to seek places of meeting by themselves, where they can discuss things to their satisfaction and not keep the whole educational system stirred up all the time. We may rest assured that if they ever came to any sort of an agreement upon anything of moment, we would hear of it very soon. The experts ought to work in their laboratories until they get hold of something the world ought to know and get it in such shape that the next expert will not knock it over. It is hard upon a teacher or a child to be manipulated by so many "experts" who do not agree. There are some things about this modern school system of ours which, as it seems to me, might be very profitably cooled off with a good stream of cold water.

As much as is practicable, and perhaps more than is desirable, in view of the fact that so very much has been accomplished and that there is really so much to gratify and so little to condemn in our educational system, has been said upon this phase of our subject. Happily I can not have my way, and happily the other man can not either. The true way will come out of the compounding. That is reason enough why we should each have a way and, within reasonable limits, should stand by it.

In concluding words, my say concerning the educational system is as follows: I would not forget that the educational system rests upon three foundations, viz: (a) The policy of the States as determined by their legislatures and accomplished through the taxing power; (b) local communities, which, through the exercise of power delegated by the State, supplement the system provided by the State to such extent as will be sustained by the intelligence, pride, and resource of the vicinage, and (c) private beneficence, which enriches and embellishes the legally established system and founds great institutions to give the largest inspiration to the comprehensive whole.

I would aim at an elementary school in reach of every home, a secondary school in every city, township, or incorporated village, and a university in every State, all free and without discrimination as to sex or other conditions appertaining to the individual. I would even go further than some and pursue courses which would not drive out the cultivated and the rich.

I would adopt Professor Münsterberg's platform as to the teaching force, and try to secure college or normal graduates for the elementary schools, college graduates with a year or two of graduate work for the secondary schools, university doctors for the colleges, and the real experts who have had their feet on the ground and shown sanity, productivity, and power for the universities. I would fight political, social, religious, and all other influences which are disposed to meddle with the teaching force, and I would adopt a resolution in favor of preference on the basis of merit in every place and at every time where there was half an opportunity.

I would manage children without so much reference to their weaknesses or peculiarities, recognizing these where so marked as to make it necessary, but not accentuating them in the mind of the child or in the thought of the school. I would not allow a teacher to put a hand on a child in punishment. I would not coddle; I would direct, encouraging comradeship as children grow up to it and prove worthy of it. I would make plans for normal children and, assuming that the crowd is normal, expect them to adjust themselves to the plans. I would give special help to the exceptional cases, if a little unusual help would suffice, and go on without saying much about it.

I would not attempt to put into the heads of children the accumulated history, science, philosophy, art, and patriotism of the ages. I would give a school an architectural schoolhouse and artistic grounds, and put some standard pictures on the walls and call attention to the need of caring for them, and see that they ED 1902-37

are cared for, and let that do for art for some years of child life. I would not teach patriotism, but I would lay the foundations of citizenship in mathematics, and language, and in history, with less of the imaginative and fictitious living in it which we hear so much about. I would stir their feeling and draw out the better expression of themselves, not by laying so much stress on original work, but by having them rehearse masterpieces in literature on Friday afternoons. I am sure the patriotism of the school and of the community would be the gainer by it. I would lay foundations upon which the State might rely by training pupils in the elementary schools and students in college to respect anthority and by inbreeding in them the habit of performing their duty. I would mix with them freely in the gymnasium and on the ball ground. I would yell with them in victory and carry one end of the shutter in disaster, but I would give them tasks which they could do and see that they did them exactly and completely. I would work not for quantity but for interest and for power. I would reason that if I started the child aright at first, whether he liked it or not, he would in time gain enthusiasm that would steadily increase and that he would ever after bless me for it. I would have no electing, at least below the college, but I would have plenty of drill. I would try to do the electing and endeavor to provide the resolution necessary in the premises. I would strive to train the youth so that when he got to the age when he ought to have judgment he would have it, and so that when he made his election he would have zest and power to accomplish what he undertook. I would not try to make nice characters so much as square and strong ones. Beauty in form follows, it does not precede, effectiveness in life. I would put in the way of the youth the things which would lead him to think that the constructive industries, the industrial arts, are quite as respectable and quite as promising and profitable as the professions, and I would preach and exemplify the gospel of work by brain and hand from morning to night, year in and year out.

I would lose no opportunity to assert the fact that any power to uplift and vitalize the work in any school must come from a school above; but I would insist that the schools above shall know the real conditions and come into intelligent and genuine sympathy with the schools below before presuming to direct and inspire them. I would have the way open and continuous from the primary to the university. I would trust the work of the schools below, at least until it was proved that they were unworthy, and I would not distrust all because some proved unworthy. I would lay more stress upon one's knowledge and resources when coming up for his degree than upon his acquisitions when he wants to commence to earn one. I would not allow the incapable or the indolent to clog the machinery and interfere with the rights of others, but I would soften hard-and-fast entrance requirements so as to give his rightful opportunity to one giving reasonable promise of power to do the work. I would do all I could to interlace all the schools of all grades and people of all kinds together by generosity and helpfulness, because the stability of the nation hangs upon it and because educational exclusiveness and meanness defeat themseves.

I would never forget that the educational system of America is not merely for the people. It is the people's system. They have created it. They are to administer it. Great men have founded the great privately endowed universities, and men of their kind are to administer those universities. The religious denominations have set up schools of their own and for their own ends, and they are to carry them on. The people have established the great public educational system, and the people are to direct it. All must work in accord with the common sentiment or pay the penalty of decay, for we are a cosmopolitan, but a united people. Civilizations make schools, not schools civilizations. Schools are the instruments and helps of civilizations, but civilizations come out of the Great Unknown. Our

democratic society has developed our educational forces and ideals on democratic but virile lines. There are more elements of strength than of weakness in democracy. We suffer much from mismanagement by incompetents and selfseekers, but we want no better management than the creators of institutions can give them and will sustain. Mismanagement is in defiance of the better sentiment of the people, and it is this better sentiment which will have its way. Let us help it on its way. There is a spirit in this democracy of ours which is only manifest on occasions and which we too often overlook and ignore. It has come out of a great past. It has resulted from the compounding of the greatest peoples in world history. Let us distinguish that spirit and follow its lead. Let the educational advance be in touch and in harmony with it. Let the schools bear in mind the religious and political and industrial history of the country and be content to employ simple plans and settled measures in promoting the noble and lofty mission of our democracy.

RURAL SCHOOL LIBRARIES.

[Read before the Iowa State Teachers' Association, December 28, 1899, by Henry Sabin, formerly State superintendent of public instruction.]

Emerson says that books are only to inspire. Knowledge is of secondary importance. That alone ministers to the growth of the race which, coming from the heart of one, finds lodgment and life in the heart of another. Not only would schools, colleges, and universities disintegrate and disappear without books, but everything which we call culture would vanish, and society would lapse at once into barbarism. Emerson is right. The inspiration which makes life worth living is drawn from the printed page. To place a book in the hands of a child after he has been taught to read it is an act of the greatest moment. We give him the key; we teach him to unlock the door which opens into all the activities of life. We recognize that in the fullness of his creation he ranks but little lower than the angels of God. The child who in his youth is led to open his heart to the inspiration of books anchors his life to the teachings of the great and good of all ages. It is not necessary, then, to discuss the advisability of establishing libraries in connection with rural schools. That is settled in all thinking minds. There are certain forces at work in society which will ultimately rescue the rural school from its present isolated condition. The increased demand for better roads, for rural postal delivery, for cheaper telephone and telegraph rates, will eventuate in bringing the country school out into the full light of a brighter day. The regeneration of the rural school must keep equal pace with the regeneration of the public which sustains it. It is a mistake to attempt to study the rural school problem by itself, apart from its surroundings and environments.

The school in the country is a part of community life, more than it is in the city. We must rely upon its instructions to make farm life more attractive as well as more profitable; to add to the usefulness of the child as an aid in carrying on the affairs of the home; to make the farmer's house more attractive, and to prevent, as far as possible, the exodus of young people from the country to the city.

The rural school is in danger from the short-sighted policy of its friends. To raise the intellectual standard is only a small part of the work in hand. Better teachers, better buildings, better methods, better text-books, there is still left something even more desirable than these. The rural school must be brought into close touch with the life about it. It must be made potent as a social factor. It must have a place in every plan which looks to the betterment of country life. The early part of the twentieth century will see the beginning of a new era in our system of farming. The present wasteful system of extensive farming has

seen its best days. In its place will come an intensive system, in which the main study will be how to get the most from every acre under cultivation. The increase of population, a large foreign demand for our farm products-in fact, a world-wide market, in which we shall have to compete with the cheap labor and the fertile soil of South America, India, and Russia-will compel us to make the most of what we now consider the waste products of the farm, the mine, and the factory.

With the advent of the small farmer will come to him and his family a sense of independence of others and of dependence upon self. With less hired labor there will be more time for study and reading and a disposition to think and act for himself.

The library must be an adjunct to all this. Books which inform and instruct must be placed where the rural population can reach them. The best methods of treating and cultivating the soil, the most effective fertilizers, the breeding and care of stock, the foods best calculated to produce fat or increase the flow of milk, forestry, horticulture, mining, landscape gardening, and other kindred subjects can not long be excluded from the curriculum of the common school.

The rural school library must be selected with certain ends in view. It must contain on its shelves not alone history, poetry, fiction, but also books which bear upon the industries in the midst of which the school is located. A library suitable for farmers' boys and girls is not the best for children whose parents work in the mines.

If nature study is to be permanently installed in its appropriate place, it must not be allowed to degenerate into meaningless talk, lest the same fate overtake it which has fallen upon the object teaching of twenty years ago. There is scarcely a trace of object teaching left to-day, and, unless we are careful, in twenty years nature study will be classified with the lost fads.

Do not misunderstand me as opposing nature study. But nature study must call for the exercise of research and study on the part of the pupils as well as the teacher. The library must furnish books to be read by the teacher and pupils in connection with these subjects which I have mentioned as of importance to the school and to the community about it. Teachers can no more instruct intelligently in nature study without preparation and instruction in methods than they can in language or numbers. The object of the lesson is not to inform, but to stimulate, and to create a desire to know more. This desire awakened by an enthusiastic teacher dies out unless the library furnishes something to nourish and strengthen it. I greatly fear that the books usually selected for the library are not of the character here indicated. They do not furnish the sustenance needed for a healthy growth of mind.

I desire not to criticise too severely. The suggestion that much greater care should be taken in selecting books, that many should be thrown out because the only claim they have is their ability to amuse and their places supplied with those of a higher grade, is all perhaps that there is time to offer in this paper. The library should be selected with a definite purpose in view. The old order of things must soon pass away, and in the new curriculum there will be use for books bearing upon every subject connected with social life in the country.

The strength of the country school should be in the library. Not in the heterogeneous mass of books bearing upon everything in general and nothing in particular, but in a collection carefully made up and chosen, having in view the greatest possible usefulness to pupils and people. Let me briefly recapitulate. The library, in order to be of the greatest use to the rural school and the community tributary to it, should contain

First. Books which treat of agriculture or which pertain especially to the industry most prominent in that region and which furnishes the means of living

to the inhabitants. They should pertain especially to whatever is the center of interest to that people.

Second. Those which treat of animal life: the birds most pleasing as songsters and those most useful in destroying injurious insects and worms; the care of bees; the habits of ants and wasps; of domesticated animals, the care of them, and the profit in raising them. Above all things children should read books which have a humane side as regards the life which is about them.

Third. Horticultural books, which treat of fruit trees, of grafting and pruning of vineyards, of small fruits, which every family can raise with but little expense, but which add to the comfort of the table and swell the purse from which the housewife purchases the many little things needed in her family.

Fourth. Books which treat of floriculture, window gardening, and the care of lawns and shrubbery with a view of beautifying the laborer's home. The poetry of rural life is the beauty of the rose, the wild flowers on the prairie or in the woods. The æsthetic side of the child's nature will always respond to the influence of chaste, pure, beautiful surroundings.

Fifth. On the shelves should be books treating of arboriculture. The child should be interested in trees, how to plant and transplant them. Which trees are most useful for timber, for fruit, for shade, for beauty, and which are of the most rapid growth, may be useful subjects for research and discussion.

Sixth. On another shelf should be found books that are to be read in connection with mineralogy, meteorology, and geology. Elementary books along these lines at the disposal of the pupil and the teacher add to the interest of the school and success of the teacher's work.

Seventh. There should be also a miscellaneous collection suitable for reading at the fireside or in the family circle. Not every new book that is published should find lodgment in the school library. Only those should be given a place which are pure in style and elevating in sentiment. Dickens and Hawthorne, Cooper and Prescott, Tennyson and Longfellow, must ever hold the first place as choice English classics. The dictionary and reference books should never be omitted. We make a mistake when we limit the usefulness of the library to the pupils in attendance at the school. There must be found on its shelves books for home reading and for the family circle. History and biology, travels and science, art, poetry, and fiction are all needed to enlarge the horizon of the farmer's knowledge and to make him what he is not now, "citizen of the world." The farmers' institute, the lyceum, the debating club, the mothers' club, should all be stronger and more effective because of the inspiration drawn from books in the school library. Questions which arise in parliamentary law, in civil government, in the State and the national constitutions should all be answered by reference to the best authorities.

The library should be open to the young people who have left school but still reside in the neighborhood. The power and usefulness and the happiness of the teacher will be increased if from the register she would learn their names and then take pains to make their acquaintance and enlist their sympathy in the support of the library and the school. "Anyone who is a pupil of this school can use these books "is too narrow a regulation. "Anyone is welcome to this library who is a resident of the district and will give assurance that the books will be carefully read and promptly returned" would be far better.

In a certain kindergarten room in Ohio the following sentence is posted up where everyone who enters the front door can not fail to see it: "The object of this house is to furnish a center for the social, mental, and moral life of the people; to educate the children, to encourage the parents, and to assist the workers, that life may be brighter and happier for all." Change the word "house" to "library" and you have exactly my idea of the purpose of a library, especially in rural districts.