of social advantages in the country. Name three ways in which consolidation may contribute to the social life of a community. Make comparisons of the cost of the three types of rural school.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY

The rural community suffers from no greater danger than that of social monotony and stagnation. The nature of the work both in home and in field, the insistent and pressing toil during the greater part of the year, and the isolation of the farm all tend to an unvarying saineness of life and experience.

While solitude has its advantages, and while every person should have an opportunity to be alone with himDanger from soself some portion of the time, yet cial stagnation change, variety and a certain degree of excitement are also necessary. For unrelieved routine finally deadens and cripples. The mind needs the stimulus of change, the shock of contact with other minds, the invigorating influence that comes from new objects of thought and association with other people. Lacking these, there is an inevitable tendency on the one hand. to settle into an attitude of indifference and indolencethe ruts of "fogyism"; or, on the other hand, to become dissatisfied and morose, impatient of one's surroundings, and rebellious against the fate that binds one to such conditions.

The rural community as it exists at present offers few opportunities for social mingling in general neighborhood groups. Going to spend the day in family visiting has declined. The old

Little meeting in social groups

time spelling schools, the debating societies and the singing schools are no longer a part of the activities of the district school. The country church, the common meetingplace for the community, has fallen largely into disuse. Even the telephone, the rural mail delivery and the parcel post, civilizing agencies as they are, have made possible still further isolation; for they run the errands for the family, who are thus enabled to cling still more closely to the work of the farm. The country people do not meet one another face to face, discuss matters of mutual interest, laugh, talk and enjoy a good time together as people need to do. Their lives have a tendency to become very serious, their mental horizon to narrow down, and their outlook on the world of values to become distorted. The country needs some central, organizing, vivifying force to unite members of the community in common interests, friendships and social activities. Something is required to create and maintain a community spirit, a mutual feeling of pride in neighborhood welfare and progress, and to entice away from the humdrum care and toil to the restoring influence of fun and jollity.

Social opportunities lacking for young people

Particularly is the rural community lacking in social opportunities for young people. The social impulses, the desire for comradeship, recreation, fun and amusement, are as deepseated and insistent in country boys and girls as in those who live in towns. Nor can these natural forces of human nature be any more safely ignored or repressed in the one case than in the other. Expression, and not repression, is the law of development; and where this law is disobeyed, whether in city or in country, rebellion and disaster are sure to follow.

The city is a constant lure to young people, promising

them what it can but in a small measure fulfil. Seen at a distance, and through the eyes of the magazine or novel Social lure of writer, the city possesses many attracthe city tions that are lacking in the country. Even the very dangers and pitfalls, so frequently pictured in lurid colors in the press or on the platform, often constitute a dare and a challenge to youth. For the adolescent demands adventure; he craves an opportunity to try his powers; he longs for variety and excitement, and will not be satisfied with the uneventful round of experience that constitutes the placid daily life of his parents. Nor are such impulses to be deprecated and frowned on; for they constitute the foundation for later achievement.

Failure to recognize these fundamental impulses in rural young people and to provide for their expression is one of the most fruitful causes for the dissatisfaction of our boys and girls with the life of the farm. They are impatient of its limitations, and resentful of its monotony and sameness. Hence they turn their backs on the career that lies nearest to them, the one they would most naturally be expected to choose, and seek occupations in the town or city, where there is already far too large a proportion of our population. Nor would there be justice in keeping boys and girls on the farm without an opportunity to develop the social side of their natures, even were it possible to do so; for this is as much a part of education as the training of the intellect.

The want of social opportunity for young people in the country districts is also accompanied by grave moral dangers. Young people will seek one another's society; it is natural and right that they should. Boys have a

Moral dangers growing out of social stagnation

natural tendency to form in "gangs" and clubs. If these organizations are given a right trend, they constitute an important educational influence; but if they lead in the wrong direction, they train the hoodlum and the criminal.

The young men and maidens are likewise found in one another's company, as it is also natural and right Lapses due to lack they should be. But the lack of social of social meeting meeting places, the absence of opplaces portunities for recreation and entertainment such as are available on every hand in the city, renders the association of country boys and girls unnatural and fraught with possibilities of danger. Instead of being together in social groups and hence under the control of the social conventions, as is largely the case in the city, the rural young people are thrown together in isolated pairs for buggy rides, or rambles along unlighted roads. At the same time there is nothing objective to demand their attention from themselves and each other at the very stage of development when the impulses most need the check of dominating objective interests and activities.

The result of this poverty of social opportunity is that, "The country districts, which ought to be of all places the freest from temptation and perils to the morals of our young people, are really more dangerous than the cities. The sequel is found in the fact that a larger proportion of country girls than of city girls go astray. Nor is the rural community more successful in the morals of its boys than its girls. In other words, the lack of opportunities for free and normal social experience, the consequent ignorance of social conventions, and the absence of healthful amusement and recreation, make the rural com