ication must be deeper and more thoroughgoing
than this. _A full elementary course of eight years and a high school
course of four years should be easily accessible to every rural child._
Less than this amount of education is inadequate to prepare for the life
of the farm, and fails to put the individual into full possession of his
powers. Nor, in most instances, should the high schooling be left to
some adjacent town, which is to receive the rural pupils upon payment of
tuition to the town district. Unless the town is small, and practically
a part of the rural community, it cannot supply, either in the
subject-matter of the curriculum or the spirit of the school, the type
of education that the rural children should have. For in so far as the
town or city high school leads to any specific vocation, it certainly
does not lead toward industrial occupations, and least of all toward
agriculture. It rather prepares for the professions, or for business
careers. Its tendency is very strongly to draw the boys and girls away
from the farm instead of preparing them for it.

While the rural child, therefore, must be provided with a better and
broader education, he should usually not be sent to town to get it. If
he is, the chances are that he will stay in town and be lost to the
farm. Indeed, this is precisely what has been happening; the town or
city high school has been turning the country boy away from the farm.
For not only does what one studies supply his knowledge; it also
determines his _attitude_.

If the curriculum contains no subject-matter related to the immediate
experience and occupation of the pupil, his education is certain to
entice him away from his old interests and activities. The farm boy
whose studies lack all point of contact with his life and work will soon
either lose interest in the curriculum or turn his back upon the farm.
If the boys and girls born on the farm are to be retained in this form
of industry, the rural school must be broadened to give them an
education equal to that afforded by town or city for its youth. If the
rural community cannot accomplish this end, it has no claim on the
loyalty and service of its youth. Rural children have a right to a
well-organized, well-equipped, and well-taught elementary school of
eight years and a high school of four years, with a curriculum adapted
especially to their interests and needs.

It is not meant, of course, that the rural school, with its present