cation. Practical application of chemistry in an analysis of soils is possible. Botany may also be given a practical application in the study of the useful and useless plants of the region and of the best way of eradicating the noxious ones. Then there is home gardening directed by the school. In many villages there are unsightly back yards and vacant lots that could be made attractive and productive if they were planted into gardens. It is true that many children living in villages cultivate gardens at home, but their efforts are undirected. If the work were supervised by the schools, many correlations of gardening with arithmetic, language, drawing, manual training, cooking, nature study, and other subjects would be possible. The six-six plan.-The plan of organizing the course of study with six years in the elementary grades and six years in the high school can be easily applied to village schools. The high-school course of study should be divided into two parts of three years each. the first three years being generally known as the junior high school and the last three years as the senior high school. Not all villages should attempt to have both junior and senior high schools. In fact, some of the very small places should not attempt more than the six elementary grades, and three years of junior high school, especially if there is a senior high school not far away. Township and county boards of education that have jurisdiction over the village schools should seriously consider whether it is advisable to organize junior and senior high schools in every village in the township or in the county. As it is, many villages are attempting to do 12 grades of work when there are only a few pupils in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. A few villages in each county should be selected for senior high schools. The density of population and other factors, of course, would determine the number of senior high schools. What should be taught in the junior and senior high schools.— If villages were to adopt the six-six plan of organization, most of the subjects in the junior high school should be required. The subjects in this type of school might be the following: Three years of English: two of general mathematics; three years of history, including European beginnings and advanced American history; one year of community civics; one year of geography and elementary science: three years of physical education: one year of hygiene and sanitation: and three years each of music, art, current events, industrial arts, agriculture, and home economies. Not all of the required or of the elective subjects should be offered five times a week, once or twice a week being sufficient time for some. The senior high-school course should continue the vocational and academic subjects begun in the junior high school with a higher degree of specialization in view. More electives can be offered. The number will depend upon the size of the school. The electives should not be so many that there are only three or four pupils in a class. If the school is small, some subjects can be offered in alternate years. A new and quite different course of study would be necessary in order that this plan may meet its full possibilities. The first six grades should be concerned chiefly with what are known as the fundamentals, or the tools. Topics for teaching purposes should be organized in relation to and from the point of view of the experience and environment of village and rural children. While the emphasis should be placed upon the "tools," the first six grades should not ignore the distinctly modern phases of education. Music, literature, and the fine arts should be taught largely for appreciation and not for technique. Nature study, elementary agriculture, school and home gardening, play, sanitation and hygiene, handwork of different kinds, dramatization and story telling should also have a place in the elementary school. Extension of kindergarten work.1-According to recent statistics of the Bureau of Education, there were, approximately, 600 kindergartens, with 22,000 children enrolled during the school year 1917-18 in towns with under 2,500 population. While these figures are far below what they should be, they show that an increasing number of kindergartens are being opened in towns and villages. Fortunate are the little children who attend these kindergartens, for the town and village offer an ideal environment for kindergarten education. The modern tendency in kindergarten work is to have the children spend as much time as possible out of doors. Where weather and climate permit, there are out-of-door kindergartens, and even if a part of the activities take place within the kindergarten room, the children play their games out of doors. Under the trees are sand boxes, slides, and seesaws. In the city kindergarten too often there is no space available for this out-of-door play. Sometimes there is a roof garden, and weary little feet have to climb flights of stairs to reach the playground. Sometimes the city children are taken for one blissful day into the country, so that they may see pigs and cows and chickens, and experience all the other delights of the farm. But the village child has all this life at his very door, and nature unfolds her wonderful picture book from day to day. The child becomes acquainted with all the little creatures of wood and field. Pictures of birds and squirrels and butterflies are a poor substitute for the real thing. Window boxes and tin cans can never take the place of real gardens with enough space for each child to have his own plat. 1 Prepared by Miss Julia Wade Abbot, Specialist in Kindergarten Education, U. S. Bureau of Education. 154724°-20-Bull. 86 The country child not only has the opportunity to begin nature study by living with nature, but he is in daily contact with simple industrial processes in home and neighborhood. The country child is freed from the intricate organizations of city life; ambulances and police patrols, apartment life and department stores do not crowd upon his consciousness. He lives in a real home with a yard around it. He sees his mother cutting out clothes and making them for different members of the family. He sees her canning and preserving vegetables and fruits, and he is called upon to participate in the home activities which provide him with a wholesome round of duties. Farming country surrounds his village; he follows the work of the farmer through spring and summer and fall, and sees him gather the fruits of his labor. And there is need for a blacksmith's shop in the country, and the child "looks in at the open door," fascinated by the glare of the flaming iron and the primitive force of the hammer. In the village, the fire engine is still drawn by glorious, dashing creatures with long manes and tails, and faithful farm horses pull heavy loads of hay through the village street. The country child rides in the grocer's cart and is permitted to drive the horse; in exchange for which privilege he delivers the packages at every door. The village life provides a whole round of duties and pleasures suited to normal child life. But the question may be asked, "If the town and village offer such opportunities for the right kind of development, why is it necessary to provide kindergartens for the children of these communities?" The answer to such a question is that education is always needed to show people how to appreciate and make use of the opportunities around them. Children in the country have all out of doors to play in, and yet such an authority as Dr. Thomas Wood declares that country children know little of how and what to play. The country has always been emphasized as the best place in which to bring up children, and yet statistics show that city children are more healthy than country children, because they have more intelligent care. All children in city or country need the wise direction of their impulses and interests. While the city child needs to have what is wholesome and constructive selected from his too intricate environment, the country child needs to have his eyes opened to the wealth of material about him. And both city and country child need the stimulus of the social group, and the participation that results from working and playing with others. Whether a small number of children in a community make necessary a kindergarten primary grade or whether a kindergarten is provided, this "beginning room" in the school of the small town should be a happy place where the youngest children enjoy the free dom and initiative characteristic of childhood. Only when children are encouraged to express themselves freely do we discover the needs and aptitudes of the individual child. In an article entitled "Mental Hygiene and the Public School," Dr. Arnold Gessell writes: If there is, indeed, such a thing as human engineering, nothing could be more unscientific than the unceremonious, indiscriminating, wholesale method with which we admit children into our greatest social institution, the public school. We must supplement the matriculation examination with a period of observation which will not relax during the whole school career of the child, but which will be peculiarly intensive during the first year or first semester. The first year should be an induction year. The kindergarten and first grade then become a vestibule school where the child may be detained under a watchful semiprobationary régime which will discover and record his strength and his weakness. The formal type of work so often prescribed for children who are beginning school is so machinelike in character that many discouraged ones fall by the way and have to repeat the first grade. The right beginning of school life in the kindergarten has a direct bearing upon the child's physical well-being, his mental alertness, and his social adjustment to the group, and should be a means of rendering more efficient any school system, whether in city, town, or rural community. THE VILLAGE SCHOOL A COMMUNITY CENTER. It is doubtful whether the social affairs in many villages to-day are on as high a plane and as educative and socializing as were the forms of social amusement once common, as debating societies, singing schools, spelling bees, etc. While it may not be desirable to conduct these old forms of amusements in the same manner as they once were, the fact remains that there must be a certain amount of social life in each community. At present the social life is usually confined to the one or more churches, to several lodges, to a movingpicture house showing films of doubtful value once or twice a week, or to traveling shows. Such forms of social life do not unite the people. There is no unifying element. If the village school were organized to serve the entire community, it would have a tremendous influence in building up community social and intellectual life. It should be the educational center not only for children, but for young men and women and for older men and women. At the village community school farmers should meet to discuss farm problems and to hear lectures by the county demonstration agents and by professors of agriculture in the State college of agriculture. At such centers lectures on subjects of local, State, National, and international concern, entertainments, community singing, plays, moving pictures, and other activities should have a place. As it is, village school buildings are seldom open for public meetings. Now and then there is a school entertainment open to the public. Some villages maintain a lyceum course, but other activities are necessary if the school is to serve as a means of bringing the people together. The village school must teach more than the three R's. It must broaden the lives of everyone in the community. One of the evils of village life is monotony and lack of fellowship. There is too much individualism and not enough cooperation, not enough thinking together. The village school serving as a center of community life for those who naturally congregate at the village for business purposes would tend to break up the isolation, lack of fellowship, and individualism. The school building, instead of the village store, should be the community center. In many villages there are few big topics of conversation. The village gossip and the store-box group are common characters. There is evidently need of some institution to create and conserve common interest. For this purpose there should be a common meeting place where there may be free and open discussion on the great topics of the day. Every village should discuss local improvements, cooperative methods of buying and selling, proposed State and National legislation. If an amendment to the State constitution is proposed, every person should know what the amendment is and what the effect of its adoption will be. No better place than the public-school building could be found to discuss such topics. In fact, the school building is the only logical place for such discussion, the one building in the village dedicated to democracy. It is a good plan for the people of the community, country, and village to organize a community association. Officers should be elected and committees appointed. A good example of a community association is that at the village consolidated school at Five Points, Ala., described on page 15. The following points regarding the organization of village communities for the discussion of public questions are suggestive: 1 I. DIFFICULTIES TO OVERCOME. 1. Lack of social consciousness, Few people think in terms of the social unit. They are intolerant of an opinion differing from their own. Difference of opinion is taken as a personal matter or as dangerous. 2. Diffidence in the presence of an audience. Few can be prevailed upon to speak in public, 3. The inveterate talker who can not be suppressed, but talks every gathering to death. 1 From paper read by U. J. Hoffman, at Conference on Village Schools, Chicago, Il. |