I believe that the rural school is no place for the teaching of any trade or occupation, even a trade or occupation so vital as agriculture is. There is small place in the elementary school field for the teaching of trades or occupations. There is no reason in the country, any more than there is in the city, for saying that the children who are brought up there are destined to follow a stated calling and therefore should have their attention guided all through the educational process to that calling. In Lynn there are about 125,000 people who, I suppose, depend almost entirely upon shoe manufacturing and allied industries. Would any one attempt to maintain that all the children of the city of Lynn ought to be trained to shoe-making?

The American public school must remain an institution whose prime business is to provide for every child an opportunity to find the thing he is adapted to do and help him to get the equipment for service. As soon as the day comes when the American public school sets itself up as a selective agency to train certain children for certain occupations because of the places where they live, then I want to say that the end of the American public school as an agency of democracy will have arrived. Looking to the development of agriculture, I can see many reasons why in the secondary schools of the cities there might not well be paid attention to agriculture as a vocation. Of course, the country school ought not to violate the educational principle that the education of an individual should proceed out of his previous experience and should be based on the environment in which he lives, that the experiences of his life should be used for his education. In the utilization of the environment of the child for his education, the country school can do much better than it has done in the past. This does not signify fixing a place on the farm as the destination of the child.

What then ought the country school to do? The man who lives in the country and is bringing up his children there has a right to expect that the country school shall be what the city man expects the city school to be, and that is an instrumentality of the highest

efficiency for the right education of his children. Those who are interested in rural leadership will satisfy rural opinion, as well as render a great service for rural children and rural life, by helping in every way they can to establish in every country neighborhood a first-class school. It is the chief business of this rural elementary school to teach with thoroughness the fundamentals which are necessary for the construction of their later education. One of the things which the elementary schools have as a main responsibility is to give to the child a mastery of the tools of an education. Another thing is to help to establish in the child the right mental, moral and physical habits.

In the upper grades or junior high school period, there comes a necessity for a differentiation of educational opportunity, so that the needs of each individual may be satisfactorily considered.

American education ought not to mean the standardization of education to such an extent as to attempt the education of all children to the same level. American education will produce its highest service for American life to the extent that it helps every individual to attain his fullest powers. During the period of adolescence, we should make more and more provision for a differentiation of opportunity. That is a point where the rural leader of education has a great problem confronting him, as to how he can organize the schools so that there can be made available for rural children that variety of opportunity which should be theirs. It must come largely through an application of the junior high school idea, which should be adapted in such a way that its opportunities may be brought home to the country child, as well as to the city child.

Play and the Ultimates

JOSEPH LEE, PRESIDENT OF THE PLAYGROUNDS ASSOCIATION

OF AMERICA.

THINK what the presiding officer has said introduces my idea very well. I think the foundation of what I have in mind to say this afternoon is something of this sort: Civilization has sidestepped from the path which we would naturally follow, and shut us up so that we are like wild animals in a cage. We are naturally woods dwellers. We naturally live by hunting, fighting, making things with our hands. We are an out-door animal. We are locked up in tenement houses, in factories, and in places where we have hardly any expression of our natural tendencies; and even in the country, and the farm, where we are not locked up in this way, there is a great lack of the main strands, of the real constituting interests of human life.

I am going to mention to you some of the things which I think we lack. I want, however, to begin by speaking in a very practical manner of a couple of bills now before the legislature which have a bearing on the physical side of this subject. I will speak very briefly, and afterwards some circulars will be handed around that will give you the text of the bills.

One is the School Nurses Bill. That is a very simple bill. It simply inserts the words "and nurse" after the word "doctor" in the present law. It is with the idea that every school must have, not a nurse all to itself, but the part time service of a nurse, so that when something is the matter with the child something will be done about it. The thing to remember about this bill is: it does not take the responsibility from the home, but adds to it by putting up to the mother very definitely what may be done for the benefit of the child. The child, for instance, may be under

nourished. The reason may be that it is not having enough exercise, fresh air, bathing, or the right kind of food. That bill is simply to carry through something that we have started and have not carried through-medical inspection in the schools.

The other is the Physical Training Bill. The Physical Training Bill provides that the cities and towns or groups of towns shall (or may-it may be so amended) carry on physical training, and that the Department of Education shall help. It reads:

Section 1. School committees of cities and towns shall, not later than September first, 1922, provide systematic courses of physical training for all pupils in elementary and secondary schools, and may use school buildings and grounds after school hours for this purpose.

Section 2. The Department of Education shall provide courses in the conduct of physical training in the state normal schools, and shall assist local school authorities in the promotion of physical training in the public schools, and for this purpose may expend a sum, during the year 1921, not exceeding one and one-half cents, and thereafter may annually expend a sum not to exceed three cents for each child between the ages of six and eighteen enrolled in the public schools during the preceding school year.

Section 3. The courses of physical training shall consist of organized play, games, indoors and outdoors sports and athletics, and any forms of physical exercise appropriate to the age and physical condition of the pupil.

Section 1, you will notice, simply says that the school committee shall provide courses in physical training; it leaves it entirely to the school committee of the city or town to control absolutely what shall be done.

The importance of Section 3 is that it says "physical training" shall mean physical training, and not a lot of other things people said it would mean. It means play, athletics, and physical exer

cises appropriate to the age and physical condition of the pupils.

The relation of the Department of Education to this matter is important. The bill states that they shall assist. They cannot dictate; they must assist. I think that is a very good provision. I have had to do with similar bills in connection with our boards of insanity and charity, and I used to talk a great deal with Dr. Walcott, who was the very able chairman of the State Board of Health and the head of the Metropolitan Water Commission. He used to say that the power to advise was the strongest power a state board could have. If you go to a Massachusetts town and say, "You must do this thing," the first reaction is to see how you intend to make them do it. If you say to them, "We will show you how and will help you," they are apt to feel responsive. Dr. Walcott said that his advisory power was stronger than his mandatory power. This then, means that the State Board shall find out what is being done in and outside of Massachusetts and shall give each city and town the benefit of its knowledge-its expert advice as to how a thing may be done.

This would

A very important question is that of expense. mean about $19,000 a year for the State. That is not a large tax. It is negligible in comparison to the amount of money we spend for trying to shut the door after the horse is stolen. I have looked up some figures, and taking it all around, for health and relief, state, local and private, we are now spending in this State about $35,000,000 a year. Of course, most of this would not be prevented by this bill, but if we could prevent a very small fraction indeed, it would be worth more than this bill will cost.

Now, in regard to the expense which will fall upon the city or town. That need not be much. You can open the windows and have the children take exercises during the morning and when they first come in, and again once in the afternoon, without much expense. The State Board will be able to send someone around to show you how to go through these exercises. In the larger places a physical expert should be appointed to show the teachers how to do it, but in the small towns the state would show the