In 1899, Kirk became the president of the First District Normal School in Kirksville, his alma mater. Soon after he took office, he decided to design his notion of the ideal rural schoolhouse. In his free time, he planned and created a small scale version of the schoolhouse.2
Kirk carried his sketches to every State Teachers’ Association meeting he attended and took great pleasure in explaining them to other educators.4
Kirk also explained his ideas for changing the curriculum used in rural schools. They had largely the same curriculum as city schools and he found that problematic. Many lessons taught in rural classrooms used examples that only pertained to “city folk.”As a result, rural students could not relate and grew increasingly disinterested in school.4
Kirk believed the problem was fixable by adding subjects useful for rural children to learn: gardening, animal husbandry, cooking, music, sewing, shop, and various forms of manual training. He wanted to institute this curriculum change inside a rural schoolhouse built to his design specifications.4
In 1905, Kirk convinced the Board of Regents at the Normal School to authorize the building of the Model Rural School on the Normal campus as soon as sufficient funds were available. Its building took place in the spring of 1907. The construction cost around $1,500.4
The first main teacher was Erma Mathews, a local and experienced rural teacher. Normal School students taught in the school as well to fulfill student teaching requirements in their degree programs. Marie Turner Harvey, the “critic teacher,” oversaw their student teaching.4
These teachers followed the new curriculum policies set forth by Kirk. It synthesized the practical areas of rural life and the basic subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic.4
Kirk’s Model Rural School was a “laboratory setting” in which to experiment how improving the schoolhouse site and increasing the variety of subjects impacts student engagement.4
However, since the School was located in the City of Kirksville and not in a rural area, many educators and residents believed the experiment would fail in rural areas.4
Soon, Kirk's protégé, Marie Turner Harvey (the main teacher at the Model Rural School from 1910-1912), demonstrated its success in a rural area through her phenomenal work at the nearby Porter School.4