irst or second year. Only a few had been teaching for
three or more years. According to the above survey of South Dakota, 31
per cent of the rural teachers were teaching their first school, and
only 9.6 per cent had taught as many as four schools. Few teachers, the
report showed, have taught more than one or two years in a school, while
the average teaching life of a rural teacher is three and three quarters
school years. The instability of the profession is so great that it is
necessary for the state of South Dakota to recruit annually about one
third of its total teaching force of 7,000.

An investigation made by the United States Bureau of Education in 1915
covering all sections of the country found that the number of school
years taught by the average rural teacher was six and one half, but
stated that the large majority of these teachers fell far below the
average. The average time spent by a teacher in one community is
extremely brief; the investigation showed that it is less than two
school years, or considerably less than one calendar year. Even this
average is considered a high one for the majority of the teachers.

Equally illuminating figures on this point are contributed by the state
of Wisconsin. The state Superintendent of Education reports as follows:

TABLE VII

LENGTH OF TEACHING SERVICE IN WISCONSIN RURAL SCHOOLS, 1915-16[36]
==================================================
|Teaching Services| Total Teaching
Period | in Locality | Service
----------------+-----------------+---------------
1 year or less | 4,136 | 1,421
2 years | 1,650 | 1,545
3 years | 508 | 1,093
4 years | 187 | 738
5 years | 83 | 517
6 years and over| 66 | 1,316
----------------+-----------------+---------------
Total | 6,630 | 6,630
==================================================

A number of the teachers that the writer interviewed had only
grammar-school education, with a year or two of high school. Only a few
had full high-school training. In general the training which qualifies
the rural teacher for his work is appallingly slight. Of the rural
teachers in South Dakota covered by the survey mentioned, 58.3 per cent
had completed a four-year high-school course; 45.8 per cent reported
attendance at profe