ck, and so are easily realized; while
the growth in education, refinement, and culture on the part of the
child is difficult indeed to measure or estimate. And yet how much more
valuable it is! The jockey gives the one, the teacher the other.

=Wrong Standard in the Social Mind.=--In some rural communities the idea
exists that a teacher is worth about fifty dollars a month--perhaps not
so much. This idea has been encouraged until it has been too generally
accepted; and in many places the notion prevails that if a teacher is
receiving more than that amount, she is being overpaid, and the school
board is accused of extravagance. The rural school problem will never be
solved until the standard of compensation is readjusted. There are many
persons in the cities, who, for the performance of socially unimportant
things, are receiving larger salaries than are usually paid to
university professors and college presidents. Thus, the relative values
of services are misjudged and the recompense of labor is not properly
graded and proportioned. Unless there is, quite generally, a saner
perspective in the social mind and until values are reestimated, the
solution of the rural school problem and indeed of many problems of
rural life is well-nigh hopeless. Before a solution is effected
sufficient inducement must be held out to more strong persons to come
into the rural life and into the rural schools. These persons would and
could be leaders of strength among the people.

=Rural Organization.=--Until recently there has been little or no
organization of rural life. Communities have been chaotic, socially,
economically, and educationally. Real leaders have been wanting--men and
women of strong and winning personality. The rural teacher, if he were a
man of power and initiative, often proved to be a real savior and
redeemer of social life in his community. But leaders of this type
cannot now be secured without a reasonable incentive. Such men will
seldom sacrifice themselves for the organization and uplift of a
community except for proper compensation. If teachers--or at least the
strong ones--were paid two or three times as much as they are to-day,
and if the standards were raised accordingly, so as to secure really
strong personalities as teachers, country life might be organized in
different directions and made so much more attractive than at present,
that the urban trend would be arrested or greatly minimized.

=Playing with the Pro