Since rural children live in a different environment from urban children, rural education attempts to utilize the materials of that environment. This does not mean that there is a fundamental difference in the ultimate aims of rural and urban education. Both types of school are attempting to provide conditions that will enable the children of each to meet effectively the problems of life. Rural education, like urban education, is utilizing materials from all sources which will enrich the experience of the individual, enabling him to seek new levels of achievement. The function of the rural school is not confined to the preparation of boys and girls to be farmers. While provision is made for training in this field and its related activities, provision is also made for those rural children who are planning on other lines of work than agriculture. Better rural schools are offering several cur ricula and are not limiting their work to one highly specialized curriculum.
Changing conditions in rural America demand that the educa tional facilities of the rural school must be equal to those of the urban school. The rural child, like the urban, is a potential mem
ber of the social, economic and political democracy. In many rural communities efforts are being made to apply all known means of improving the schools, such as modern buildings and equipment, scientific curricula and methods of teaching, effec tive supervision and professionally trained teachers. Every method that has proved effective in improving the urban schools is being applied to the rural schools with the necessary modifica tions to meet the needs of the rural people.
Campbell, in his book, Rural Life at the Cross Roads (1927), estimated that there were in the United States approximately 4,000 rural schools of the modern type which may be classed as fully adequate; about ro,000 rural schools employing several teachers each, but too small, too poorly organized, too poorly taught and too poorly supported by farm groups which have no definite purpose to achieve through them, to be classed as ade quate; and approximately 168,000 one-teacher schools which are the least adequate of all. (W. D. A.)