright piece 4 ft. long and teeter board 12 ft. long; two iron braces
and four large screws, 25 cents.
A very attractive and desirable piece of apparatus may be made as
follows: Secure a pole about ten or fifteen feet long. To the small end
attach by the use of bolts one end of a wagon axle, spindle up. Upon
the spindle place a wagon wheel, and to the wheel attach ropes, about as
long as the pole. Place the big end of the pole in the ground three or
four feet, and brace it from the four points of the compass. The ropes
will hang down from the wheel in such a way that the children may take
hold of them, swing, jump, and run around the pole. The one described
was rather inexpensive. A telephone company donated a discarded pole, a
farmer a discarded wagon wheel and axle. The only expense was that of
paying a blacksmith for attaching the wheel to the pole and the cost of
the ropes--about $2. It furnished one of the most attractive pieces of
apparatus on the playground.
An inexpensive swing may be constructed by placing four 4 x 4's in the
ground in a slanting position, two being opposite each other and meeting
at the top in such a way as to form a fork. The pairs may be ten or
twelve feet apart, and a pole or heavy galvanized pipe, to which swings
may be attached, wired, nailed, or bolted to the crotches formed by the
pieces placed in the ground. The cost of this apparatus will be: Four
pieces, 4" x 4", 14 ft. long, $1.25, one piece galvanized pipe, 3", 12
ft. long, $2.50.
Boards of education could well afford to purchase one or more
basketballs, and a few baseballs and bats for the boys. These things
more than pay for themselves in the added interest which boys and girls
who have them take in the school. For much of the apparatus suggested
above the wide-awake board of education and teacher will see
opportunities to use material less expensive than that suggested. And to
such persons many pieces of apparatus not specified here will suggest
themselves to fit particular needs and opportunities.
GENERAL INSTRUCTION IN AGRICULTURE
A great fault with the district schools has been an inclination to think
that anything close at hand is too mean and common to be considered as
subject matter for instruction. The thought has usually been that the
school would prepare the learner for some brilliant calling away off
where things are better and life is easier and more beautiful. As a
result, the country schools have been educating boys and girls away from
the farm. The new method is that of educating them to appreciate what is
under their feet and all around them, through an intimate knowledge of
the processes of nature and industry as carried on in their midst.
[Illustration: PLATE XIV.
FIG. 16.--Using the Babcock milk-tester in a New York school.]
One of the more direct means of educating the boys and girls for a
happy, contented life on the farm is to teach them while young the
rudiments of agriculture. This method is now actually being put into
practice in thousands of the rural schools. The state of Kansas recently
enacted a law requiring all candidates for teachers' certificates to
pass a test in the elements of agriculture and also requiring that
the rudiments of this subject be taught in every district school. Other
states have similar laws. As a result of this and like provisions, there
is now a tremendous awakening in the direction named. The boys and girls
in the country schools are finding new meaning and a new interest in the
fields and farms upon which they are growing up.
It is a comparatively simple matter, that of teaching the young how the
plant germinates and grows, how the seed is produced, and how farm crops
are cared for and harvested. Likewise, it is easy to describe the
elements of the various types of soil and to show how these elements
contribute to the life and growth of the plant. The questions of
moisture in its relation to plant life, of insects harmful and helpful
to growing crops and animals, of the bird life as related in its
economic aspects to farming--all such matters can be easily taught to
children by the young-woman school teacher. It is only necessary for the
latter to take an elementary course of instruction herself, to read a
number of collateral texts, and to get into the spirit of the
undertaking. In a similar manner, instruction in regard to farm animals
may be given, the emphasis being placed upon the consideration of the
types of live stock actually raised and marketed in the home
neighborhood.
It must be emphasized that these matters relating to elementary
agriculture and animal husbandry can be made just as interesting and
quite as cultural as any of the subjects in the general curriculum of
the schools. Wherefore, the rural dweller who catches the spirit of such
instruction should lead out in the securing of public measures and
public improvements looking toward an early embodiment of these new
subjects within the prescribed course of study.
DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND HOME SANITATION
The time is now at hand when the district school failing to give any
attention to practical household affairs is to be classed as out of date
and unprogressive. Well-written texts and pamphlets covering the
home-keeping subjects are now both available and cheap, so that the
excuse for deferring their use is approaching the zero point.
Of course it is impracticable as yet to have apparatus for cooking and
sewing installed in the one-teacher district school, but the bare
rudiments of these subjects may nevertheless be taught with the
expectation that home practice may be thereby improved and better
understood. Perhaps the most practical method of present procedure is
that of organizing an independent class of the girls of suitable age and
meeting them informally. The texts and pamphlets furnished by the
college extension departments may be followed. In case of graded and
high school courses this work should by all means be carried on as a
regular class exercise.
Home sanitation may easily and profitably be taught in the district
school, even though only one or two periods per week be set apart for
the purpose. Perhaps the best method of instruction is that of
presenting carefully one specific lesson at a time. For example, pure
drinking water, clean milk, food contamination by house flies may be
treated each in its turn. Adequate charts and illustrations should be
brought into service.
CONSOLIDATION OF RURAL SCHOOLS
There is much agitation nowadays in regard to consolidating the rural
schools. Although present progress is slow, it seems comparatively
certain that the one-teacher rural school is destined in time to become
a thing of the past. However, there is no particular haste in the
matter, provided some such plans as the foregoing be put into effect in
case of the single school. Perhaps the sparsely settled district has the
greatest justification for looking toward consolidation. It happens that
there are thousands of small schools having an attendance of from five
to ten pupils. In such an instance, it is practically impossible to do
the best work, the children lacking the spur of rivalry and enthusiasm
and the helpful lessons in social ethics offered only by the larger
massing of the young at play.
In many places, three or four rural districts are uniting in this
movement, the general plan being that of constructing a central
building with ample working space for all, and then transporting the
children to and from the school. The scheme is working well as a rule.
Among the great advantages is that of a possible grading of the school
so that the teacher may have time for each subject and more opportunity
for specialization. Perhaps the most serious and difficult part of the
plan is that of providing a safe and suitable means of conveyance to and
from the school. Some excellent patterns of school wagons are already on
the market, while manufacturers are constantly at work improving them.
So we may expect better results as time goes on. It has already been
shown very satisfactorily that the conveyance, when in charge of a
well-trained driver, furnishes improved moral and physical safeguards
for the child.
MORE HIGH SCHOOLS NEEDED
Not only every county, but also every rural township, should have its
well-equipped high school. It is a serious matter to send boys and girls
in their middle teens away to college. Many lives are thus more or less
ruined simply from too early loss of the personal restraints and
influence of the parents. But with a first-class high school in easy
reach the young people may at least return home for the Saturday-Sunday
recess and thereby continue in the close councils of their parents. And
then, the rightly-managed high school will bring the student into
closer touch with the local rural problems that may not be possible in
case of the distant institution.
[Illustration: PLATE XV.
FIGS. 17-21.--This magnificent consolidated school in Winnebago County,
Illi
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