The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-24
BETTER COUNTRY SCHOOLS.

BETTER COUNTRY SCHOOLS.
 A method of improving, and at the
 same time cheapening, country schools
 is a long-felt want, which has at length, | it appears, been supplied successfully in
 some localities of Maryland and in sev- eral other parts of the Union. If the l public school system breaks down any where it is in sparsely settled rural dis tricts where there are not enough pu- pills within practical area to justify
 the expense of a good building and q good teacher The merits of a graded school are not attainable where there
 are only six or eight pupils of assorted
 ages and attainments, and only one in-
 structor witt minimum salary. The
 state naturally cannot afford to provide
 for a population of ten to a square mile
 the same school accommodations that it
 readily provides for population of five
 thousand to the square mile. Should it
 attempt to do so the treasury would be
 bankrupted The disadvantage is en-
 hanced by the fact that in sparsely set
 tied neighborhoods the people are apt to
 be poor and unable to supplement with
 voluntary contributions, or local taxa
 tion, the scanty school fund received
 from the state. The result is that some
 country schools are lamentably ineffi-
 cient and the badness of the schools
 tends to prevent improvement by the
 influx of new settlers and new capital, Intelligent farmers, on the contrary, anxious for good schools for their chill dren move away with regret to locali- ties where the soil is worse but the schools better
 But if good schools cannot be brought to the children of sparsely settled areas, cannot the children be taken to such schools? The experiment has been tried and it is found to be practicable to unite the weak schools of q scattered | country settlement into one strong, well ! equipped, well conducted central graded | school by conveying the remote children to and from their homes at the public expense, and that too at total cost | less than that of maintaining a number of isolated and inefficient small schools New York has a statute authorizing the of weak schools at the discretion of the trustees of district schools. Wisconsin has about twenty such "consolidated' schools, and a somewhat similar statute is pending in the Maryland legislature. For thirty years Massachusetts has had a statute which authorizes local authorities to raise money to provide flor the convey ance of pupils to and from the public schools" For eighteen years, says the report of a rural district of Massa- ,husetts, i've have had the best attend ince from the transported children. We have saved the town at least six hundred dollars year. All the chill lren attend well equipped schoolhouses at the center The schools are graded, md everybody is converted to the plan. There is no way to bring the country schools up but to consolidate them"
 The Warwick district, in Massachu- 'etts, according to an article on school consolidation in the Forum for March $ seven miles long by four or five miles Ntde-a considerable area to be served )y one school. Yet its one hundred Ind two pupils from all points now at end" says the Forum, "a graded chool in a neat well-appointed house
 t the center the children being con
 l he town has heightened it's school year c fifty rer cent: has increased the [ eachers' salaries seventy-five per cnt. has employed special teachers of rawing and music: has improved the ualty of instruction, and has reduced he cost of the whole" One result of he system is to create d flow of immi- ration into outlying districts and in- rease the value of remote farms.
 handoned farms are again in demand nd the taxable basis is improved
 In Iowa the consolidation of schools as been tried with success. ''The ex- eriment has been tried" says Gvernor haW in a recent message, "of main4 iining a central township graded ,hool, to and from which the pupils re conveyed in carriages al, public ex- ense. Wherever this plan has been