| OCR Text |
Show NEED OF TRAINED TEACHERS. Not more than one in every fire ! public school teachers In the United States Is professionally trained lo the extent of being a graduate of a teachers' training course, according to a bulletin on rural school teacherF, I Just issued by the United States bureau bu-reau of education. It is in the rural schools that ihe problem of securing competent teach-! ers has been most acute The atten- I I tion of educational leaders has in the j I past been occupied by the rapid de-j de-j velopment of the urban systems and I the rural schools have been neg- I lectcd The trained teachers, themselves of- ten the product of the country, have been attracted to the cities and towns by higher salaries and better pros pects There was formerly little inclination in-clination to appraise rural teaching at Its full value, either in pay or position, posi-tion, and the better teaeners left ihe country schools as soon as they gain ed experience Raising the standard of rural teachers by dignifying rural schoo. work an a special field of high Im-i Im-i poriance Is already attracting better j trained teacher to the country. t lis now generally demanded that the teacher for the country school have special training for the work. "The rural teachor- ts.yt tho bul-I bul-I Ictln, "needs the sam courses lu education ed-ucation and the samo general methods meth-ods of teaching as the town or city teacher. He ueeda, however, in place of some of the academic subjects of .secondary or eollcgia'c grade, additional addi-tional courses in natural ami physical scienoes, particularly in their applications, appli-cations, nnd in nature study, elemen-tar elemen-tar agriculture, domestic economy, sanitation, rural economics and rural ! soclologv Three main agencies are attempt' 1 Ing to meet the demand ior trained rural teachers, tho normal school. J the county training school and the i hls;h school The bulletin descrihes the work of each of theae nancies and selects typical examples from ! different sections of the country for more detailed description State nor mal schools at Belllngham. Wash.. Harrisonburg, Ya., and Athens, Qs . are discussed as examples of normal schools that offer regular courses ror ' rural school teachers, based ou the special needs of their respective localities. lo-calities. In other stato normals there art' departments of rural education, as I In thoso of Michigan; the Illinois state normal school at Normal, the Kirksville normal school at KtrksviHe. Mo., nnd five Wisconsin normal schools. The rural education department depart-ment of the western state normal school at Kalamazoo Mich., is considered con-sidered typical of this group. On year courses for rural teachers are offered at Volley City. N. D. : Lewis ton, Ida and Greenville. N C. Certain Cer-tain county normal schools are designed de-signed solely for Ihe preparation ol rural teachers, as in Wisconsin So great has been the lack of trained teachers in rural education that tba high schools have been pressed into service Thirteen states have organized organ-ized teacher training courses In the public high scbools or in close connection con-nection with (hem |
