A Good Boarding Place.—A serious difficulty connected with teaching in the country is that of securing a good boarding place and temporary home. This may not be a troublesome problem in the older and well-established communities, but in the newer states and sparsely settled sections the condition is almost forbidding. Half the enjoyment of life consists in having a comfortable home and a good room to oneself. This is absolutely necessary in order to do one's work well, especially the work of the teacher. Some of the experiences which teachers have been obliged to go through are almost incredible. Almost every teacher of a country school could give vivid and pathetic illustrations and examples of the discomforts, the annoyances, and the trials to which a boarder in a strange family is subjected. The question of a boarding place should be in the mind and plan of every school board when they employ a teacher for their district. It is they who should solve this problem for the teacher by having a good available home provided in advance.
CHAPTER VI
CONSOLIDATION OF RURAL SCHOOLS
Much has been said and written in regard to what is generally known as the "consolidation of schools." Men and women interested in the cause of popular education have come to feel that the rural schools throughout the country are making little or no progress, and public attention has therefore been turned to consolidation as one of the possible means of improvement.
The Process.—As the name implies, the process is simply the bringing together and the fusing of two or more schools into one. If two or more communities, each having a small school of a few children, conclude that their schools are becoming ineffective and that it would be advantageous to unite, each may sell its own schoolhouse, and a new one may be built large enough for all and more centrally located with regard to the whole territory. They thus "consolidate" the schools of the several districts and establish a single large one. In many portions of the country the rural schools have, from various causes, grown smaller and smaller, until they have ceased to be places of interest, of activity, and of life. Now, a school, if it means anything, means a place where minds are stimulated and awakened as well as where knowledge is communicated. There can be but little stimulation in a school of only a few children. The pupils feel it and so does the teacher. Life, activity, mental aspiration are always found where large numbers of persons congregate. For these reasons the idea of consolidating the small schools into important centers, or units, is forcing itself upon the people of the country. Where the schools are small and the roads are good, everything favors the bringing of the children to a larger and more stimulating social and educational center.
When Not Necessary.—It might happen, as it frequently does, that a school is already sufficiently large, active, and enthusiastic to make it inadvisable to give up its identity and become merged in the larger consolidated school. If there are twenty or thirty children and an efficient teacher we have the essential factors of a good school. Furthermore, it is rather difficult to transport, for several miles, a larger number than this.
The District System.—There are two different kinds of country school organization. In some states, what is known as the district system is the prevailing one. This means that a school district, more or less irregular in shape and containing probably six to ten square miles, is organized into a corporation for school purposes. The schoolhouse is situated somewhere near the center of this district and is usually a small, boxlike affair, often located in a desolate place without trees or other attractive environment. This school may be under the administration of a trustee or of a school board having the management of the school in every respect. This board determines the length of term; it hires and dismisses teachers, procures supplies and performs all the functions authorized by law. It is a case where one school board has the entire management of one small school.