THE WEEK IN REVIEW

THE BIG DRIVE IN FLANDERS.

The big drive of Field Marshal Haig's forces in Flanders, on October 4, which put the attacking army in possession of commanding positions on an eight-mile front east and northeast of Ypres, and cost the Germans enormous losses in killed and wounded, and more than 4,000 prisoners, was followed, after a brief lull, by a fresh advance, which carried the British lines forward nearly two miles. Simultaneously, French troops launched an attack to the south of Dixmude, in an endeavor to bring that section of their line even with the wedge driven by Haig into the German front. The object of these joint operations is ultimately to compel the evacuation of Ostend and Zeebrugge, the German naval and submarine bases on the North Sea. Heavy rains had made the ground sodden and almost impassable, but the combined offensive was a great success notwithstanding.

A GERMAN ULTIMATUM.

The speeches of Chancellor Michaelis and Foreign Secretary von Kuehlmann before the Reichstag must be accepted-for the present at least-as the German ultimatum. The Chancellor declared that peace was impossible so long as Germany's enemies demanded any German soil or endeavored to drive a wedge between the German people and their Emperor. The Foreign Secretary declared that Germany would make no concessions in any form with regard to Alsace-Lorraine.

directed Ambassador Bernstorff to arrange for carrying on sabotage In the United States in every kind of industry for supplying munitions, and gave him the names of persons in this country who would aid him. This was a direct act of warand of cowardly warfare at thatin a country with which Germany was at peace. It is not strange that the message added: "Embassy must in no circumstances be compromised." A third telegram, sent in September, 1916, directed that assistance be given to the exertions of the so-called embargo conference to "secure a majority in both houses of Congress favorable to Germany." This official, secret interference in American elections was another glaring violation of neutrality.

MUTINY IN THE GERMAN

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The official announcement in the Reichstag by the German Minister of Marine, Vice-Admiral von Capelle, of a mutiny on board of four battleships at Wilhelmshaven, confirms rumors which had been for some days in circulation. According to Von Capelle, the mutiny was inspired by Socialists, and was the fruit of revolutionary ideas couraged by the overturn in Russia. The plan, as Von Capelle described it: "was to recruit representatives on all the ships, to cause the crews to refuse to to obey orders, paralyze the fleet and force peace upon the country." On one ship, the Westfalen, the captain was thrown overboard; and when the crews landed, the marines refused to fire upon them, but the soldiers surrounded them and they surrendered. The Kaiser would have had

In

German hand can hold a gun," he said, "the integrity of this territory can never be the object of negotiations or concessions." view of these declarations, peace advocates in this or other countries may as well save their breath. The Junkers are on top in Germany. The only peace that they will listen to is a peace "made in Germany." A peace that does not absolutely free Belgium and restore Alsace-Lorraine will never be agreed to by the Allies.

MORE GERMAN PLOTS.

The latest disclosures made by Secretary of State Lansing give documentary evidence of official German plots and conspiracies even more startling than those before made public. One telegram is from the German Foreign Secretary Zimmermann-the same official who tried to get Mexico and Japan to form a hostile alliance against this country-to Ambassador Bernstorff, directing energetic action for the destruction of the Canadian Pacific railway, with a view to a protracted interruption of traffic. This was in January, 1916, and the plot, which it was proposed to carry through from American soil, was a flagrant violation of neutrality. A second telegram, also sent in January, 1916,

in seven shot; but the Chancellor demurred at such wholesale executions, and only a few of the mutineers were executed. There have been many manifestations of a broken morale in the German army, but this outbreak of mutiny in the sternly disciplined navy is highly signifi

cant.

GERMANY AND SOUTH
AMERICA.

The leading South American nations are fast falling into line against German aggression and inhumanity. During the past week, the Peruvian Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, decided to sever relations with Germany, and the German Minister was given his passports; the government of Ecuador, to which the German Minister to Peru was jointly accredited, refused to receive him; and the government of Uruguay, by Presidential decree, following a three-to-one vote in the Chamber of Deputies, severed relations with Germany, on the broad ground that

which have not declared against Germany, and it does not seem probable that Argentina can be long restrained.

THE CROP OUTLOOK.

The October estimates of the Department of Agriculture show more or less deterioration of some of the principal crops during September. The estimate for spring wheat, for example, shows a reduction of 7,909,000 bushels from the September 1 figures. Yet the total estimated spring and winter wheat vield is 659,797,000 bushels, which is nearly 20,000,000 bushels larger than the yield of a year ago. The corn crop is estimated at 3,210,795,000 bushels. This is a reduction of 36,717,000 bushels from the September estimate, but it is more than 600,000,000 bushels larger than the 1916 crop. Of the important corn-producing states, Kansas is the only one which shows a condition of the crop which is below the ten-year average. Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio are far above the average. Barley, buckwheat, potatoes, beets, beans and apples show a decrease for the month; but oats, flax, rice and tobacco show an increase.

THE COST OF WAR.

It should be borne in mind, as has been before suggested in this column, that it is misleading to bunch together all the loans and expenditures for war purposes made at the session of Congress just closed, and treat them as the cost of the first year of the war. For example, the two billions for a merchant fleet is not an annual expense. So with the navy's war construction program, which provides for the building of 787 vessels, big and little. at a total cost of more than a billion dollars. This expenditure will be extended over several years, and only a part of it will come within the present financial year. So also with the two billions provided for field equipment. which is to fit out not only the first half million men, or the second half million, but an army of two and a quarter million. As to the loans to the Allies, these are loans and not expenditures.

AS TO WHEAT.

It cannot justly be said that the Government, in fixing the price of wheat at $2.20 a bushel, has borne heavily upon the farmers. To be sure, Governor Frazier of North Dakota charges that this price, while good at other times, is too low for this year; but this price is twice as high as the average for the three years before the war, and the price of corn-which is a huge crop this year-is nearly three times as high. Figures from a North Dakota agricultural station show that the 75,000 North Dakota farmers expect this year to divide $240.000.000 from their eight principal crops.-an average of $3,200, which is not so bad. According to the estimates of the Kansas State College, $2.20 wheat means $1.21 net profit a bushel to the farmer.

There are a few fundamental principles as regards any reorganization of rural life in our country which are now well settled. The first is that education lies at the bottom of the whole problem.

The social and economic movements to help the farmer, which one sees on every side, are good, but they are not all inclusive. No doubt the farmer needs a better and a more varied social life; he needs recreation, music, art and the moving pictures quite as much as his city brother; he needs some system of rural credits, preferably that of direct state aid, that he may not fall ultimately into the proletariat class; he needs more leisure, comfort and less drudgery.

All these things are highly desirable but attainable only when based upon a thoroughly efficient and practical system of education, planned to meet the actual needs of our rural population. The Country Life Commission says, in reference. to our rural life problems, that "all difficulties resolve themselves in the end into a question of education," and Harold W. Foght, that vigorous writer and ardent champion of rural life betterment, says: "If we have educated men and women, the other great problems cannot resist solution."

The

The present Congress seems deeply interested in rural credit legislation. Such legislation is needed, but not at the price of the total disregard of the national needs of rural education. hope of a better rural life in our country lies in a new rural education, and not solely in any economic legislation that Congress may see fit to enact. The farcical dismissal by Congress of Secretary Lane's eloquent plea for the rural schools in his last annual report is convincing testimony that the rural situation of our country makes little appeal to the lawmaker.

The second well recognized fact in our efforts to improve rural life is that it can be done only through leadership, and that this leadership must be furnished by the teacher in the country. In the ultimate analysis of any problem, leadership is the deciding factor. Leadership for rural betterment must come from the teacher, because she represents the school.

Other agencies all have weaknesses and elements of danger in them. The Grange cannot become the dominant leader because it excludes many worthy citizens and because it frequently delves into politics. The church cannot become the leader because denominationalism is always present, and many good people do not ally themselves

with such an institution. The Y. M. C. A. or the Y. W. C. A., however well meaning their efforts may be, though largely non-denominational, cannot become the leaders, for they are not universally supported nor believed in, and because they are. chiefly devoted to the development of the moral life of a people.

The school, through its teacher, must be the dominant factor in rural betterment. The school is a democratic institution. All believe in it and all support it; it is a legally organized state agent; it is planted to remain permanently in every community; it is free from sectionalism and denominationalism; it can appeal, through the children, most easily to the homes, and it can act as a central clearing house for all rural organizations-if it has a teacher with real leadership.

The third fact which is now well recognized in the movement for better rural schools is that our present class of rural teachers are not fitted for this leadership. This is no fault of their own, but the fault of the higher educational institutions that have failed to train teachers for country life.

Discussing the rural teacher, Professor Cubberley says: "Without unintentional disrespect to teachers now engaged in rural service, it must, nevertheless, be acknowledged that the average rural teacher of today is a mere slip of a girl, often almost too young to have formed as yet any conception of the problem of rural life and needs; that she knows little as to the nature of children or the technique of teaching; that her education is very limited and confined largely to the old traditional school subjects, while of the great and important field of science she is almost entirely ignorant; and that she not infrequently lacks in those qualities of leadership which are so essential for rural progress."

This indictment is a pretty severe one, but certainly too true. The crying need today of the rural schools, from one end of our land to the other, with perhaps a few distinguished exceptions, is for teachers trained to teach so as to meet the general and the specific needs of rural life.

There can be no doubt that a generation of new teachers, with changed conceptions of education, with enlarged visions and with a love for country life, must be secured before any extended program of rural education can be carried out.

Now, since education is the fundamental basis upon which a new rural life must be built, and since our present rural teachers are wholly un

fitted to meet the new requirements laid upon them, we are confronted with two exceedingly important questions: (1) How shall teachers be trained? and (2) When trained, how get them. into the country to remain?

The training of teachers for the rural schools belongs primarily to the normal schools and the agricultural colleges, but these institutions have been rather slow in recognizing the real needs of rural education and the necessity of specific training for rural teachers.

Michigan, which gave our nation its first state university and its first agricultural college, was also the first state to make legal provision for specific rural school courses in its state normal schools. This was in 1897, and in 1902 the Indiana State Normal School organized a rural school course of study.

In 1910 Henry Sabin said: "As far as I know, there is not a normal school in the land making any attempt to supply teachers for the country schools." Since that time things have changed, and at present few normal schools can be found which do not offer courses for rural teachers. A study of the catalogs of the various normal schools and agricultural colleges will show a gradual differentiation of courses of study for the country schools. In 1915 seven normal schools were added to the list of those giving special courses for the rural school teachers.

The lack of trained teachers for the country has always been deplorable. Of the 365,000 rural teachers in the United States, about one-third of them may be said to have no professional training. In one great agricultural state of the West, in 1915, forty-seven per cent. of the rural teachers were "entirely untried." Another western state had for 1914, 7,791 rural teachers in one-room schoolhouses, and only 259 of these had graduated from a normal school or a college. The status of rural education cannot be changed much until trained teachers are placed in the country and given sufficient inducements to remain there.

The rural teacher must not only be trained in the common branches and in agriculture, but she must know much about the great economic and social problems of rural life. She must know how to standardize her school and text classroom instruction; how to co-operate with the press and the various local organizations working for rural betterment; how to disseminate information among her people regarding the best methods and facts of rural progress. The blind or ignorant cannot lead. The teacher must know, and know how to tell.

Regarding the second question, how to get rural teachers to remain in the country, obviously, the first requisite is better salaries. Rural school salaries have always been shamefully low-so low that good teachers could not be retained in the country.

Dean Coffman in his study, which included more than 5,000 rural teachers in several states, discovered that the man teacher in the rural schools receives less than $400 a year, and the woman teacher in the rural schools $366 a year.

In the South hundreds of rural teachers in almost every state get less than $160 annually. In 1913, according to the report of the National Edu

cation Association committee, the average salary of the rural teachers of the whole country was a little more than $257. This figure for the same year was the annual average wage of the farm laborer. Arkansas reported, for the counties studied, $273 as the annual average salary paid teachers; Colorado, $306; Iowa, for two counties, $326; Tennessee, for 46 counties, $223, and North Carolina, for 26 counties, $160, while in all these states the annual salary of the rural mail carrier was more than $1,000.

Such a salary for teachers will never get the best service. The country folk need not expect to retain teachers with such a wage.

The second requisite for retaining teachers in the country is better home conditions. This is being brought about in many states by establishing teacherages, but the movement has not yet been actively launched, except in a few states.

The idea of the school district furnishing the teacher with a home, as far as the writer knows, was first inaugurated in this country by the state of Nebraska in 1894, when a seven-room teacher's cottage was erected in Rural District No. 1, Hall County, at a cost of $1,000. The state of Washington erected its first teacher's cottage in 1905, and since that time nearly every state in the union has erected homes for the rural teachers.

From a questionnaire sent out by the writer to state school officials a few months ago, it is found that there are now over 600 teacherages in the United States. The state of Washington leads with 112; Colorado has over 60; Oklahoma, 58; Oregon, 29; Montana, 20.

Several foreign countries have for many years built teacher's homes, notably Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Australia. Eighty-two per cent. of the rural teachers in Denmark are men, and this is caused, in part, by the free home furnished, with a few acres of ground, where the teacher may make his home the year round. Victoria, Australia, had in 1914, 2,181 schoolhouses and 1,404 teacherages.

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Surely we ought to do as well by our rural teachers as these foreign countries. Without her own home many a rural teacher is regularly aroused for a five o'clock breakfast, eats a cold and hastily prepared lunch, and often waits, after trudging through rain and mud, for a o'clock dinner. Her hours of private rest, if she have such, are broken; she is frequently obliged to sleep in a cold room with boisterous children; she is subjected to all the affairs of the family, which are not always pleasant. No wonder teachers go to town on Friday night or to the city to remain permanently as soon as possible.

The third factor influential in keeping teachers in the country is the consolidation of schools. During the last year at least ten states legislated for further consolidation of schools, and old, conservative Ohio perhaps enacted the most comprehensive and unique law governing consolidation and the transportation of pupils. In Indiana alone during the past five years almost 1,000 rural schools have been displaced by consolidation, and in the United States at the present time there are probably more than 6,000 consolidated school districts.

Consolidation brings most of the advantages of