ber, 1924, to four years of high-school training; Montana the same prerequisite, effective the same date. Nebraska, in 1923, enacted a law raising the requirements to completion of the eleventh grade as prerequisite for the lowest grade of certificate, effective September, 1924; and completion of the twelfth grade as a minimum for the lowest grade certificate, effective September, 1925. Vermont reports a minimum of completion of four years of high school, effective September, 1924. In Rhode Island the State board is systematically raising the minimum requirements for teaching certificates. Florida reports increased requirements without definite statement as to the exact prerequisite. Arkansas and Utah have recently enacted laws requiring higher qualifications, including special training in administration and supervision for county and other rural-school superintendents and supervisors. Practically all new laws center responsibility for certificates in the State department or with State officials, thus abandoning the policy of county or local control.

The importance to the cause of rural education of prerequisites for teaching certificates which include minimum standards for academic and professional training should not be overlooked. Excellent as is the practice of raising the standards for certificates of higher grades and of giving more and more consideration to professional training and to specialization in training courses, attainments of this character do not reach the crux of the situation, namely, the prevalence of unqualified teachers in the small, one-room rural schools. These schools can be reached only when the State actually enforces as a minimum prerequisite standards equivalent to highschool graduation and some professional preparation of higher grade. Urban communities whose schools are in charge of professional superintendents have formed the practice of looking about and bidding for teachers professionally qualified. Rural school board members, mainly responsible for the employment of rural teachers, have the layman's point of view and too often fail to discriminate among the different grades of certificates and as to the educational attainments to which they testify. In the large, the best safeguard for rural children is a State law exacting as a minimum for any certificate high-school graduation and additional professional training two years in duration. This standard may be approached gradually. The experience of several States indicates that this method of dealing with the problem of raising certification requirements does not result in a shortage of teachers nor impose an undue hardship upon the teaching staff.

Centralizing the certificating authority in the State department of education is of equal importance to the efficiency of rural schools.

It assists in preventing inbreeding of ideas and dominance of local considerations in the employment of teachers. The examination method, while it exists, will continue to be the short cut to teaching positions used by those who have not the inclination or the ability to take the more arduous and expensive course of securing professional training in higher institutions of learning and securing certificates through credentials rather than by examination.

THE PREPARATION OF RURAL TEACHERS

States raising the requirements for teaching certificates to the extent of demanding professional training must logically accompany the demand with the provision of adequate facilities for offering training courses either in State teacher-preparing institutions of higher grade or those connected with secondary schools, as in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. The movement for offering specialized courses or establishing special departments for training rural teachers is growing, paralleling a movement for specialized training for other groups, such as kindergarten-primary, elementary, intermediate, junior high school, and the like. It is becoming more and more recognized that the special problems involved in the administration, supervision, and teaching of rural schools demand similar specialization. Certification laws demanding higher qualifications and specialized courses for rural teachers, supervisors, and administrators have led also to higher entrance requirements to rural curricula. Such requirements are now well established in all but a few of the teacher-preparing institutions of higher grade. Rural teacher curricula have been organized and placed on the professional level, requiring for completion from one to five years above high-school graduation. Departments of rural education,3 meaning generally those having one or more full professors devoting full time to this field, have been established in nearly 40 teacher-preparing institutions. Differentiated curricula for teachers specializing as rural teachers are offered in a constantly increasing number of institutions, and special certificates for rural teachers are required or recognized in several States.

One hundred and twenty-two State normal schools and teachers colleges now offer 257 courses in rural education. Practically all teacher-preparing institutions assist in supplying the demand for rural teachers through their regularly established courses. Many institutions supplement the regular courses with rural sociology,

3 No uniform definition of this term is established. The terminology used in announcements or catalogues is accepted in this chapter.

rural economics, and other courses pertaining to rural life, thus offering partially differentiated preparation for teaching in rural communities. A few institutions have established the practice of requiring as a constant from all students at least one general course in rural education.

Among the problems that teacher-training institutions must meet in preparing teachers for rural schools, provision for observation and practice looms large. A number of institutions have affiliated groups of one-teacher rural schools, often in several counties adjacent to the institution, as well as one or more consolidated schools which are used for the purpose indicated. Critic teachers, and in most cases administrative officers in charge, are regular members of the faculty of the institution, receiving salaries equivalent to those paid the other members. Courses are generally so arranged that students in the rural department are enabled to spend full time at their schools during the observation and practice period.

The enrollment of rural teachers has been no small factor in the remarkable growth in attendance in summer schools and extension courses. A few States which have passed certification laws, in which higher qualifications are made effective gradually, depend on summer schools, especially those on the quarter basis, as a means of enabling teachers in service to reach the advanced standards. The form of in-service preparation is supplemented in some States by reading and correspondence courses conducted by State departments of education. Alabama reports 86 per cent of the teachers in the State doing professional study during 1923-24; 40 per cent of these receive State credit for their work. Wyoming reports 50 per cent of her teachers in summer school attendance last year; Arkansas an 80 per cent increase in such attendance last year; and Pennsylvania a 133 per cent increase in the past three years.

Normal training courses of secondary grade or in connection with secondary schools are maintained in 23 States. Three StatesMaryland, Nevada, and Virginia—have recently discontinued the plan. Oregon expects to discontinue it after this year. Two other States report the expectation of eliminating teacher-training work in high schools at an early date. Another reports that such secondary courses are not receiving encouragement in that State because the State normal schools are rapidly taking over the task of supplying the demand for prepared teachers. Five States-Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Vermont-maintain the work on a postgraduate basis; that is, high-school graduation is required for entrance to the course. Another State, North Carolina, plans to place the work on a postgraduate basis beginning in 1925. According to

Minnesota's experience, the raising of entrance requirements for these courses has increased instead of depleted the enrollment. The number of high schools giving teacher-training work has increased in two States, Michigan and Wyoming.

Only a few new normal schools have been reported to the bureau as established during the biennial period. A number have been enlarged. During 1923, State normal schools were opened at Glassboro, Newark, and Paterson, N. J., and at Morehead and Murray, Ky. State normal schools have been voted but not as yet opened for students at Salisbury, Md., Kingsville, Tex., and Centralia, Wash. Mississippi expects to establish another State normal school at an early date. Colorado provided for the establishment of the Adams State normal school to devote itself chiefly to the preparation of rural teachers, but made no appropriation for its maintenance.

Progress in providing proper facilities for the training of rural teachers and in securing and holding adequately prepared teachers in one-teacher schools has not been adequate nor country wide in extent. In a number of States the teacher staff is far below the approved standard. There is still a decided shortage of teachers in service and an insufficient number to fill annual replacements if the standard is set, as it should be, at graduation from a standard normal school. Even fixing the standard at one year beyond highschool graduation, reports from various States indicate a decided shortage. Encouragement is gained from the fact that a number of States have made such marked advance that the practical possibility of others to achieve a prepared teaching staff is beyond the stage of argument. Encouragement is gained also from the improvement in certification laws and in staffs of teachers in service from a number of States. Michigan, for example, reports that 60 per cent of the rural teachers, in 1924, had completed one year of professional preparation beyond high-school graduation. Connecticut reports that 68 per cent of the beginning teachers in one-room schools last year were normal-school graduates, although only 35 per cent of the total one-teacher school staff had equal training. Considerably more than half (57 per cent) of the 305 graduates of the Maryland State normal schools entered one and two teacher rural schools last year. Louisiana reports 67 per cent of all the teachers as normal school or college graduates. With the exception of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana is almost wholly a rural-school State.

SALARIES OF RURAL TEACHERS

Coordinate with the problem of securing rural teachers with adequate academic and professional attainments is that of obtaining

commensurate salaries. Unless salaries justify the expense in time and money of pursuing professional courses, rural teachers will not qualify on the same basis as those of urban schools. That many States recognize this is proved by the present tendency to accompany laws demanding increased requirements for certificates with a minimum salary scale varying according to experience and training. Those States in which the greatest difficulty is encountered in promoting higher standards on a State-wide scale are generally those in which salaries are low and the State unwilling or unable to provide increases from State funds or to force them from local sources. Thus the desire to increase qualifications must wait on the ability of local communities to raise money through local taxation to provide additional income. Adequate financing is now the basic consideration in rural-school improvement. Sentiment is ripe for efficient schools, even for drastic changes in administrative organization if necessary. The money to finance efficient programs must still be found in many States.

During 1923-24 the Bureau of Education continued the policy begun in 1922 of making annual studies of salaries of rural teachers. The number of county superintendents reporting and correspondingly the number of teachers whose salaries are reported increase each year. The information collected indicates that school officials are retaining the ground gained in salaries during the war and postwar years but are not gaining substantially in securing increases in their salary scales. As would be expected, the greatest gain in amount has been made in consolidated schools, though one-teacher schools have profited by the increasing recognition of the necessity of paying larger proportionate salaries. The following table shows the salary tendency in each of the five classes of schools indicated from 1922 to 1924 in all the States:

TABLE 1.—Salary tendencies in rural schools, 1922–1924

For 1923 and 1924 reports were made as in 1922, but the returns were tabulated differently in order to arrive at approximate averages. The results for the United States were as follows: