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in life beyond and in the school is oral expression, we should develop ability especially along this line. Since democracy progresses by the self-organized group work of citizens meeting in assembly and since community organization and cooperation fostered by public discussion is an emergency need of the rural population to-day, as suggested in preceding sociological chapters of this volume, ability in public speaking, before a real audience, the "audience situation and audience motive," will be cultivated with particular care. English teachers have burdened themselves unnecessarily with re-inking written themes. A greater proportion of time may well be given to oral expression, to providing something to say and a good excuse for saying it. Further, all teachers will be supervised and held responsible for cultivating good expression in all classes. Since most of the writing done by most people is in letters, motivated correspondence will be emphasized far more than at present. In fact, is not letter-writing the first minimal essential of written composition?

Next, themes may well be written on topics related to the five aims of education as set forth above, not forgetting the leisure side of life to which the English work, if directed at all, has been in the past too much directed. "How We Girls Organized and Carried On Successfully a Food Sale to Raise Money for the Boys' Football Suits," for example, deals with community co-operation of a vitally important sort. Papers written for the teachers of other subjects will be sent to the English teacher, often as substitutes for her own "themes."

IV. EMANCIPATION AND EXPERIMENTATION

The Outcome in Socialized English.-We need not offer further suggestions. Needless to say, evolution is rapid now in the direction indicated in this chapter. We are bound in the direction of a socialized education, and, in the

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A small printing outfit is a great help in English and in community spirit

country, a ruralized education. If what has been said helps to emphasize this social aim of education in the selection and use of subject-matter in English in the country and rural village, helps to free the teacher somewhat from the college classics, promotes intelligent interest in ruralcommunity problems as the guiding stars of teaching, and helps to keep the gaze of the English teacher away from the outside of the cup, more than could well be hoped for will be accomplished.

PROBLEMS IN APPLICATION

1. What recommendations for the course in English is offered in the government bulletin on "Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools"? (Report of the Commission on Secondary Education, James F. Hosic, Secretary, Government Printing Office, Washington.)

2. What applications are made in this report to the rural-school needs? 3. What additional modifications for a rural high school of six years would be desirable?

4. Make a list of suitable subjects for debates in a consolidated rural high school.

5. Do you know of any book on English for the rural high or elementary school? What does the dearth of such books indicate with respect to the close adaptation of rural schools to rural-life needs? 6. Where would you find a list of good books from which to choose the beginnings of a consolidated-school library?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. "Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools." Government Printing Office.

2. Bobbitt "The Curriculum." Houghton Mifflin Co.

3. The English Journal, Chicago.

CHAPTER XVII

LEARNING PROCESSES OF COUNTRY CHILDREN

PRELIMINARY PROBLEMS

1. Which is more important for the teacher, a study of what is best to teach in a given community or a study of how to teach whatever is provided by text-books and courses of study? Why? 2. What do rural boys and girls commonly know on entering school? 3. What are they able to do? That is, what skills and habits have they?

4. What is the character of their ideals, following the list quoted from Bagley in the previous chapter?

5. How have they gained these types of knowledge, habits, and ideals? 6. At what age are country youth with only home education able to take fairly complete responsibility for a farm?

7. Can this concreteness of motivated learning through actual participation under sympathetic guidance be continued in the school, or must the school be predominantly abstract and remote from daily life? Suggest more vital methods of learning.

I. LEARNING AND EDUCATION1

The Problem of the Learning Process.-After considering the nature and demands of present-day American society upon the public rural school as a supplemental public institution, the type of buildings, and the curriculum, one must study the nature of the children in whom educative changes must be made. We cannot hope for great success in achieving the purposes of democracy's rural schools if we are ignorant of the methods of change and development in immature mankind-the most delicate and highly complex

1 A preceding discussion of "The Educative Process" has appeared in the writer's volume on "Teaching Elementary-School Subjects" (Scribners).

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