merely as a means of expressing ideas of form, of educating the eye and hand, but as an aid to culture of the artistic sense. Pupils should be taught to draw directly from objects in Nature, and to make such combinations of form as will lay the foundation for creative art. We must not concern ourselves as teachers with the cultivation of taste in any one-sided direction, as, for example, in music, form, or color. The same spontaneous discrimination in moral relations should be recognized in its merely outward manifestation as essential to good taste.

CHAPTER XV.

COUNTRY SCHOOLS, AND THEIR ORGANIZATION.

COMPARATIVE STANDING.-In city and country the objects of education are alike, but the conditions of the two are so dissimilar that the schools are necessarily unlike in organization and general methods. The aggregation of pupils in the city allows of a gradation and division of labor quite impossible in the country; and the concentrated wealth of the city gives superior advantages in the way of school-houses and all the appliances of education. Still there are compensations in the country; and in excellence of results country schools, intelligently conducted, approach nearer the ideal standard than is possible for city schools.

The low condition of schools in many parts of the country is owing in part to intrinsic defects, and in part to accidental causes. The former can be much ameliorated and the latter removed by making the most of all favoring conditions, and by a wise administration that fully comprehends their needs.

Advantages. The advantages of situation possessed by country schools will be more and more appreciated as instruction progressively approximates to rational methods. In the country the study of natural history,

the foundation of all primary instruction, can be carried on without cost for material; and as the children are daily brought into immediate contact with Nature, the study may be made doubly interesting and profitable. The growth of mind is a slow process, requiring periods of alternate activity and rest. The perpetual din and motion in the city stimulates mental activity, but there is no opportunity for the rest which the quiet of the country affords. If the proper means are taken to awaken the mental powers, the conditions of healthful mental growth greatly preponderate in the country schools. There devolves upon the teacher, however, the duty of arousing thought, to prevent the mental stagnation which comes from uncultivated perceptions, and the narrowness incident to limited experiences.

Another advantage in country life favorable to scholarship is the general mingling of work and study. Both boys and girls have something to do as well as something to learn; and when the work is limited to the proper amount, and not pushed to the point of exhaustion, it becomes a source of additional intellectual vigor. Teachers who have had experience in both city and country schools, with great unanimity, testify that the pupils in the latter take greater interest and make greater progress in a given time. This is doubtless owing in part to the work, which affords a natural outlet to their activities and gives them motive and vigor, and in part to the shorter terms of country schools.

Dr. Seguin, the eminent physiologist and physician, advocates out-door study as the most conducive to bodily health and mental vigor. He thinks pupils from a

very early age should be brought in direct contact with Nature, and no lesson should be given in-doors that can be given without. To accomplish this end he proposes to make the public parks of the city great educational institutions, where Nature may be studied at first hand. While this plan may not be practical at present, it indicates the direction of the improvements which are demanded for education. In the country are found the conditions which this improved system of education calls for to a much greater extent than in the city, and it seems possible that country schools will soon take the lead in reducing these ideas to practice.

Defects. The greatest intrinsic disadvantage of country schools is the limited number of pupils, and the consequent impossibility of a proper system of grading. Pupils of all ages and degrees of advancement meet in the same room, each grade diminishing the opportunities of the other: primary and advanced instruction go on together, mutually interfering with each other; and so wide a range of employment is given to the teacher that he cannot become an expert in any department, and he fails to do justice to any class. While these evils are incident to the situation of country schools, the ill effects may be diminished by greater flexibility in organization and administration.

Boards of Control.-That organization has proved the most successful which has brought several schools, as those of a township, under one board of control. The advantages which this system has over that of single districts are a more intelligent management, the employment of better qualified teachers, the erection of better school-houses, greater care in the preserva

tion of school property, a wiser supervision, and a more equable distribution of taxes. When the board is in

vested with the power of grading and establishing central schools for the higher classes, and when they exercise this power judiciously, the greatest inherent defect of the country school system is largely overcome, and the schools in efficiency are made to approximate very closely to the city schools. The teacher may also do much to diminish the evils of mixed schools, by reducing the number of classes to the minimum, by more frequent general exercises, by the adoption of rational instead of mechanical methods, and by the more general introduction and practice of written work. The other evils connected with country schools are wholly remediable by the State, the district, and the teacher.

School-houses. In many parts of the country the condition of the school-houses and the premises about them is a disgrace to the community. A building made ugly to the extreme of parsimony in its construction, affording no adequate protection from the elements, destitute of ordinary comforts within, and wanting in the conveniences demanded by decency without, is the place where all the children of the district are to pass their school-days, and receive the most durable impressions of their lives. The only satisfaction to be gained from a consideration of this matter is in the fact that improvements are being made, and that these conditions, so disreputable to the people who are responsible for them, are undergoing a change for the better.

The school-house should be conveniently and pleas