Class i-G iSO^ J 
 Book ■ ^ ^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 

 COPYRIGHT I9I3 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 t. CI.A30i-)560 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Editor's Introduction ... v 
 
 I. The Problem . . . . • . i 
 
 II. More Money i6 
 
 III. Better Organization . . • • 30 
 
 IV. Better Supervision . . . . 52 
 Outline 75 
 
 MAPS 
 
 Forms of Organization, by States . . .31 
 
 Proposed Rearrangement of a Minnesota County 46 
 
 Actual Rearrangement of a Florida County . 47 
 
 Election and Tenure of County Superintendents 61 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 Our neglect of the rural school 
 
 The rural schools are about to receive from 
 educators the attention that they deserve. The 
 modern industrial city, with its peculiar patho- 
 logical conditions, has commanded both public 
 and professional interest, but the rural com- 
 munity and the rural school have been neglected. 
 Indeed, in many respects, rural life and rural 
 institutions have lost ground. Relatively speak- 
 ing, they are not so efficient as they once were. 
 
 The rural school and educational progress 
 
 It must be apparent to those who have taken 
 the trouble to look closely at the country school 
 that it enjoys no such favor as the ward school 
 of a large city. In neither human nor material 
 equipment does the rural school approximate the 
 resources of a city school. As a rule, the poorly 
 trained teachers are in the country ; the best are 
 
 V 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 in the city. The agricultural community is eco- 
 nomically poor ; the city is rich in taxable wealth. 
 The country teacher is isolated culturally and 
 professionally; while libraries, museums, thea- 
 tres, concerts, reading-circles, lectures, and 
 professional meetings are accessible to the city 
 teacher. The rural school-teacher has little 
 chance for help from a superior professional 
 source. Supervision in the country is a formal 
 administrative matter that scarcely takes cogniz- 
 ance of the details of class-room instruction. The 
 cities have supervision, or at least the hope of 
 supervision, for there are supervising principals, 
 supervisors of special subjects, and district su- 
 perintendents. Thus in more than one respect 
 the rural school has not participated in the fruits 
 of our educational progress. 
 
 Disadvantages of the rural school 
 
 It must also be admitted that the rural school 
 has been deprived of some of the opportunities 
 for efficiency which once it possessed. Before 
 the growth of cities, the rural school had almost 
 as good a chance to employ the best available 
 vi 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 teachers as the village or small town school. The 
 opportunity has greatly decreased under modern 
 circumstances. The country school cannot at- 
 tract the best-trained teachers. It recruits from 
 the least efficiently trained, and it rapidly loses 
 the more capable and brilliant teachers, who are 
 promoted first to the village schools, then to 
 town schools, and finally to the great city system 
 where pay, tenure, pensions, and the graded 
 school attract them. Thus the rural school- 
 teachers of to-day are as a whole the least ex- 
 perienced and the least competent of the teach- 
 ing body. 
 
 Once the rural school had a farm-owning 
 clientage with a neighborhood interest in the 
 school. Now, in many sections, the taxable 
 population has moved to the town, leaving the 
 children of a more or less foreign tenantry to be 
 educated in the country school. In consequence 
 it takes more effort to create an interest in the 
 school than formerly. The taxable landholders, 
 with a vital family interest in the school, are not 
 there in such large proportion, and the foreign 
 tenant, less enthusiastic about American institu- 
 vii 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 tions, is not so eager nor so intelligent instating 
 his demands for the children. 
 
 The need for fundamental changes in rural 
 school administration 
 
 It is the business of the educational and the 
 public leaders, whose vision is wide enough to 
 encompass our national welfare, to turn their 
 attention to the improvement of the rural school. 
 The country population has a right to hold its 
 old advantages ; it should also have the privilege 
 of participating in the fruits of our progress. 
 
 No amount of mere preaching to rural school- 
 teachers will make the country schools suffi- 
 ciently better. The situation requires economic 
 advantages and social pressure to produce re- 
 sults. Our experience shows that country life 
 and institutions have been modified by far-reach- 
 ing conditions, — economic, social, political, legis- 
 lative, and administrative. They must be re- 
 created by the use of the same large forces. If 
 wealth has gone to the cities, at least a small 
 part of their riches must be returned for the edu- 
 cation of country youth. This means the abro- 
 viii 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 gation of the antiquated principle that schools 
 must be supported by local funds. Expenditure 
 for the education of a boy differs materially from 
 that used for building roads or for maintaining 
 sanitary systems, or for supplying police and fire 
 protection. Road construction, fire protection, 
 and other similar activities are after all more or 
 less local, but the efficiency of a boy has a poten- 
 tial significance for the country at large. To- 
 morrow he may become a citizen of a town or a 
 city, or of another rural community. Even if he 
 stays at home, he and others like him will be as 
 much the moulders of our national life as an 
 equal number of people in a distant city. The 
 training of country girls and boys is not a local 
 problem ; it is a responsibility of the whole 
 state. 
 
 The reconstruction of legislative and adminis- 
 trative conditions, which are basic in rural school 
 improvement, is not a simple task. Any policy 
 of reconstruction is simpler and wiser, however, 
 when it is based upon a careful analysis of edu- 
 cational experience. It is because Professor Cub- 
 berley has carefully investigated the conditions 
 ix 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 underlying the efficiency of rural schools that he 
 has been asked to discuss in this Monograph the 
 measures necessary to effect an adequate im- 
 provement in the country school. 
 
THE IMPROVEMENT OF 
 RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 The past decade has been an especially fruitful 
 one in the field of public education. New inter- 
 est has been awakened, additional support has 
 been provided, many new forms of educational 
 effort have been undertaken, and everywhere 
 questioning and criticism have taken the place 
 of an earlier contentment with existing condi- 
 tions. Notable advances have been made or be- 
 gun in many directions. The high school is being 
 reconstructed, and greatly enriched and expanded. 
 The upper grades of the grammar school, long 
 almost stagnant, are being vitalized and are 
 taking on new life. Domestic, industrial, and 
 vocational training are being introduced very 
 rapidly, and in many parts of the country. Mass 
 instruction is giving place to the instruction of 
 I 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 individuals, and the health of school-children 
 is to-day receiving an attention previously un- 
 known. 
 
 The country school has not been omitted in 
 this process of reconstruction and criticism, and 
 probably no part of our school system has re- 
 ceived more thought and attention during the 
 past decade than has the problem of how to im- 
 prove the rural school. Probably, also, no part 
 has shown so little improvement. Hundreds of 
 articles have been written, addresses made, and 
 reports printed on this subject. State superin- 
 tendents of public instruction, county superin- 
 tendents, normal school presidents, professors 
 of education, and institute lecturers have con- 
 sidered the question, and have proposed ways 
 and means looking to a solution of the problem 
 or problems. Many committees have been ap- 
 pointed to consider the matter. A few citizens, 
 interested in an improvement of rural education, 
 have also taken part in the discussion. Many 
 improvements have been suggested and some 
 have been made, and still the problem remains 
 before us, as yet in large part unsolved. 
 
 2 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 
 For a time it was thought by many that an 
 improvement in the quaUty of the teacher was 
 the key to the problem, and efforts were con- 
 centrated on the preparation of a better type 
 of teacher for the schools. This certainly was 
 needed, and there is still much room for further 
 improvement along this line. Teachers' insti- 
 tutes, reading-circles, and summer sessions of 
 normal schools and colleges have rendered valu- 
 able services to the rank and file of the teaching 
 body, and have done much to give to new teachers 
 a professional point of view. For the training of 
 new teachers for the rural schools a number of 
 normal schools have, within the past decade, 
 organized rural teachers' training classes, pro- 
 vided a rural observation and practice school, 
 and have offered special courses preparing 
 directly for teaching in the rural schools. In a 
 few states further efforts have been made look- 
 ing to the preparation of at least a partially 
 trained body of teachers for the rural schools, 
 by the organization of county training-schools, 
 in connection with the high schools. These give 
 a one-year professional course, intended primarily 
 3 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 to prepare for rural school work, and state aid 
 has been offered usually to such schools. A very 
 few states have gone even farther and have or- 
 dered that all teachers, after a designated date, 
 must have had some kind of professional train- 
 ing. To provide this a number of institutions 
 within the state have been designated to act as 
 state training-schools, and to offer twelve-weeks* 
 summer courses to prospective teachers. These 
 courses have usually been specified somewhat in 
 detail by the state, and have been intended pri- 
 marily to prepare teachers better for work in the 
 country schools. The net result of all these 
 efforts has been an undoubted improvement in 
 the mental equipment and the teaching capacity 
 of the teachers in our rural and village schools. 
 The rural school problem, though, still confronts 
 us, and we see clearly that an improvement of 
 teachers alone can never solve the problem. It 
 does not touch it deep enough down. 
 
 The next thought was to improve the instruc- 
 tion by modifying and enriching it, and by ad- 
 justing it more fully to the needs of country 
 life. This was a fruitful idea. During the late 
 4 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 
 nineties, a form of generalized nature study was 
 introduced into many rural schools. An attempt 
 has since been made to transform this into in- 
 struction in agriculture. Economic needs have 
 greatly stimulated this movement, and no addi- 
 tion to our elementary school system has ever 
 been adopted with the rapidity or the enthuiasm 
 which has been witnessed in the case of agricul- 
 ture. State and county courses of study have 
 required such instruction to be given, state laws 
 have added the subject to the list of examina- 
 tion subjects for teachers' certificates, and many 
 normal schools have added courses in it to their 
 curriculum. The general introduction of the sub- 
 ject has been so rapid that both normal schools 
 and teachers have found themselves unprepared 
 to give the instruction. The net result, however, 
 has been to awaken a new interest in the rural 
 school, and to reveal more clearly the need of a 
 further reorganization of it. 
 
 Manual training, domestic science, and house- 
 hold arts have also been seen to have real value 
 in the education of country boys and girls, but 
 the problem of how to introduce this new in- 
 5 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 struction is still in large part unsolved. In most 
 cases the mere recognition of the need and the 
 value of such instruction has only served to re- 
 veal more clearly the utter inadequacy of the 
 present rural school organization to cope suc- 
 cessfully with constructive problems. Something 
 has been accomplished, of course, but nothing 
 of what might have been done under a better 
 form of organization and management. 
 
 Recently attempts have been made to improve 
 the trustee, feeling that perhaps the source of 
 the trouble lay there. In some states a trustees* 
 day has been set apart in connection with the 
 county teachers' institute, and, in a number of 
 others, within the past four or five years, annual 
 county conventions of school trustees have been 
 provided for. Under the latter plan, one trus- 
 tee at least from each board is expected to 
 attend, usually a one-day session, and he is paid 
 his expenses and a small per diem allowance 
 for attendance. Questions of school manage- 
 ment and finance are considered, the aim being 
 to get the trustees present to see and to pro- 
 vide for some of those common needs of the 
 6 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 
 rural school that, to the county superintendent, 
 are almost self-evident. No doubt much is learned 
 by the trustees present, and the net result prob- 
 ably will be a slow improvement in rural school 
 conditions. But the method is a slow one, and 
 the trustees change about as fast as they are 
 educated. 
 
 One of the most serious obstacles to educa- 
 tional progress in the rural schools is presented 
 by these hundreds of school trustees, who, as a 
 rule, know little about educational needs or pro- 
 gress. As a body they are exceedingly conserva- 
 tive, and hard to educate ; they usually possess 
 important powers ; and, because they control the 
 purse-strings, they frequently assume an author- 
 ity unwarranted by their knowledge of school 
 work. Whatever is gained through school trus- 
 tees' conventions is of course a direct gain, but 
 it is a tonic rather than a cure, and no great or 
 rapid progress in rural education, organization, 
 or management can be expected from this source. 
 The problem of the improvement of the rural 
 schools is altogether too deep-rooted a problem 
 to be solved by any such superficial remedy. 
 
 7 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Something has been done to improve the 
 schools, too, through legislative limitations. In 
 most of the states the old district meeting, once 
 so common, so powerful, and a source of so much 
 ill feeling, has been reduced in functions until 
 an annual school election is about all that is left 
 of it. The power of the district meeting to desig- 
 nate the teacher has gone, and the power of the 
 district trustees to employ almost any kind of 
 teacher at low wages is fast disappearing. Taxa- 
 tion has been changed from a permissive to a 
 mandatory basis, and minimum limits have been 
 specified. The length of term has been increased 
 from three or four to seven or eight months, and 
 districts have been required to meet these con- 
 ditions. Grading has commonly been insisted 
 upon, and new subjects of instruction have been 
 designated for all schools by general law. The 
 power of the trustees to build any kind of school- 
 house they choose has been taken from them, 
 by laws requiring the approval of plans by the 
 county or state superintendent. In a few of the 
 states, the power to order repairs or to condemn 
 schoolhouses has also been given to these same 
 8 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 
 school authorities, or to boards of health. The 
 expenditure of funds has been placed under 
 township or county supervision, and limitations 
 in expenses and in the use of funds have been 
 imposed by general law. Permission to introduce 
 high-school subjects, or to abandon the school 
 and transport the pupils, has been granted to the 
 districts, and sometimes used. 
 
 All of these limitations of district authority, 
 and each extension of the authority of the county 
 and of the state, have been in the direction of 
 securing more efficient schools for the children 
 in the rural districts and small villages of the 
 state. Some real improvement has resulted from 
 each assertion of the right and the duty of the 
 state, and from each substitution of a larger and 
 a higher authority for that of the district. It is 
 possible to make still further progress along 
 these lines, as will be pointed out later on. 
 
 All these expedients, though, have not made 
 progress as fast as conditions have changed, and 
 the rural and small village schools, although un- 
 doubtedly better than they were a generation 
 ago, are probably still further behind the average 
 9 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 city school than they were thirty or forty years 
 ago. In any case our rural schools are much poorer 
 and much less effective than they ought to be. 
 Under a better form of organization and manage- 
 ment it is possible to make good schools in the 
 country and in villages, as well as in towns and 
 cities, but the changes needed are far more fun- 
 damental than are usually proposed. 
 
 One mistake that has been made in dealing 
 with the rural school problem is the assumption 
 that it is a problem by itself, instead of being 
 but a part of a much larger problem affecting 
 the conditions of rural and village life. The old 
 conditions which gave rise to the district sys- 
 tem, and at one time made the district school 
 and the district meeting such important factors 
 in our national life, have in large part passed 
 away. The same is true of the country church 
 and the country store. The isolation, limited out- 
 look, and restricted markets of the past have 
 given way to larger points of view and to new 
 trade conditions. The telephone, good roads, and 
 frequent and easy means of transportation have 
 put an end to the earlier isolation. Newspapers, 
 
 10 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 
 magazines, cheap books, and new political activ- 
 ity have given country people new points of 
 view. The rise of the city as a jobbing centre has 
 opened up new markets, both for sale and for 
 purchase, and has greatly changed the former 
 somewhat even distribution of wealth. The re- 
 cent improvements in agricultural knowledge 
 have tended to an increase in the size of farms, 
 and, near the large cities, to the leasing of the 
 farms to tenants of large means, who work them 
 in a scientific manner and by means of cheap 
 foreign labor. In many other places the own- 
 ers move to the towns and cities to enjoy their 
 educational and social advantages, leasing their 
 farms to recent immigrants or to less successful 
 natives. The efTect of all these changes is seen 
 in the loss of population in the country districts, 
 in the dying-out of the rural and village churches, 
 in the closing-up of the cross-roads and village 
 general stores, and in the stagnation of the 
 country school. The problem is one of a change 
 in the needs and conditions of all rural life, and 
 the school problem is tied up with the other 
 rural problems. 
 
 II 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 In a few of the more progressive and enlight- 
 ened communities some marked improvement has 
 been made by means of the consolidation of 
 small schools, and the transportation of pupils 
 to a central school, but the movement, consider- 
 ing the United States as a vi^hole, has as yet 
 made far less progress than its merit warrants. 
 The chief reason for this is that the movement 
 must be initiated and carried through by the 
 votes of the rural residents themselves. This 
 makes it very difficult of accomplishment, be- 
 cause, as a class, farmers and residents of little 
 villages are extremely conservative, unprogres- 
 sive, jealous, penny-wise, and lacking in any proper 
 conception of the value of good educational con- 
 ditions. Any progressive proposal is usually 
 met by determined and often unreasoning oppo- 
 sition, and progress by the consent of the voters 
 is a slow and arduous undertaking. Matters in- 
 volving the fate of nations are often settled more 
 easily than are proposals for an improvement of 
 the rural schools. 
 
 The result is that, after almost two decades of 
 agitation, the rural and small-town schools stand 
 
 12 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 
 about where they were at the beginning of the 
 agitation for improvement, except in certain areas 
 in a few favored states. The teacher is a little 
 better, and the course of instruction contains a 
 little more that is really worth while, but the 
 school still lacks in almost all of the elements 
 that go to make it a strong educational factor in 
 the lives of country children, or a strong social 
 influence in the lives of country people. The 
 country school lacks interest and ideas ; it suf- 
 fers from isolation and from lack of that enthu- 
 siasm which comes only from numbers ; and it 
 realizes but a small percentage of its possible 
 efficiency. Its site is usually unattractive ; its 
 building is too often a miserable, unsanitary box ; 
 it too often lacks the necessary equipment for 
 proper instruction; its instruction is usually lim- 
 ited to the barest elements of an education, and 
 lacks vocational purpose ; its teacher is often 
 poorly trained or entirely untrained, and is poorly 
 paid ; the supervision provided is utterly inade- 
 quate, and usually exists only in name ; and the 
 management of the school is often of a very in- 
 ferior type. The enrollment is usually small, the 
 13 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 attendance is irregular, and the conduct of the 
 school poor. The children, coming from the same 
 little area, and often from related families, bring 
 no new interests to the school. Compared with 
 a good town or city school the country school is 
 poor, often miserably poor, and the numerous 
 classes, overburdened programme, absence of 
 equipment, and lack of ideas and impulses to ac- 
 tion offer odds against which the best of teach- 
 ers can make but little headway. As soon, too, 
 as a school grows sufficiently to make it possible 
 to employ two teachers and to grade the school, 
 the desire to "have a school close to home" 
 leads to the subdivision of the district, and to 
 the creation of two small struggling schools. 
 
 Within the past decade the bad results of 
 maintaining such schools, where they can be 
 avoided, has become apparent with new force. 
 The past ten to fifteen years have se^n a marked 
 change in the conception of the school itself. 
 The old information conception, with a curricu- 
 lum limited closely to the old staple common- 
 school subjects, is giving place to a new social, 
 vocational, and economic conception of the 
 14 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 
 school. It is slowly becoming evident that the 
 rural and small-town schools must adapt them- 
 selves to the needs of rural and small-town life 
 if they are to be of real service to their people. 
 The school must evolve into a kind of social cen- 
 tre for the community life if it is to reach its 
 greatest effectiveness, and the teaching and the 
 supervision alike should relate themselves much 
 more closely than they now do to the social life 
 and to the betterment of the community as a 
 whole. The school, too, must offer an enriched 
 curriculum and the opportunity for some in- 
 creased instruction, if it is to meet the needs of 
 the present and of the future. 
 
 The absolute inadequacy of the typical rural 
 school to meet these new social needs, and of the 
 typical rural community to see them and to pro- 
 vide for them, are generally evident. The aid 
 must come through a reorganization of rural ed- 
 ucation, and this, in part, must be superimposed 
 from above. In the judgment of the writer, this 
 reorganization must take place along three lines. 
 
II 
 
 MORE MONEY 
 
 The first of these lines of improvement, and 
 an absolute prerequisite in the case of most 
 states, is a very material increase in the funds 
 available for the maintenance of schools, and the 
 increased funds must be secured, in large part, 
 from other than local sources. Merely to pass 
 laws permitting districts to tax themselves at a 
 higher rate will not provide it. In many com- 
 munities the rate of taxation for schools is al- 
 ready high, often much beyond what is paid in 
 cities and towns for excellent and complete 
 schools. Still further, the need of increased tax- 
 ation for education is not apparent to most rural 
 communities, and the tendency of rural people 
 to thrift, economy, and close bargaining is not 
 conducive to liberality in matters of taxation. 
 
 It ought not to be the policy of the state to 
 make rural communities tax themselves at a high 
 rate for schools. Probably most rural taxpayers 
 i6 
 
MORE MONEY 
 
 now pay more than an average rate for educa- 
 tion. The burden is much greater when six to 
 eight taxpayers support a two-hundred-and-fifty- 
 dollar school, than when forty to sixty taxpayers 
 support a thousand- dollar school. The best 
 schools to-day are in the cities, and the premium 
 is already too strong on the side of leaving the 
 farm and going to town for the sake of better 
 educational advantages for one's children. 
 
 Sixty years ago we fought out the question in 
 this country, and established the principle that 
 schools were to be free and public, and that the 
 wealth of the state must educate the children of 
 the state. The principle was established in the- 
 ory, and, in part, in fact, in the shape of general 
 taxation, but in many states the general taxation 
 has not as yet gone very far. In a few states it 
 has remained almost entirely limited to the dis- 
 trict, town, or township ; while in others a larger 
 conception has prevailed and general taxation of 
 the wealth of each county is the rule. In each 
 case it is a pooling of effort, though the county 
 taxation unit represents a larger and more liberal 
 conception as to the need for and the proper dis- 
 17 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 tribution of the cost of an educational system 
 than does the use of the smaller taxation units. 
 In still other states an even larger and more lib- 
 eral conception prevails, and general taxation of 
 the wealth of the whole state is the practice, the 
 pooling of effort here taking place on a scale 
 large enough to result in a real equalization of 
 both the burdens and the advantages 6i educa- 
 tion. 
 
 The distribution of taxable wealth has changed 
 greatly since the principle of general taxation for 
 public education was first established. Sixty years 
 ago there were few cities of any consequence ; 
 the wealth of the country was largely agricul- 
 tural ; the railroads of the country were just be- 
 ginning to be built, and represented but little 
 taxable property ; there were few corporations ; 
 the natural resources of the country were almost 
 unworked, and in large part undiscovered ; and 
 there were few people who were classed as rich. 
 Wealth and property were still somewhat evenly 
 distributed ; undertakings of all kinds were small ; 
 and the pooling of effort on any large scale was 
 not necessary. 
 
MORE MONEY 
 
 There is need to-day, in most of the states, for 
 a reconsideration of the whole question of taxation 
 for education, and the apportionment of school 
 funds, with a view to a better equalizing of both 
 the burdens and the advantages of education. ^ 
 The social and industrial changes since the mid- 
 dle of the nineteenth century have completely 
 changed the nature of the problem of school sup- 
 port. If the wealth of the state is to educate the 
 children of the state to-day, the burden of support 
 must be pooled to a much larger extent than is 
 now done in most of our states, and state and 
 county taxation for education must replace, to a 
 large degree, the present very unequal local bur- 
 dens. Good schools generally are impossible 
 under the local taxation system. It can be shown, 
 for almost any state, that there are communities 
 which are showing an actual decrease in per capita 
 wealth, in the face of a rapidly rising cost for edu- 
 cation, while other communities are increasing 
 in wealth at a rapid rate. What one community 
 
 1 For a somewhat detailed consideration of this subject see 
 the author's School Ftmds and their Apportionment. (Teachers 
 College Contributions to Education, No. 2. New York, 1906.) 
 
 19 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 can do with ease for its children, another com- 
 munity finds it increasingly difficult or absolutely 
 impossible to do. The main reason why Massa- 
 chusetts, for example, has some of the best and 
 some of the poorest schools in the United States, 
 is that the state has always made each little 
 town pay its own way. On the contrary, the 
 main reason why California has perhaps, of any 
 state in the Union, the best general average of 
 schools throughout the state, with no oppressive 
 educational burdens on any one, is that the state 
 has pooled the support of education on a broad 
 and intelligent scale, generous state and county 
 taxation having practically abolished taxation for 
 support in the districts. 
 
 The location of a railroad, a mine, or a quarry ; 
 the growth of a city with its markets, manufac- 
 tories, and stores ; the utilization of some natural 
 resource ; the location of a factory or of an in- 
 dustry ; the advantages of a harbor, a navigable 
 river, or a waterfall ; climatic advantages, or a 
 fine bit of natural scenery, developing a tourist 
 resort with big hotels ; good soil, with good easy 
 drainage, as opposed to clay and knobs, — these 
 
 20 
 
MORE MONEY 
 
 and many other natural and adventitious advan- 
 tages tremendously modify to-day the possibili- 
 ties of maintaining an educational system either 
 wholly or largely by local taxation. One can 
 take a topographic, geologic, and economic map 
 of any state, and mark off the broader areas where 
 good schools may and may not be maintained 
 without material general aid ; areas where popu- 
 lation probably always will be sparse; areas which 
 are certain to support a large and wealthy popu- 
 lation ; and areas where the per capita wealth 
 probably always will be small. Yet in all of these 
 communities people live, children grow up in 
 need of education, schools of some kind must be 
 maintained, and future citizens for the state are 
 trained. 
 
 It is from state and county taxation, then, 
 rather than from local effort, that the greater part 
 of the necessary funds with which to maintain a 
 good school must, in the future, be derived. From 
 five to six hundred dollars a year is a minimum 
 with which a good school of eight months can be 
 maintained, and this amount, or any large per- 
 centage of this amount, is too large to be expected 
 
 21 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 from district taxation. Many districts cannot pro- 
 duce this sum, and short terms, third-grade cer- 
 tificates, poor teachers, and weak schools are the 
 inevitable results of the attempt to make them 
 produce it It is only by a state- and county-wide 
 pooling of effort, to maintain what is for the com- 
 mon good of all, that good schools can be main- 
 tained throughout a state. 
 
 The necessary corollary to any system of gen- 
 eral taxation for education is a wise system of 
 apportionment. When taxes for education were 
 first collected, in many states they were given 
 back to the communities which paid them. The 
 state acted merely as a tax collector. A great im- 
 provement over this method of distribution was 
 made when the plan of apportioning the taxes, 
 and the proceeds of endowment funds, on the 
 basis of the number of children of school age was 
 substituted. At first this change was stoutly re- 
 sisted, but the reasonableness of taxing people 
 in proportion to their wealth, and of distributing 
 the proceeds of taxation for schools in proportion 
 to the number of children in each community of 
 school age, caused the somewhat general adoption 
 
 22 
 
MORE MONEY 
 
 of the plan. This change took place shortly after 
 the middle of the last century, and, at the time, the 
 plan seemed so equitable that more than half of 
 the states fixed it in their constitutions. The plan 
 is still used, in whole or in part, by nearly three 
 fourths of the states. 
 
 Although the distribution on school census is 
 an improvement on giving the money back to the 
 districts paying it, or apportioning it on the basis 
 of assessed wealth, it is still, nevertheless, one of 
 the poorest and most unjust of all apportionment 
 bases. Yet the census basis is more extensively 
 used than any other. As a basis of apportion- 
 ment it is unsatisfactory and unjust, and its gen- 
 eral abandonment would be in the interests of 
 justice and good education. The effect of a cen- 
 sus apportionment is always to make the greatest 
 reduction in the rate of taxation where the tax 
 rate was the least to begin with, and to leave the 
 inequalities greater than they were before the 
 distribution was made. It always favors the towns 
 and cities, where the per capita wealth is greater, 
 at the expense of the rural districts. Calculated 
 on the basis of enrollment or attendance, a cen- 
 22, 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 sus basis apportionment is always of greatest ad- 
 vantage in those communities which do the least 
 for their children. Where private or parochial 
 schools exist, it pays communities for the educa- 
 tion of children who do not attend the public 
 schools, and for whom the public schools need 
 make no provision. As a basis of apportionment 
 it has no educational significance, in that it does 
 not place a premium on any effort which makes 
 for better educational conditions in a community. 
 Communities are stimulated to get every possible 
 name on the census lists, but there the stimula- 
 tion ends. If it is worth while for a state to give 
 aid to education at all, then the aid should be 
 given in such a manner, and under such condi- 
 tions, as will produce the largest educational re- 
 turns. To stimulate a community to educational 
 activity is much more important than merely de- 
 creasing its tax rate, and all aid given should be 
 used as a lever to get as much from the commu- 
 nity in return as it is able to give. The census 
 basis of apportionment certainly does not pro- 
 vide for " a general and uniform system of free 
 common schools throughout the state," and no 
 24 
 
MORE MONEY 
 
 real headway can be made in easing the burdens 
 of school taxation to small and poor communities, 
 and in equalizing the advantages of education, so 
 long as this basis of apportionment is retained. 
 
 Enrollment for a definite period, average daily 
 attendance, and aggregate days' attendance are 
 successively better bases for the apportionment 
 of funds, as each places a larger premium on 
 actual presence in the school. The two attend- 
 ance bases place a premium, in different ways, on 
 every day's attendance at school, and give com- 
 munities a financial incentive to do their best 
 every day. The aggregate days' attendance basis 
 places a further premium on lengthening the 
 term, instead of closing the school whenever the 
 attendance begins to drop off, or to suit the wishes 
 of the majority. From the standpoint of the 
 state, the boy or girl most worth paying for is the 
 one who wants to go to school for the longest 
 time. 
 
 It can be shovm by figures, though, that all 
 of these bases, used singly and alone, are unjust 
 to the small school, in that each entirely ne- 
 glects the unit of actual cost in maintaining a 
 25 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 school, — namely, the cost of the teacher. The 
 cost for maintaining a school of ten, twenty, 
 thirty, or forty pupils is the same, — namely, the 
 cost of one teacher. Further, it can be shown by 
 figures that, if only one basis for apportionment 
 is to be used, the most just single basis would be 
 to distribute the money to the cities, towns, and 
 districts on the single basis of the number of 
 teachers actually employed, leaving each com- 
 munity to provide what is needed thereafter by 
 local taxation. The teacher basis, though, while 
 most just to all as a single basis, fails to place a 
 premium on any educational effort, except the 
 employing of a sufficient number of teachers, 
 and hence is defective in this respect. 
 
 No single basis for apportionment will give as 
 satisfactory results as a combination of two bases, 
 and the best results, it can be shown, still fur- 
 ther,^ can be obtained from a combination of 
 teachers-actually-employed with aggregate-days'- 
 
 ^ These matters have all been worked out statistically in the 
 book previously mentioned, to which the reader is referred for 
 mathematical demonstration of these statements, as well as for 
 more detailed reasons. 
 
 26 
 
MORE MONEY 
 
 attendance. Every school, then, regardless of 
 size, receives a unit apportionment for every 
 teacher employed {$ioo, ^200, or more. In Cali- 
 fornia it is i^SSO for each one-room school), and 
 also a unit apportionment (a certain number of 
 cents per day) for each pupil in actual attend- 
 ance. With a small reserve fund, as in Indiana 
 and Missouri, to be given to those districts which 
 have raised a certain high rate of local tax and 
 still cannot meet the demands of the state, such 
 a plan of apportionment would come about as 
 near to placing a premium on every desirable 
 effort which communities should be forced to 
 make as any which can be devised. It also, if 
 sufficient general taxation is provided, comes as 
 near to an equalization of educational burdens as 
 it is desirable to do. 
 
 It can be shown mathematically that, by a 
 proper rearrangement of state and county ap- 
 portionment plans, so as to distribute the money 
 with greater reference to both effort and need, it 
 would be possible to increase the school term 
 between one and two months, in a number of the 
 states, with no additions to present funds. By a 
 27 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 further reorganization of the school systems of 
 the counties, as proposed in the succeeding chap- 
 ters, still greater economies could be effected, 
 and a still longer term of school could be main- 
 tained. 
 
 Adequate financing and intelligent apportion- 
 ment, then, lie at the basis of any marked im- 
 provement of our rural schools. There must be a 
 doubling of funds, in most of the states, if any- 
 thing approaching satisfactory results is to be 
 obtained. With better-trained teachers in the 
 cities, good supervision, good equipment, good 
 living conditions, practically permanent tenure, 
 and salaries from six hundred to twelve hundred 
 dollars a year, it is not surprising that the marked 
 educational progress of the past quarter of a 
 century has taken place there. The attempt to 
 manage rural schools on a hundred and fifty to 
 two hundred and fifty dollars a year will never give 
 good results, and one of the first necessities is 
 so to increase the funds at hand that there shall 
 never be less than five hundred dollars a year 
 for each teacher employed. This can never be 
 done, generally, by relying wholly, or even 
 28 
 
MORE MONEY 
 
 largely, upon district taxation ; or by apportion- 
 ing funds, when raised, on any basis which does 
 not first recognize the teacher as the real unit of 
 cost of the school. In most of our states there is 
 now needed a new campaign for the proper sup- 
 port of the public-school system, with a new 
 presentation of the present need of a greater 
 equalization of both the burdens and the advan- 
 tages of education. Accompanying this, two 
 other very fundamental reforms are needed, if 
 the best results are to be obtained. 
 
Ill 
 
 BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 The second line along which the reorganization 
 of rural education should take place is a reorgani- 
 zation of the whole system of rural school man- 
 agement, to secure a more economical and efficient 
 educational administration. 
 
 Three main types of school organization are 
 to be found in the United States, namely, the 
 district, the town or township, and the county. 
 Of these three, the district system is by far the 
 most common, as is seen by a glance at the 
 map on the following page. The dates on certain 
 states are the dates when they abolished the 
 district system. 
 
 Under the district system, a small and irregular 
 area known as the school district is the school 
 unit. Each county has from twenty-five to two 
 hundred and fifty such separate and distinct 
 school systems, each with a school board of three 
 trustees or directors, and these are but loosely 
 30 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 coordinated under a county superintendent as 
 parts of a county and state school system. Under 
 the town or township system, the town or town- 
 ship is the unit, and the schools of the town or 
 township are managed by one central school 
 authority. Under the county system, all of the 
 schools of the county, large cities under separate 
 boards excepted, are managed as a unit by a 
 county board of education, just as all the schools 
 of a city are managed as a unit by a city board 
 of education. Of the three types, the district 
 system is the most objectionable, and the county 
 system has the most to commend it. 
 
 The district system originated in Massachu- 
 setts in the eighteenth century, and in response 
 to peculiar local needs which no longer exist, and 
 was carried westward in the early nineteenth 
 century by New England people. Being well 
 adapted to primitive conditions, and to schools 
 of meagre scope, the district system no doubt 
 once rendered a useful service. It was best 
 adapted to a time of isolation, limited vision, and 
 to the day of small things and petty interests. 
 As a system of school management it is unadapted 
 32 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 to the business or the educational needs of the 
 present or of the future ; it is inefficient, incon- 
 sistent, unintelligent, unprogressive, and expens- 
 ive ; it leads to the multiplication of small and 
 poor schools, and to the building of an unneces- 
 sary number of small and cheap schoolhouses, 
 and, when population has increased sufficiently 
 to warrant consolidation, the natural envy, jeal- 
 ousy, and ultra-conservatism of the different dis- 
 tricts stand as a block in the road of educational 
 progress. It has been condemned generally by 
 school officials for forty years, and the chief 
 reason for its extensive retention is that the 
 people in many states have never known any 
 other system. 
 
 There is no educational or business need for 
 the large number of school officials made neces- 
 sary by the district system. In Illinois, for ex- 
 ample, about forty thousand district trustees 
 (called directors there) and township officers are 
 necessary, by the law, to carry on the rural and 
 the ungraded schools of the state, though only 
 about twelve thousand teachers are employed, 
 less than that number of schools are maintained, 
 33 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 and the total cost for maintenance is only about 
 three million dollars a year. This is about one 
 trustee for every seventy-five dollars of school 
 expenditure, while the city of Chicago looks after 
 the educational and business affairs of a complex 
 city school system, employing over six thousand 
 teachers, and costing over eight million dollars a 
 year, with a board of education of twenty-one, 
 and probably could do it still better with a board of 
 seven or nine. Had Chicago continued to retain 
 the district system, that is, a board of three 
 school trustees for each school maintained, which 
 was the plan followed from 1835 to 1857, there 
 would now be required about two hundred and 
 seventy-five different boards of school trustees 
 for the city, and the resulting confusion would 
 be almost inconceivable. 
 
 What is true of Illinois is equally true of many 
 other states. Michigan requires about twenty- 
 five thousand trustees, and Detroit eighteen ; 
 Missouri about twenty-eight thousand, and St. 
 Louis twelve ; and Kentucky, at the time of the 
 abolition of the district system (1906), "had 
 eight thousand three hundred and thirty districts 
 34 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION . 
 
 and twenty-four thousand nine hundred and 
 ninety school officials, with no unity of purpose 
 and no proper conception of the aim and scope 
 of popular education." Educational progress, 
 under such a system of management, must of 
 necessity be exceedingly slow, and schools under 
 such control cannot be expected to advance at a 
 rate demanded by the changing economic, social, 
 and educational needs. 
 
 The argument that these boards of trustees 
 represent closely the wishes of the people re- 
 veals the weakness rather than the strength of 
 the system. Country people are, as a rule, ultra- 
 conservative, economical, and sadly lacking in 
 educational progressiveness. New ideas come to 
 them but slowly; what has been for a long time 
 is good enough. No better evidence of this is 
 needed than the stubbornness with which the 
 consolidation movement has been resisted by 
 country people, and the chief progress of the 
 movement has been made in states which have 
 previously abandoned the district system. The 
 schools, if improvement is to be made, must fre- 
 quently take a position in advance of the people 
 35 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 and wait for good results to justify the position, 
 but the ability to do so is frequently impeded by 
 conservative and unintelligent boards of district 
 school trustees. Progress by concurrent action 
 is hard to get ; trustees frequently assume au- 
 thority over matters of which they are relatively 
 ignorant ; and nearly all important progress in 
 the improvement of rural schools has been made 
 by first curtailing the power of the district school 
 authorities. 
 
 The system is both expensive and inefficient, 
 because it leads to the multiplication of many 
 small and unnecessary schools, and because these 
 schools form no part of a comprehensive scheme 
 of rural school education. In almost any reason- 
 ably well-populated county, operating under the 
 district system, a rearrangement of the schools 
 could be made, by competent educational au- 
 thorities, which would provide much better edu- 
 cational facilities and at the same time dispense 
 with the services of from twenty to sixty teachers. 
 
 As it is to-day, each little rural school stands 
 alone, and provides the bare essentials of an ed- 
 ucation only. It does little to prepare its pupils 
 36 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 for intelligent participation in rural life, to train 
 them for the vocations of country people, or to 
 offer to them the advantages as well as the es- 
 sentials of an education, and it cannot provide 
 secondary training for them. Manual training 
 and carpentry, mechanical drawing, domestic 
 science, household economics, millinery, dress- 
 making, nursing, the care of the sick, gardening, 
 and the elements of agriculture, it is practically 
 impossible to teach in the little school of fifteen 
 to thirty children. Not only is there not time 
 for such subjects, but the money usually at hand 
 is not sufficient to buy the services of a teacher 
 competent to offer such instruction. The cities, 
 alive to the value of such instruction, are offer- 
 ing it to their grammar-school children and pay- 
 ing high prices to get teachers who can teach 
 such subjects. But the small country school 
 continues to provide the cheapest form of book 
 education, and to prepare its pupils for city and 
 professional life, rather than for rural and voca- 
 tional life. This condition will not be greatly 
 different so long as the district system of school 
 control is continued. 
 
 17 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 The rural school, too, ought to lead in an un- 
 broken sequence to a high school, of some kind, 
 for all country children. This it usually does 
 not do to-day. The rural, and even the village 
 district, are too small units to warrant the estab- 
 lishment of a high school, and admission to town 
 and city high schools must be asked for and 
 paid for on a tuition basis. By a proper reorgan- 
 ization of the rural schools it would be possible 
 to provide much better educational advantages 
 in the elementary grades, and high-school privi- 
 leges for all, at no materially greater cost, and 
 with the use of fewer but better teachers than 
 are at present employed. 
 
 Efforts have been made to improve the rural 
 schools by means of laws permitting of the con- 
 solidation of schools, by the voluntary vote of 
 the districts concerned, or by action by the town 
 or township authorities. Some marked progress 
 has been made in a few states, but almost with- 
 out exception they are states which earlier have 
 abandoned the district system. In the district- 
 system states the movement has awakened but 
 comparatively little interest, and in some of the 
 38 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 district-system states it has been impossible 
 even to get laws permitting of consolidation 
 through the legislature. In other such states the 
 laws have been passed, but almost no use has 
 been made of them. 
 
 Yet in the abandonment of the little district 
 school, except for isolated pupils or in sparsely- 
 settled areas ; in the organization of a well- 
 planned series of consolidated central schools, 
 with connecting high schools ; and in the mak- 
 ing of these consolidated or central schools cen- 
 tres of a new rural community life, lies, in large 
 part, not only the solution of the rural school 
 problem but the solution of the rural community 
 problem as well. Only in such schools can the 
 kmd of education demanded by modern condi- 
 tions be given, and only at such points can com- 
 munity centres be established which will serve 
 as rallying-points and tend to conserve and unify 
 country life. To expect such centres to be or- 
 ganized voluntarily by country people is to ex- 
 pect almost the impossible. To most country peo- 
 ple an ocular demonstration is needed to convince 
 them of the value of almost any new proposal. 
 39 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 The lack of coordination and cooperation be- 
 tween the districts is one of the most serious 
 obstacles to the consolidation movement. The 
 different boards of school trustees of the forty to 
 two hundred school districts of an average county 
 have no organic connection, and the people they 
 represent are often swayed more by envy and 
 jealousy — personal, political, religious, social, 
 economic — than by all of the educational argu- 
 ments which can be advanced. A dog-in-the- 
 manger spirit is often in evidence, and jealousy 
 of the proposed concentrating centre is often 
 a strong factor in producing unfavorable ac- 
 tion. 
 
 Under most existing laws propositions for con- 
 solidation must be initiated in the districts, pe- 
 titioned for, and then submitted to a separate 
 vote in each of the different districts. Consolida- 
 tion, under such circumstances, is accomplished 
 only with the greatest difficulty, and often only 
 after repeated trials, and it frequently results in 
 the union of only the more progressive districts, 
 with the result that the union formed is too small. 
 Consolidated schools formed thus by district ac- 
 40 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 tion bear little or no relation to one another, and 
 lack the wisdom as to size and location of the 
 school which would come from the adoption first 
 of a comprehensive plan, worked out for the 
 county as a whole. 
 
 The town or township unit offers many advan- 
 tages over the district, but, except in very thickly 
 populated regions, it is too small to admit of the 
 best results. Very often the best arrangement of 
 consolidated school lines, too, will follow topo- 
 graphic features rather than township lines, and 
 again the congressional township area (thirty-six 
 square miles) will also at times prove too large for 
 one school. This is well shown on the Minnesota 
 map, printed on page 46. The county offers a much 
 better unit for almost all kinds of school organi- 
 zation, and the general adoption, outside of New 
 England, of the county as the unit for school 
 purposes would be greatly in the interest of 
 economical and efficient administration. In most 
 other public functions, — assessment and taxa- 
 tion, poor-relief, roads and bridges, sanitation, 
 control of the liquor traffic, the administration of 
 justice, and, in some matters, for schools also, 
 41 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the county is the prevailing unit, and to add the 
 schools to the list would be a good addition. 
 
 The central features of a good county plan of 
 school administration are a county board of edu- 
 cation, representing the people, with the county 
 superintendent of schools as their executive offi- 
 cer. This board would have supervisory control 
 of all of the schools of the county, cities under 
 city boards of education excepted, and would 
 have power to arrange and rearrange school dis- 
 tricts ; to form union schools and consolidated 
 central schools, and to provide transportation ; 
 to provide high schools for all ; to employ, fix the 
 salaries of, and pay all teachers and employees ; 
 often to adopt the course of study, add other 
 branches, and designate textbooks ; to enforce 
 the compulsory attendance laws ; to determine, 
 within fixed limits, the county school taxes ; and 
 to exercise a general supervision over the schools 
 of the county, analogous to that exercised over 
 the schools of a city by a city board of educa- 
 tion. The schools of the county are thus managed 
 as a unit ; school taxes and school privileges are 
 equalized all over the county ; good, well-taught 
 42 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 elementary schools, with a rich curriculum and 
 maintained for a uniformly long term, are pro- 
 vided at each central school ; all districts are 
 parts of organized high-school territory, and 
 hence high-school advantages are provided free 
 to all ; and county attendance officers, with a 
 county parental school, carefully enforce the 
 compulsory attendance laws. 
 
 A local school officer or officers (trustees) 
 would still exist for each single, union, or con- 
 solidated district, but the number of such in a 
 county would be greatly reduced, and their pow- 
 ers would be somewhat closely limited. They 
 could well be entrusted with the care of the 
 schoolhouse, providing of fuel and supplies, hand- 
 ling of severe cases of discipline, acting as a 
 means of communication between the people of 
 the district and the county school authorities, 
 and in expressing for the district its preference 
 as to the persons to be employed as teachers. 
 These are legitimate functions to be retained by 
 local school authorities. What would be taken 
 away from them are functions which district au- 
 thorities are no longer competent to exercise, 
 43 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 which they have lost in some states, and which 
 they ought everywhere to lose. Such powers as 
 the classification of the school, adding or reduc- 
 ing the subjects of study, selecting textbooks, 
 examining and supervising the instruction, em- 
 ploying and dismissing teachers and driving bar- 
 gains with them as to salary, determining tax 
 rates (except by vote of the district for building 
 purposes), handling district funds, keeping dis- 
 trict accounts, and incurring expenses, except as 
 authorized, are powers which it will be well for 
 the schools if the present district authorities 
 should lose. These are not functions which the 
 people of each city ward or schoolhouse district 
 think it necessary to be allowed to exercise, and 
 there is little argument, other than three genera- 
 tions of practice, why the people of rural school 
 districts should. All of the powers mentioned 
 above can be handled better by central expert 
 authority, as will be pointed out more in detail 
 in the next chapter. 
 
 The accompanying illustrations show how such 
 a plan would work out in two counties. The Min- 
 nesota drawing is a hypothetical rearrangement, 
 44 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 the location of all of the little rural schools now 
 existing being shown, as well as the new con- 
 solidated schools. On this plan it will be noted 
 that the best rearrangement of lines does not 
 follow the township lines. The Florida drawing 
 is an actual case, the thirteen consolidated schools 
 having replaced all of the little rural schools, 
 except those in one district.^ 
 
 What we have, in each of these cases, is the 
 provision of a well-organized system of schools 
 for the county as a whole, with graded schools, 
 a rich and useful curriculum, and high-school 
 advantages for all. The main difference between 
 either and a city school system is that it is 
 spread out a little more, but the advantages 
 which may be offered the country child are prac- 
 tically the same as in the city. Instead of the 
 little, lonely school, with its handful of chil- 
 dren, numerous classes, meagre curriculum, 
 over-crowded programme, and lonely, town-sick 
 
 1 An excellent little book on this subject is Consolidated Ru- 
 ral Schools, attd Organization of a County System, by George W. 
 Knorr. (U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Experimental Station Bul- 
 letin No. 232, 99 pp., illus., 1910.) 
 
 45 
 
MAP OF OLMSTEAD COUNTY, MINNESOTA, ILLUSTRAT- 
 ING POSSIBLE CONSOLIDATION. (AFTER KNORR.) 
 
 Area of county, 644 square miles; number of rural schools, ijg ; number of 
 graded schools, 3. Note how the heavy lines, representing the best districting 
 for consolidated schools, vciry from the light township lines, and that 21 dis- 
 tricts are required to provide properly for the 18 townships. The numbers before 
 " i; " and " H. S." denote probable enrolment in the grades and the high 
 school for each consolidated school. Under this plan 21 strong, graded, con- 
 solidated scliools would replace the 142 graded and district schools now exist- 
 ing. Not counting additions for high school instruction, about 30 teachers for 
 elementary schools could be saved, and counting the high schools the new plan 
 could be carried out with no increase in the number of teachers employed. 
 
MAP, SHOWING CONSOLIDATED DISTRICTS AND LOCA- 
 TION OF CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL HOUSES, IN DUVAL 
 COUNTY, FLORIDA. (AFTER KNORR.) 
 
 Area of county, 884 square miles. Location of future consolidated schools 
 shown by a circle. Two launches are used in transportation, in addition to 
 twenty-eight wagons, all owned by the county. 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 teacher, there is a school graded into from three 
 to eight classrooms, enough pupils to awaken a 
 real interest, an enriched curriculum and special 
 teachers, a principal and a group of teachers less 
 lonesome and less anxious to get to the city to 
 teach, part at least of a high-school course, and a 
 school that will awaken community interest and 
 pride. By building a proper building, as can be 
 done with the larger taxable area to pay for it, a 
 building can be provided which is not only 
 modern, well-heated, and thoroughly sanitary, but 
 one which will contain a library room, a manual 
 training and carpentry room, a domestic science 
 and household arts room, and ground opportuni- 
 ties sufficient for good instruction in agricul- 
 ture. By adding an assembly hall of sufficient size, 
 with stage, movable seats, piano, and stereopticon, 
 which canbe done at but small extra cost, theschool 
 could become what every consolidated or central 
 school should become, a permanent educational, 
 intellectual, and social centre for the people of 
 the enlarged school district, a rallying-point for 
 the people of the community, and a strong uni- 
 fying force in country life. Lectures, entertain 
 48 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 ments, public meetings, discussions, debates, ex- 
 hibitions of school work, local institutes, and 
 social gatherings could then be held at the central 
 school, the same wagons which bring the children 
 to school in the daytime serving to bring their 
 parents at night, or at other times. Traveling 
 and branch libraries may here find a home. The 
 different movements for the socializing of country 
 life and the socializing of the rural school here 
 meet on common ground. 
 
 The plan for the reorganization of county and 
 small- village education here outlined really pro- 
 vides for offering to country people practically 
 as good educational advantages as are possessed 
 by city people, at no greater cost, and with the 
 advantage of the country to live in. It means the 
 making-over of the rural schools by incorporating 
 into their curricula the special advantages now 
 possessed by the cities, and into their organiza- 
 tion and management the best city administra- 
 tive experience. To conceive of the plan in its 
 details and to see its advantages requires more 
 imagination than country people usually possess, 
 and, with the change which in many places is 
 49 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 taking place in the character of the country peo- 
 ple, more than we can expect these new classes 
 to have for some time to come. If the country 
 school is to be revitalized in any such manner 
 and made into a social instrument adapted to pre- 
 sent educational and economic needs, it will have 
 to be accomplished largely by the interposition 
 of the state. If we wait for action by those who 
 now apparently seem so satisfied with the district 
 system, we shall wait another generation or two 
 before any marked results are achieved. 
 
 There are three main ways of inaugurating the 
 county plan of school organization. 
 
 The first way is by a county commission, as in 
 Minnesota. Under this plan, on a petition of one 
 fourth of the electors, the county commissioners 
 appoint a rural school commission of seven, one 
 of whom shall be the county school superintend- 
 ent. This commission proceeds to redistrict the 
 county, prepares and publishes a map of the 
 same, and an election is called to decide the ques- 
 tion. Progress under this plan probably will be 
 slow, and many opportunities are presented for 
 the defeat in the election of any really good plan 
 50 
 
BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 proposed. The second is by an optional adoption 
 by counties, first, of a county plan of school or- 
 ganization, with a representative county board of 
 education, as in Utah, and then afterward pro- 
 ceeding to the organization of the county into 
 consolidated districts, as has been done in Florida. 
 The third plan is to legislate for the state as a 
 whole at once, as was done in Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee, create a county board of education to take 
 charge of the schools of the county, reduce the 
 school districts to subdistricts and deprive them 
 of all except legitimate functions, and give to the 
 county board of education power to consolidate 
 schools and to transport children. Maryland, Ala- 
 bama, and Louisiana offer good types of this 
 form of county school organization. Similar 
 powers are possessed by the town school authori- 
 ties of the Massachusetts and Connecticut towns. 
 The exact plan to be followed is less important 
 than the attainment of the result. Efficient rural 
 school organization and control will be promoted 
 in proportion as the central control of the county 
 is substituted for the control by the districts. 
 With county control provided for, one additional 
 reform becomes necessary. 
 
IV 
 
 BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 The third line along which a reorganization of 
 rural education should take place, and a corol- 
 lary to the second one, is the provision of close, 
 adequate, and professional supervision for the 
 rural schools. The supervision which exists to- 
 day, except in Massachusetts and in a few favored 
 towns and townships elsewhere, exists much more 
 in name than in fact. 
 
 It is here that the cities again have a great ad- 
 vantage over the small- village and rural schools. 
 With their superintendents, special supervisors, 
 and supervising principals, the cities look after 
 their instruction with a care and a thoroughness 
 unknown in rural schools. Yet it is in the cities 
 that most of the trained and experienced teach- 
 ers are found, while in the rural schools nearly all 
 of the untrained and the inexperienced, and most 
 of the poorly educated and comparatively unsuc- 
 cessful teachers find either their starting-point or 
 52 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 their haven of rest. In the better-managed cities, 
 if trouble arises, or if a teacher proves weak, 
 close attention is at once given to the case, and 
 the teacher either is improved by helpful sug- 
 gestions or assistance, or is soon removed from 
 the position. In the rural and the village schools, 
 difficult situations are allowed to become aggra- 
 vated, and poor teaching to become cumulative. 
 Often a whole year in a child's education is 
 wasted, or worse than wasted, because of a poor 
 teacher and the lack of real supervision. 
 
 State laws generally require a county superin- 
 tendent of schools to visit each school in his 
 county at least once each year, and some super- 
 intendents try to visit each school twice. This, 
 though no doubt useful, particularly to the su- 
 perintendent, is of little value as professional 
 supervision. Institutes and examinations make 
 up about all else that there is of a supervisory 
 nature. So large is the office work — legal, finan- 
 cial, statistical, clerical, and political — that a 
 superintendent has little time for anything more. 
 As the work of a county superintendent is at 
 present laid out, from two thirds to four fifths of 
 53 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 his time is devoted to other functions than school 
 supervision, and these other functions tend con- 
 stantly to increase. 
 
 The office arose early in the evolution of our 
 state school systems. The chief functions at first 
 were to look after the school lands, to stimulate 
 an interest in education, to gather information, 
 and to make reports as to the establishment of 
 schools. In a few states the superintendent was 
 evolved out of the township superintendent, 
 created early in our development ; in others, out 
 of a school land commissioner; in others, as an 
 offshoot of some other county office, and by a 
 division of labor; and, in still other states, the 
 superintendency has evolved out of a board of 
 county commissioners. By the time the newer 
 states west of the Mississippi River were formed, 
 the office had been created so generally as to 
 form a type, which was generally copied. 
 
 Everywhere the office, at first, was almost 
 entirely a statistical and clerical one, and this 
 side of the work has been greatly added to by 
 the tendency, manifest in marked degree during 
 the past quarter of a century, to transfer power 
 54 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 and authority from the district school boards to 
 the county and state educational authorities. 
 The office was created to represent the authority 
 of the county and the state, distinct from the 
 district authorities on the one hand, and the 
 teaching body on the other. The analogy to 
 other county officials was evident; election by 
 the people, for short terms, seemed the natural 
 method; and this plan, once begun, still persists 
 in about three fourths of the states having such 
 an officer. 
 
 Within recent years, coincident with the evo- 
 lution of the many new social and educational 
 problems, the expansion of the curriculum, and 
 the development of a professional conception of 
 the work of supervision, new conceptions as to 
 the nature and duties of the office have come 
 to the front. New professional obligations and 
 responsibilities have been added, and insisted 
 upon; new standards of admission to the work 
 have been set up; the demand for some real 
 supervision for the rural schools cannot be much 
 longer resisted; and, generally to-day, there is 
 a feeling that the office must soon be placed 
 55 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 upon a professional rather than upon a political 
 basis. 
 
 Efforts to solve the problem of adequate super- 
 vision for the rural schools have, for a long time, 
 been made along a number of lines. Perhaps the 
 one attempted most has been that of trying to 
 secure deputy superintendents, to assist the 
 county superintendent in the work of super- 
 vision, or clerical assistance to enable him to 
 dispense with some of his office work. Except- 
 ing in a few large counties, these efforts have 
 so far met with but little success. The county 
 supervisors (or commissioners), it is evident, 
 will not voluntarily provide such deputies or 
 clerks, and the superintendents so far have not 
 been able to prevail upon the legislatures to 
 compel them to do so. The complaints as to 
 needed assistance, with which state school 
 reports abound, and the low salaries paid to the 
 county superintendents all over the United States, 
 give abundant evidence that the office, as it now 
 exists, has not as yet established itself very 
 deeply in the hearts of the people. In almost 
 any county-seat city the superintendent of the 
 56 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 city schools and the principal of the high school 
 are paid from one and a half to three times as 
 much as is the superintendent of the county 
 schools, are better provided with clerical assist- 
 ance, and either of the two former positions is 
 generally looked upon as much more important, 
 educationally, than is the county office. 
 
 Another line along which it has been thought 
 possible to provide supervision for the rural and 
 town schools has been by legislation permitting 
 groups of districts or towns or townships to unite 
 in a union to employ a supervising principal. This 
 is the plan which has been followed by Massa- 
 chusetts in dealing with its towns. The towns 
 there were first permitted to form such superin- 
 tendency unions, then they were given state 
 subsidies if they would do so, and finally the 
 recalcitrant towns were forced to unite and to 
 provide proper supervision for their schools. The 
 plan of unions for supervision has been employed 
 also, to a limited extent, in some of the township- 
 unit states, though the township itself has formed 
 the most common supervisory unit. Voluntary 
 unions in district-system states are almost un- 
 57 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 known, and it is useless to expect many of them 
 to be formed. The same difficulty is encountered 
 here as in the consolidation movement, — the 
 difficulty of obtaining the consent of so many 
 small, mutually jealous, and penny-wise school- 
 district boards. United action by district authori- 
 ties is next to impossible, and it is futile to hope 
 that adequate supervision will come from this 
 source. 
 
 The solution of the problem of providing ade- 
 quate and professional supervision for the rural 
 and village schools lies in another direction, and 
 that is in the divorce of the office of county super- 
 intendent from politics, in the removal of the 
 office from the elective column, and in the adop- 
 tion of an efficient system of county school ad- 
 ministration. It is useless to expect a very much 
 better quality of county superv^ision than we have 
 at present so long as we permit the Republican 
 and Democratic parties to select our superin- 
 tendents, and chiefly on the basis of political 
 affiliation and local residence. Neither can we 
 expect much greater popular support for the 
 office until it ceases to be a closely protected 
 58 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 local political industry, and is opened up to the 
 free competition of men and women of good 
 educational preparation and experience. 
 
 Once place the office on an educational, instead 
 of a political basis ; make it possible for men or 
 women from the outside to be considered for the 
 office ; make the retention of the office dependent 
 on good service, instead of the party caucus or 
 the popular whim ; place a premium on accom- 
 plishment and service, rather than on trying to 
 keep on the good side of the electorate ; and open 
 the office as a possible career for which men and 
 women would be warranted in making careful 
 professional preparation ; and the poor conditions 
 now surrounding the office would rapidly change. 
 Under the same freedom of selection and com- 
 petition for men as now exists for city super- 
 intendents and for high-school principals, the 
 character of the men engaged in county super- 
 vision would rapidly improve, competition of 
 counties for men would follow, the salaries offered 
 would soon double or treble, clerical assistance 
 would be easily obtainable, and men and women 
 who now prepare themselves for and go into 
 59 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 city or high-school work would turn to county 
 supervision as a useful and influential field of 
 labor. 
 
 As it is to-day, the office offers no career to any 
 one, and the real merit of a man frequently has 
 little or nothing to do with either his selection 
 or his retention in office. After a man has learned 
 his work and come to like it, he is altogether too 
 often defeated for renomination or reelection by 
 the enmity of the party bosses, by some slip or 
 trade in the political convention, by some unfore- 
 seen accident during the campaign, by the more 
 effective canvass of a "glad-hander " or "gallery- 
 playing" opponent, or by a general party land- 
 slide. Too often the superintendent who attends 
 strictly to his business does so at the expense of 
 his political prospects, and the superintendent 
 who does his duty, especially in the states where 
 the district system is still strong, is frequently 
 marked for defeat by the enemies he has made 
 in the districts. The vicious political principle 
 of rotation in office also helps to eliminate good 
 men. After one or two terms in the office a su- 
 perintendent's career is usually ended, similar 
 60 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 employment elsewhere is impossible, and he com- 
 monly leaves school work entirely. 
 
 There can be no question but that the short 
 tenure of office, the low salaries, the local resi- 
 dence requirement, the political aspect of the 
 office, the public notoriety attached to candidacy, 
 the long campaign, and, under the new primary 
 election laws, the double campaign, the expense 
 of securing the office, the uncertainty of election, 
 and the humiliation of defeat, together tend to 
 keep the best men in the teaching profession out 
 of the office, with the result that the average 
 county superintendent of to-day, with full allow- 
 ance for exceptional cases, represents an inferior 
 quality of professional leadership compared with 
 what might be had under more favorable condi- 
 tions. He is much more frequently a routine 
 worker, a strict constructionist, and a good, con- 
 scientious clerk, than a man of insight, imagina- 
 tion, and educational grasp, who works in the 
 light of established principles and sees the ends 
 behind the means. 
 
 The fault lies, though, not so much with the 
 men who hold the office as with the system which 
 62 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 produces them. The men we have to-day as 
 county superintendents are, averaged up, per- 
 haps the best the system has so far produced. 
 It is the system itself which is fundamentally 
 wrong. Potentially, the office is one of large pos- 
 sibilities. County supervision ought to attract as 
 capable men as does the city school service, and 
 it ought even to compete with the cities for men. 
 As it is to-day, however, the political and resi- 
 dential tariff leveled against training and com- 
 petency is practically prohibitive, and county 
 school supervision, in most states, is to a very 
 large degree merely a closely limited local indus- 
 try, offering only temporary employment to the 
 few who are willing to consider political can- 
 didacy. 
 
 The disastrous results of the present political 
 system may perhaps be seen best if we imagine 
 the county system applied to the school systems 
 of our towns and cities. Even those county su- 
 perintendents themselves who loudly espouse the 
 present plan, would not advocate so disastrous a 
 change. We can at once imagine the demoral- 
 ization which would follow if our city superin- 
 63 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 tendents, high-school and grammar-school prin- 
 cipals, and town supervising principals were to be 
 selected always from among local residents, by 
 nomination on party tickets, and by popular elec- 
 tion. The introduction of such a vicious system 
 would soon ruin the schools and quickly drive the 
 best men out of the work. Yet, if it is right and 
 wise to vote for one, it is right and wise to vote 
 for all ; and if it is wrong and unwise to vote for 
 one, it is wrong and unwise to vote for any one. 
 The positions and the nature of the work stand 
 on a par with one another, and the poor quality 
 of the supervision of our country schools, and in 
 the two cities in the United States which still 
 retain the elective method, stand as abundant 
 evidence that the plan of nomination and election, 
 instead of selection and appointment, is both 
 wrong in principle and against the best interests 
 of education. 
 
 It is easy enough to make almost any one 
 recognize the serious limitations under which 
 the office labors to-day, excepting the county 
 superintendents themselves. Hope springs eter- 
 nal in the politician's breast, and, in possession 
 64 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 of the office, with its political prestige and power, 
 he thinks he can get it again, disregards all evi- 
 dence and argument, and goes to the legislature 
 and helps to defeat all measures looking toward 
 real improvement of the conditions surrounding 
 the office. The most serious obstacle to the im- 
 provement of county school supervision to-day 
 is the county superintendent himself. Many of 
 them befog the issue as much as possible by loud 
 talk about their faith in the judgment of "the 
 toiling fathers on the hillsides," and of the ability 
 of the "people to guard the interests of their 
 homes and schools," and ignore the real question 
 and the far-reaching significance, for country peo- 
 ple and country children, of the reforms proposed. 
 A few of the county superintendents see the sig- 
 nificance of the proposals, both for the schools 
 and for the superintendents themselves, and do 
 what they can to advance the movement, but they 
 are as yet in a hopeless minority. Most county 
 superintendents can see nothing in the plan, — 
 until some one else gets their office. 
 
 The county superintendent, in his evolution, 
 was the real beginning, in most states, of a 
 65 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 county as opposed to a township ar a district 
 system of school administration. He deals with 
 the county as a whole, and the gradual transfer- 
 ence of powers to his office from the district 
 school authorities, tends constantly to build up 
 the county unit at the expense of the district. 
 Under an educational organization closely ana- 
 logous to that of the cities, the transference of 
 power and authority to his office would be rapid, 
 and an efficient county system of school organ- 
 ization and administration would rapidly evolve. 
 The system of county-unit organization, outlined 
 in the preceding chapter, can never be complete 
 until the county superintendency is changed from 
 a political and elective to an educational and ap- 
 pointive office. The completed plan would then 
 be somewhat as follows : — 
 
 The people, preferably at the spring school- 
 election time, would vote for members of a county 
 board of education, to represent them in the 
 management of their schools. These members 
 might be elected by commissioner or supervisor 
 districts, if this were thought desirable, but bet- 
 ter representatives and better results would be 
 66 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 obtained, ultimately, if they were elected from 
 the county at large. A board of five is both large 
 and small enough, and it would be well if one 
 member were elected each year, for a five-year 
 term. Three-year terms might be provided, the 
 annual elections being for two, two, and one ; or 
 four-year terms, with three and two elected bi- 
 ennially. This detail is not a vital one, so long 
 as a continuous body is provided for. This gives 
 the people five persons, presumably taxpayers 
 and parents, to represent them, in place of the 
 one county superintendent they now elect. This 
 county board of education thus becomes a body 
 analogous to a city board of education, and should 
 be given similar powers and duties. 
 
 The county board of education now takes 
 charge of all the schools of the county, not un- 
 der separate city boards of education, and man- 
 ages the schools of the county as a unit, as out- 
 lined in the preceding chapter. It appoints the 
 county superintendent of schools, and, on his 
 recommendation, assistant superintendents and 
 special supervisors, as needed, just as city boards 
 of education appoint similar officials. In selecting 
 67 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the county superintendent, his assistants, and the 
 special supervisors, the county board is free to 
 go anywhere for them, within or without the 
 state, so long as the persons selected possess the 
 requisite educational preparation and professional 
 certificates. The board also fixes their salaries, 
 free from any maxima or minima set by law, the 
 object being to enable the boards to compete 
 freely in the educational markets for men and 
 women of training, educational insight, and ex- 
 ecutive skill. This makes the county the com- 
 petitor of the city, as well as of other counties, 
 and enables the county to secure the services of 
 the best men obtainable for the money it can 
 pay. 
 
 The board also organizes the business, legal, 
 and clerical affairs of the office under a com- 
 bined clerk and business manager, as is done in 
 the cities, or under an assistant superintendent, 
 who devotes his time to the work, thus freeing 
 the superintendent from the necessity of spend- 
 ing his time in routine office work. The board is 
 to be the sole judge as to the number of assist- 
 ants, clerks, stenographers, etc., necessary to con- 
 68 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 duct properly the business of the office, and of 
 the salaries to be paid such employees. 
 
 After considering such recommendations as 
 the trustees of the different single and consoli- 
 dated districts care to make, the county super- 
 intendent recommends to the county board for 
 approval all the regular and special teachers 
 needed for the schools under its charge, the 
 board fixing their compensation. If no state 
 course of study or state adoption of textbooks is 
 in use in the state, they are to adopt these, on 
 the recommendation of the superintendent and 
 his assistants. The board may make rules and 
 regulations, not inconsistent with law, for the 
 management of the schools under their charge; 
 may, on the recommendation of the superintend- 
 ent, suspend or dismiss teachers, for cause ; may 
 appoint county truant officers, and establish a 
 county parental school ; may issue, on the recom- 
 mendation of the board of superintendents, such 
 teachers' certificates as are authorized by general 
 law ; may alter the boundaries of school districts, 
 consolidate schools, and provide transportation ; 
 and shall, within the limits fixed by law, deter- 
 69 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 mine the annual county school tax, and certify 
 the same to the proper authorities for levy, and 
 this without review by the county commissioners, 
 or supervisors. The board's functions are to be 
 legislative, but not executive. 
 
 The number of assistant superintendents, 
 teachers, and supervisors of special subjects to 
 be appointed for the schools of the county may 
 be left to be determined by the board, or may be 
 fixed by general law, but should be enough to 
 teach and supervise properly the schools of the 
 county, and on approximately the same basis as 
 city schools are taught and supervised. The 
 county superintendent should visit all of the 
 schools of his county. His assistants, when the 
 county is large enough to need them, may super- 
 vise districts, or certain school grades, as the 
 superintendent or board may direct. 
 
 So far as possible, the superintendents and his 
 assistants should identify themselves with the 
 needs and interests of the county, or parts of the 
 county, which they are to supervise. By personal 
 conference, occasional public addresses, articles 
 and news notes in the local papers, the superin- 
 70 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 tending body ought to help to mould and to ad- 
 vance community sentiment with reference to 
 education. In case of need it ought to be pos- 
 sible for a supervisor to spend days at a time in 
 a school, and the visits in any case ought never 
 to be more than a few weeks apart. It should be 
 the particular business of the supervisors to try 
 to make good teachers out of the material at 
 hand ; to single out promising ones, and promote 
 them and encourage them to advance in know- 
 ledge and training ; to guide the schools in organ- 
 ization and management, and to develop the educa- 
 tional system of the county as fast as the people 
 can afford, and as far as is consistent with sound 
 education. From time to time conferences with 
 the teachers should be held as to methods and 
 results. For such work men and women are 
 needed who possess generous personal culture, 
 liberal views, good pedagogical training, satis- 
 factory teaching experience, good common sense, 
 and a knowledge of and sympathy with rural 
 conditions, people, and life. To secure such per- 
 sons, not only must good salaries be paid, but 
 the conditions surrounding the entrance upon 
 71 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
 
 and continuance in such service must be satis- 
 factory. 
 
 Combine the three lines of improvement pre- 
 sented in this and the preceding chapters, and we 
 have the main lines along which real improve- 
 ment of our rural and small-town schools will need 
 to be made. A county unit of organization and ad- 
 ministration, with a county school board represent- 
 ing the people ; supervision placed on an educa- 
 tional, instead of a political basis, and made 
 effective; the subordination and consolidation 
 of the districts, on the initiative of a central 
 authority, and according to a constructive and 
 unified educational plan; adequate funds for 
 the necessary support of schools, drawn from 
 state and county taxation, with permissive local 
 taxation for buildings and extra educational ef- 
 forts; and a system of apportionment which 
 recognizes the unit of cost of the school, and 
 which places a premium on efficiency and attend- 
 ance; these are the main essentials of the plan. 
 It closely resembles the organization found most 
 effective by the cities, and aims to produce a 
 school system in the country as effective in pre- 
 72 
 
BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 paring for country life as the city schools are in 
 preparing for city life. There can be little doubt 
 that such a central board, composed of citizens 
 of the intelligence, ability, and personal char- 
 acter necessary to secure election at a time 
 when partisan politics and party tickets do not 
 cloud the judgment, and dealing with the county's 
 educational needs as a whole, would provide 
 much better schools for all than ever will be done 
 by district authority. 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 I. THE PROBLEM 
 
 1. Recent educational progress i 
 
 2. Interest in the rural school problem 2 
 
 3. Improving the teacher 3 
 
 4. Enriching the instruction 4 
 
 5. Improving the trustee 6 
 
 6. Limitations imposed and permissions granted . 8 
 
 7. The result of these expedients 9 
 
 8. The rural problem not an isolated one .... 10 
 
 9. The consolidation movement 12 
 
 10. The rural school as it is to-day 12 
 
 11. The new social needs 14 
 
 II. MORE MONEY 
 
 1. The need of greater support 16 
 
 2. What was settled sixty years ago 17 
 
 3. Changes in distribution which have taken place . 18 
 
 4. Need of a reconsideration of the question ... 19 
 
 5. Diversity in economic conditions 20 
 
 6. Necessity of state and county taxation .... 21 
 
 7. Need of a good apportionment plan 22 
 
 8. Disadvantages of the census basis 23 
 
 9. Other single apportionment bases 25 
 
 10. Need of a combination of bases 25 
 
 11. The teacher the unit of cost 26 
 
 III. BETTER ORGANIZATION 
 
 1. Types of school organization 30 
 
 2. The district system 32 
 
 75 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 3. School officials required 
 
 4. Strength and weakness of district control 
 
 5. District system expensive and inefficient 
 
 6. Limited curriculum of the rural school . 
 
 7. Lack of connection with the high school 
 
 8. The consolidation movement . . 
 
 9. Difficulties commonly encountered 
 
 10. The town and the township units . 
 
 11. The county-unit plan 
 
 12. Powers of local district trustees . 
 
 13. The plan illustrated 
 
 14. What the consolidated school can provide 
 
 15. Three ways of inaugurating the plan 
 
 33 
 
 35 
 36 
 36 
 38 
 
 39 
 
 40 
 
 41 
 42 
 
 43 
 44 
 49 
 50 
 
 IV. BETTER SUPERVISION 
 
 1. City and rural schools compared 52 
 
 2. The superintendent's visits and work .... 53 
 
 3. Origin and early duties of the office 54 
 
 4. New conceptions of the office ....... 55 
 
 5. Efforts to secure assistance 56 
 
 6. Efforts to secure voluntary unions 57 
 
 7. The real solution 58 
 
 8. Making the office a career 59 
 
 9. The fault lies with the system 62 
 
 10. The system applied to city schools 63 
 
 11. Obstacles to reform 64 
 
 12. County superintendent stands for the county unit 65 
 
 13. The county-unit plan in outline 66 
 
 14. Kind of supervisors needed 69 
 
 15. Essentials and advantages of the plan .... 72 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
MAK 16 1912