352 RURAL MICHIGAN 



correct errors in its drafting, a large number of 

 consolidated rural schools teaching agriculture and 

 domestic science sprang up even more rapidly in the 

 southern peninsula than in the northern. (See Plate 

 VIII.) 



The consolidated rural school act in its present 

 form as it came from the session of 1921, enables 

 the county commissioner of schools, acting in behalf 

 of three or more existing school districts or the board 

 of education in township districts to submit the 

 question of consolidating such separate districts and 

 of establishing therein, or in an existing township 

 district, a rural agricultural school. In the school 

 which follows the adoption of such a proposal by 

 the qualified voters, provision is made for instruc- 

 tion in domestic science, manual training and agri- 

 culture. Such a school has at least five acres of 

 land and a corps of teachers, engaged for at least 

 nine months of the year, and qualified to give in- 

 struction in agriculture, domestic science and 

 manual training. The State aid is $1,000 a year, 

 and also $400 for each vehicle employed in the trans- 

 portation of pupils. 



The original school, at Otter Lake, had done much 

 to introduce progressive agricultural methods and 

 to Americanize an isolated rural community of Fin- 

 nish people. It had demonstrated the value and 

 method of land clearing, promoted the introduction 

 of progressive practices in agriculture (tillage and 

 stock-raising) and served as a community center 

 for persons otherwise wholly without such facilities. 



