The problem then arises as to the course to be followed in the central schools or senior classes. Here "the treatment of the various subjects of the curriculum should respond sympathetically to the local environment." It is necessary that the pupils be encouraged to take an interest in local industries and occupa tions and for this purpose the teacher must continuously draw illustrations from local examples. For boys, nature study should develop into rural science. For them there should be systematic instruction in the physics and chemistry of soils, manures, plant and vegetable life, taken in connection with gardening and rural carpentry. Girls should be provided with instruction in cookery, laundry and general housewifery. Their instruction in domestic science must be correlated with local conditions, and they should be taught to manage the domestic side of homes such as they are likely to meet with in rural areas. Personal hygiene should also form a prominent part of their curriculum, for the mainte nance of good health is a necessary part of education. In their in struction in needlework, much importance should be attached to mending, patching and darning.
With such a curriculum, pupils should not only be able to make themselves ordinarily intelligible to others, but also be sufficiently intelligent themselves to make good use of the "tools" they have already handled and to become capable and happy citi zens.
The problem of the curriculum for children of years is considerably more difficult in rural areas. The scattered character of the population, the difficulty of communication and the per sistent "parochial" idea with regard to education, all render the task of the organisation of central schools more difficult for those who do not go on to a secondary school. In some areas, the village school must always remain the unit and post-primary education must be provided in the primary school by means of a special curriculum such as that outlined for the top classes, Where a number of schools are sufficiently near one another and the accommodation admits, senior classes can be collected in one building, where the number in the age-groups of the post-primary pupils will be sufficiently large to justify a separate teacher and the instruction should be to that extent the better.
As has been experienced in a large rural area, central schools can be established. Although generally they will be non-selective central schools, yet a selective central school here and there can with great advantage be established. Although selective cen tral schools are not to be regarded as in any sense competitors of the present day secondary schools, yet such schools provide facil ities for those of the primary school who are unable to find ac commodation in the secondary schools and who need a secondary education of the more practical character. Education should be
viewed as an "organic whole." The majority of central schools established in a rural area will probably be of the non-selective type. Where such schools are established, there should be separate rooms for practical work for both boys and girls. Here especially, it is necessary that the pupils should "learn by doing," and in order to carry out this to the full, the teachers must be trained upon similar lines. There will probably always be rural schools and good teachers are as essential there as in town schools; and in the case of a rural teacher, knowledge of country life and occupations would appear to be a sine qua non. Such teachers are generally those who have spent the early part of their training at least in country schools. Consequently it would appear necessary to retain to a limited extent, albeit in a somewhat modified form, the rural pupil teacher system. When framing the syllabus of work to be done in col leges for the training of teachers, provision should be made for those teachers interested and experienced in country life and occupations by the introduction of special courses whereby that interest may be fostered, and that experience enlarged. However trained, the rural teacher must be interested in rural life, and the education given in rural schools must be thoroughly practical in all its aims and aspects and in every sense consistent with the environment.
Rural education refers to the schools centred about rural corn munities varying in population from a few families to 2,500 people. Before the development of the consolidated schools rural education was limited to the elementary school which was housed in a one or two-room building. With the appearance of the union and consolidated districts rural education included all schools below college grade. The rural schools range in size from the one-teacher elementary school to the consolidated school which often includes both elementary and high school with sev eral teachers. There are at least three distinct types of rural school organization : (I) the local district which includes usually a one or two-teacher school; (2) the consolidated district which is a union of two or more local districts, and (3) the county district which is the largest unit of rural school organization. In several of the States the township is the local school unit.