=An Interpreting Core.=--The experiences of country children are of all kinds; rural life, thought, and aspirations constitute the very development of their consciousness and minds. In all their practical experiences rural life and thought form the anchorage of their later academic instruction. This early experience constitutes what the Herbartians term their "apperception mass"; and children, as well as grown-ups, can interpret new matter only in terms of the old. The experiences of the child, which constitute his world of thought, of discourse, and of action, are the only means by which he grasps and interprets new thought and experience. Consequently, the texts which rural children use should make a strong appeal to their apperception mass--to their old stock and store of knowledge. It is the textbooks that bring to the old knowledge new mental material which the teacher and the textbook together attempt to communicate to the children. Without an interpreting center--a stock and store of old knowledge which constitute the very mental life of the child--it is impossible for him to assimilate the new. The old experiences are, in fact, the mental digestive apparatus of the child. Without this center, or core, the new instead of being assimilated is, so to speak, merely stuck on. This is the case with much of the subject matter in city-made texts. It does not _grow_, but soon withers and falls away. It is, then, essential that the textbooks used in rural schools should have the rural bent and application, the rural flavor, the rural beck and welcome. =Rural Teachers from the City.=--A great many teachers of country schools come from the city. A number of these are young girls having, without blame on their part, the tone and temper, the attitude, spirit, and training which the city gives. Their minds have been _urbanized_; all their thoughts are city thoughts. The textbooks which they have used have been city textbooks; their teachers have for the most part been those in or from the city. It can scarcely be expected that such teachers can do for the rural districts all that ought to be done. Very naturally they inspire some of the children with the idea of ultimately going to the city. This suggestion and this inspiration are given unconsciously, but in the years of childhood they take deep root and sooner or later work themselves out in an additional impetus to the urban trend.