genial companions, were not recompensed thereby. Moreover, the large number of classes and subjects imposed upon one teacher will always forestall any attempts to make the work equal to that of the city schools, or to introduce a course of study especially adapted to the needs of the country. Expert supervision can not be supplied because the many schools, long distances apart, make the attendant expense prohibitive.
In refutation of the above hopeless outlook for any improvement of the one-room district school the optimist points proudly to one here and there, modern in every respect, as an example of what may be accomplished anywhere. However, he forgets that these few schools were made excellent through incidental or local enthusiasm and support. He forgets, or he does not know, that there are thousands of one-teacher schools which can not be so reached. For example, in 1907 Texas had 2,668 one-teacher schools, in 1909 Kansas had 7,756, and Nebraska over 4,000. Mississippi reports 75 per cent of her schools to be of this type at the present time.
Unconsciously a solution of the difficulty began early in Massachusetts along the lines that are being consciously pushed to-day. Parents began sending their children from their own districts to larger and better schools. This led to the abandonment of some and the joining of other districts in order to have good schools nearer home. But natural evolution proved too slow a process, so we find as early as 1869 that the legislature enacted a law empowering a town to raise money by taxation for the transportation of children to larger schools. Thus consolidation for the betterment of rural schools began. Later the state passed a law extending the minimum length of the school year to thirty-two weeks, a measure which materially helped to close small schools and to promote the growth of larger ones. At the present time consolidated schools are found in nearly every county of the state. By 1897 all the New England states had adopted laws similar to those of Massachusetts.
Since that time some form of consolidation has been tried in about thirty-four states. A 1910 bulletin, by G. W. Knorr, special field agent for the Bureau of Statistics, states that 95 per cent of the school patrons trying consolidation are enthusiastic in its praises and not one abandonment of a completely consolidated school was found among those investigated. It is as successful in Idaho, Vermont or Florida as in the prairie states of Indiana and Illinois. Superintendents of states where consolidation has not been tried express themselves as believing that it ought to be adopted. The large number of official bulletins on rural schools attest to betterment along the following lines: building and equipment, grading and course of study, length of term, attendance, interest on the part of pupils and patrons, teachers, salaries, supervision and administration. The growth of the local high school and larger high school attendance is marked. The advantage which ought to make
