Live reading and analysis of Frederick Taylor Gates' The Country School of Tomorrow

A reading and analysis of The Country School of Tomorrow by Frederick Taylor Gates from Livestream September 15th 2025

Frederick Taylor Gates (1853-1929) was an American Baptist clergyman, educator (Chairman of the General Education Board), and the principal business and philanthropic advisor to the major oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Sr., from 1891 to 1923.

"In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply."