The Yale expositor., 1922-03-09
LIK T A PRAIRIE FIRE.
THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL MOVEMENT is
SWEEPING ALL SECTIONS OF
AMERICA
"Copy from "The Country Gentle
men" by A. B. Maconold.


men" by A. B. Maconold.
1--WE have abandoned 131 one
\ rcom schoolhouses, and have only
six of them left in the whole coun-
ty, and we are getting rid of four
of them this winter" boasts Ran
dolph County, Indiana.
"We are gaining on you, and
will soon overtake you," asserts
Preble County, Ohio, to Randolph
County Indiana. "We have only
few one-room schools left in
the county, and before the end of
another year they will all be "a
bandoned."
1--WE can beat you BOTH" pro-
claims Oklahoma. "We have two
whole counties in which the last
one-room school has been rooted
out"
In former days Iowa was wor
to puff up and vaunt herself up
on the fact that all through the
rural districts, wherever four sec
tions of land cornered up together
there stood a little white, one
room schoolhouse. There were
1880 of them, two miles apart,
throughout the entire length and
breadth of the state.
"But now," boasts Iowa, I'VE
are putting the one-room school
cut of business faster than any
other state in the Union. Up to
July, 1921, we had closed and a.
bandoned 1908 of them"
Hold on, don't claim too
much" interrupts Indiana. I'm
the past few years we have aban-
doned 1000 one-room schools, and
we have only 4,853 left in the
whole state, where you Iowa, have
more than 5000 of them"
Yes, but at the rate we are
closing them there will not be a
one-room school in Iowa in six or
eight years." answers Iowa.
1--WE are swatting the one-room
school about as hard as any of
you," says North Dakota. "In the
past seven years we have taken
$4,000 farm children out of one
room schools. We have 1872 one
room schools left in the state, but
that's not so bad when you COM
pare it with conditions in some of
the older states back east Look
at Pennsylvania, for example,
with 9,947 one-room schools"
Pennsylvania Talks Back
Thus brought to the bar of pub
licity Pennsylvania makes ans
wer: "It is true that 67 per cent
of our schools are of the one
room variety, but we are going to
remedy that just as quickly as We
can. We have hired Lee Driver,
who did so much to wipe out the
one-room schools of Randolph
County, Indiana, and he is going
to help us get rid of them in oul
state. We have enacted laws
that will help Driver in his work
One provides that schools hav'
ing an average attendance of ter
or fewer pupils must be abandon
ed and the children cared for ir
another district, and the state has
appropriated 100000 to hell
transport pupils to better consol
idated schools. Still we are no
so badly off as Illinois, with 10,
las one-room schools"
1--WE plead guilty." says Francis
G.. Blair, superintendent of public
instruction in Illinois. There il
abundant evidence that thousand
of these little one-room schools
have no right to exist. The in
terests of the community, the in
terests of the children, the chang
in economic as we'll as educationa
conditions demand that they Civ
way like the reap hook and tn
plow with a wooden moldboard
to more modern and efficient in
strument."
"If you want to see real pro
gress in the abandonment o
one-room schools come to u.s." dc
clares Utah. 'In the past singl
year we reduced the number o
cne-teacher schools 18 per CEN
We have fewer than two hundre
one-room schools left in the stat'
The Presidents Indictment
South Carolina has enlisted /
the war against one-room schools
and has abandoned 828 of them j
the past few years.
Texas has recently passed
law providing that any school di'
trict having fewer than twent
school-census children seven