reforms and at the same time indicate the lines along which we may expect growth and improvement. The commission unanimously recommends the creation of some special, temporary agency to assist in following up the proposed legislation and to study two most important matters which the commission has not been able to investigate with sufficient thoroughness to be able to make definite suggestions. These are vocational education and a system of pensions for teachers. In conclusion, we wish to thank your Excellency for the unfailing support and encouragement you have given us in our work. It must be left to the coming years to reveal and measure the beneficence of your action in promoting this Respectfully submitted, survey. M. EDITH CAMPBELL, Commissioners. Excerpt from the Proclamation of James M. Cox, Governor of the State of Ohio, Calling the Eightieth General Assembly in Extraordinary Session: "The general assembly at its last session authorized a survey of school conditions by a commission appointed by the Governor. This organization has done its work so competently as to render the service so given a distinct contribution to our people. The formal report of the commission will be submitted in full to the general assembly. It will be noted that while conditions in both the city and rural school need legislative attention, it is suggested that at this time we direct our efforts to the rehabilitation of the rural schools where the necessity for changes is more pressing. Every student of economic conditions agrees that the general welfare of the city and country alike calls for vitalizing treatment of rural life through legislation. The rapid growth of the cities has brought about not only an increased demand for labor, but it has carried with it so many advantages in living that the tide of humanity from the farm to the city compels the dedication of our energies to the problems of the country. Country schools in Ohio, as in every other State, have in many sections drifted into a deplorable condition as a direct result of a system designed originally for conditions that no longer exist. There can be nothing more deeply rooted in justice than the proposition that the country communities are entitled to the same educational advantages enjoyed by the cities. Speaking generally, farms are assessed for taxation at a valuation ratio as high or higher than city property, and yet the same rate of taxation levied on farm property does not enable rural communities to maintain their public works and give to their children the facilities for education that are found in the cities. The advantage with the city comes from a policy of consolidation which enables the dollars to go farther, and a given expense takes care of a larger number of pupils. "It will be observed that the commission lays stress on the subjects of consolidation, supervision and the training of teachers. These three features of educational work have yielded such beneficial results that no one questions the wisdom of the plan. If it does well in the cities all over this country, then its adoption in the rural communities will work to the same end. In the more populous and prosperous parts of the State, consolidation and supervision in a limited degree have been tried out with results so advantageous that few families would suggest a return to the old order of things. Some counties are poor in property resources, and yet the brave people in the hill sections have done their part as citizens in the industrial days of peace and the emergency days of war. The time has arrived in the life of this great Commonwealth, rich in its resources, citizenship and patriotism, to take hold of the conditions which inevitably penalize the poor sections with inefficient schools. "I recommend, therefore, with all earnestness, such changes in existing law as will enable every county to make consolidation of districts, where desired, and to enjoy efficient supervision and the service of trained teachers. This justifies state aid, the Commonwealth providing half the cost of supervision in every county. The State, under the Constitution, is given a stated authority, and it must assume the responsibility which goes with it. Educational authorities in every part of the United States are agreed that the step this State is about to take will give it high rank in matters of education. Every member of the general assembly who has, by the circumstances of time and events, been enabled to participate in this great work will find that it is his greatest contribution to the race." The General Assembly in special session assembled in 1914 enacted what is commonly known as the New Rural School Code. Governor Cox during the three terms of his administration vigilantly guarded this code against all reactionary influences. It has proved, beyond the anticipation of its most ardent advocates, its worth in meeting the needs of rural school conditions. When fully and properly administered it is a corrective agency for the readjustment of the affairs of rural life. Fortunate are the children whose heritage it is to have the opportunities made possible by its provisions and the coming years only can reveal the full measure of its benefits. THE ONE-ROOM SCHOOL. In pioneer days the industrial and social activities needful to the simple life of the community took place within the scope of the observation of the child. There was no material division of labor and each family was almost self-sustaining. They cleared the ground, prepared the soil with a wooden-share plow, sowed and reaped the crops, spun and knit and wove. The children observed all these industrial activities and were required to take part in them to the extent of their ability and strength. They learned to do by doing and by this participation they received an industrial training of real educational value. It was education through life in the fullest measure. In like manner the social values of education were secured in many ways outside of school. By the time these boys and girls reached maturity they could do almost everything that anybody else in the community could do; they could perform their part in the social and industrial activities of the community and were relatively efficient citizens. Nevertheless, these hardy pioneers who so courageously braved the dangers and privations of the western wilderness brought with them certain educational and cultural ideals that could not be attained by participation in home and community activities. The school with its fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic was a necessary supplementary agency in the training of the children. Our forefathers realized this and whenever they advanced to occupy new territory they always took the school with them and almost contemporaneously with the erection of the cabin home was the appearance of the rural school house. The curriculum of this little district school was narrow and the methods of instruction were poor as compared with our modern conceptions but it served its day. Formal instruction was not so needful to the frontiersman because his children were obtaining a practical education by participation and strong self-reliant men and women were produced with but a few months of school attendance. Furthermore, the old time district school occupied an important place in the social life of the community and it was the center of the entire community of much truly educational activity besides intensive and formal instruction. Then, too, there were few opportunities for entertainment and recreation so the people of a community naturally turned toward the school for amusement. Here were held the neighborhood spelling school, the debating club, the literary society, the singing 'school. But conditions have changed. The old time plow with its wooden share has been replaced by the tractor; the ox cart has, through the course of evolution, given way to the automobile. There has been a marvelous social and industrial change in our nation and life has become more complex in all its phases. New industries have sprung up on every hand with a consequent division of labor. Production and preparation of the things necessary to the convenience, comfort, and life of the home and community are far removed beyond the limitations of the child's observation. With the multiplying and growth of cities came many artificial attractions and interests, and the daily paper made the youth familiar with city life. He read and heard of the great rewards of commercial enterprises. The district school failed to attract longer as a center for the social and intellectual life of the community and its usefulness as an institution was hampered. A valuable means of education was thus lost to the country child when he was deprived of the opportunities for participation in the social and industrial activities of the community. Now he must gain knowledge of the experiences of an expanded and complex society mainly by means of books since it was impossible for him to become familiar with the activities of an enlarged community by means of observation. The burden and responsibility of the school was greatly increased and as a result its curriculum was broadened. Many new subjects were from time to time added to its program of studies in an attempt to bring the child in contact with the ever increasing experiences and activities of a modern complex life. An educational crisis was at hand. Education by observation and participation that was such an important factor in the training of the pioneer child was supplanted by a system of education by information as it existed in the textbooks of the enlarged school program of studies. The opportunities for giving expression were fewer and more difficult and most unfortunate of all was the fact that the things about which the child learned were either largely foreign to his needs or but indirectly related to his interests and environmental condition. The school was thus faced away from those natural interests which reveal the possibilities of rural life and which are conducive to a development that meets its needs and purposes. The district school did not keep step with rural economic progress. The telephone, rural free delivery of mails, parcel post, improved roads, and modern farm machinery gave evidence of rapid advancement. The farmer built a home that afforded facilities essential to the conveniences and comfort of his family; he constructed barns and outbuildings that were adequate to his needs; he provided improved modern houses for his poultry and his live-stock. In all the community there was but one evidence of retardation, one institution of bygone days, and that was the country school, which, instead of having improved, had deteriorated. The old building constructed twenty-five or fifty years before was ugly, weathered, impaired, inhospitable, and hygienically if not physically uninhabitable. Everything had moved forward except the little district school. It had been going down for a quarter of a century and was fast becoming eliminated as an institution as a result of neglect. WHAT THE SURVEY OF 1913 DISCLOSED. I. Academic Training of Teachers then in Service. Not over half of the teachers in the rural schools were graduates of high schools and about eighteen percent had no education beyond the elementary grades. Teachers in high schools in such districts had insufficient academic training, probably sixty percent of them not being college graduates and about one-fifth of them were not even high school graduates. II. Teaching Experience and Tenure of Office. Sixty percent of the teachers in the one-room rural schools had taught five years or less. No other types of schools had so many beginners in the service. This indicates that the rural school districts were giving experience to beginners and in many cases if this experience was successful the teachers went to the cities and villages to teach. This was caused by the low salaries in the country, absence of organization of rural life for social purposes and lack of privacy and opportunity for the teacher to study. There were frequent changes in positions and in the one-room township elementary and village high schools half of the teachers were teaching in those schools for the first time. III. Professional Training of Teachers. Nearly half of the teachers whose schools were surveyed had no professional training whatever. Of the beginners in September, 1913, seventy-one and four-tenths percent had no professional training. IV. Teachers' Institutes. The attendance at the teachers' institutes was much greater than it would have been if the teachers had not been paid for attendance. The attentiveness of teachers at institutes was good in only about half the lectures. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction addressed eighteen institutes and the order and attention were so noticeably poor in over one-third of these institutes as positively to interfere with the work of the institutes. In three lectures the Superintendent had to demand attention before he could proceed. V. Class Room Instruction. The most common faults of teaching observed from the survey were: (1) Teaching from the book exclusively, (2) leading questions, and (3) unnecessary talking. Arith |