CHAPTER XXVIII

THE NEW EDUCATION

What, then, is the outlook for rural education? America is the land of big things. Ours is a country so broad that three centuries have not sufficed

Greatness of American en- to people all its vast domain. We are terprise engaged in undertakings so large that the continent is spanned by a railway, or a canal is blasted through a mountain range to unite the waters of the oceans, and we hardly stop to think about it, let alone to wonder over it. We are busy garnering fortunes from natural resources so rich that we can only guess at the wealth hidden away in our mines, our forests and our soil. We conceive our commercial enterprises in hundreds of millions of dollars; we run our skyscrapers up fifty stories; and we spread our factories out over broad acres of ground.

But the greatest projects and most significant enterprises in which we are to-day engaged are not, after all, the extension of our boundary-lines, the digging of our canals, or the operating of our factories,-but the running of our public school system.

This is true if we consider the question from the standpoint of the destinies involved; for the very foundations of both home and state are found in Magnitude of our school system the public schools. It is true from the standpoint of expense: two million dollars each

school-day, some four hundred million dollars a year, go for the current running expenses of our schools. The schools are our greatest project viewed from the number of people engaged in the work; for on each school-day nearly twenty million boys and girls look into the faces of half a million teachers. Twenty million school children! A number two-thirds as great as the entire population of the country when the guns were fired on Fort Sumter. Twenty millions! So many that if they should take hold of hands in one great line they would girdle the earth at its greatest circumference. Or, if they were gathered at one place, say on the eastern coast, formed in columns of four, military fashion, and marched westward across the country, other fours wheeling into line continuously at the rear, the head of the column would have to pass across the coal fields of Pennsylvania, across Ohio and Indiana, on out across the great Middle West, and on to the very waters of the Golden Gate before the last of the fours would find room at the rear of the column. So great is the army of American boys and girls whose future success and happiness depend so largely on the efficiency of our great system of schools. The American public school system really had its origin on the day when the one hundred pilgrims left the Origin of our public schools

Mayflower and set foot on the new

continent. There they stood on that gray autumn afternoon, with three thousand miles of threatening waves between them and the homes they had deserted for a principle. There they stood, with three thousand miles of unclaimed wilderness, but no homes, before them. These Puritans possessed a genius for three things: government, religion and education. And

it is to their genius for education that we owe the beginnings of our school system. For in 1636, when Boston was but six years old, these colonists did a marvelous thing: they started the Boston Latin Grammar School, a school of high-school grade. Boston was then but a straggling little village along one crooked street; poverty was threatening the very existence of almost every household; and nearly half of the members of the colony had been carried to their last resting-place on the hillside near the village. Yet out of their penury and want, they found it possible to provide for education, so that learning might "not be buried in the graves of the fathers."

progress

But they did not stop here. Before the first generation after the Mayflower cast anchor were past school age, Early educational Massachusetts had passed a series of school laws laying the foundations of our entire school system-the first in the world to offer education free to all at public expense through taxes voted by the people themselves. It is not our purpose to trace the fascinating story of the development of the struggling infant of yesterday to the great giant of today. Suffice it to say, that as our nation grew and waxed strong, the schools were changed to meet new conditions, until we have the magnificent system of the present day.

But the change is still going on. Indeed it is taking place faster to-day than ever before. The twentieth Profound changes century, young as it is, has seen now under way changes so marked that we are justified in speaking of "the new education." We are on the eve, if not in the midst, of an educational movement that will have profound social effects, and result in fundamental changes in our educational system.

A new interest in education

Nor is this new movement confined to any one class of schools. It reaches from the largest city school to the smallest rural district. Our people everywhere are experiencing a new birth of educational interest and enthusiasm. Legislatures in every state are passing new laws promoting education. National, state and private commissions have been appointed to study various educational questions, and a large proportion of these commissions are devoting their attention to the rural schools. The daily press, the weekly press and the magazines are giving an unwonted amount of space to criticizing or defending the public schools. That much of the discussion is irrelevant and much of the criticism unjust does not so much matter. It is far better to discuss a thing without settling it than to settle it without discussing it. The main point is that thinking people everywhere are coming to realize that our greatest national problems are those connected with the education of our children.

The urgent need is for the teachers, the natural leaders of the educational movement now getting under way, Present need to see clearly the weighty problems of leadership involved, and the magnificent opportunities offered. They must be ready to direct the tide of this newly awakened energy and enthusiasm so that progress shall result. They must be able to teach the ignorant, to arouse the indifferent, lend courage to the weakhearted, and spur on the indifferent. For much needs to be done. The people are far from clear at certain points as to what they need or desire. They only know that education is coming to have a new and more vital meaning, and that one's usefulness as a citizen, and one's efficiency and future happiness depend very much

on the quality and amount of this education. They know that a new ideal for education is arising, but they are not wholly clear as to the nature and meaning of the ideal. It is for the teachers to reveal this to them. But the blind must not undertake to lead the blind. The teachers themselves must catch the spirit of the new education, and be its true interpreters to the people whom they serve.

The teacher's need of vision

Every teacher needs now and then to step back from the details and minutiæ of his work and view it in its larger aspects; for the forest is always in danger of becoming hidden by the trees. We need to separate ourselves from the daily grind and routine, and take a survey of the broader educational problems, especially as they relate to our own field of activity. For only thus can we make sure that we are moving toward a goal, and not merely in a circle. It is the purpose of this volume to help the teacher take such a view of our contemporary education, with Vital questions especial reference to the rural demanding answer schools. Looked at from such a vantage point, what do we discover? What are the ideals toward which we are moving? What can we do to increase the efficiency of the rural schools for the millions of American boys and girls who receive all their education in these schools? How can we make the rural schools return larger service to the nation, and particularly to the agricultural communities which support them? How can we increase the loyalty of the rural community to its school? How can we keep the children of the rural communities in school longer, so that they may gain as good an education as that possessed by the town and city children? How can we improve the rural