48 
colleges in many of the States. Borne of these officers doubt the possibility or 
wisdom of teaching agriculture En the common schools on account of the lack of 
text-books, or the lack of trained teachers, or for some other reason. It is. 
however, a notable fact that in the States where such officials are cooperating 
actively and earnestly in conducting a lively campaign along these lines, agri- 
culture is actually being taught with considerable success, and teachers who feel 
that they are unprepared in this branch are flocking to summer schools, where 
they can make the necessary preparation. 
Another difficulty is that the teachers in rural districts are mostly women 
with little or no normal training either in the ordinary branches taught in the 
common schools or in special subjects. There is no teaching profession in the 
rural schools. The salaries are so low that they do not attract those who have 
prepared themselves for the profession of teaching. As a consequence, most of 
the teachers found in rural schools are beginners or those who have not been 
sufficiently successful to be called to positions offering a higher salary. Most 
of the men who are teaching in the country are doing so merely for the purpose 
of raising money to go away to school or to go into business. 
These conditions result in a rapid shifting of teachers from school to school, 
which is another serious drawback to progress of any kind. Again, the terms 
of school are too short. When a child can go to school only four or five months 
in the year there is little time in the lew years that he is in school for the study 
of other subjects than reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history. 
Before much progress can be made i:i the introduction of agriculture into the 
rural schools much must be done for the general improvement of those schools. 
This improvement will be brought about partly by remedying the conditions 
already mentioned in the school districts as they are now organized, and partly 
through the consolidation of small districts and the organization of centralized 
schools, including rural high schools where village high schools are not readily 
available for those who can go beyond the grammar grades. The practice of 
consolidating schools has already been resorted to in California, Colorado, Con- 
necticut. Florida, Georgia. Indiana. Iowa. Kansas. Maine. Massachusetts, Mich- 
igan. Minnesota. Nebraska. New Hampshire. New Jersey. New York, North 
Dakota. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Rhode Island. South Dakota. Vermont, Washington. 
and Wisconsin. Notable movements toward the consolidation of schools have 
recently been inaugurated in Louisiana. Missouri, and North Carolina. While 
this movement toward consolidation has spread to all parts of the country, 
there are relatively few localities in any State in which the system has been 
adopted and brought into working order. Hence the full effect of this important 
change in school policy has not been felt, even in the States where consolidation 
is a feature. 
In the localities where consolidation has been thoroughly tried, however, it 
has usually met with general approval. It has enabled the school officers to 
grade the schools more effectually, thereby opening the way to greatly enriched 
courses of study : to lengthen the- term of school ; to employ better teachers at 
higher salaries and keep them for a number of years, and to employ several 
teachers instead of one, each to give instruction in only a few subjects or to 
only two or three grades, thereby opening the way to the more continuous and 
profitable employment of the pupils' time. It is notorious that in the ordinary 
country school, where the teacher has from 25 to 30 recitations in a day and can 
not personally direct the study of the children, the latter waste fully half of 
their time in idleness or mischief-making. This and many other defects of the 
rural common school are remedied by consolidation, and the transportation of 
pupils from distant parts of the district at public expense is accomplished at no 
additional expense per unit of attendance. The Commissioner of Education, in 
his annual report for 1903, says: "The possibilities of consolidation in the way 
of furnishing better and cheaper schools have been fully demonstrated, and such 
being the case its general adoption would seem to be only a question of time.*' 
While consolidation opens the way for the more general introduction of 
courses in agriculture in the rural schools, it does not help supply the demand 
for teachers competent to give such special instruction. This can only be done 
by a more general and concerted effort on the part of the agricultural colleges 
and schools and the State normal schools, at present through the introduction 
of short and special courses in agriculture for teachers, and later through 
regular normal courses in agriculture. 
Fortunately, the attention of the general school officers throughout the 
country is now being strongly drawn toward the needs of the rural schools, and 
