before fourteen years of age, so that whatever school training they get
must be secured between the ages of six and fourteen.

The kind of activities that the children will take up in life is fixed
by the custom of the town. The great majority of the boys go into the
mines or shops, while practically all of the girls help around the home
until they marry. A small number work in stores and factories.

The life is rather primitive; the houses are set far apart; the children
have an abundance of play space; they are required to do chores in homes
where they receive little home training. The town affords an
unparalleled opportunity to learn nasty things in a nasty way.

Almost all of the educational work in such a town must be done in the
elementary schools. While high school facilities may be afforded they
will appeal to a vanishingly small percentage of the children.

The elementary schools in such a village must provide organized games
for the younger children and organized sports for the older ones; a
sufficient amount of physical training to insure robust bodies; careful
instruction in physiology, body hygiene, and sex hygiene; simple manual
training for the younger children; thorough preparation in the reading
and writing of English; the fundamentals of numbers; geography with
particular reference to the geographic conditions in the immediate
locality; civics and history--particularly American history; a thorough
drill in English and American literature; a minimum amount of
instruction in fine art--drawing, painting, modeling; an extensive
system of nature study, supplemented by field trips.

This course should be required of boys and girls alike. In addition to
these studies the boys in a coal-mining village should receive careful
instruction in geology, particularly in the mineralogy of the region in
which the mine is located; technical training in mining, drafting, and
shop work; and a sufficient training in agriculture to enable them to
make good kitchen gardens, since gardening is one of the chief
avocations of men in such a community.

Parallel to this special training for boys the schools should provide
for girls a thorough course in domestic science, with particular
emphasis on economical purchasing, and an education for parenthood,
including hygiene, dietetics, psychology, and nursing.

Such a course of study given in a typical mining village would tend to
make of the boys educated, trained workmen, and