work must be fully equal to that
of the best town or city high schools, but must in some degree be
different work. It must result in _efficiency_, and efficiency here must
relate itself to agricultural life and pursuits.

A detailed discussion of the rural high school curriculum will not be
required. The principles already suggested as applying to the elementary
school will govern here as well. The studies must cultivate breadth of
view and a wide range of interests, and must at the same time bear upon
the immediate life and experience of the pupils. The lines of study
begun in the elementary school will be continued, with the purpose of
securing deeper insight, more detailed knowledge, and greater
independence of judgment and action.

English should form an important part of the curriculum, with the
double aim of securing facility in the use of the mother tongue and of
developing a love for its literature. The rural high school graduate
should be able to write English correctly as to spelling, punctuation,
and grammar; he should be able to express himself effectively, either in
writing, conversation, or the more formal speech of the rostrum. Above
all, he should be an enthusiastic and discriminating reader, with a
catholicity of taste and interest that will lead him beyond the
agricultural journal and newspaper, important as these are, to the works
of fiction, material and social science, travel and biography, current
magazines and journals, and whatever else belongs to the intellectual
life of an intelligent, educated man of affairs.

This is asking more than is being accomplished at present by the course
in English in the town high school, but not more than is easily within
the range of possibility. The average high school graduate of to-day
cannot always spell and punctuate correctly, and commonly cannot write
well even an ordinary business letter; nor, it must be feared, has his
study of literature had a very great influence in developing him into a
good reader of worthy books.

But all this can be remedied by vitalizing the teaching of the mother
tongue; by lessening the proportion of time and emphasis placed upon
critical analysis and technical literary criticism, and increasing that
given to the drill and practice that alone can make sure of the
fundamentals of spelling, punctuation, and the common forms of
composition emphasized by all; and by the sympathetic, enthusiastic
teaching of good literature adapte