with reference to its environment and the local
interests and needs. The main efforts of its instruction should be
to put its pupils into sympathetic touch with the rural life about
them, in which the great majority of them ought to find their
future homes."--_Cubberley._

The away-from-the-farm-influence of rural education which has in the
past proved a serious handicap to rural progress and open country
pursuits, would thus be materially counteracted.

Quoting Cubberley again:

"The uniform text-books which have been introduced by law, were
books written primarily for the city child; the graded course of
study was a city course of study; the ideals of the school become,
in large part, city and professional in type; and the city-educated
and city-trained teachers have talked of the city, over-emphasized
the affairs of the city, and sighed to get back to the city to
teach. The subjects of instruction have been formal and
traditional, and the course of instruction has been designed more
to prepare for entrance to a city or town high school than for life
in the open country. So far as the school has been vocational in
spirit, it has been the city vocations and professions for which it
has tended to prepare its pupils, and not the vocations of the farm
and the home."

Then says Roosevelt:

"Our school system is gravely defective in so far as it puts a
premium upon mere literary training and tends, therefore, to train
the boy away from the farm and workshop. Nothing is more needed
than the best type of an industrial school, the school for
mechanical industries in the cities and for teaching agriculture in
the country. No growth of cities, no growth of wealth can make up
for any loss in either the number or the character of the farming
population. We of the United States should realize this above most
other people. We began our existence as a nation of farmers, and in
every crisis of the past a peculiar dependence has had to be placed
upon the farming population, and this dependence has hitherto been
justified."

_The Rural Church Problem._ No permanent rural civilization, however,
can be maintained that will attach the population to the soil with
satisfaction and contentment without provision being made for enjoying
religious services among people of their own kind and class