Buy a Family Ticket TO THE CACHE LA POUDRE Lecture Course All Your Family to be Admitted to the Seven Numbers for $1.00 Dr. E. D. Phillips, "What Everybody Likes," November 4. C. A. C. Conservatory Faculty, Music and Reading, November 25. Prof. Jno. R. Bell, "The Significance of Attitude," December 16. Colorado Agricultural College Band, January 13, Prof. H. D. Black, "The Cliff Dwellers," February 3. C. A. C. Ladies' Glee Club, February 24. C. A. C, Men's Glee Club, March 17. BUY YOUR TICKET NOW The Morning Express Print Reproduction of handbill Up to the date of writing (February, 1917) the various entertainment features have attracted during the present year an aggregate attendance of 3,000 people. Family tickets at $1 each for the lecture course have been sold to 120 families. Besides these activities, the regular school election day in May is made the occasion of a kind of spring festival. It has become the custom since consolidation to include among the board membership a resident of each of the old districts as they existed before consolidation in order to keep the board as representative as possible. A half-holiday is declared and a programme is given by the school. An exhibit of the year's work, both manual and academic, is shown; articles made in the manual-training department are auctioned off, and a food sale is managed by the cooking classes. The proceeds of this sale supply much of the material used during the school term for cooking and manual training. The voting for school-board members follows the above programme. It is not difficult to see how community spirit is preserved and promoted in the district, co-operation between parents and teachers encouraged, school pride strengthened, and the spirit of fellowship which fosters the desire to keep the board representative of the whole of the consolidated territory maintained. Altogether we have here the beginnings of a type of school far superior and infinitely more progressive than the type of schools displaced. As an experiment in a new type of rural education the consolidated school is very promising. That it will immensely improve as time goes on is to be expected in democratic, progressive America. PROBLEMS IN APPLICATION 1. What features of this particular school most appeal to you as worth while? 2. What features would you condemn? 3. If possible, learn of later improvements in the school. 4. In the first edition of the editor's "Educational Hygiene" the school building of this school is by a typographical error called model instead of modern. In what ways do you consider the lighting arrangements inferior to the Jordan school of Utah, the Sargent of Colorado, or the one-story type suggested in Chapter IX? 5. Read Doctor Foght's account of the Jordan and other consolidated schools in his "The Rural Teacher and His Work," chaps. IV and V. 6. Other members of your study group may report on other consolidated schools, such as the Sargent School at Fort Collins, Colorado, the schools described in Monahan's bulletin on consolidation mentioned previously, and any that are described in State and county school reports. Many States have special bulletins on consolidation with descriptions of some of the best schools. What are the advantages of the one-story school building in the country? 7. Why do children attend the consolidated school better than the one-room school? Give reasons. 8. Is this school at Cache La Poudre a true community-centre school? 9. What does it do for the recreation of the community? Why should the rural curriculum include cultural, or avocational, as well as vocational and other subjects? 10. How does it attempt to improve home and farm conditions? BIBLIOGRAPHY The bibliography has been indicated in the problems in application. See also bibliography at end of the volume. CHAPTER VIII THE CONSOLIDATED-SCHOOL SITE AND ITS USE PRELIMINARY PROBLEMS 1. What out-of-door activities are desirable at a consolidated school? 2. For what purposes is a school-farm desirable? 3. What should be the size of such a farm? 4. How much space is desirable for a playground, athletic field, and out-of-door recreation centre? 5. What kinds of soil are unsuited for such activities? 6. What are some of the principal mistakes made in selecting consolidated-school sites? 7. What types of sites should be avoided? 8. Describe the uses to which a good consolidated-school site of which you have knowledge is put ? 9. What play apparatus is desirable for such a site? 10. What buildings are desirable at a first-class consolidated school? I. THE LARGER SCHOOL PLANT The Modern versus the Old Consolidated-School Idea. -In discussing consolidated schools in the introductory chapter of his annual report for 1913, Doctor P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, says: When such consolidation is made, a good schoolhouse should be built, attractive, comfortable, and sanitary, with classrooms, laboratories, and library, and an assembly-hall large enough not only to seat comfortably all the pupils of the school but also to serve as a meeting-place for the people of the district. For the principal's home a house should be built on the school grounds. This house should not be expensive, but neat and attractive, a model for the community, such a house as any thrifty farmer with good taste might hope to build or have built for himself. And as a part of the equipment of the school there should be a small farm, from 4 to 5 acres if in a village or densely populated community, and from 25 to 50 acres if in the open country. The principal of the school should be required to live in the principal's home, keep it as a model home for the community and cultivate the farm as a model farm, with garden, orchard, poultry-yard, dairy, and whatever else should be found on a wellconducted, well-tilled farm in that community. He should put himself into close contact with the agricultural college and agricultural experiment station of his State, the departments of agriculture of State and nation, farm-demonstration agents, and other similar agencies, and it should be made their duty to help him in every way possible. The use of the house and the products of the farm should be given the principal as a part of his salary, in addition to the salary now paid in money. After a satisfactory trial of a year or two a contract should be made with the principal for life or good behavior, or at least for a long term of years. In this way it would be possible to get and keep in the schools men of first-class ability, competent to teach children and to become leaders in their communities. The principal of a country school should know country life. A large part of country life has to do with the cultivation and care of the farm. The best test here as elsewhere is the ability to do. The principal of a country school in a farming community should be able to cultivate and care for a small farm better than, or at least as well as, any other man in the community. This summarizes some of the principal considerations relative to the site and the uses of the site of the modern consolidated school established to teach country boys and girls in terms of rural life and industries. Most of the earlier consolidated schools were located in villages. This was particularly so in Massachusetts, where the term in general use, "town school" instead of consolidated school, indicates the location. It was a school to serve the entire town or township, and was as a rule located in the village at the most central point so far as the population was concerned. It meant that the school in the village was enlarged and schools in the surrounding farming sections were closed, and the children brought in to the town. This was true also in Indiana and in Ohio, where the term centralized school was adopted instead of consolidated. The tendency in the past few years is to locate the consolidated school in |