How the Small Rural School Can More Adequately Serve Its Community

Abstract

The small rural school for Negroes, as a type of educational institution, is a conspicuous illustration of the laissez faire philosophy in American life. With regard to its objectives, organization, and offerings, it has in the past gone its own way without serious interference from anybody. While administrators in charge of school systems in the South have sought to provide school facilities for larger numbers of pupils by increasing the number of schools, building better houses, and employing teachers meeting higher professional qualifications, they have never given much thought to the adaptation of this type of school to serve specific needs. They have not officially considered, defined, and clarified its aims and objectives, nor planned its program. It has not been molded into a form suitable to achieve its ends. As a type it cannot be said to have grown and developed, although through the years it has spread, like a disease. Presidents of Negro colleges, for many of whom it has served as the first rungs of the ladder to distinction, and directors charged with the preparation of teachers, have not, until very recent years, thought of this type of school as deserving of special consideration. Perhaps its first real personal friends were the Jeanes county teachers who have for thirty years sought to affect its procedure by introducing simple industries, and worked for its improvement. More recently the members of the staffs of the divisions of Negro education in state departments of education have given this type of school special attention. However, notwithstanding these evidences of recent interest, the small Negro rural school remains still the neglected stepchild of the school systems of the South. While generally admitted that there is much confusion in the minds of school administrators as to educational aims, organization, procedures, and school curricula, there are some points on which there appears to be agreement. Progressives and conservatives agree, for example, that the school should more nearly meet the needs of individual pupils and of society, and that there should be a large use of environmental material in the educative process. While such ideas are making headway in the graded town and city schools, there is very little evidence to show that the small rural school for Negroes has made progress in these directions. Of course, there are good reasons why this is true. The rural districts are usually inhabited by ultra-conservatives. Any departure from the traditional procedure of hearing lessons would meet with suspicion, if not disfavor. The state courses of study and textbooks frequently furnish