nt. Indeed, the
movement of the race as a whole is so imperceptible that it leaves room
for debate as to whether humanity is going forward or backward.

=Other Educational Interests Should Help.=--The higher institutions,
including the state universities, the agricultural colleges, the normal
schools, and the high schools, should all join hands in helping to
remedy conditions. Society has already, in large measure, solved the
problems in the higher educational fields; those institutions have been
advanced to such an extent that they have almost realized their ideals.
The rural population has helped them to attain to these high standards.
As one good turn deserves another, rural communities now look to these
interests for aid in the struggle to overcome the difficulties which
confront them.

=Higher Standards Necessary.=--But before the rural schools can ever
hope to make the desired progress, higher standards must be set by
society, and the teachers in those schools must attain to them. The
United States, as a nation, is far behind foreign countries in setting
such a standard. In Denmark and elsewhere a country school teacher must
be a normal school graduate. A few national laws in the way of
standardization both in higher and lower education would produce
excellent results. The old fear of encroachment upon state's rights by
the national government has too long prevented national legislation of a
most beneficial kind in the educational field.

=Courses for Teachers.=--In every normal school in the United States
there should be an elementary course of study extending at least three
years above the eighth grade, and the completion of this course should
be required as a minimum preparation for teaching in any school in the
country. This is certainly not asking too much. Pupils who complete the
eighth grade at fourteen or fifteen years, and then go to a normal
school, would complete this elementary course at the age of seventeen or
eighteen; and no person who has not reached this age should assume the
responsibility for the care and instruction of children in any school.

=The Problem of Compensation.=--Were such a standard adopted as a
minimum, salaries would immediately rise. (We do not often call them
"salaries" but _wages_, and probably with some discrimination.) If it is
said that teachers of such qualifications cannot be secured, the answer
is that in a short time things would so adjust themselves that the
demand