Burnham-"Two Types of Rural Schools." Teachers' College, Columbia University.

Foght "The American Rural School," part XV. The Macmillan Company.

Knorr-" Consolidated Rural Schools and Organization of a County System." U. S. Bureau of Education, No. 232.

Monahan-"Consolidation of Schools and Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense." U. S. Bureau of Education, No. 30.

CHAPTER XXII

THE NEW CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL

I. THE FUTURE OF THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL

The future of the consolidated school is very bright. It is rapidly winning its way into the hearts of rural people, and it is each year adding considerably to its efficiency. A pioneer movement must unfortunately present to people for their approval only the primary stages of a new develcpment. The first automobiles were not highly attractive and the first consolidated schools were by no means as efficient and broad in their rural social service as such schools will in fifty years become. Nine million dollars or more should annually be spent by the federal government, and the amounts should be more than equalled by the state governments in establishing model and experimental consolidated schools in various parts of the country, from sea to sea. From carefully directed experiment, wide and thorough study of the movement, and from a high class of inventive genius in the work, we should in a few decades elaborate a type of consolidated rural school that would be even more serviceable than the best city schools. The rural school need prepare for but one principal vocation in a community, while the city must prepare for very many. Perhaps the ideal American school to be shown foreign visitors of the future will be our rural consolidated school.

Roads. Such a school needs good roads, and it will, in turn, promote good roads. If the school bus has to miss reaching the school a week or more each school year because of the bad roads, the roads are bound to be improved. The consolidated-school centre makes possible

effective public discussion and leadership in getting better highways. If the snow-drifts bother, snow fences such as are used along railways will be constructed. If deep mud stalls the machine, the civics classes will have before them a good practical problem. Some one has recommended a kind of military training, without the "gun-toting” features, of all boys of high-school age, which will set such young huskies at healthful labor for the public good. From one to three months camping out and working in the construction of good roads each year might be a part of the programme with benefit to all. Great national highways and the principal arteries of transportation might be developed as by-products of such military, physical, and civic education. Let not the lack of the best roads too much retard the consolidated school.

The consolidated-school plant will be worthy of the large community which it serves. It will draw its support from generous State, county, and local funds. Perhaps. federal aid may be also obtained. The assessed valuation of the community territory will be little less than a half million dollars, and the school population may confidently be expected to increase far beyond the present. When we see populations abroad as great as our own country living in areas little larger than one or two of our States, we may expect before long a doubling and a trebling of our present hundred million population. Because of the growing high cost of farm products, and the great proportion of city dwellers, over half of the population, the rural regions, will get their full share of this increase of population. As roads and automobiles improve, the distances pupils can be hauled will be increased and thus double forces will increase consolidated-school attendance.

The Farm. There will be a farm at the school (1) to furnish a definite means of keeping the principal and teachers in close touch with farm problems, (2) to provide a desirable addition to what is always the school-teacher's low

salary, (3) to retain a more permanent teaching force, (4) to provide for a demonstration farm and home to show what can be done in the country, (5) to provide for the equivalent of an agricultural experiment station, (6) to provide homes for the principal, teachers, janitor, and perhaps other workers, such as those who drive the cars and work on the

farm, (7) to provide school gardening and other manual labor for the children, (8) to provide an athletic, field-day, picnic, and recreation centre for the community, (9) to provide grounds for a community fair such as the county fairs in some sections of the country, and (10) to provide a central meeting-place for both the people of the village tradingcentre and the farmers, whose interests are mutual, and who greatly need such a place and excuse for getting together in a wholesome, interested, co-operative manner.

The school-building will probably be a one-story structure, with a flat roof, partly lighted from above. It will be located on the front part of the farm, with its long axis running north and south to provide east and west lighting for the classrooms. Such a structure can be added to at will, and has many other advantages in cost, construction, and adaptability. Sooner or later it will have a good auditorium, a first-class gymnasium with showers and a swimming-pool, a good library, study halls probably in connection with the library, a room for a permanent exhibit of farm products, agricultural, botanical, chemical, and physical laboratories, domestic science and manual-training departments, teachers' retiring-rooms, principal's office, regular classrooms for elementary and high-school pupils, both groups on the six-six plan, a medical or health room for the school nurse and county supervisor of health and physical development, a lunch-room, motion-picture apparatus, and good stage in the auditorium, and other features as good as those provided as a matter of course in cities.

The Curriculum.-The studies will not be selected because some European school used them during the last century, nor because a conservative or reactionary college requires them for entrance. The passage from the high school to the State higher institutions will be as simple and sensible as the passage from the six-year elementary school to the six-year high school. Neither will the programme of studies be a cheap imitation of city-school curricula.