schools.

The most important improvement, however, in the country schools is
almost impossible in the one-room school. It is the teaching of the
gospel of the land. Out around the country school lies the open book of
nature. First of books the pupils should learn to read the book of
nature. The life of the birds and animals, so familiar to the children
yet so little known; the growth of plants, their beauty and their use,
and the nature, the tillage and the maintenance of the soil, are all
lessons easy to impart to those who are themselves instructed, yet the
present system of shifting teachers makes such instruction impossible.
It is the opinion of expert educators that the study of agriculture is
impossible in the one-room country school. With this opinion the writer
agrees, yet so great is the necessity of this very improvement and so
slow will be the changes which look to consolidation of schools, that
effort should be made at once by those in charge of the country school
to teach the children the lesson of the soil, of plant life, of animal
and bird life and of the world about them. These lessons are necessary
to their economic success. They are the very beginning of their
happiness in the country and of love for the country. In teaching them
the country school can best perform its duty to the present generation.

The centralizing of country schools is the adequate solution of the
present situation. By this means the children from a wide area are
brought to a modern school building suitably placed in the country. When
necessary they are transported to and from the schools in wagons hired
for that purpose, in charge of reliable drivers. In this consolidated
school building, which has taken the place of three, five or even seven
one-room district schools now abandoned, there shall be at least two and
it may be five teachers. This group of teachers forms a permanent
nucleus and a center for the life of the country. The children are
assembled in a sufficient number to provide a large group, and their
social life is enjoyable as well as mentally stimulating. The weaknesses
of the one-room district school are in this institution corrected. There
is permanence in the teaching force, professional service, cumulative
influence, and the interests of the community find in the school a loyal
center of discussion. The consolidated rural school is an institution
for the first time adequate to the task of building up the whole