blem. Its
curriculum must be broader and richer, and more closely related to the
life and interests of the farm. The organization of the school, both on
the intellectual and the social side, must bring it more closely into
touch with the interests and needs of the rural community. The support
and administration of rural education must be improved. Teachers for the
rural schools must be better educated and better paid, and their
teaching must be correspondingly more efficient. The following pages
will be given to a discussion of these problems of adjustment.

II

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL

Every school possesses two types of organization: (1) an _intellectual_
organization involving the selection and arrangement of a curriculum,
and its presentation through instruction; and (2) a _social_
organization involving, on the one hand, the inter-relations of the
school and the community, and on the other the relations of the pupils
with each other and the teacher.

_The rural school and the community_

The rural school and community are not at present in vital touch with
each other. The community is not getting enough from the school toward
making life larger, happier, and more efficient; it is not giving enough
to the school either in helpful cooeperation or financial support.

In general, it must be said that most of our rural people, the patrons
of the rural school, have not yet conceived education broadly. They
think of the school as having fulfilled its function when it has
supplied the simplest rudiments of reading, writing, and number. And,
naturally enough, the rural school has conceived its function in the
same narrow light; for it is controlled very completely by its patrons,
and a stream cannot rise higher than its source.

Because of its isolation, the pressing insistence of its toil, and the
monotony of its environment, the rural community is in constant danger
of intellectual and social stagnation. It has far more need that its
school shall be a stimulating, organizing, socializing force than has
the town or city. For the city has a dozen social centres entirely
outside the school: its public parks, theatres, clubs, churches, and
streets, even, serve to stimulate, entertain, and educate. But the rural
community is wanting in all these social forces; it is lacking in both
intellectual and social stimulus and variety.

One of the most pressing needs of country districts is a comm