Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/183

Rh their call, and realize the need of developing their own deepest life. And in this it is only needed that they begin low enough and gradually rise to the mastery of their mission. In this the schools are indispensable. But to do its legitimate work the school must be manned with teachers who feel a divine call to service. That, in turn, calls for a school board with imagination and vision. Here the dearth is deep. The rural school is in poor condition to render much service, while the service demanded is great. The task of the teacher is to open new visions, to arouse deeper energies in the pupils, and through them to lift the ideals of the community, and to make the people hear the call of the times. The men must be shown how much possible energy, of a high order, right within their own district limits, is lost to the community and to the world because the boys and girls are not made to realize the value of more and better training, or kept in school long enough to find themselves.

This school is suffering sadly from social heredity. Thirty years ago I taught the winter school in a rural district down by the sea. It was in the proverbial red schoolhouse, in the center of the district, being a mile from the nearest inhabitant, in a grove of spruces through which the sunlight, save in little streams and eddies, never came, and directly opposite the village burying ground. A gloomier spot, or one less fit for a schoolhouse, it would be difficult to imagine. At the opening there were sixty-five pupils, ranging in ages from four years up to twenty-five. There were about as many classes, from the infant class learning their letters to the big boys studying navigation. The work went on according to the old customs and therefore was voted right. It could not have been very efficient. Three years ago I visited that school again. The schoolhouse, still red, stood in the old grove of spruces, sunless and damp, still fronted the north pole, the graveyard was still across the road, and not yet any sign of playground in sight. Some things had changed. They were having three terms of school instead of two, and all were taught by a woman. The pupils would not average as old as mine, emphasizing the growing tendency to drop out early, and there was no real attempt at grading, least of all any effort to put the school on a basis where it could better serve its own peculiar community. The lads, who, through the season, hauled lobster traps and seined mackerel, or cut stone in the great island quarries, were learning nothing about the sea, or the fish, or the stone formation of the island, albeit many of them had already chosen one of those lines of work for a life calling. The old class in navigation had dropped out. Twenty-seven years had marked few changes and no real advance.

And this is not an extreme case, either. Quite every rural school is failing in plan and purpose to exploit the vital needs of the community. I have examined a great many rural schools, making careful note of the