The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-04-05
HOW WE MAY IMPROVE OUR COUNTRY
SCHOOLS.
1.-THE Harmful Effects of Maintaining Unnecessary
Weak Districts.
Editors Progressive Farmer:

l. liz d III ~ 70 SOIIC ILICN1CdD1C
results of this multiplicity of small districts and
schools. From 1874 to 1902 the State and county
school tax was increased from 6A cents to Is
cents ON the 800 of property and proportionately
ON the poll, and the total school fund was quad
rupled, and yet a special State appropriation of
100000 was necessary in 1901, and has been nee
essary since, to give even a four months school
term to the public schools.
SMALL DISTRICTS MEAN HEAVY TAXES
During the quarter century before this appro-
p~riation was made, the public school term had
been increased in length less than three weeks
and the average salary of the public school teach
er had been increased not one cent. The school
population had of course largely increased dur
ing this quarter of a century, but the increase in
the population was not in proportion to the in
crease in the total school fund and there would
unquestionably have been a larger increase in the
length of the school term, in the salary of teachers
and in the efficiency of the schools, but for the
fact that along with the increase in the school
fund went a rapid increase in the number of
school districts. With a fixed school fund for
each county, the larger the number of schools
among which it must be divided, the smaller the
amount of money each school will receive; the
smaller the number of schools, the larger the
amount of money each school will receive. This
is as automatic as the proposition in arithmetic
that with a fixed dividend, the larger the divisor,
the smaller the quotient, and contra. More money
for each school must of course mean more house,
more equipment, more teacher, longer term.
Another strong evidence of the evil results of
multiplying unnecessarily small districts is to be
found in the fact revealed by the applications
for aid from the second hundred thousand dollars
for a four months school, that 50 per cent Of all
white districts applying for aid from this appro-
priation were small districts containing less than
~sixty-five children of school age, many of them
containing only twenty or thirty children, and
some not more than ten or fifteen children. in
one county applying for $1,997.71 for seventy-one
white districts from this appropriation, only six
of these districts contained s~ixty-fve children of
school age, the minimum fixed by law.
SMALL DISTRICTS MEAN POOR INSTRUCTION.
Another evil result of small districts. small
houses and a small fund, all of which must neces-
sarily go together, is the impossibility of having
more than one teacher for these schools. A very
large majority of the schools of the State have
only one teacher. In many instances the number
of children is too large for one teacher and not
large enough for two. In nearly all instances the
number of classes is too large for one teacher.
Almost every school in the countrv with one
teacher, whether it has fifteen or fifty children,
will require, because Of the different degrees of
advancement of the children, about the same
number of classes, and about as many classes as
would be required in a larger school with two or
three teachers and two or three times as many
children. Reports on file in my Office show that
these schools, with only one teacher. have from
twenty to fifty recitations daily. This gives
an average of from eight to eighteen minutes for
the recitations. No one teacher on earth can do
instice to this number of classes ard racitatinns.