ore
variety in the enforcement of these laws. The greatest difficulties are
experienced in the rural districts. Using child labor in farming is a
deep-rooted tradition. The children are looked upon by their parents as
their economic asset. Moreover, it is a hard-headed conviction among the
rural population that child labor is beneficial to the children themselves;
they learn to work, their bodies are strengthened, they acquire good habits
of life, etc. That the children are deprived of the opportunity to play--to
develop as their nature requires--and to acquire a general education; that
this results in their mental abilities and social instincts being
undeveloped, the young people remaining bashful and shy; and that even
their physical development is greatly restricted by overwork--the rural
advocates of child labor cannot understand nor recognize.

In many cases the county school superintendents are elected by the
people who, in the main, are the parents of children. When the position
of the superintendent depends upon the will of the parent farmers, it
is often impossible to enforce the attendance law.

PRACTICAL CURRICULUM NEEDED

There is widespread dissatisfaction with the present program of the
public schools among the rural population. They say that no practical
training is given to their children. They feel that the teaching is
aimed to prepare their children for high schools and colleges only,
where only a very small percentage ever go. For instance, the Minnesota
Department of Education reports for 1915-16 that approximately 70 per
cent of the country children do not go beyond the elementary grades.
Only 5,532 out of 215,427 children in rural schools graduated from the
eighth grade for the year. Those who do enter high schools, and, later,
colleges, are indeed lost to the rural population, for the
college-trained boys and girls seldom return to the soil. The children
who do not enter high school remain on the farms, but they have secured
almost no practical training for rural life, either as farmers or farm
laborers. Instead, they have been prepared for high school.

The school program was especially sharply criticized by the Russian
sectarian peasants at Glendale, Arizona. "Why, the school is making out
of our children dancers and soldiers of war, instead of
farmers--soldiers of the soil!" exclaimed a gray-headed "prophet" in
disgust. Another peasant, perhaps not so high in the sectarian
hierarchy, want