r perhaps somewhat smaller area, select a central,
well-adapted site and thereon erect a modern, well-equipped school
building. But this building must not be just the traditional schoolhouse
with its classrooms and rows of desks. For it is to be more than a place
where the children will study and recite lessons from books; it is to be
the place where all the people of the neighborhood, _old and young_,
will assemble for entertainment, amusement, and instruction. Here will
be held community picnics, social entertainments, young people's
parties, lectures, concerts, debating contests, agricultural courses for
the farmers, school programs, spreads and banquets, and whatever else
may belong to the common social and intellectual life of the community.

The modern rural school building will therefore be home-like as well as
school-like. In addition to its classrooms it will contain an assembly
room capable of seating several hundred people. The seating of this room
may be removable so that the floor can be cleared for social purposes or
the room used for a dining-room. One or two smaller rooms will be needed
for social functions, club and committee meetings. These rooms should be
made attractive with good furniture, rugs, couches, and pictures. The
building will contain well-equipped laboratories for manual training and
domestic science, the latter of which will be found serviceable in
connection with serving picnics, "spreads," and the like. The entire
building should be architecturally attractive, well heated and
ventilated, commodious, well furnished, and decorated with good
pictures. In it should be housed a library containing several thousand
well-selected books, besides magazines and newspapers. The laboratories
and equipment should be fully equal to those found in the town schools,
but should be adapted to the work of the rural school.

The grounds surrounding the rural school building can easily be ample in
area, and beautiful in outlook and decoration. Here will be the
neighborhood athletic grounds for both boys and girls, shade trees for
picnics, flowers and shrubs, and ground enough for a school garden
connected with the instruction in agriculture. Nor is it too much to
believe that the district will in the future erect on the school grounds
a cottage for the principal of the school and his family, and thus offer
an additional inducement for strong, able men to devote their energies
to education in the rural commun