No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 53 



recite together in all their branches, and the teacher has a hai/ 

 hour for a lesson, and can go into the dynamics or casual rela- 

 tions of the facts and events treated." * » * "The ideal clas- 

 sified school can teach, and does teach, proper methods of study; 

 the rural school cannot do this effectively in its five or ten minute 

 recitations. It is because of this, that wise directors of education 

 have desired the consolidation of small schools into large schools, 

 wherever practicable. Two schools of ten each, furnish on an aver- 

 age one-half as many recitations, if united, as they do when separate, 

 owing to the possibility of pairing, or classifying pupils of the same 

 degree of advancement. Ten such schools united into one will 

 give 100 pupils, with a possibility of classes of ten each, which can 

 be more effectively taught than before, because the pupil can learn 

 more in a class than bv himself.'' "Again it is evident that five 

 teachers can teach the 100 pupils united in one school, far better 

 than the ten teachers were able to teach them in ten separate 

 schools. If still further consolidation were possible, and 400 pupils 

 were united in one school, the classification might be improved to 

 such a degree that a teacher could easily take charge of two classes 

 of twenty pupils, and ten teachers could do far better work for each 

 pupil, than was done by the forty teachers in the forty small rural 

 schools, before consolidation. Herein economy becomes a great item 

 in what are called T^uion Schools.' " 



THE TRANSPORTATION OF CHILDREN. 



The committee in discussidg the question of the transportation 

 of children to central schools says: "The collection of pupils into 

 larger units than the district school furnishes, may be accomplished 

 under favorable circumstances by transporting at State or local 

 expense, all of the pupils of the small rural districts to a central 

 graded school, and abolishing the small ungraded school. This is 

 the radical and effective measure which is to do great good in many 

 sections of each State. As shown already, Massachusetts, in which 

 the plan began, paid in 1894-5 the sum of §7G,G08 for the transpor- 

 tation of children from small rural schools to central graded schools 

 — 213 towns (townships) out of a total of 353 towns (townships) and 

 cities, using this plan to a greater or less extent, and secured the 

 two-fold result of economv in monev, and the substitution of graded 

 for ungraded schools. The spread of this plan to Maine, Vermont, 

 New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio and 

 some other States demonstrates its practicability. Experiments 

 with this plan have already suggested improvements, as in the 

 Kingsville experiment in Ohio, where the transportation reached in 

 all caseg th^ boTpeg of (be pupils and yet reduced the cost of tuition 



