Rural Education

For many years the Thirtieth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education has served as a textbook in the field of rural education. In 1945 the need for another detailed treatment of rural education was called to the attention of the Society. Replies from leaders in rural education and outstanding superintendents in rural counties in different parts of the United States confirmed the existence of this need. Since this need was simultaneously recognized by other organizations and leaders in rural education, several important publications have recently appeared or will soon appear. None of these, however, duplicates the present yearbook. Each volume takes its place in the body of professional literature, which educators in rural communities need to study in order to do their jobs still better.

For educators in cities, the yearbook aims to show the dependence of cities upon persons educated in rural schools and to give an understanding of problems and needs of education in rural communities and its importance in the national picture. Since urban centers reap the harvest of rural education, they should continue to contribute heavily to the support of education in rural communities. Rural life is no longer, if it ever was, completely distinct from urban life. Dividing lines between country and city are broken down by the two-way migration of farm people to cities and of city people to suburban and rural areas.

Many farm families do not feel a need for higher education; it is well known that fewer rural boys and girls obtain scholarships to college. Various social and economic conditions in rural areas bear directly upon education and should be thoroughly understood by teachers and administrators in rural schools. The prevalent tendency to accept a poor quality of education in rural schools is in itself a formidable deterrent to progress in rural education. Rural and urban education should be of equal quality, though equality does not mean identity, and unity does not mean uniformity.

Rural education begins where the people are-with their deepseated traditions, attitudes, sentiments, desires, and ways of doing things. Administrators do not impose a program upon the people but, instead, foster the gradual realization of the best potentialities of each rural community and its people. Their aim is to improve the quality of living in the local community. The test of rural education is whether it contributes to desirable changes in the community and in all its people. The need for more facts about rural education and its influence on individuals and on communities is evident.