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ROM the beginning, these States engaged, as a duty of government, to secure to all equal rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Every nation is dominated by an ideal. The ideal of America has lain in an aspiration for that equality for its citizens which finds its basis in equality of opportunity. Opportunity is determined very largely by education.

Twelve million, or slightly more than one-half, of the school children of the United States are now attending schools in the open country and small villages. Rural schools in the past have not offered opportunities comparable in any sense to those of urban schools. The teachers in these schools have been poorly paid and poorly prepared. The buildings and equipment have been meager. There has been little or no supervision. Finan

cial support has been inadequate. The length of term has been short, and in practically every significant detail these schools have lagged behind the more fortunate schools in the cities. There has been no more significant movement in education in recent years than the rapid overcoming of the handicaps under which our rural schools have labored, and no movement could contribute more toward the realization of our ideal for a square deal in equal opportunity for all American children. So rapid and so varied have been the strides that have been taken for the betterment of our rural schools that a very large volume would be filled in giving even a bird's-eye view of what has been accomplished. Here we are undertaking to sketch a few of the prominent features of this movement.

By JNO. J. TIGERT

United States Commissioner of Education

do not abound in natural resources or advantages find it an economic impossibility to provide good schools. It is obvious that this inequality can not be met except by taxation and financial support from a unit which is large enough essentially to include within it much of that part of the region which possesses natural advantages in wealth. The State is the legal unit for educational administration and control, and the natural unit for taxation, to accomplish measurable equality in school opportunities. This has become clearly recognized in all parts of the United States in recent years.

Score of States Increased Appropriations

The progress of State support is evidenced by the fact that nearly a score of States within the past few years have materially increased their support for

rural schools. The States have been

appropriating larger percentages for the support of education from their funds and have been setting aside a specific amount for equalization. In Texas and Alabama approximately 50 per cent of school expenditures are furnished by the State. Recently New York has increased its State funds about $20,000,000, and the State of Pennsylvania has assumed the payment of approximately 50 per cent of the salaries of rural teachers. Some of our Western States make an appropriation of $25 and even $30 per capita for all children of school age. Of these Utah is an example.

The State of Arizona augments its county funds sufficiently to provide about $45 per capita, with the minimum of $1,500 to each one-teacher school, and $3,000 to each two-teacher school. Cal

In the ultimate analysis most of the disparity of educational opportunity arises from difficulties in financial support. Some communities which possess valuable minerals or fertile agricultural land bear the burden of supporting the schools with little difficulty. Other communities which

An address before the department of superintendence, Cincinnati, February 23, 1925.

such a magnificent manner that $60 and $90 per capita, respectively, are available for each elementary and high school pupil in the State. Massachusetts meets the problem of unequal local wealth with increased State funds distributed on a basis of inverse ratio to local tax valuation. The equalizing fund in the States of Maine and Mississippi is distributed very largely at the direction of the chief school officer of the State. Indiana, Okla

homa, North Carolina and West Virginia give aid to the weaker districts by increasing the length of term. Altogether, 28 States have provided for equalizing funds from State sources within recent years. During the scholastic year 192324, 12 States reported to the Bureau of Education marked increases in the State apportionments, or the initiation of new programs for enlarging State support. Equalization Through Administrative Organization

Equality of educational opportunity is dependent upon adequate administration as well as upon adequate finances. Correlative with increased State support in financing schools, we find the rapidly enlarging unit of administration for rural schools. A widespread attempt is being made to substitute professional administration for the outworn system of rural supervision by politicians, inspectors, and

annual visitants.

The county unit of administration in some form is now in vogue in 22 States. At present 12 States are seeking a larger and more effective organization for the administration of rural schools.

Equalization Through Consolidation

The merging of small districts into centralized units for school purposes has made possible the erection of consolidated schools all over the United States, thus bringing to 2,500,000 American boys and girls living in the country, educational opportunities which are quite comparable to those which boys and girls living in the cities enjoy. In 1916, there were 7,000 of these consolidated schools in the Nation. In 1924, their number had doubled. In this eight-year period 30,000 old-fashioned one-room schools, which correspond to the pioneer stage of development and the ox cart in transportation, were closed or expanded into centralized or consolidated schools. Between 1917 and 1922, two leading States closed as many as one-third of their one-room schools by providing the opportunities of consolidated schools, and in five States about 20 per cent of the one-room schools were closed in this way. Twenty-seven States are now giving financial aid to

further consolidation and transportation of pupils. Incomplete but fairly reliable data enable us to say that we are now spending annually about $30,000,000 for transporting approximately one and onequarter million children to 14,000 consolidated schools.

Equalization Through Better Supervision

Supervision, as organized city systems, was practically unknown in our rural schools a decade or so ago. During the past 8 or 10 years the need of professional supervision for rural schools has been realized practically everywhere. Thirty-seven States have established fully or partially a distinct administrative machinery by which such supervision can be secured, and six States are now in the process of organizing supervisors for intensive work through their State departments of education. In the past few years we have progressed from the situation in which we had one or two supervisors in each of a dozen isolated counties to the point where we now have approximately 1,250 rural supervisory assistants employed in 560 counties in 37 States. About 20 per cent of these supervisors have been added to the force during the past two years.

understood in well

State departments of education, with trained State directors as members of their staffs, universities, colleges, and normal schools, through the provision of proper courses of study, and other important agencies are combining to emphasize the need and provide for supervision for rural schools on a basis comparable to that which is general in city schools. At least six States are now definitely aiming at an objective which will put rural supervision on the same basis as urban supervision. At least four States have actually made provision for a supervisor for each 30 to 40 teachers on a State-wide scale in their rural territories. Seven States have recently inaugurated intensive inservice training for supervisors superintendents in rural schools.

Equalization Through Supervision and Administration

and

Twenty-two of the States now provide in-service training for rural school superintendents by conferences devoted to the study of professional administration and instructional supervision. State supervisors of rural schools have ceased to be inspectors and their work now belongs properly in the class of expert supervision. Assisting county superintendents with demonstrations, teachers meetings, conducting in-service training for teachers, planning county wide school programs for superintendents and supervisors, and similar things are among the types of

work now being done by State upervisors. Thirty-five States now have 75 State rural supervisors, or persons doing a type of work similar to supervision. Alabama has 13 State rural supervisors, the largest number reported to the Bureau of Education for any State.

Equalization Through Teacher Certification

Formerly, thousands of teachers served in country schools with no education beyond the high school, and many with even less. Comparatively few obtained the advantage of college preparation or special professional training, which is usually considered necessary for employment in city schools. Of late, notable improvement in professional preparation and certification of rural teachers has been accomplished by centralizing authority for teacher certification in the State departments of education and by eliminating the practice of granting certificates or conducting examinations in the counties or localities. Sixteen States have accom

plished the elimination of examination or expect to do so at an early date. Fifteen States have reported to the Bureau of Education definite progress during the year 1923-24 in raising the standards of certification of teachers. This statement can be comprehended in its fullest significance only when we remember that unless a State program for securing better teachers includes laws and regulations requiring professional training in addition to high school graduation, offers salaries commensurate with the qualifications demanded, and provides adequate facilities for training the required number of teachers to make the necessary annual replacements, little or no progress can be made in the direction of improving teachers for rural schools. Heretofore rural schools have had to be content, in a large measure, with teachers who were left after the cities had supplied their needs.

It is gratifying to know that along with the improvement in certification requirements for the professional preparation of rural teachers, there is a corresponding increase in compensation. In 1912, the average salary of the public-school teacher city and rural, was $492. In 1922, it was

$1,166, an increase of 137 per cent in 10 years. For the past four years, county superintendents have reported to the bureau of education the salaries of rural teachers. These reports show that salaries vary directly in proportion to the size of the school, small salaries in the one-teacher schools, with a slight increase in the two-teacher schools, a larger increase in the schools having three or more teachers, and the largest increase in the consolidated and village schools. The average salaries in the consolidated schools increased from $964 in 1923 to $1,017 in

1924.

Equalization Through Adequate Teacher
Preparation

No State has an adequate supply of prepared teachers if we consider two years beyond high school graduation as a minimum standard. Forty per cent of the States are unable to secure an adequate supply of teachers, if the standard is only one year beyond high school graduation. Remembering this general shortage of adequately trained teachers, it is. encouraging to know that 60 per cent of the rural teachers of Michigan have completed one year of professional preparation beyond high school graduation; that 68 per cent of the beginning teachers in the one-room rural schools in Connecticut last year were normal school graduates, and that 57 per cent of the 305 graduates of the Maryland State normal schools en

tered one and two teacher schools last year. These facts, considered in connection with the high standards of certain States which in the course of two or three years will require a minimum of one or two years of professisonal preparation for their teachers, under terms of laws already enacted, afford excellent testimony of the progress that is being made in professional preparation for rural teachers.

Departments of rural education have now been established in nearly two score teacher training institutions. One hundred and twenty-two State teachers colleges and normal schools are now offering 257 courses in rural education. Courses in rural education are required for graduation

in the State normal schools of Connecticut. The increased enrollments in extension courses and in summer schools are further indications of more intensive teacher preparation. Eighty-six per cent of the teachers of Alabama were reported as having pursued some kind of professional study during the past year. Wyoming reported 50 per cent of its teachers in summer schools alone. Arkansas reported an increase last year of 80 per cent in summer-school attendance, and Pennsylvania an increase of 133 per cent in the past three years. These are typical reports which indicate what is happening in the improvement of professional preparation for teachers generally.

Additional teacher-training institutions are established each year. In 1923 five such institutions were opened, and in five States money has been voted for the establishment of State normal schools which have not yet been opened for students.

Equality of Opportunity in Secondary Education

For a long time secondary schools, such as are found in every city, were infrequent in rural communities. Centralization and consolidation have made possible high schools in the open country comparable in their facilities to those situated even in the large cities. tically all States now have legal provisions through which all children may attend a high school without direct tuition charge.

Prac

consolidation, transportation, payment of tuition, and the establishment of high schools serving small pupil groups in rural communities is proved by the following data: In New York State 1.69 per cent of the pupil population of the rural districts were enrolled in high school as compared with the State average for all pupils, including the cities, of 1.64 per cent. In 1922 Montana enrolled approximately 32 per cent of the farm population of high-school age as compared with 33.6 per cent of nonfarm population. Oregon enrolled 50.6 per cent of the farm population as compared with 46.5 per cent of the nonfarm population. In Maine the corresponding percentages were 49 per cent as compared with 42 per cent; and in New Hampshire 52 per cent as compared with 49 per cent. In the States of Maine, New Hampshire, and Oregon there is as high and even higher percentages of teachers who are college graduates employed in rural high. schools than in the city schools, and in these States all high schools are accredited by the same general standards.

It is often noted that tests of achievement have shown that children in rural schools are inferior to children in corresponding grades in city schools, but recent studies made in the Bureau of Education involving more than 18,000 high-school pupils from all States indicate that this inferiority is not due to inability to do the work of the school. Measured

of education. Another State reports 246 rural schools inspected and improved. Another reports that during the past decade in which the present law has been in effect 1,100 new schoolhouses have been built and many more remodeled, while still another reports that 1,000 will qualify for State standards during 1924– 25. Altogether 19 States have recently reported to the bureau marked and definite progress in the improvement of rural school buildings.

High Ideals may be Realized

There are numerous other phases at which we are aiming toward our goal of equalization in educational opportunity. A good deal might be said of what is accomplished through general activities, through improvement of laws relating to rural schools, and especially about the equalizing tendency resulting from the movement for State courses of study, but this short and cursory review must come to an end. We have presented in the merest outline some of the significant and conspicuous developments which are raising to a higher level all the schools of America and hastening the coming of the day when all boys and girls, wherever they may be born, may find readily accessible to them an education through the secondary school, under adequately and professionally prepared teachers, with courses of study scientifically adapted to their needs, in buildings which are

funds of State, intermediate, or local district. Transportation at public expense is a common expedient in the majority of our States. In every State extensive curriculum revision is carried out to provide education suited to community and occupational needs. So great has been this movement for secondary education in the rural communities that at the present time more than 80 per cent of all the high schools in the United States are located in the open country or in villages of less than 2,500 population, although the population served is less than 50 per cent of the total population.

Per Capita Cost Less in Cities

This movement is all the more remarkable when we realize that the per capita expenditures are much greater in these schools because of smaller attendance than in the city schools. Statistics collected by the Bureau of Education show that in many instances the per pupil cost in Virginia, Arizona, and other States in these small schools is sometimes almost 75 per cent greater than in large schools. The high costs in small schools are due very largely to the effort to provide a varied educational program. The success which has been achieved through

achievement through the high-school years, farm pupils show & normal distribution of ability. Compared to the nonfarm children studied they make slightly better progress through high school. The children tested in this study, farm and nonfarm, came up through the same school systems.

Equalization Through Buildings

In many rural sections of America to-day we can find school buildings as costly and as adequate for education purposes as we find in the larger cities. This has been brought about by statutory provisions requiring approval of all plans for school buildings by State officials by the policy of centralization and consolidation of small schools, by State appropriations for building and by standardization of school buildings through statutory provision or otherwise. The rapidity with which rural school buildings are transformed from the old inadequate, unsanitary and unattractive type into upto-date buildings comparable in many instances with the best that can be found in the cities, is astonishing. One State reports 450 rural schools which were rebuilt during the past year to meet specific requirements set up after inspection by members of the State department

Normal Schools Require Proficiency

in Elementary Subjects

Examination in elementary subjects was made a requisite by the board of education of New Jersey, in 1922, for entrance to the State normal schools. So great was

the number of high-school students who failed to qualify, that reviews in spelling, English, and arithmetic have since been conducted regularly in the schools. The result is that 68 per cent of the applicants for normal schools were able to pass this examination in June, 1923, and in the examination held in December, 1924, the percentage of those who passed had increased to 74.

Establishment of a municipal university is under consideration in Boston. The city council in September, 1924, requested the school committee to consider the advisability of such action and to report the findings to the city council. The board of superintendents recently made a report to the school committee in which the establishment of a municipal junior college was suggested.

T

HOUSANDS of pages tell the story of the invention of the electric speaking telephone by Alexander Graham Bell and of the numerous honors he received for his many scientific achievements. Hundreds of other pages tell of his contributions to the betterment of the race; to his life-long unselfish efforts to help regain and preserve for deaf children their rightful heritage of equal educational opportunities. But here is a phase of his services in behalf of the child handicapped with imperfect hearing that should interest the present generation of teachers of hearing children in our public schools. More than 40 years ago Alexander Graham Bell repeatedly called attention to the increasing prevalence of imperfect hearing, not only among adults, including teachers, but among pupils in public schools for hearing children. He earnestly endeavored to have the public and the profession understand the difficulties such publicschool pupils experience in striving to keep up with their classes, and how discouraged and morbid a sensitive child may become whose sense of hearing is even slightly impaired. He never called such children deaf, nor even hard of hearing. To him they were children with imperfect hearing; not yet deaf enough to be sent to a school for the deaf, but rightfully entitled to the services of a special teacher qualified to teach them how to use the eye road to the brain. For the State constitution promises equal educational opportunities to all.

Slight though many of these cases of impaired hearing probably are, yet, if most cases of "imperfect hearing" are of

the slowly progressive type, prompt remedial measures might result in restoring normal hearing conditions in some cases, and thus save some pupils from later experiencing miseries inherent in the condition known as loss of hearing in adult life. That is why he thought the hearing of all pupils should be tested by competent physicians at least once each year.

Often this impairment in hearing is unsuspected by teacher and parent. Teacher is apt to think the pupil is dull and inattentive. Parents regret that the child is not as bright as the other children. Meanwhile the pupil is becoming despondent because of inability to keep up with the class.

How many pupils have imperfect hearing? There are no authoritative statistics. Thorough tests would probably show that in 25 per cent of all pupils the sense of hearing is impaired in some degree, and that in many of them the hearing is so imperfect that the services of a teacher who is a lip reader herself should be employed to help such pupils to become lip readers while some remnant of hearing remains. Unless the teacher is herself an efficient lip reader, there is apt to be less sympathetic understanding of the difficulties that pupils with imperfect hearing have to contend with. It is that sympathetic understanding that makes the hard-of-hearing teacher of lip reading such an efficient instructor of the hard-of

hearing adult. For the pupil with imperfect hearing in the public schools the teacher with good hearing will probably be the better teacher, provided she is an efficient lip reader; otherwise it is doubtful if she will be.

Individualized Instruction Discussed

in Philadelphia Conference

How school children may be taught

individually so that they may advance

tive abilities was a topic discussed at

through school according to their respec

a conference held at the University of Pennsylvania, Friday, March 27. The program for the conference was prepared cooperatively by the Bureau of Education of the Department of the Interior and the School of Education of the University of Pennsylvania.

Among those who took part in the program were Miss Helen Parkhurst, principal Children's University School, New York City; A. J. Stoddard, superintendent of schools, Bronxville, N. Y.; E. E. Windes, associate specialist in rural education, Bureau of Education; Dr. Lucy W. Wilson, principal of the South Philadelphia High School for Girls; Miss Ruth Penfield Sill, Philadelphia Trade School for Girls; and Dr. A. J. Gerson, associate superintendent of schools, Philadelphia, Pa., W. S. Deffenbaugh, chief, city schools division, Bureau of Education, presided.

It was pointed out by the speakers that some administrative plan should be worked out so that the individual differences in children may be better provided for than under a "lock-step" system of semiannual promotion. The advantages and the disadvantages of the Dalton and other plans of individualized instruction were discussed.

Mechanical Aid to Intelligence
Testing

A new machine to tabulate and average tests of mental abilities has been de

signed by Prof. Clark L. Hull, of the psychology department of the University of Wisconsin. Its purpose is to aid in vocational guidance, especially of adolescents from 14 to 24 years of age, by determining their present aptitude and ability.

The mechanism, called "an automatic correlation computing machine," stands

for Children

A six weeks' course on school library work will be given by the New York State Library School, Albany, N. Y., July 6 to August 15. Special attention will be given to book selection for children, reference work, and teaching the use of the school library to pupils.

Applicants who have had two years of college work or are normal school graduates, not over 40 years of age, will be given preference. No tuition charge will be made for residents of New York; other students will pay $20 for the course.

Constituted

Among pupils in the New Haven (Conn.) public schools are representatives of 45 different nationalities or racial stocks, not including white Americans, who number 9,291 out of a total enrollment of 32,266. Italy sent the largest group, 11,869: Russia came next, then Poland, Ireland, England, etc. The countries contributing ranged from the West Indies, through Europe to Asia, Ceylon, Australia, thence to South America, and Canada. Pupils born abroad numbered 1,057.

ated by electricity. Half the expense was furnished by the National Research Council, and it was constructed by the university's chief mechanician and a mechanic under Professor Hull's supervision. In describing its operation, the designer said: "I put a series of psychological tests in the machine, the computation of which ran into hundreds of numbers, pushed the button, and went out to lunch. When I returned, the paper had run through the machine, compilations running into columns were completed, and the machine had automatically shut itself off."