and women who bring to the institution the impress of the social life of representative farming communities. Among his students also will be many who will return to rural communities and to a greater or less degree become leaders in their chosen localities. That the institution may contribute its just share to country-life progress the courses must also have definite motives. One such teaching purpose is the establishment of sound social standards for rural groups. No product of the classroom is likely to have a more lasting value than this. If the student by reports and discussions can be led to measure the failures and successes of his community in comparison with conditions reported by his class associates in other localities a wholesome basis is laid for future activities in community service. Under such circumstances it is difficult for a student to leave the course with the dangerous confidence that he fully understands the needs of a community and has nothing more to know. It is, of course, impossible for him ever to regard his community, after having made many comparisons between the social life as it is and as it might be, as a finished product. In this way the instruction removes both the contentment of conservatism and the simplicity of the would-be reformer.

By having reports made from time to time by the student regarding the social conditions of his own community with respect to the problem before the class for discussion there naturally develops a clear and vivid conception of the situation in various localities. This series of reports forces each student to become conscious of the failures of his own community as compared with the higher standards of others and he gradually tends to construct an extensive social program for the group life he knows best.

Another purpose of the courses in rural sociology is the furnishing of accurate information regarding social conditions and resources in the country. Future rural leadership must be given a clear understanding of the country-life situation in its many aspects. Here it is especially necessary that the student learn how to collect social facts, how to estimate the value and determine the significance of surveys, public reports, and other material from which the sociologist draws his conclusions. In the former pioneering days it has been difficult to give the student at this point the adequate assistance that he has had a right to expect. The instructor has

felt obliged either to depend upon lectures or upon a text to a degree that has diminished the student's opportunity for first-hand knowledge of the raw material of the science. The source books containing valuable collections of readings that are being prepared and are likely to be published soon will certainly be helpful, especially in institutions where the library material is inadequate. However, these collections, valuable as they will be, must not satisfy the instructor in his desire to bring the student into contact with original material. It will often prove profitable to require of the students a bibliography representing the collection that he himself regards as best for the purpose of outside reading. The instructor can, near the end of the courses, criticize these various collections and thus help the student in his effort to determine the value of articles and reports on rural conditions.

No course in rural sociology fulfils its purpose unless it has a part in increasing popular interest in the social problems of the country. It especially has an obligation with reference to the future leadership of the country communities. This seems so essential a part of the teaching program as to need little comment. In practice, however, the teacher in the state college sometimes finds himself limited by the lack of interest that his colleagues in agriculture take in the social side of country affairs. Courses in rural sociology have been added to the curriculum of agricultural colleges recently and they find the older vocational subjects in possession of the field. Unless checked by administrative policy, some departments encourage the student to attempt premature specialization and everything is done to discount the need of the student's having an adequate preparation for rural leadership as well as the basis for business success. The vitality of the courses in rural social matters best meets this situation which fortunately is rapidly passing.

Rural sociology is merely a division in a larger field and it has a purpose in giving the student of general sociology the rural viewpoint. It is certainly unfortunate if the courses of the department are elected only by those who look forward to living in the country. The attempt made at some of the agricultural colleges to deny the students any courses in urban sociology is the result of regarding the rural and urban environments as not having relationship. As a matter of fact, both rural and urban social conditions

need to be understood by anyone who wishes to have knowledge of either environment, and for this reason in our rural courses we need to keep in mind the interests of those who wish to see the social field as a whole. To construct the courses in a narrow spirit of regard only for the country-life student is to delay the progress of the science and to remove it from the current of inspiration. Courses of rural sociology should not be given for the purpose of furnishing rural self-satisfaction for the men and women who are destined "to return to the land" after having received from the college a prophylactic against the dangers of urban attraction. For the teacher the presence in the class of students whose major interests are outside the rural field proves a decided advantage, since, to win these students, the courses have to be taught in a catholic manner.

In developing his college courses the rural sociologist surely should not neglect their possible influence in attracting the more promising students into graduate study within the field of rural social science. The present difficulty that colleges experience in getting instructors qualified to teach rural sociology demonstrates that there is need of encouraging students who desire to teach college sociology to specialize along rural lines. The immediate future of the science will be largely decided by the character of the students that may at present become interested in rural sociology. No teaching method can do so much to win the attention of the best students to the significance of the rural field as the requirement of investigations from members of the class. In addition to the thesis, which may be presented at the end of the course and the reports frequently made concerning the social life of the student's own community, the use of topic questions for class discussions seems, in the experience of some teachers, more appealing to the majority of the students and more profitable than lectures and assigned readings. The larger the contribution of the student, the more acquainted he becomes with the raw material of the science, the more likely he is to realize the opportunity of graduate study. If the progress of rural social science is to prosper as it should, the college teacher constantly must send forward promising candidates for advanced study.

A COMPLETELY SOCIALIZED SCHOOL'

ROBERT A. CUMMINS

Louisiana State Normal College

In the evolution of society it became necessary for some special provision to be made for the instruction of the youth, in order that the accumulated experiences and traditions of the race might be preserved and handed down to successive generations. The school as an institution of society was thus brought into existence and has gradually developed and enlarged its borders until today it may be affirmed that the school is charged with greater responsibility for the future welfare of society than any other institution. If this be true, and few there be who doubt it, it logically follows that the school should be completely socialized.

In discussing the socialized school I wish to submit, first, that the curriculum should be socialized.

To socialize the curriculum means to suit it to the present and future needs of the pupils. The first need of children, beyond the mere necessities of life, such as food and shelter, is a mastery of the tool subjects, viz., reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. Next the pupil should gain a reasonable amount of useful information from the fields of history, literature, and science, after which he is ready for a few years of "sampling" of as many of the vocations as possible, with a view of assisting to decide the most important question of life, aside from religion and marriage, viz., the question of one's vocation in life.

Having decided upon the vocation which he wishes to follow, which should be done while in the junior high school, or shortly thereafter, the pupil is then ready to begin acquiring the necessary skill with which to make his chosen life-work a success. if we should know what particular "attitudes," "skills," and

But

Address delivered before the Rural School Section of the Iowa State Teachers' Association, Des Moines, Iowa, February, 1919, and also before the Parish Teachers' Institute, Natchitoches, Louisiana, at the opening of the school year, 1919-20.

"knowledge" should be taught in the schools, we shall have to inquire as to what is commonly demanded of adult members of society. For example, what kind of arithmetic is used in everyday life? What sort of proficiency in handwriting will meet the demand of those who read handwriting? Or what words does one need to know how to spell in order to make himself understood in writing?

The first step in the socializing of the curriculum, obviously, then, is to eliminate all useless material from the subjects taught. This movement was inaugurated by Dr. Frank M. McMurry at the meeting of the Department of Superintendents in 1904. A decade later the Iowa State Teachers' Association appointed a committee to study and to make a report upon the elimination of obsolete and useless materials from the common school branches with a view that the efforts of childhood may be conserved and the essentials better taught. The report of this committee was published in two consecutive volumes and supports in general the recommendations made by Dr. McMurry, which were, briefly speaking, to eliminate (1) what cannot be shown to have a plain relation to some real need of life, (2) that which is beyond the child's comprehension, (3) whatever is unlikely to appeal to his native interests, and (4) whatever topics, or parts of topics, are so isolated or irrelevant that they fail to make connections with the chain of ideas that constitutes needful education.

It has been commonly known for many years that much of the Lernstoff in arithmetic, such as cube root, troy and apothecaries weight, true discount, greatest common divisor, least common multiple, various tables of foreign moneys, folding paper, etc., and most of longitude and time, compound and annual interest, etc., function little, if at all, in everyday life. But notwithstanding all these known facts, such topics are found in many textbooks in use throughout the country, after two decades of campaigning against such waste of time in school work.

Having thus purged the curriculum from all useless material, there is room for the introduction of much that is highly worth while in the traditional subjects, besides the introduction of new subjects of a vocational nature, such as domestic science, industrial