Essentially a part of the government service, the state colleges of agriculture with their learned faculties of rural experts are the ultimate authorities in agriculture and all rural interests, and therefore are both the climax and the ultimate source of education for country life. With the remarkable popularity the past five years of rural study and the strong trend toward the rural professions, the agricultural colleges are probably growing faster than any other schools in the land. The Massachusetts State College has doubled in numbers and doubtless in efficiency in the past five years, and many other schools have shown remarkable development. With a faculty of a hundred men, and a budget this year of half a million dollars, the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell has become in reality a great school of liberal culture interpreted in terms of country life. Its enrolment has multiplied by five in the past nine years. The extension work accomplished by these and similar institutions is wonderfully broad and more and more serviceable to the people of their several states, as their community of interest is increasingly appreciated. The teachers are no longer "mere book farmers." They are constantly out among the people for every variety of social service; and the people, once or twice a year during the great "Farmers' Weeks" flock to the college by the hundred with no feeling of restraint but of actual ownership. It is thus, from the humblest "box-car school" to the great university, that the people of the open country are being educated to appreciate their privileges and to live a more effective country life. It is a great educational movement, weak and halting here and there, but moving on with a better sense of unity and a clearer vision of the goal, with every passing decade. It all gives us courage to believe that the providence of God has in store for our rural America not the stolid domination of a rural peasantry, mere renters and pirates of the soil, but ultimately an enlightened, progressive citizenship, alert for progress and unswerving in their loyalty to "the holy land." TEST QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VI 1.--Why do many rural communities take so little interest in their schools? 2.--Show how most rural schools train country children away from the farms to the city instead of fitting them for country life. 3.--How does the expense of American rural schools compare, per capita, with the expense of the city schools? 4.--How can the country boys and girls be given a fair chance in our public school system? 5.--In what ways does the district school plan work badly as a unit of management and of taxation? 6.--What is wrong with the construction of most country school buildings? 7.--Why is the consolidated school in the town or village a bad thing for children from the farms? 8.--State the efficiency argument for consolidation of rural schools.