Better Organization. By better organization is meant a 

 plan that will give us better teachers, better buildings and 

 equipment, and a course of study suited to the needs of country 

 children. In the training of young men and young women of 

 native ability and culture for service as rural teachers all states 

 are facing a serious task a task which no state has yet under- 

 taken with entire success. The course of study should have 

 a vital relation to the life of the community. The chief bus- 

 iness of rural communities is agriculture; hence agriculture 

 should be the basis of a large part of the school work. Les- 

 sons in geography, language, reading, etc., can be made to bear 

 directly on the life of the community. 



Better Supervision. The country school Buffers from 

 lack of supervision. However earnest and painstaking a coun- 

 ty superintendent may be it is a physical impossibility for him 

 to supervise the schools in such a way that the maximum of 

 efficiency may be secured. Assistant county superintendents 

 would be a saving to the tax payers, for additional supervision 

 would mean the elimination of waste of time and effort on the 

 part of two or three hundred teachers now under the control of 

 one county superintendent. 



Advantages of Consolidation 



1. It provides a way by which rural communities may ed- 

 ucate their children at less cost per capita. It saves expense. 



2. It makes a high school education for every boy and 

 girl possible without going away from home. 



3. It enables rural communities to secure the best of 

 trained teachers for their schools and to keep those teachers 

 when they have proved their worth. 



4. It increases the enrollment in the schools and creates 

 renewed interest. The school with bnt a few children enroll- 

 ed is not and can not well be the center of neighborhood in- 

 terest. 



5. It provides a center for social gatherings, for in the 

 consolidated school it is possible to have an assembly room 



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