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
With a living wage already possible in centralized schools, and the great
personal rewards which far transcend the material benefits, the life of
the country teacher is one of true privilege and deep satisfaction.
College men should regard it as a genuine _calling_ and discover whether
its call is for them. If a man has no real love for country life, let him
not blight the country school by his subtle urbanizing influence. Most
rural discontent is caused by such as he. But if his heart is open to the
sky and the woods and the miracles of the soil; if he loves sincerity in
human nature and appreciates the sturdy qualities and vast possibilities
for development in country boys and girls, he will revel in the breadth
and freedom and boundless outreach of his work.
If he is a man of vision and of power, the country school principal has
greater local influence and social standing than he would have in the
city. He has the finest chance to make his personality count in the great
Country Life Movement, sharing his visions of a richer, redirected rural
life not only with his pupils but every citizen and gradually leavening
the whole community with a new ambition for progress. The responsibility
for training the local leaders of the future devolves upon the teacher. It
is he who can best teach a wholesome love for country life and help to
stem the townward tide. He can organize around the school the main
interests of his boys and girls and develop the impulse for cooperation
which in time will displace the old competitive individualism and make
social life congenial and satisfying. Through organized play,
inter-community athletics, community festivals, old-home week, lyceums or
debating clubs in the winter, with occasional neighborhood entertainments
utilizing home talent, contests in cooking and various other phases of
home economics, in corn-raising and other agricultural interests,--the
possibilities are endless for making the school the vital social center of
the rural community. It will all take time and energy and ingenuity. It
will cost vitality, as all life-sharing does. But though it costs, the
sharing of life is the greatest joy, and it is the teacher's privilege in
large measure. It is the measure of his true success as well as his
happiness. Investing one's life in a group of boys will yield far greater
results in the country than in the city where their lives are already so
full they would little appreciate it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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