of beauty or spiritual culture? As someone has pithily said, "Our scientist to-day intrudes into nature's sanctuary, lunches on its mercy seat, leans against its altar, studies the designs wrought into its holy hangings, and calculates the weight of metal in its consecrated utensils."

Once we listened to the sea murmuring in the tinted ocean shell. Now, our school children, pushing away the shell without even seeing the most exquisite tints the human eye ever gazed upon, talk wisely of "sound waves," and give us the same effect on a tumbler at the dinner table.

Tennyson, walking with his ten-year-old boy one day, looked down by the roadside, and said, “Ah, the fairies were here last night. They danced in a circle. See their tiny umbrellas." "Fairies!" scornfully replied the boy. "Toadstools! That's all!" and actually began to explain to his father the process of their fungus formation. Tennyson groaned, and no wonder. The poetic fancy was too rudely shocked, and the boy was never allowed to finish his scientific explanation to his poet-father. Even our kindergartens-the very homes of the imagination-are not free from the literalism of extreme accuracy. A mother, running to pick up her little four-yearold who had tumbled down, exclaimed, "How did you fall, darling?" "Vertical, mamma," answered the child, between her sobs-true to her training. Now, is it not true, that, of all the children on the earth, our American children, with their inheritance of materialism, can least afford to lose the beauty side of life?

There are other milestones along the way which we have confidently placed as waymarks of our increasing progress, but we have not time to linger beside any of them longer now.

There is one, marked "Myth-Wave," that looks very tempting, but to those who know how to read the invisible this waymark is half covered with interrogation points.

We ask in closing one last question. How shall true progress be made in the education of little children? The agitation upon this subject has aroused public opinion, and what shall satisfy the just demand of thinking men and women-that every year shall show steps of genuine progress?

The educational leaders are thinking as never before. Such thinking can find its way to the truth only by the aid of experimental tests with the children themselves. Who can do this but the men and women already in the schoolrooms who come into direct contact with the children? Is not, then, the greatest need of to-day an intelligent and conscientious supervision by men and women who have brain and interest enough to follow the thought of the best educational leadership, and who possess heart enough and tact

enough to inspire the great army of teachers to enter into the plans and imbibe the spirit of the few great leaders who are wrestling with these vast problems? With such supervision there is a power in the rank and file of teachers hardly to be estimated.

I have great faith in the heart and intention of the common school teacher, all untrained and faulty as she may be, if she can be aroused and inspired to see what are the great needs and the burning questions of the day and that her help is needed in their solution.

At present she moves about calmly-too often listlessly-in the narrow round of her school duties. She to look out over the educational field and think for herself! She to have opinions on such questions as the best methods in child study and nature study! It has never occurred to her. The "Course of Study" bounds her world. Any "Course of Study," however "all-around" it may be as a constructed work, is a piece of dead formalism unless it is made alive by the supervisory power of him who administers and broadens it out to cover the well-nigh boundless needs of the schoolroom.

Can all the teachers be made to think and discriminate wisely and fearlessly? No; but the comparatively small proportion of those who are unable and unwilling to do this would fall off, be cut off, and disappear, if the supervisors of every town and city were fearlessly alive and delegated with enough of executive power to carry out their purpose.

A harmonious force of able, conscientious, genuine men and women in the schoolrooms, taking up every new question without prejudice and without fear, applying to it the tests of principle, practicability, and common sense; not caught or swayed by temptation to follow every ephemeral innovation introduced under the name of progress, but determining always to "prove all things and hold fast that which is good"-is not this the ideal organization that shall, in all times and all places, be the permanent, well-grounded hope for true progress in education?

64

RURAL SCHOOLS.

BY HON. CHARLES R. SKINNER, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, NEW YORK.

Just at this time there seems to be an increasing interest in our rural schools. We frequently hear the inquiries: "Are our rural schools doing the best they can?" "Are they doing what we have a right to expect?" These are healthful inquiries made at an oppor tune time. I am free to say that I have an abiding faith in the rural schools. I believe that they are doing to-day all that they have encouragement to do. I have faith in their possibilities. While many of them may be weak, and poor, and miserable, they are not wholly responsible for these conditions. Usually the rural school may be considered the thermometer which marks the rise and fall of public interest and public sympathy. It will rise to the height or drop to the level of the conditions by which it is surrounded. My faith in the rural schools and their possibilities has its foundation in the belief that in them we are to find the most sacrificing and sympathetic teachers; in them we are almost sure to see the best results of personal influence of teachers upon our pupils, and the personal influence of teachers counts more than fine schoolhouses, modern furniture, or elegant text-books.

Our city schools work under many advantages, but in the crowd and hurry much of the personal influence of the teacher is lost. There must naturally be loss of personal interest where teachers fail to get close to their pupils. The country schools suffer by the constant tendency of the population toward our villages and cities. We do not make very attractive in our teaching the conditions of country life. We do not give much instruction in agriculture. Our boys and girls are not made to hold in high esteem the duties which attach to country life-to home life on the farm. The city and the village are too often made the goals of country children's ambition.. It seems to me that there is an important question to be considered Are our larger schools, crowded too often, becoming too much like machines? Our cities are all struggling with the problem of how to accommodate the children who ask places in our schools. We are enforcing a compulsory education law in New York which says children must attend school, and we fail to provide seats for them after we send them into our schools. There must be some confusion, some failure to realize the best effects of personal attention to our children. There is danger that education may be

come too much a matter of form-just so many days in school, just so many subjects in our course of study, just so many examinations, just so many credits, and work finished at just such a time, with little allowance for varying conditions of mental and physical strength. Just so far as our schools are matters of form, just so far as they do not advance, just so far they are no better than they were fifty years ago.

There is less likelihood of form in our rural schools. Teachers are more apt to know their pupils personally, to know the homes from which they come, to know more of their likes and dislikes, their characteristics, and the conditions of the lives they live. For this reason there is a deeper personal interest for the pupils in the teachers in our rural schools.

Our city and village schools are doing a great work. Why should they not? They have almost every material advantage that wealth or prosperity can give. But I still maintain that our country-our rural-schools are doing relatively as well; for every dollar invested in them they are giving back as full value, if not more. If we want to get more out of them, we must put more into them.

When our good friend, the president of the National Association, extended his kind invitation to attend this gathering, it occurred to me that it would be interesting to secure fresh information concerning the rural schools of the country. With this purpose in view, I addressed the following inquiries to the state superintendents of public instruction in each state:

INQUIRIES CONCERNING RURAL SCHOOLS BASED ON OBSERVATIONS FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS.

First-Is the average attendance of pupils in rural ungraded schools increasing or decreasing?

Second-If decreasing, is the decrease the result of a tendency on the part of patrons to send children to graded schools?

Third-Give the ratio of increase or decrease during the past five years. Fourth-Is the condition of rural schoolhouses, as to heating, lighting, ventilation, and general surroundings, improved?

Fifth-Are higher standards required for the qualification of teachers in rural

schools?

Sixth-Is there a noticeable increase or decrease in the professional spirit of teachers?

Seventh-Are the salaries of teachers in rural schools increasing or decreasing? If so, in what proportion?

Eighth-Is the public interest in education in the rural school districts increasing or decreasing? In what proportion is it increasing or decreasing, and for what reasons?

Ninth-What do you consider among the greatest needs of our rural ungraded

schools?

Although there was little time, replies to these inquiries were received from thirty-seven states and two territories, a much larger number than I anticipated. The prompt responses indicated a deep interest in the subject. I do not propose to weary you by giving in detail the full answers to these inquiries, but will state in a general way a synopsis, covering the principal topics, adding by way of preface the satisfaction I feel at the encouraging and hopeful nature of these responses. It justifies me in the confidence I hold that the rural school, as it has done a mighty work in the past, is still capable of greater possibilities in the future.

For the purpose of preserving the records received, and of extending the information given, I herewith append the answers to the above questions in detail:

Alabama.-1. Increasing. 2.

3. Twenty per cent to twenty-five per

cent. 4. Much improved. 5. Yes. 6. Increase. 7. Increase. Twenty per cent to fifty per cent. 8. 9. Better teachers; more money; longer terms. 4. Improving. 5. Yes. 6.

3.

Arkansas.-1. Increasing. 2. Increasing. 7. Decreasing. 8. Increasing. 9. More money and better teachers. Arizona.-1. Increasing. 2. 3. five per cent to ten per cent. 4. Improved. 5. Yes. 6. Notable increase. 7. Decreasing. 8. Increasing. 9. Well qualified, experienced teachers.

Connecticut.-1. Decreasing. 2. Yes. 3.

4. Improving. 5. Yes. 6.

Increasing. 7. Decreasing. 8. Decreasing. 9. Union of schools in order that higher salaries may be paid.

California.-1. Increasing. 2.

3. Increasing. 4. Improving. 5. Same. standard as for city schools. 6. Marked increase. 7. Not increasing. 8. Increasing. 9. Better professional training for teachers.

Colorado.-1. Increasing. 2. Yes. 3. Five per cent annually. 4. Four per cent annually. 4. Improving. 5. Yes. 6. Yes 7. Increasing. 8. Increasing. 9. Libraries and reference books.

Increasing. 7. No change. 8. Increasing. 9. Better schoolhouses; better equipment; better teachers.

Florida.-1. Increasing. 2.

3.

Fifteen per cent. 4. Improving, but still very bad. 5. Yes. 6. Increasing. 7. Increase, thirty-three and one-third per cent. 8. Increase, threefold in ten years. 9. Professional teachers and longer terms.

Georgia.-1. Increasing. 2. Yes. 3. Five per cent annually 4. Improving. 5. Yes. 6. Increasing. 7. Increasing. equipped, modern schoolhouses.

Illinois.-1. Increasing. 2.

8. Increasing. 9. Up-to-date, well

3. In 1890, 81.06 per cent; 1892, 83.09 per cent; 1894, 86.01 per cent. 4. Improving. 5. Yes. 6. Increasing. 7. Salaries-men-1890, $54.63; 1892, $56.92; 1894, $58.96; women-1890, $44.41; 1892, $46.06; 1894, $49.35. 8. Increasing. 9. Better teachers; better schoolhouses; better apparatus; working district libraries; wisely directed love for the child. Indiana.-1. Increasing. 2.

Improving. 5. Yes. 6. Increasing. 7. lishment of township high schools.

Iowa.-1. Increasing. 2.

3.

Ten per cent for past five years. 4 No change. 8. Increasing. 9. Estab

3. Same ratio as the population. 4. Im

proving. 5. Yes. 6. Increasing. 7. Increasing. 8. Increasing slowly 9.