The secret of the substantial growth of consolidation lies in the fact that the new schools fulfill the promise of providing the right kind of education for rural communities.

In equipment, including building, school farm, and laboratory facilities, in courses of study, and aggressive extension work, the consolidated schools are so much like the associated schools, described in detail above, that their repetition is unnecessary here.

V. INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND RURAL SCHOOL PROGRESS.

The industrial subjects and new school interest.-The gravest charge against the one-teacher rural school has been its failure to sustain the pupil's interest. This is due to the fact that it is unable to provide the kind of education demanded by the conditions of modern agriculture. It is time to realize that a school which answered well enough the needs of a pioneer civilization, need not, on that account, be expected to do the same for a generation of commercial farmersindeed, it can not. The one-teacher school is the American pioneer school. As a nation the United States has passed the time when the farm home produced whatever the family group needed in the way of food, clothing, and tools. In the days of homecraft the schools could devote all their time to the cultural book elements, for then the manual industries were taught at home. Now, on the other hand, the average home can no longer teach these subjects. The schools must take over the new responsibility by offering courses in agriculture, household economics, manual training, and other vocational subjects.

The Minnesota schools, like schools elsewhere over the country, are striving to make all their activities more practical than they have been. The courses of study, which formerly had for their sole aim to prepare pupils for a higher school lying beyond the reach of the large majority of the pupils, are being reorganized and designed to provide both knowledge and skill, and to fit for immediate life activities. To quote the words of State Supt. C. G. Schulz:

There is a hopeful lack of uniformity, both in subject matter offered and in plans of instruction—a tendency to permit community needs, standards, and purposes to find suitable expression in the new public school curriculum. While protecting the vested rights of children to such schooling as will leave open every possible door of advancement for the exceptionally ambitious and capable, there is evident, in the recent administration of public schools, assurance that the large majority of pupils who are never to receive training beyond the high school shall be sent out equipped to fill acceptably some useful and reasonably remunerative place in our great economic organization. In all this there is promise of an improved citizenship. The present generation of school children must, it would seem, bring into our civic body an under

standing of the necessity and the dignity of labor, well-established habits of industry, the tendency to do all work systematically, accurately, intelligently, and honestly, and a disposition to understand the economic problems of the day, which should make for improvement of industrial conditions.1

Satisfactory progress in industrial education under the Putnam and Benson-Lee Acts.-The last few years have seen the establishment throughout Minnesota of a remarkable system of industrial high and graded schools. Some are ranked as State high schools, some as Holmberg consolidated schools, and some as associated schools.

Of these schools, 136 are organized under the Putnam Act and the Benson-Lee Act as industrial high schools. They become thriving local centers for a varied community work. Of first importance appear the regular school courses in agriculture, household economics, and manual training. But scarcely less so is the variety of short courses for young and old, and the agricultural extension courses given in cooperation with the State college of agriculture and the three secondary State schools of agriculture.

It is well to lay stress here on the fact that, while Minnesota has upon its statute books sane and liberal aid laws designed to encourage industrial instruction, the present degree of excellence of the schools could not have been attained had not the State been exceptionally fortunate in its educational leaders, who have guided and restrained, in season, the progressive school policy of the State, to the end that all the schools of the State are cooperating to extend the usefulness of the new system to the remotest precincts of the State.

The following figures show graphically the rapid growth of industrial instruction in State high schools during the last few years: TABLE 3-Students enrolled in industrial subjects, 1908-1914.

Statutory requirements for industrial aid.-At this time 40 high schools and 2 graded schools receive the annual special aid of $2,500 under the Putnam Act, and 81 additional high schools and 15 additional graded schools receive the special industrial aid of $1,800 under the Benson-Lee Act. These schools, in addition, receive aid as State high schools, or as consolidated or associated schools, and some of them for maintaining training departments for rural teachers. In order to receive the $2,500 aid under the Putnam Act, a school must maintain distinct departments in agriculture, household

1 Seventeenth Biennial Rept. Dept. Pub. Instruction, 1911 and 1912, p. 22.

economics, and manual training; while the requirements for the $1,800 aid under the Benson-Lee Act are a distinct department of agriculture and a department in either household economics or manual training.

The other important statutory requirements are:

1. The schools must employ specially trained instructors in agriculture, household economics, and manual training.

2. The $2,500 aided schools must maintain in a high state of cultivation not less than 5 acres of land, for school gardens and experiments and demonstration purposes.

3. The schools shall organize short courses, whenever deemed advisable, for young men and women who can not attend school during all of the regular school year.

State high-school board charged with maintaining regulations for industrial aid.-This body is representative of the most important educational interests in the State. It comprises the State superintendent of education, the president of the State university, the president of the normal school board, and two other members appointed by the governor. The board prescribes the regulations under which aid may be asked and awarded; it outlines the fundamental principles of the industrial courses of study; it sets the standards of preparation and experience of the instructors; and specifies the necessary school equipment.

(a) Courses of study.-The high-school board has wisely refrained from prescribing a detailed, standardized course of study for the schools. The scope of work alone is outlined. The final content, methods of practice, etc., are left entirely to the initiative and experience of the local instructors, who may at any time call for the assistance and advice of the several inspectors of the board and other central school authorities.

This freedom to develop the study courses to local needs is one of the most valuable features of the Minnesota system; especially as this seems to be accomplished without loss to the homogeneousness of the working whole.

(b) Instructors.-The board fixes the number and qualifications of the industrial teachers. It limits the number of subjects they may teach and the number of their classes. It prescribes that agriculture instructors shall be paid by full calendar years, and otherwise prepares the way for effective teaching.

The details of State-aid requirements prescribed by the State highschool board appear in the appendix.

Comments on the industrial subjects. It is impracticable to go into the details of the variety of industrial courses offered in the large number of State-aided schools. A few comments of a general nature will suffice.