76 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



Consolidation of rural schools began in the early nineties. 

 Various periodicals gave accounts of the schools of Kingsville 

 Township, Ohio, which in 1892 instituted a plan of consoli- 

 dation for rural schools. This movement soon attracted much 

 attention, and many visits were made to Ohio for the pur- 

 pose of seeing the plan in actual operation. In a few years the 

 plan was not only extended to other parts of Ohio but was 

 introduced in many other states. It has worked so successfully 

 as to be considered one of the most important features of any 

 general scheme for improving rural schools. 



The work of Kingsville Township was not the historical 

 beginning of the consolidated-school movement, but it was the 

 potential beginning, largely due to the public notice it received 

 through newspapers and periodicals. 



Superintendent O. J. Kern, of Winnebago County, 111., had 

 barely demonstrated the success of his Farmer Boys' Experi- 

 ment Club which he had organized in February, 1902, among 

 the schoolboys of his county, when he was asked to give an 

 account of it in one of our leading popular magazines. This 

 work of his was something new in a county system of schools, 

 and furthermore it had begun at once to interest farmers and 

 to change their attitude toward the rural schools. Winnebago 

 County was a typical county with large agricultural interests. 

 Its problems and interests were like those of hundreds of other 

 counties. Superintendent Kern had found something that looked 

 toward making the school life of the country boys more worth 

 while, but he had much more in mind than his Boys' Experiment 

 Club. He believed that the whole rural-school system needed 

 readjustment and that it might be slowly brought about. 



Here was a chance for the magazine to be of service by 

 giving publicity to successful work, and for the writer to get 

 others interested in his plans, and to get them to work along 

 similar lines. The article appeared under the title of "Learn- 

 ing by Doing for the Farmer Boy" and was illustrated by five 

 good pictures with the "boy" prominently in the foreground of 



