The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life OpportunityFiske, George Walter
History
The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life Opportunity
Fiske, George Walter
Sociology, Rural
All schools of higher education must share the task of training and
furnishing rural leadership. The broadening of country life, and its
rising standards, puts increasing demands upon its untrained leaders which
they are unable to meet. Rural institutions can no longer serve their
communities effectively under the leadership of men lacking in the very
essentials of leadership. Many country communities are demanding now as
high-grade personality and training in their leaders as the cities demand,
and they refuse to respond to crude or untrained leadership. Well-trained
doctors, ministers, teachers, et cetera, have a great chance to-day in the
country, because their _training_ finds unique appreciation for its very
rarity and efficiency; while every profession is foolishly overcrowded in
all cities.
As soon as adequate leadership, well trained and developed, is furnished
our country communities, they will develop a rural efficiency which will
make the rural problem largely a thing of the past. But until then,
progress halts. Leadership is costly. Trained, efficient personality,
ready for expert service is rare and beyond price. The colleges are
lavishly sending it to the cities. The country deserves its share and
patiently presents its claims.
II. Rural Opportunities for Community Builders.
_The Call for Country Educators_
There is little need of emphasizing to college students the opportunities
of the teaching profession. Since 1900 teaching has claimed more graduates
than any other life work. Taking 27 representative colleges as typical,
more than one-fourth of all college graduates become teachers, the
percentage having doubled since 1875. Of the class of 1911 in Oberlin
College (both men and women), 60% have been teaching during their first
year out; while of the men in the ten classes 1896-1905, 27% are still
engaged in teaching, presumably as their permanent work.
Unfortunately the smaller salaries paid rural teachers has made the
country school seem unattractive, and when accepted by young collegians by
necessity rather than choice, it has been regarded often merely as an
apprenticeship for buying experience, a stepping-stone to a city position.
Country salaries of course must be increased, and they certainly will be,
with the new development of rural life and the steady improvement in
schools; especially with increased state aid which is more and more
generously given.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account