320 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [14:8— Nov., 1918 



expense of the size of the district and the quality of the school 

 buildings and equipment, until the contrast between the city and 

 rural education has been painful. The time for an inward struggle 

 to throw aside the old, though it be one of our dearest institutions, 

 has come, and one community after another will now respond to 

 to the spirit of the times." 



"All who have a clear knowledge of the facts regarding rural 

 school consolidation realize that a large percentage of our rural 

 schools are to be consolidated into larger units, at once providing 

 better conditions for instruction in the general studies and making 

 it possible to add much that relates to the vocations of farming 

 and home-making. In the United States there have been 

 over six hundred successful experiments at complete con- 

 solidation OF RURAL SCHOOLS, AND PRACTICALLY NO FAILURES." 



No superintendent should lose sight of the fact that his newly 

 consolidated school is not to be a city school in any sense of the 

 word, but simply a larger unit in rural education, the children 

 nor their needs, neither of them, have been changed in the least by 

 the transformation from the lowly roadside school to the fine new 

 brick building — nor should the course of study be changed to 

 any great degree. Give them things which will teach them to 

 love, revere and manage the farm better. Give them work 

 that will employ the hands as well as the mind for a part of the 

 day, and the aim of the rural consolidated school will not be lost. 



In America today, we have 300,000 little rural schools, and at 

 least 200,000 of them might be united into 30,000 consolidated 

 rural schools, to the complete advantage of the whole country. 

 Such is the importance of the problem of consolidation. 



The advantages of the method are obvious. The fusion of a 

 number of small districts into a larger administrative unit furnishes 

 a stable and extensive basis for financing the school and thereby 

 makes for higher efficiency. The larger number of children 

 assembled at a centrally located school makes possible graded 

 classes and a better division of the school day. Studies can be 

 introduced which require special equipment and teachers specially 

 trained in agriculture, home economics, manual training, music, 

 drawing, etc., all of which are, as a rule, unattainable in rural 

 schools. 



