Transition to Problems of Internal Organization
The preceding chapters have dealt, for the most part, with aspects of school organization which are external to the classroom and to the operations of instruction. The external organization is set up, however, for the sole purpose of making class work possible. We shall progress, therefore, in our statement of educational problems and principles by turning to the consideration in detail of the organization of the groups to which instruction is given.
The connection of this problem with the one discussed in the last chapter is not difficult to trace. Where a community is small and has few children, a one-room building will serve to house the school. Economy dictates the employment of a single teacher. This one teacher must divide his or her time as best possible in giving instruction to pupils some of whom are very young and others of whom are more mature. On the other hand, where the community is large or where the school is consolidated, a many-room building is required, and the lines of division between groups are drawn in a fashion quite impossible in the one-room school.