Canada's Rural Schools

Horowhenua Chronicle, 16 June 1916, Page 3

Canada's Rural Schools

TO LEAD THE M AY.

In n rec. Nt bulletin tlie Canadian Department of .Agricultu'ro describes tho beginnings of a movement that, when it has been perfected in all 1 lie provinces, will have markedly changed the aspect land atmosphere of the "rural schools of the Dominion. Already committed to a theory of rural education that makes the school and the teacher far more serviceable to the community in immediate and practical ways than were tho schools and teacher* of "part generations, best educational experts ol the nation now see that it is through tho schools h 1 at there dan bo broucht into the lives of the people oerta'ii standard* of acs thetics as well as economics which t iov need to know and obey. To compass this end effort is to be eeir'entrated r, the provinces, as circumstances nlVnv so that tho rurtil school shall leadi the way in gardening, in cultivation of native and impoited shrubs and trees, and in adornment of school grounds, making the school as never before a social educator, training the ruralt as well as urban resident to a sense of the beauty of natuire as "well as to an appreciation of the' fertility of the .oil and the regularity of tho sola sons.

Leadership in this expansion of the rural schools so that it wi«l ho'.io.ir idlenls of beauty as well as of social service will rest, with tile old provinces and in Ontario and Nova Scotia a considerable amount has already been done to meet the desires of the dominion's educational officials. But the central and western provinces have tho advantage of being unhampered by traditions nnd of being lull of ambition and enterprise. \N itli dominion nfficals co-opera tiny;, they can ahead rapidly if they d.reu'o oil such ;i eotirso. -The experience ol 1 In- Tinted fitatcs lias been that its western stated often seize on new idea 1 * in education and' make them operative while the older eastern sea-board States arc still busy debating whether they will undertake the risks involved. Canladia '.may duplicate this reoordi. At any rate she starts on her educational expansion with a federal conception oi responsibility dominating her notional departments such as tlio United States has been a long time, and as vet, only informally, acquiring.