tion in the work of agriculture, domestic science or manual training special aid is also given, A very few other states, among them Oklahoma, New Jersey and South Carolina, make some small appropriations to further consolidation. Mr. Hugh,[1] in commenting upon the above methods of encouraging better schools says:
Many of the advance movements in education have needed to be fostered at first in some special way and why should this not be true of our rural schools! There is no good reason from the standpoint of educational efficiency why our system of prorating all the state education funds among the children is necessarily the best. A judicious use of a part of this amount to encourage laudable educational undertakings might secure much more valuable results.
In this connection the "object lesson" consolidated schools built and maintained in four provinces of Canada by Sir William McDonald merit attention. Each school was equipped for manual training, household sciences, nature study and school gardening, and efficient teachers were provided. For a period of three years all expenses above the cost of maintaining the small schools which these larger ones supplanted were paid by Sir William. The results are encouraging. The average daily attendance was estimated to be 55 per cent higher than that of the former schools of the localities. The high school attendance increased wonderfully. After the three years were up the people took over the support of the schools. Moreover other schools were consolidated; Nova Scotia, for example, made twenty-two effective schools out of fifty-five poor ones.
Another means of bettering schools which is probably more effective than the offering of grants for attainment of certain fixed standards, is that of giving outright from the state or county fund larger amounts to the weaker districts instead of making an apportionment on a pro rata basis. Opposition is still raised to such procedures on the ground that some districts get more than they pay for, but we are fast coming to a realization that there should be equality in educational opportunity and that to strengthen the weak is of advantage to the strong as well. One of the best discussions of the rural school problems and of the appalling condition of a large number of Ohio's rural schools has recently been held by the School Improvement Federation of that state. This body in advocating equality of educational oportunity for all and is planning a campaign to secure legislation which will make the county the unit for taxation and which will create a state fund to be apportioned, not according to school attendance, but according to the needs of districts.
One of the great hindrances to progress in our rural schools is the inefficient instruction prevailing there. Statistics show that only young, untrained teachers or those who can not obtain positions elsewhere are in the main the teachers of the one-room district schools. Consolidated
- ↑ D. D. Hugh, "The Consolidation of Rural Schools," Bulletin State Teachers College, Greeley, Colo.
