im plumbfa lUniversft^ »cber0 doUege Series mi ill l^ii'Mi m. Class J--Bx Book «> ^ Copyrigtitl^^— M CDPyRIGHT DEPOSm TWO TYPES OF RURAL SCHOOLS WITH SOME FACTS SHOWING ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS BY ERNEST BURNHAM, Ph.D. !; DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS, WESTERN MICHIGAN NORMAL SCHOOL RESEARCH SCHOLAR, TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1910-1911 TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION, No. 51 PUBLISHED BY ®parI|rrH (HaiUi^t. (Enlttmbta Kniwraitij NEW YORK CITY 1912 .CI Copyright, 1912, by Brnest Burnham g;C!.A3l9279 4^ / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ( This study has been made enjoyable by the generous contribu- y tion of effort and the spirit of cheer by teachers and by citizens generally in the localities surveyed. The author's indebtedness is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks are due to Dr. Frank M. McMurry and Dr. George D. Strayer of Teachers College, Dr. Edward C. Elliott of the University of Wisconsin, and Dr. L. H. Bailey of Cornell University, for advice in deter- mining the general plan, and to Dr. McMurry and Dr. Strayer for specific directions in detail made during the progress of the work ; to Mr. Sheridan Mapes, Commissioner of Schools, Kala- mazoo County, Michigan, for the use of his official facilities for gathering data ; to Dr. L. D. Coffman, Charleston, Illinois, for very helpful suggestions ; to President Dwight B. Waldo of the Western Michigan Normal School for providing the oppor- tunity to make the study; to Mr. John Phelan and other colleagues of the author in the faculty of the Western Michigan Normal School, for making the early completion of the work possible by relieving the writer of part of his teaching; and to his wife for unremitting care in collaboration throughout the whole undertaking. E. B. ui TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Purpose ........ Scope ........ The Survey Idea ...... Local Areas Chosen ...... Natural Features ...... Historical Statement ..... Definitions of Terms ..... Presentation and Discussion .... A Further Suggestion ..... 3 5 5 9 lO II CHAPTER II FINANCIAL, COMMUNITY, AND FAMILY DATA Division I. Financial Conditions ..... Table I. Nativity and Tenure of Farmers Table II. Investment and Mortgage Indebtedness . Table III. Expenditures for Labor and Fertilizers . Table IV. Animals and Animal Products Table V. Grain, Vegetable, and Fruit Products Division II. Community Activities ..... Table VI. Data of Religious and Fraternal Organization Table VII. Post Offices and Libraries Table VIII. Lecture Courses and Fairs Division III. Family Survey ...... Table IX. Family Enumerations .... Table X. Necessary Travel ..... Table XI. School Service ..... Table XII. Church Membership, Distribution, and Activity Table XIII. Fraternity Membership and Distribution Table XIV. Insurance Data ..... Table XV. Business Use of Mail .... Table XVI. Telephone Service ..... Table XVII. Visiting and Correspondence . Table XVIII. Ownership and Use of Books Table XIX. Number and Distribution of Current Publica tions Taken ..... Table XX. Offices in Organizations .... 12 13 14 15 15 16 16 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 27 27 28 29 31 32 VI Contents Table XXI. Modern Conveniences Table XXII. Current Improvements Table XXIII. General Impressions Table XXIV. Distribution of Sixty Owners Table XXV. Distribution of Sixty Renters Table XXVI. Relative Facts About Owners Summarized and Renters 33 33 34 36 40 44 CHAPTER III SCHOOL STATUS Available Records .......... Division I. The Districts ........ Table XXVII. Areas, Valuations, and School Properties Table XXVIII. Tax Rate, Per Capita Cost, Salaries, and Sur- plus Table XXIX. School Libraries Table XXX. Census, Enrollment, and Attendance of Pupils Table XXXI. School Year, Teachers, and Monthly Wage . Table XXXII. Attendance at Annual School Meeting Table XXXIII. Summarized Comparison, District School Townships and Consolidated School Town- ships ........ Division II. The Teachers Table XXXIV. Age, Sex, and Parentage of Teachers . Table XXXV. Academic and Professional Training of Teach- ers ........ Table XXXVI. Current Professional Aids Used by Teachers . Table XXXVII. Employment and Remuneration of Teachers . Table XXXVIII. Supervisory and Other Official Visits Received by Teachers ...... Table XXXIX. Visits Interchanged by Homes and Teachers Table XL. Social and Entertainment Activities of Teach- ers ........ Table XLI. Facts About Teachers of District Schools and Teachers of Consolidated Schools Sum- marized ....... Division III. The Pupils Table XLII. Complete Dislrilnition of Children on School Census, by Age and Grade or Other Status Table XLIII. Distribution of Actual Attendance in Ten-Day Groups ....... Table XLIV. Distribution by Grades Completed to Occupa- tions Division IV. The Schools Table XLV. Sample Distribution of Grade Enrollments 46 47 48 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 56 58 60 62 64 65 67 69 70 72 75 77 77 78 Contents Vll Table XLVI. Median Time in Minutes of Recitations by Subjects and Grades ..... Paragraph Summaries of More General Inquiries Table XLVH. Daily Program of Recitations and Out-of-Class Activities of One District School Table XLVIII. Daily Program of Recitations and Out-of-Class Activities of the First Eight Grades of One Consolidated School ..... 79 8i 82 83 CHAPTER IV CONSTRUCTIVE INTERPRETATIONS Division I. School Considerations 87 Experience and Science .... 87 The Setting 88 The Discussion 91 Section I. Maintenance 91 Section II. Instruction .... 97 Section III. Children .... 100 Section IV. The Institution 106 Section V. Specific Constructive Suggestions 109 Division II. Community Considerations 1X2 Industry 114 The Homes 116 The Cliurch 118 Civic Life 120 Community Solidarity 121 APPENDIX A The Comstock, Michigan, Consolidated School . Table I. Summaries of District and Teachers . Table II. Age, Grade, and Other Status Distribution Table III. Actual Attendance Distribution . 123 124 125 125 APPENDIX B Township ]\Iaps 126 i^^^ax. TWO TYPES OF KURAL SCHOOLS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Purpose The purpose of this study is to assemble reliable and correctly correlated data about the two types of rural schools most com- monly under discussion at present — the district school and the consolidated school. Facts of economic and social significance have been collected and tabulated, and these results are pre- sented as preliminary to, and as essential to the best understand- ing of the information about the schools. A knowledge of the financial limitation and the existing ingrained social and intel- lectual standards of any locality, should aid in minimizing the margin of error sure to be found in an unqualified and uncorre- lated study of the schools alone. The purpose in mind takes a dual character when direct ap- plication for immediate and future practical results becomes the chief consideration. First in order is a desire to use modern scientific method in dealing with the question of rural education — a question too long bandied about, for the most part, in the fog of mere opinion. And second, is the resolution to add a true contribution, even though limited to the size of a teacher's purse, to the slowly accumulating fund of public information, to which the constructive public school agencies of today and the historians of education of the present and future may turn for trustworthy source material. A serious difficulty, which threatens the fidelity of the stu- dent to the before-stated purpose, is the fact of immersion in the problem itself at the same time that he is trying to make his study critically true. Facts and conditions come clearly into his purview which arouse pity, shame, indignation ; and, at the same time, his attention may be intermittently absorbed in real I 2 Two Types of Rural Schools satisfaction upon the identification of many services of great value, which public education has all along rendered in rural com- munities. In short, the difficulty for the student who is also a participant in the field of his study, is to maintain in his thinking the scientific attitude rather than the advocate attitude. Scope In order to apply methods of tabulation and comparison to advantage, the scope of an investigation must be broad enough to yield numerals running into sufficient figures, from a merely mechanical point of view ; and there must also be sufficient scope to take in units of familiar denominations, either political or geographical. Political units such as precincts, villages, town- ships, official districts for school or other purposes, counties, and others, give terms which are in the current vocabulary ; like- wise, such geographical terms as section or square mile, town- ship, county, and so forth, while less comparable as between localities, with the exception of the section, and less definitely visual, because much less often subjects of public discussion, are more economical for use than wholly new units. Fortunately, political and geographical units coincide in many instances where public school administration is involved; and in other cases, unlike school denominations are readily reducible to a common denominator, either political, geographical, or both. Where neither of these divisors can be used to advantage, the numbers under consideration may lend themselves to ex- pression in percentages, thus affording a usable basis of com- parison. The Survey Idea The survey idea, the taking of stock of existing conditions in itemized details, is growing rapidly into wide application in vari- ous fields of human activity. This idea seems to be well adapted for use in a scientific study of education. The far flung, and oftentimes far fetched, inspirational vision which, clothed in glowing terms, is the splendid shibboleth of many an educa- tional leader, makes its own contribution to progress. Brought to earth and reduced to terms of actual fact, inspiring visions, if true, may well multiply rather than divide their power to serve humanity. Introduction 3 In an address before the Training Conference for Rural Leaders, Cornell University, July 26, 191 1, Dean L. H. Bailey urged the importance of the survey in country-life work, as follows : " The goal of survey-work in agriculture is to make a record of the entire situation and to tell the whole truth. Fragmentary surveys and piece-work, hov/ever good they may be in them- selves, do not represent the best effort in surveys. Practically all our surveys have thus far been fragmentary or unrelated, but this is the work of a beginning epoch. We shall almost neces- sarily be obliged to do still further fractional and detached work : but it is time that we begin to train the imagination on completer and sounder programs. The whole basis and condi- tion of the rural community must be known and recorded. The community must know where it stands. It must understand its assets and its liabilities." In the personal direction of men engaged in this work. Dean Bailey's injunction, emphasized by repetition and copious illus- tration, is : " Be sure of the accuracy of your facts and then keep strictly within your facts in any results or general con- clusions which you derive." He says that only a genius can tell the truth without the facts, and that he is coming to be- lieve that even the geniuses, who are credited with the great in- tuitional thoughts of mankind, were after all controlled by the facts which functioned through them by means of race inheri- tance or otherwise. Be this as it may and granting that adequate surveys require such financing and manning as can be expected only from some governmental agency like the agricultural colleges, or some great private foundation like the Russell Sage Foundation, there yet remains the necessity for multiplied detached or topical studies for the inoculation of the general public with the survey idea and for the development, by experience in actual survey work, of a group of students to whom the larger tasks of ade- quate backing may be confided with reasonable hope of success- ful issue. Local Areas Chosen The local areas chosen for this study are in Trumbull County, Ohio, and in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. For school data, the four townships of Kinsman, Vernon, Gustavus, and John- 4 Two Types of Rural Schools ston, situated in the northeast quarter of Trumbull County, which is the second county south of Lake Erie on the Ohio- Pennsylvania boundary, were chosen to represent the consoli- dated type of school organization. The townships of Alamo, Cooper, Richland, and Ross, situated in the north quarter of Kalamazoo County, which is the second county east of Lake Michigan in the second tier of counties north of the Michigan- Indiana boundary, were chosen to represent the district type of school organization. (See maps in Appendix B.) These particular areas were selected for several apparently advantageous reasons. The Ohio area had been studied with considerable care a number of times and the results of these studies were available as matters of record. The Ohio Farmer, in its issues of February 3 and 10. 1906, published a brief but well written and fully illustrated study of Trumbull County centralized schools, by Mr. H. A. Diehl, a teacher of Ashtabula, Ohio. Under date of February, 1910, Professor A. B. Graham, Superintendent of Agricultural Extension in the State Univer- sity, Columbus, Ohio, published two bulletins; one dealing in great detail with district schools in Ohio, and the other treat- ing the centralized or consolidated schools of Ohio, with equally searching itemization. There was issued from the Office of Ex- periment Stations, U. S. Department of Agriculture, in October, 1910, Bulletin No. 232 by Mr. George W. Knorr. This bulletin presented the most prolonged and thorough general investigation of consolidated rural schools that had yet been made. The Trumbull County area was one of the centers of the study re- ported in this bulletin. Studies of the special area under consideration in Michigan were also matters of record and thus available for use in fur- ther investigation. The annual report of the State Department of Public Instruction for 1905 presents the results of a special study of Richland township, and there was published under the same authority in 1909 a bulletin reporting in full a searching study of Rural School Efficiency in Kalamazoo County, which was made by the present writer under the auspices of the De- partment of Economics and Sociology of the Carnegie Institu- tion of Washington and the Michigan Department of Public Instruction. Introduction 5 The fact that the foregoing materials were at hand and al- ready somewhat familiar is sufficient reason for the areas named being used for the proposed investigation, if no facts of the natural or historical limitations of these areas render them seri- ously incomparable. Natural Features Trumbull County lies well toward the south of the glacial area and has an elevation of from iioo to 1200 feet. The soil is clay and sand loam, with considerable bottom land which is very fertile. The annual rainfall is ^44.22 inches (this rainfall is exceptionally great, it was less than 34 inches in 1908) and the temperature ranges from — ^20 degrees to 97 degrees, with a mean annual temperature of ^50.7 degrees. The timber is chest- nut, poplar, elm, beech, maple, sycamore, and, in the part of the county being studied there was a grove of twenty-five acres of white pine, one of the largest found on the whole Western Reserve. Kalamazoo County presents a surface of drift formation also, and it lies at an elevation of from 700 to 850 feet. The soil is a little more varied, shading from sand and clay into loams of these in combination with gravel and stone. There is a con- siderable acreage of prairie and muck soils. The annual rain- fall is -28.72 inches and the temperature records extremes of --II degrees and -93 degrees, while the mean annual tempera- ture is "47.09 degrees. Here, too, there are numerous creeks and many lakes. The timber is oak, hickory, maple, beech, elm, and several of the softer woods. Historical Statement A concise and adequate statement of the early political his- tory of " The Connecticut Western Reserve " may be found in Hinsdale's "The Old Northwest," Chapter XIX. The purest New England stock had assembled in the Reserve by 1800, in sufficient numbers to set the machinery of local government in motion. The first quarter session court was held in Trumbull ^ Figures for Wooster, Ohio, from the annual report of the Agricultural Experiment Station, 1910, p. 655. * Figures from annual report of Agricultural Experiment Station (Lan- sing), 1910, pp. 189-200. 6 Two Types of Rural Schools County in August, 1800, and the first election was held in October, 1800. The best references for the local history are — "Historical Collections of the Mahoning Valley" (1876) and " Historical Collections of Ohio " by Dr. Henry Howe, Ohio Centennial Edition, 1902, in two volumes. These books are full of pioneer reminiscences and anecdotes, in many cases in the exact language of actual participants in the frontier hardships and victories. The family names, the high intellectual and moral standards and the fidelity with which the New England environ- ment was reproduced in so far as was possible, all go to show that the Ohio townships, which are the present subjects of study, grew from seed of the best American selection. Professor Andrew C. McLaughlin presents, in brief scope, the early political history of Michigan in his monograph on " The Government of Michigan." Cooley's " Michigan," in the American Commonwealths series, is the best reference. Terri- torial government was organized in 1805, but little progress could be made until after the War of 1812. In 1823, in 1825, and again in 1827, the representative principle was enlarged in the territorial government until, in the last year, the territorial council became wholly elective. This indicates that Michigan's real growth, politically, came after 1820. Statehood came in 1837, twenty-five years after it came to Ohio. Kalamazoo was first settled in 1829-30, Titus Bronson, a Connecticut Yankee, being the pathfinder for the settlement. The first local election was held in April, 1831, and the first court record bears date of October 17, 1831. The best references for the local history of Kalamazoo County are " The Michigan Pioneer Collections " (beginning with Vol. XIV, 1889, the title is " The Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections ") now in thirty-eight vol- umes, but provided with excellent working index ; and a " His- tory of Kalamazoo County " compiled and published by J. M. Thomas in 1869. Early settlers here came from New England, New York, and Ohio. A quotation from the original official plan of the village of Kalamazoo, sets the standards of the set- tlers pretty definitely : " One square of sixteen rods for the courthouse ; one square of sixteen rods for a jail; one square of sixteen rods for an academy; one square of eight rods for comm.on schools; one square of two acres for public burial grounds; four squares of Introduction 7 eight rods each, for the four first reHgious denominations that become incorporated in said village agreeably to the statute of the Territory." (Thomas, History of Kalamazoo County, p. 33-) The gist of the foregoing is that in natural resources, in the stock of settlers, and in institutional ideals, the two localities under consideration have not been notably different except in the one particular that the Ohio community is a generation older. However, there is another significant difference which should be kept in mind. The Ohio area is organized into town- ships of twenty-five square miles, and the Michigan townships have thirty-six square miles. Since political and geographical boundaries, in a large measure, set the community boundaries and since social gravitation tends to be dissipated by isolation, the likelihood of the community of smaller area acting as a unit is far greater. It seems that these localities were endowed, in their settlers, with approximately the same high appreciation of education. No doubt, the ability of each community to carry out its educa- tional purposes unaided has varied irregularly with the ups and downs of seasons and markets ; but it is probably true that the range of variation has fluctuated about medians of resources not widely different as between the two localities. This being true, it remains only to notice how each locality has fared, relatively, in leadership, organization, and financial aid by the State. Samuel Lewis became State Superintendent of Common Schools in Ohio in 1837, and for three years devoted himself to the duties of this office with energy, ability, and success com- parable to that of Horace Mann in Massachusetts, and of John D. Pierce in Michigan. His three annual reports, together with the report of Calvin E. Stowe in 1837 on European school systems with especial reference to elementary education in Prus- sia, which was sent to every school district in the state, initi- ally capitalized, intellectually, the public school movement in Ohio. This same task was well done in Michigan by State Superin- tendent John D. Pierce (1837-1841) in close co-operation with Hon. Isaac E. Crary, representative of the territory and the state in Congress, and chairman of the Committee on Educa- 8 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools tion in the State Constitutional Convention. Both of these men were members of the convention which wrote the second state constitution in 1850, and they were powerful guardians of public education. If this study demanded, or permitted, a detailed re- cord of common school history in the two states under view, many names could be mentioned in connection with the definite advance steps in education to which they have the relation of leadership. The relative progressiveness of the two states, may be briefly indicated as follows: State normal schools were first officially urged — in Ohio in 1837, in Michigan in 1837, and established in Ohio in 1902 and in Michigan in 1849 (dedicated October, 1852) ;^ graded course of study — Cincinnati, Ohio, 1840 — Flint, Michigan, 1846; high school — Cleveland, Ohio, 1846; "Detroit, Michigan, i860; teachers' institute — Sandusky, Ohio, 1845 — Jackson, Michigan, 1846; city superintendent — Columbus, Ohio, 1847 — village of Jonesville, Michigan, 1848; State Teachers Association — Ohio, 1847 — Michigan, 1852; educational journal — Ohio, 1851 (passed to private control in 1859) — Michigan, 1854-1862 (published by the State Teachers Association) ; county supervision — repeatedly urged in Ohio from 1865 to 1875 and since, but not yet established — in Michigan, 1867. re- pealed 1879, re-established in 1887-1891 ; course of study for rural schools — in Ohio, not well established — in Michigan, written and recommended by a committee of county school secretaries in 1889, authorized in 1897, now in 9th revised edi- tion (Michigan legislature of 191 1, Act 217, gave the State Superintendent of Public Instruction power to dictate the course of study for rural schools) ; laws for certification of teachers, dreary history in both states, somewhat simplified in Michigan by institutional certification, e.g., by county normal training classes in 43 counties, by four normal schools, by seven colleges and the university : compulsory attendance laws — frequently re- ^FuU account of dedication, IMichigan State Normal School, State Superintendent's Report, 1853, pp. 51-146- - Michigan's branches of the University for secondary instruction, de- layed the organization of high schools ; and a question about the legality of using public money for instruction beyond the common school, which was not settled until the famous decision favorable to high schools rendered by Judge Cooley in the Kalamazoo Case in 1874, also handicapped the high school movement. More than twenty other towns in Michigan reported high school departments of varying degrees of excellence in i860. Introduction g vised in both states, advanced law in Ohio in 1893 — in Michi- gan, in 1905 ; temperance instruction law — in Ohio, in 1888 — in Michigan, in 1883 ; women vote to elect officers — in Ohio, in 1S94 — in Michigan, in 1893; township unit of organization — Ohio, 1890 — Michigan, optional law passed in 1909 not yet taken advantage of, though frequently voted upon (voted in three townships in April, 1912) ; optional free text-book law — in Ohio, in 1894 — in Michigan, in 1889; laws for the consolidation of schools — in Ohio, special laws in 1894 and 1896, general laws, 1898 and 1904 — in Michigan, for township districts in Northern Peninsula, in 1891, general laws in 1903; graduation from com- mon school — put on legal basis in Ohio, 1890 — in Michigan, 1909 ; townships not having high schools required to pay tuition of common school graduates in high school — in Ohio, 1890 — in Michigan, 1909 ; instruction in agriculture in high schools re- quired — in Ohio, in 191 1, being voluntarily introduced in slowly increasing number of high schools in Michigan. These facts relating the steps each of the states under con- sideration has taken in its development of public education, re- veal several curious differences as to the relative prominence given by neighboring localities to fundamental questions. The facts suggest that there were, in both states, more needs than the attention and resources at command could meet and that such questions as happened from time to time to get most advantageously urged on public attention, were sufficient to ex- haust the public initiative for the time being. However, it is clear that progress has come in both states by the same steps, though these steps have not been taken in the same order in each case; and that the present face of education in each state has the same expression of purposed improvement, even though particular features do vary in expressiveness as they have in the past. Dcfimtions of Terms Natural and historical perspective is essential to accuracy in the use and understanding of terms, especially if the terms used are definitive of institutional life and growth. The foregoing paragraphs are intended to help the reader to judge for himself what margin of difference he must concede when the same terms are used in the comparative study of some characteristic phases of common school conditions in Ohio and in jNIichigan. lo Tzvo Types of Rural Schools In order to further greatly increase the probability of weigh- ing truly the qualifying conditions in the two states, three classifications of data have been secured and will be presented before the school data are shown. First will be items of an economic significance chiefly, which have been tabulated at Washington directly from the federal census of 1910; second will be facts showing the collective social activities of the com- munities studied ; and third, information relative to the home, social, educational, religious and industrial life of the families in the areas studied. The statistics presented are the accumulation of four distinct surveys of the same areas. The census enumerator gathered the financial data ; the data of institutional and other collective ac- tivities were secured from records and interviews with officials ; the family facts were secured by a house to house canvass ; and the school data were taken from records and regular and special reports of teachers and school officers. What is proposed, as was stated at the beginning of this chapter, is a searching com- parative study of district schools and consolidated schools as agencies of efficient rural education in reference, chiefly, to ele- mentary education. " Consolidated " rather than " centralized " will be used to designate the larger rural schools, since " cen- tralized " suggests a whole township in one school, while " con- solidated " means any school of two or more districts com- bined. However, these two terms are interchangeable as applied to the Ohio consolidated schools here reported. Presentation and Discussion The details as to the securing of original items, the errors de- tected and eliminated as well as mention of possible mistakes not subject to definite detection, the methods of tabulation and com- parison in significant relations, useful items which may be ob- tained by further surveys of the same areas, and the considera- tion of such criticisms as have arisen during the progress of the study, will all claim attention as the chapters are developed. In the second chapter, the economic, institutional, and family data will be presented in detail with only explanatory discus- sion ; and Chapter III will present the school details in like set- ting. These two chapters put the raw materials before the Introduction 1 1 reader and enable anyone to make such tabulations as are sig- nificant to him or suited to a particular purpose. Chapter IV states some constructive interpretations of the school and com- munity data looking toward progress in rural education. A Further Suggestion It is not claimed that either of the localities studied is especi- ally typical. The Ohio schools are among the oldest consoli- dated schools west of the original states, and in the common course of events, may present many features which will be prominent in the typical consolidated school when such a type has emerged. The Michigan district schools doubtless possess many things common to district schools the country over, but they will not show the results of any propaganda in promotion of the special modern ideas which are featured in the relatively few rural schools about which the public is informed. It should be constantly kept in mind that all sorts of rural schools in most of the earlier settled agricultural regions have worked for many years under the deadening handicap of a de- creasing population. The American spirit grows on conquest and gets its best expression where accumulating wealth and con- centrated population challenge new and progressive ideas. These ideas get constructive realization in advanced institutional standards ; but it must be remembered that many of these new standards are, as yet, false standards and impossible of appli- cation in communities characterized by decadence in the number and, in some cases, in the financial abilities of their citizens. The first farm frontier, which inspired men by its wildness, its natural splendor, and its challenge to physical conquest has, for the most part, passed away. The second farm fron- tier is only just now becoming identified in the public conscious- ness. The first was rich in individual satisfactions and easy social adjustments; the second promises to be incomparably richer in intellectual problems and compelling social necessities. Rural life is nov\^ somewhere in the wide trough between these two high and noble crests of human progress. This is the fundamental fact to keep in mind in any present study of the facts and institutions of rural life. CHAPTER II FINANCIAL, COMMUNITY, AND FAMILY DATA Division I. Financial Conditions Census Biircau Tabulations. In seeking to show the relative financial abilities and, in so far as it is thus determined, the likeli- hood of progressive educational activity of the Ohio and Michi- gan communities under comparative study, special tabulations of the Thirteenth Federal Census. Returns of Agriculture were secured. In response to an inquiry at the Census Bureau, the follow- ing letter was received : " Replying to your communication of recent date requesting certain tabulations for townships in the State of Michigan and State of Ohio, I have the honor to infonn you that the prepara- tion of special tabulations of this character cannot be confided to any one except the clerks of the Census Office, as the rule re- quires that the schedules shall not be seen except by the sworn employees of this office. We are, however, authorized to make special tabulation when it can be done consistently with the needs of the work, and charge the cost of preparing the same. " I have had an estimate made of the cost of doing the work and find it will be about ?20. Before we can undertake to do the work I must ask you to make a deposit of this sum with the Disbursing Clerk of the Bureau, Mr. George Johannes. This sum will be held by him until the definite cost of making the tabulation has been ascertained and anything over the actual cost will be returned to you, together with the required tables." The tabulations were promptly made and transmitted with this statement: " I send you herewith a special tabulation, in typewritten form, of the Thirteenth Census Returns of Agriculture, of Cooper and Richland townships, Michigan, and Gustavus and Kinsman townships, Ohio, which you requested in letter of July TO. The cost of this special tabulation is $15, and as you have deposited $20 with the Disbursing Clerk of the Bureau, $5 of that amount is returned herewith." There is available by this means an immense accumulation of 12 Financial, Community and Family Data 13 information following each decennial census, which is capable of much significant use in local studies. Data which cannot be secured without authority and secrecy may thus be had from the Census Bureau in township totals and at an expense which is a mere bagatelle compared with the cost of a local house to house canvass even if the same facts could be secured for personal or institutional uses by other than legally authorized persons, which is, of course, impossible. Comparable Units Established. Since, as already pointed out, the Ohio townships have areas of twenty-five square miles and the Michigan township area is thirty-six square miles, the totals for each item in the appended tables are presented as obtained from the Census Bureau, in township totals and, in parallel columns, reduced to percentages or to the common unit of one square mile. TABLE I Nativity and Tenure of Farmers Specified Inquiries Townships Having No Vill.\ge Townships Having Village Michigan Cooper Ohio Gust av us Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman Total Per ct. Total Per ct. Total Per ct. Total Per ct. Native-born Operators. . . . Foreign-born Operators. . . . Owners Tenants 170 25 151' 44 .87 .13 .77 .23 146 12 128^ 30 .92 .08 .81 .19 152 21 124 49 .88 .12 .72 .28 164 4 132^ 36 .98 .02 .79 .21 ^ Includes 5 managers; ^ 4 managers; ^ 1 manager. This table shows that tenantry is on an approximately equal numerical basis in the areas compared and that no very great advantage obtains for either locality in this matter. The ior- eign-born operators in the Michigan township without a village — ^Cooper, and the like Ohio township, ^Gustavus, are .13 and .08, respectively ; and in the townships having villages — -Rich- ^ Cooper township, in Michigan, and Gustavus township, in Ohio, are without villages of any considerable size. " Richland township, in Michigan, and Kinsman township, in Ohio, have villages by the same names with a population of 278 and 400 respectively. (See maps in Appendix B.) H Two Types of Rural Schools land and Kinsman, the percentages are .12 and .02, respectively. The further significant fact appears that the number of foreign- born operators is larger in townships containing no villages. No general conclusion can be drawn, but in these particular areas the more accessible farms near villages are more attractive to native-born operators. TABLE II Investment and Mortgage Indebtedness Townships Having No Village Townships Having Village Specified Inquiries Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. 40,179 1,400 1,924 Total Per Sq. Mi. Value in dollars of all buildings and improvements, but not imple- ments and ma- 1.165,670 67,676 122,370 .32,380 1,889 3,399 610,995 30,051 54.360 24,440 1,202 2.176 1,446,400 50,400 69,260 768,590 20,375 65,775 30.744 Value of all imple- ments and ma- 815 Amount of mort- gage indebted- ness, April 15, 1910 2.631 This table indicates that the farmers in Cooper and Richland (Michigan) have invested much more heavily in improvements and buildings than have the farmers of Gustavus and Kinsman (Ohio). And Table III, following, shows a much heavier ex- penditure for fertilizers in the Ohio than in the Michigan town- ships. The mortgage indebtedness is eight and nine per cent of the investment in improvements and machinery, except in Rich- land, where it is less than five per cent. Labor and fertilizers, as stimulants to production, are in noticeably disproportionate appreciation in the compared areas. The real significance of the expenditure for labor does not ap- pear in the naked fact of the amount spent. The relative number of adults in the families, the children of working age, and the character of the farming activities, together with other factors not so evident, demand consideration. The fact that Gustavus uses 66 times as much purchased fertilizer per square mile as Cooper uses ; and that Kinsman uses 6 times as much per square Financial, Community and Family Data 15 TABLE III Expenditures for Labor and Fertilizers TowNSHiPs Having No Village Townships Having Village Spbcified Inquiries Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus Michi;?an Richland Ohio Kinsman Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq.Mi. $434 125 Total 822,795 355 Per Sq. Mi. $633 10 Total Per Sq. Mi. Amount spent in cash in 1909 for farm labor (exclusive of house $19,200 68 $533 1.88 $10,846 3,249 $14,730 1,561 $589 Amount spent in 1909 for manure and ferti- 62 mile as Richland, may be largely explained by the fact that Gus- tavus and Kinsman have been farmed a generation longer. The difference may turn, however, on an effective campaign by fer- tilizer sales agents in the Ohio townships. The maximum use of purchased fertilizers will sooner or later be controlled by the law of diminishing returns. TABLE IV Animals and Animal Products Townships Having No Village Townships Having Village Specified Inquiries Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. Receipts from all animals and an- imal products sold in 1909 Domestic animals ;{'^ sold alive and t* elaufichtered in («• 1909 $127,308 75,938 56,326 19,612 2,132 43,066 6,172 33,536 2,109 1,565 545 59 1,196 171 $107,540 43,046 39,341 3,705 888 56,111 7,495 $4,302 1,722 1,574 148 36 2,244 300 $153,631 123,491 122,082 1,409 7,391 13,727 9,022 $4,268 3,430 3,391 39 205 381 251 $118,341 24,483 23,039 1,844 236 81,255 11,967 $4,734 995 Sold alive Slaughtered on 922 74 Wool and mohair (goat hair) shorn in 1909 9 Dairy products in 1909 3,250 Fowls and eggs sold in 1909 479 i6 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools The noticeable difference here is that the Michigan townships derive the animal products most largely from meat and wool while the Ohio townships have developed the dairy and poultry industries. Cooper is making a rapid advance in dairy pro- ducts. TABLE V Grain, Vegetable and Fruit Crops Townships Having No Village Townships Having Village Specified Inquiries Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. Total Per Sq. Mi. Value of all crops including veget- ables and fruits produced in 1909 $186,335 S5,176 $99,350 $3,576 $234,524 $6,515 $103,533 $4,141 The advantage of the Michigan townships in grain, vegetable and fruit crops lies largely in the staple cereals. Richland is shown by the State census of 1894 to be the banner wheat grow- ing township of Michigan. This high rank in wheat production is directly related to Richland's low per cent of mortgage in- debtedness. Division II. Community Activities It may be that much of rural community unity of purpose is lost through the absence of any organ suited to the expression of many of the particular phases of this purpose. This loss can be conjectured in a comparison of communities similar in many ways but unlike in the measure of public expressiveness. The margin of error in such a conjecture is very difficult, if not im- possible, of determination. However, such institutions as do exist afford data for comparative studies as far as they go. Churches and Fraternities. Religious and fraternal organiza- tions are the most usual forms of rural community expression in matters more largely of local volition ; and post offices, schools, and libraries are the comm.on expressions of federal and state initiative as modified by local intelligence. The data for schools vv'ill be presented fully in the next chapter and this sec- tion will deal with the other community expressions. The items presented are as reliable as repeated interviews and correspon- Financial, Community and Family Data 17 dence with the officers of the organizations could make them. The census figures offer the key to the relative existing condi- tions. In Table VI, following, the abbreviations are: For churches, M. E., Methodist Episcopal; Cong., Congregational; Pres., Presbyterian ; Episc, Episcopal ; and M. E. Out, means a country church on the Richland circuit ; S. S., Sunday School ; Sub-Org., sub-organizations ; Conf . Stud., Conference Studies ; H. S., High School; Sem., Seminary; Age in years, means that the institu- tions were established the number of years ago stated ; and Area refers to the approximate number of square miles from which the church attendance is drawn. For fraternities, F. A. M., K. O. T. M., and I. O. O. F., are Masons, Macabees, and Odd Fellows; and O. E. S., L. O. T. M., and Rebeccas are the women's organizations of the orders already designated ; P. of H. are Patrons of Husbandry or Grangers. A modictmi of care in reading will reveal the facts presented in this table. This table shows that the townships lost population from 1890 to 1910 at the rate of 17 per cent in Cooper, 15 per cent in Gustavus, 16 per cent in Richland, and 5 per cent in Kinsman; and a cursory inspection of the table reveals that in such a fundamental institution as the church, a decrease in population eontinued through several decades mitigates against improved standards of service and efficiency. Kinsman township, which has most nearly maintained itself in population, has the best re- cord as to church membership, Sunday School enrollment, phy- sical equipment and pastors. The low salary for the minister of the Methodist church in Cooper is due to the fact that this church is a part of an outside circuit and it has no resident min- ister. The exceptional record of Richland in fraternal or- ganizations, is explained in part by an annual public fraternity banquet which is the most significant social event of the year in the township. i8 Two Types of Rural Schools > Eh Pi X IN SfV.'"'^^'^'— '00"— < esn o "^ ^ lO^*^ fi, rf^ ^ C oo '^ ?. s_ ^;S« 0^2 2 -'0°^ htg ■Ma O tn tJ •SO'-' —"S r;;;^;^"^ r-; , '^r~ <^ OD -s' o -So « '-•'-HC.ogcO 10 2 S CD '** : (viMo So '^o_ ■"II O 3 &^ PL, « EcBxi-2 c'h ^ a a> W D-H w », 6 * 3 Financial, Community and Family Data 19 Post Offices and Libraries. The items regarding post offices, in Table VII, following, were obtained from the several post- masters (Richland was not given by the postmistress), and some of the items are estimates ; but the estimates were made by the official best qualified to make them. The small areas covered and the small number of routes in some townships are due to the greater ease of bringing in routes from adjacent towns or villages just outside. The facts about the public and school libraries are matters of record and were furnished by the librarians. The information for the Michigan townships is less reliable for the school libraries since the libraries are more nu- merous, smaller, and recorded by persons of necessarily less library experience. No record is kept of the circulation of these small libraries. Reference should be had to the more detailed itemization of school libraries in Chapter III, and to Table XVIII and comment later in this chapter. TABLE VII Post Offices and Libraries Townships Having No Village Townships Having Village Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman Post Offices: Number None 7 711 89 1 4 sq. mi. 60,000 pieces 1 575 426 56 1 38 sq. mi. 2 500,000 pieces Ladies School 1 6 1160 427 1560 23 69 2 Area covered 75 sq. mi. 6 1,000,000 pieces 1 No. rural routes Estimated annual mail. Libraries: Number Size in volumes Circulation Additions in year Periodicals taken Periodicals used 1800 4438 500 54 Month 150 Social Organizations. Aside from the religious and fraternal organizations and their sub-divisions and affiliates, the social groups were not identified by names to any mentionable extent except in Kinsman where there were — " The Tourist Club," "The Bay View Study Club," "The Bona Fida " social club, 20 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools and the Kinsman Ball Team ; and in Richland, where there was a Library Club of 54 members and a Thimble Club of 20 mem- bers. Richland usually lias a lecture course, but there was none during the year of this survey. Numerous miscellaneous activi- ties, however, such as home talent plays, farmers' institutes, public fraternity banquets, school commencements, family oc- casions and neighborhood reunions made, each, its social and educational contribution to the community vitality. Two other activities lend themselves to tabular statement. TABLE VIII Lecture Courses and Fairs Items Lecture Courses: No. of entertainments Total cost Fairs: Name Date Attendance Receipts Expenditures Townships Having No Village Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus 5 $210 Grange October 200 $30 $20 Townships Having Village Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman 5 $325 Kinsman August 20,000 $3500 $3500 Nearness to a city is, no doubt, a determining factor in the too evident lethargy of the Michigan townships in the fore- going respects. The Interstate Fair, in Kalamazoo, is within comfortable driving distance of both Cooper and Richland and the proximity of Cooper, also, to the considerable village of Plainwell and Richland's own village life and accessible city affi- liations tend to reduce local initiative. Co-operation. Co-operative activity in business, outside of the Patrons of Husbandry, was very local and inconsiderable. Two business organizations of a co-operative nature and of note- worthy size and success were found. The Farmers' Telephone Association of Gustavus had 66 members and after six years of satisfactory service was in excellent condition. The Dairyman's Financial, Commtmity and Family Data 21 Milk Company of Cooper has been in successful operation for five years. There are at present 91 stockholders. In the Ohio townships, the school carryalls and the picnic din- ners of all the children tog-ether, or in groups, at noon, are clearing centers of social interest and information. It is certain that the consolidated school multiplies in the foregoing respect the social service of the one-room school. Division III. Family Survey Method and Scope. The most strenuous part of this inves- tigation was the house to house family survey. The family, not the township nor the semi-public or wholly public organiza- tion, is the unit of measure here used. In Gustavus, all families but one were canvassed. The home not visited was closed to visitors by the very serious illness of a member. In Kinsman, twelve families were omitted by reason of absence from home, sickness, and refusal to give time to answer the questions. In Cooper and Richland, all the homes visited were successfully can- vassed except in one or two cases where there were refusals to answer particular queries. In these townships only a sufficient number of homes were surveyed to afford a proper basis of com- parison with the Ohio townships ; but the areas covered exceeded in both cases the areas of the Ohio townships, and all the homes in the surveyed areas were visited. A straightforward explanation of what was wanted and a courteous request for it, together with the statement of the pur- pose for which the information was to be used and that in no case would items keep their personal identification, in almost every case secured candid and complete answers to the questions asked. Record was also kept, in each case, of impressions gained by observation at the time of the visit. Age and Children. The median age of heads of families, as shown in Table IX, is significant as an index of the desertion of the farms by young people. And the close relation of this fact to the large number of homes without children and the additional fact that the median number of children in families having children is only two, is obvious. Thirty-one per cent of the families have no children ; 24 per cent have one child ; 19 per 22 Two Types of Rural Schools cent have two children ; 1 1 per cent have three children ; 6 per cent have four children ; and 9 per cent have five or more children. TABLE IX Family Enumerations Items Sdb-Itbms Heads of Families: Total No. Men Women Cooper. . 192 183 9 GuBtavus. . 164 155 9 Richland . . 227 207 20 Kinsman . . 255 232 23 Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Maximum Median Under 30 from 30 from 40 Over 50 Age Age Age of Heads; Years to 40 yrs. to 50 yrs. Years in Years in Years Cooper. . . . .09 .23 .26 .42 92 47 Gustavtis. . .07 .27 .25 .36 89 48 Richland . . .11 .20 .23 .46 82 49 Kinsman . . .09 .24 .22 .45 88 49 Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Maximum of Homes of Homes of Homes of Homes of Homes of Homes Number Having Having Having Having Having Having in Any Adults: None One Two Three Four More Home Cooper. . . . .06 .68 .18 .06 .02 6 Gustavus. . .05 .67 .22 .05 .02 5 Richland . . .07 .65 .20 .08 .01 5 Kinsman . . .04 .74 .13 .07 .02 8 Employees: Cooper. . . . .79 .16 .03 .02 5 Gustavus. . .06 .75 .17 .02 4 Richland . . .77 .17 .05 .01 3 Kinsman . . .04 .83 .10 .03 6 Children: Cooper. . . . .42 .20 .16 .09 .06 .07 7 Gustav\ia. . .15 .30 .24 .14 .07 .10 10 Richland . . .39 .26 .14 .10 .04 .07 7 Kinsman . . .27 .24 .21 .13 .07 .08 10 Distance from School. Table X reads as follows : The dis- tance from school of fifty per cent of the families of Cooper was less than one mile; of 17 per cent of the families, it was more than one mile and less than a mile and one-quarter; of 10 per cent of the families, it was more than a mile and one-quarter and less than a mile and one-half ; and so on, concluding with : the maximum distance of families from school was two and one- half miles, and the average distance of the homes of Cooper from the schools of Cooper was nine-tenths of a mile. The tabulation showing distances of homes from their trading point is read in a similar manner. The significance of travel after it has become mere routine, Financial, Community and Family Data 23 as a wasteful consumer of time and energy, is too little appre- ciated. Distance is the one persistent financial handicap of the country school ; and consolidation, as shown in the townships of Gustavus and Kinsman, more than doubles this handicap of distance, a fact which introduces a cost item for transportation, a new item in country school expenditures. TABLE X Necessary Travel Items Distance from School of Percentages of Families: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Distance from Trading Point: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Less than one .50 .23 .65 .37 Less than one Miles .17 .06 .12 .06 1-2 .005 .23 .11 .14 IJ- 1* .10 .01 .05 .03 2-3 .05 .20 .13 .17 U- I4 .12* .09* .10 .16 li- 2 .06 .02 .02 .01 4-5 .19 .05 .04 .06 2-3 .05 .26 .05 .19 5-6 .14 .006 .04 .02 .25 .01 .11 6-7 .21 .07 4 and More .09 7 and More .23 .06 M.axi- mum 2i 5 3 6 Maxi- mum 10 5 9 5 Aver- age .9 21 .9 2 Aver- age 5.4 1.5 3.2 1.8 Trading Point. Distance from trading point is somewhat less significant than it was before the establishment of the rural mail and telephone service. However, the annihilation of distance in respect to country trading by telephone and mail is only half ac- complished. The present facilities, plus an adequate parcels post regulation, would very largely solve the problem. It seems clearly evident that any antagonistic interests, which may be at present successful in defeating the inauguration of the parcels post, are standing hard by the judgment seat of progress. School Service. The following table, Table XI, reads that in Cooper township 176 heads of families said that the school service was satisfactory; 16 said it was not; 15 made remarks (unsolicited), and, in so far as the interviewer could give a definite point to these remarks, eight complained of incompetent teachers and one of the distance to the school-house. The num- bers opposite the quoted remarks are the numbers which ap- peared, in the original data, opposite the names of the indi- viduals making the remarks. 24 Two Types of Rural Schools TABLE XI School Service Items Expression of Heads of Families: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Cooper Gustavus . Richland . Kinsman . Satisfactory? Objections Incom- Vea Mo Re- petent Dis- Cost Vans Dis- marks Teachers tance ease 176 16 15 8 1 144 11 22 5 5 4 183 44 25 15 1 215 25 39 2 15 19 1 No. Mor- als 1 1 3 Quoted Remarks 97 " Personal objection to teacher." 35 " Same min holds office of director without re-elec- tion." 134 " No officer elected at last annual school meeting — director, a Dutchman who could scarcely speak English, hires same teacher year after year." 122 " Prefer central school." 36 " Teacher allowed boys to insult daughter." 170 " Irregular time." 173 " Indifference of people." 1 " Objects to Catholic teacher." 20 " Very much pleased." 29 " Very much pleased." 49 " Great improvement." 68 " Prof, bosses everything, runs whole school — Board has no backbone." 89 " Only solution of rural conditions." 47 " Perfectly." 24 " Too frequent change." 51 " Schools should be equal to home." 63 " Too much one man." 122 " Cross railroads twice." 153 " Too much cramming." 171 " Good. Street behavior better." 172 " Good." 179 " Object to curriculum." 180 " Very unsatisfactory in curriculum." 183 " General tone is disrespectful." 32 " Too early and late." 33 " Wastes too much time — distance." 63 " Too far — no comforts in cold weather." 200 " Too many renters who get their children hauled free while others have to pay for it." 215 " Riding, hard on frail children." Church Situation. Table XII shows that, in Cooper, 44 per cent of the heads of f amihes were members of the church ; in Gustavus, 64 per cent were members; in Richland, 51 per cent were members ; in Kinsman, 73 per cent were members. Again, Cooper has 47 per cent of its membership in regular attendance ; Gustavus has 49 per cent ; Richland has 48 per cent ; and Kins- man has 67 per cent. The abbreviations used here, and not al- ready explained in connection with Table VI, are: Non, non- members; Bapt., Baptist; Disc, Disciples; Luth., Lutheran; Ref., Reformed; Cath., Catholic. Financial, Comimtnity and Family Data 25 TABLE XII Church Membership, Distribution, and Activity Items Membership: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Attendance: Cooper .'.... Gusta^Tis Richland Kinsman Sunday School At tendance: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Total e p4 s J? 'a ^ 3 a J3 •z ^ Oh a M W tt J tf 85 44% 107 IS 32 11 9 4 7 7 104 64% 5S 52 2 29 3 < 1 1 116 51% 111 8S 5S 2 5 1 6 1 7 186 73% 67 76 72 1 / s 4 3 Members Regular 40 47% 51 49% 56 48% 126 67% 29 58 53 125 Irresuiar 32 50 22 oS l:^ 34 16 33 None 13 3 10 12 28 38 Non-Members 10 Regular 9 1 Irregular 44 4 38 1 14 3 None 54 18% 32% 13% 24% 68 57 43 56 The importance of the church in country community Hfe is oftentimes out of al! proportion to the numerical strength of its membership or the number regularly found in its congrega- tions. Very frequently the church affords the best audience- room in the community and if it is equipped for social service by a kitchen and dining-room adequately furnished, it becomes doubly valuable as a community asset, irrespective of its great primary purpose. Table XII suggests that church work might gain definiteness in attack and in recognition of tangible results, by a co-operative analysis of the congregations and surveys for a few facts about every human inhabitant of the territory tribu- tary to the interested churches. 26 Tzuo Types of Rural Schools TABLE XIII Fraternity Membership and Distribution Items Membership Cooper. . . Gustavus. Richland . Kinsman . Distribution: Cooper. . . Gustavus. Richland . Kinsman . Total None One Two Three Four es 51% 94 46 31 17 4 79 48% 8.5 68 13 6 2 107 47% 120 54 30 15 7 109 43% 144 67 31 7 3 More < H d 6 d w p.^ 0) < o a g h^i i-i rt f^ W S M W O Oh a 5 30 34 8 1 1 2 35 3 3 4 10 6 3 1 1 47 2 23 15 29 20 7 4 4 41 9 15 15 34 2 15 3 2 8 6 Fraternities. The foregoing table reads as follows : Of 192 persons interviewed in Cooper, 98, or 51 per cent, claimed mem- bership in one or more fraternities ; 94 had no such member- ship; 46 belonged to one fraternity only; 31 to two; 17 to three; 4 to four; and none to more than four. In the distribution, Cooper had 2y Maccabees, no Lady Maccabees, 5 Odd Fellows, no Rebeccas, 30 Masons, 34 Eastern Stars, 8 Modern Woodmen of America, one Knight of Pythias, one Elk, two Grand Army men, 35 Grangers, three Gleaners, and 17 belonging to other fraternities not named. The service of a fraternity to the community in which it is organized may be economical, recreative, and stimulating to the best human impulses ; again it may be wasteful, dissipating, and degrading to its membership. To what extent the fraternities recorded in Table XIII fulfill the high purposes which they pro- fess, mere figures can not show. A well officered and loyally TABLE XIV Insurance Data Number Carrying Insurance: Fire Total Perct. Life Total Per ct. Both Total Per ct. Neither Total Perct. Cooper Gustavus 159 .83 126 .77 190 . 84 212 .84 71 .37 58 .36 81 .36 126 . 50 61 .32 46 .28 74 .33 113 .44 23 .12 25 15 Richland Kinsman 30 . 13 28 .11 Financial, Community and Family Data 27 supported fraternity, in a rural community, seems likely to render a large service, since it adds one more center for whole- some associations and thus breaks up part of the still too large fallow field in rural social life. Insurance and Business. Table XIV and Table XV give some notion of the economic alertness of the farmers in the four townships under survey. Table XIV reads: Of 192 heads of families interviewed in Cooper, 159, or 83 per cent carried fire insurance; 71, or 27 per cent, carried life insurance; 61, or 32 per cent, carried both fire and life insurance; and 23, or 12 per cent, carried neither fire nor life insurance. Table XV, showing the use of the mail for buying or selling, is read in a similar manner. TABLE XV Business Use of Mail Number Using Mail: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Buying Total Perct, 57 .30 98 .60 69 .30 137 .54 Selling Total Perct. 10 .05 32 .28 4 .02 41 .16 Both Total Perct. 23 18 35 .04 .14 .07 .14 Neither Total Perct. 133 .69 57 .34 141 .62 108 .42 Telephone Service. Table XVI, following, suggests the un- exhausted possibilities of telephone service, in the areas being considered, both in the expansion of the service and in its syste- matic and economical management. Maximum telephone usage, like other phases of progress in country life, advances by the TABLE XVI Telephone Service Telephones: Number Having None Total Per ct. Num- ber Having One Num- ber Having Two Most Fre- quent Rate Maxi- mum Rate Mini- mum Rate Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman 82 .43 40 .24 135 . 59 96 .33 110 124 90 159 6 8 2 4 $18.00 15.00 15.00 15.00 $18.00 18.00 20.00 20.00 $3.00 4.00 6.00 •: 4.00 : 28 Two Types of Rural Schools compulsion of necessity and by an honest adjustment of the economic possibiHties of the situation. Personal Affiliations. The items in Table XVII identify, to the extent of location, the most personal and familiar and, no doubt, in the cases of many individuals, the most influential social affiliations of the country homes here represented. The table reads that, in Cooper township, the visiting of 44 per cent of the families was done mostly in the country ; 33 per cent of the families visited more in the city ; and 23 per cent visited equally in the city and the country. In Gustavus, 2 per cent of the families reported doing no visiting. The items for corre- spondence are read in the same Avay. TABLE XVII Visiting and Correspondence Visiting: Cooper Gustavus . . . . Richland. . . . Kinsman. . . . Corresponding: Cooper Gustavus. . . . Richland. . . . Kinsman. . . . Country Per cent 44 70 37 64 22 46 20 35^^ City Per cent 33 26 24 24 36.V 47 32 51 Equal Per cent 23 2 38 9 42 7 47 13 None Per cent Home and Public Libraries. The ownership and use of books in farm homes is, possibly, less important since the day of rural free delivery of mail has brought newspapers and various periodi- cals to easy accessibility. The school libraries and various other forms of public libraries have also reduced the necessity of the ownership of books by farmers. The statistics presented in the following table establish the numerical situation as to books in the farm homes visited. The table reads : In Cooper, 2 per cent of the families reported having no books ; 43 per cent re- ported less than 50 volumes ; 26 per cent, between 50 and 100 volumes; 15 per cent, between 100 and 150; 5 per cent, between 150 and 200; 4 per cent, between 200 and 300; 2 per cent, be- Financial, Community and Family Data 29 tween 300 and 400; none, between 400 and 500; and 3 per cent reported having 500 and more volumes ; the maximum number of vohimes owned was 553 ; and the total number of volumes owned in the farm homes of the township was 13,899. The items for the number of families purchasing books during the year and the number using the books in the public library, are read in a similar manner. TABLE XVIII Ownership and Use of Books Items Home Libraries: Percentage of Homes Having Cooper. . . Gustavus. Richland . * Kinsman . Percentage Adding Books in Year Cooper Gustavus. . . Richland . . . ^ Kinsman . . . Public Library: Percentage Using Books Cooper. . . . Gustavus. . Richland . . ' Kinsman . . Sub-Items Not any Books .02 .07 .02 .07 Less than 50 r,o 100 150 200 300 400 500 Maxi. Total to to to to to to and No. of No. of 100 150 200 300 400 500 More Vols. Vols. .26 .15 .05 .04 .02 .03 553 13.899 .26 .13 .05 .06 .03 .01 .02 1000 13,842 .21 .15 .08 .10 .04 .01 .03 1000 23,342 .20 .18 .06 .08 .03 .02 .04 2000 25,912 None .63 .65 .38 .69 .5 or Less .31 .18 ..30 .15 5-10 .07 .09 .20 .06 10-20 Over 20 .07 .02 .06 .02 .10 .02 .07 .03 Maximum No. of Vols. Purchased 52 23 30 50 Total No. of Vols. Pur- chased 552 363 1072 679 None .76 .50 .57 .47 Less than 5 .04 .20 .05 .06 5-10 10-20 .03 .09 .19 .08 .07 .04 .09 .11 20-50 .06 .01 .17 .14 50 and More .02 .02 .10 .13 Maxi. No. Used in Home 52 1.50 104 156 ' 26 gave no estimate; - 9 gave no estimate; ^ 15 gave no estimate. Library Administration. Two facts about the service of these public libraries stand out in tlie foregoing table. One is the great advantage of the library large enough to have a librarian over the small school librar}' with only incidental admini.stration. Table VII shows that there are 711 volumes in the school libraries of Cooper and 575 volumes in Gustavus, whereas the use of such books is about three times as great in Gustavus. The facility for circulating the books in Gustavus, by use of the school vans, is utilized and there is enough circulation set up to 30 Two Types of Rural Schools keep the current flowing; whereas, although the children afford equal facility for getting books from the small school libraries of Cooper out to the homes, the circulation seems to be too feeble to start a noticeable current. It should be further noted that practically all of the 575 volumes of the Gustavus library are different books and all are available for every citizen of the township ; while the seven small libraries of Cooper township, with their total of 711 volumes, contain many of the same titles in this total and each citizen has available for his use only the number of books contained in his small district library. The second noticeable feature of this table is that in Kins- man, where a splendid library has been developed by years of care and where there is general public knowledge of this fact, the heads of families interviewed were most sensitive on the questions about books. An inspection enough in detail to deter- mine what percentage of home-owned books are really worthy of the name, shows, in many homes, a library selected in closer relation to the zeal and success of itinerant book agents than to the value of the book or the interests of the family. However, a few home libraries, looked over somewhat in particular, of- fered some evidence that present-day means of communication forestall the agent to the extent of introducing a larger factor of premeditation by the prospective purchaser. Current Publications. In Table XIX, the data relative to newspapers, farm papers, and magazines are very nearly cor- rect. The questions as to the number of state and federal bulle- tins, though always asked in the same way, i.e., " How many have you received in the past year?" seems to have been an- swered, in some cases, as if the question were " How many have you read in the past year? " If correct answers to both of these questions could be secured, the suggestion of this study is that a wide margin would appear between the total number of bulletins received and the total number read. The indefiniteness of the answers given in the homes indicates that the whole matter of free bulletins is not yet taken very seriously in the townships canvassed, except in cases of farm specialization and where agricultural intelligence has felt the stimulus of school or extension education bearing directly upon it. The item in regard to " Circulating Reading Matter " was hard to get, be- Financial, Community and Family Data 31 cause the words in just that combination were not in the vocabu- laries of most of the people interviewed, except in Kinsman where there is, in connection with the pubHc library, a well sys- tematized scheme for the circulation of the 54 (see Table VII) periodicals taken. TABLE XIX Number and Distribution of Current Publications Taken Items Percentage not Taking Any Maximum No. Taken Median No. Taken Publications of All Kinds: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman .03 .02 .04 .03 49 30 61 30 5 6 5 7 Newspapers : Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Farm Papers: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Magazines: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman State Bulletins: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Fed. Bulletins: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman Circulating Read- ing: Cooper Gustavus Richland Kinsman None One Two Three Four More Maxi. .03 .05 .07 .03 .27 .28 .30 .37 .35 .36 .29 .34 .70 .49 .61 .64 .84 .89 .69 .92 .99 .99 1.00 .88 .41 .27 .47 .15 .32 .33 .33 .26 .23 .20 .37 .19 .04 .24 .14 .14 .01 .08 .12 .07 .02 .34 .31 .23 .23 .20 .25 .16 .22 .14 .14 .12 .20 .03 .25 .03 .21 .03 .02 .01 .01 .01 .01 .17 .23 .13 .18 .14 .08 .09 .08 .11 .10 .11 .12 .03 .01 .02 .01 .03 .01 .03 .01 .05 .10 .06 .17 .05 .02 .03 .08 .08 .06 .04 .07 .05 .01 .20 .01 .01 .01 .04 03 .14 .02 .04 .03 .03 .09 .14 .07 .08 .15 .08 .14 01 .07 4 8 6 9 6 8 6 20 8 11 10 8 24 4 4 3 35 3 24 2 2 5 20 32 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools Offices Held. Table XX, following, shows the percentage of farm homes represented in offices of the various organizations of the community. Families in which members hold one or more offices in a local public or semi-public organization will, in all probability, enjoy a more varied social intercourse within the home as well as outside of it. The relation of variety of social interest and social participation to relaxation and recuperation from the daily round of compulsory routine in rural life, is vital to just the extent that it enhances daily joy and multiplies cur- rent satisfaction. TABLE XX Offices in Organizations Offices Held by Per ct. Per ct. Per ct. Per ct. Per ct. Per ct. Maxi. Members of Holding Holding! Holding Holding Holding Holding No. in Family: None One Two Three Four More Home Cooper .77 .14 .02 .03 .01 .03 8 Gustavus .68 .15 .07 .02 .04 .04 7 Richland .71 .16 .05 .05 .01 ,02 8 Kinsman .74 .15 .05 .03 .01 .02 9 Conveniences. In Table XXI, the item " Modern Machinery " is comparable between Cooper and Richland and between Gus- tavus and Kinsman. The survey of the Michigan townships was made after the Ohio townships had been completed and it was foimd necessary to put much more emphasis on the ques- tion of modern conveniences to get at the facts at all ade- quately. The other six items in this table present a summary of the answers of heads of families to direct inquiries and should be correct for the number of homes visited. The as- sessed valuation of Cooper township, in 1911, was $585,570, a per capita property of $642 ; while the assessed valuation of Richland township, in 191 1, was $1,078,005, a per capita prop- erty of $1130. These figures help to an understanding of the advantage of Richland in house conveniences. The presence of a village in Richland does not materially affect the comparison as to house conveniences, since there are proportionately as man}' conveniences in the country as in the village homes. The per capita property of Gustavus township, as based on the levy of Financial, Community and Family Data 33 1910, was $672 ; and the per capita of Kinsman, figured on the same basis, was $737. TABLE XXI Modern Conveniences Townships Having No Village Townships Having Village Percentage of Homes Having: Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus Michigan Richkmd Ohio Kinsman Modem Machinery Water in House Bath-room Lighting System Furnace Steam Heat .30 .18 .04 .06 .08 .01 .02 .01 .02 .01 .01 .01 .29 .17 .11 .21 12 .04 .05 .09 .05 .13 .01 .02 Automobiles .01 Improvements. Table XXII, like the preceding one, offers safe comparisons between Cooper and Richland, and between Gustavus and Kinsman. The Michigan townships were can- vassed later and, in the item of simple improvements in pro- gress, the survey was more thorough. Extensive improvements, such as new buildings, were, of course, obvious in both areas and subjects of easy record. TABLE XXII Current Improvements Kind Townships Having NO Village Townships Having Village Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustavus Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman Percentage Making Simple Improvenients .15 .07 .01 .06 .18 .06 03 Percentage Making Exten- sive Improvements .... .04 Ranking the Homes. Table XXIII presents items having the value of special observation, but not substantiated by very close scrutiny. The advantage of Richland and Kinsman is no doubt partly accounted for by the economic status. As stated under Table XXI, the per capita property in Richland is $1130 vs. 34 Two Types of Rural Schools $642 in Cooper ; and in Kinsman, the assessed valuation, in 1910, was $927,770, a per capita property of $737 z/s. an assessed valuation of $515,701, a per capita property of $672, in Gus- tavus. TABLE XXIII General Impression Given by Premises Rank Townships Having NO Village Townships Having Village Michigan Cooper Ohio Gustaviis Michigan Richland Ohio Kinsman Excellent Per cent 9 60 20 11 Per cent 10 37 40 13 Per cent 16 49 24 11 Per cent 28 Good 36 Fair 26 Poor 10 Family Items Distributed. In concluding this chapter, tabula- tions of a complete distribution of the family items for groups of owners and renters are presented. The first purpose of this distribution is to complete the explanation, by an illustration of this somewhat lengthy family survey ; and the second purpose is to afford a basis of comparison, in small numbers, between owners and renters in the particulars under review. Each group is made up of sixty heads of families. The owners, who appear by number in this tabulation, were selected by taking the first two owners who were interviewed, in each group of thirty throughout the four townships ; and likewise, the sixty renters were selected by taking the first two renters in each successive group of thirty heads of families visited in the four townships. To complete the total of sixty desired, the last two or three names in each township were added. Abbre- viations are chiefly initials and subject to easy interpretation. Many modern machines and domestic conveniences are not men- tioned ; only those which seem to mark the present advance line are noted. In the following tables, it should be understood that heads of families were not asked to make remarks about the school, further than to answer the question " Is your school service satisfactory?" Such remarks as were made, and that are tabu- Financial, Community and Family Data 35 lated, were purely voluntary. By social organization, an asso- ciation for purely social purposes was indicated. The localities under survey make little organized use of leisure. Under cur- rent improvements, " Simple " means merely incidental repairs to offset natural wear and tear ; and " Extensive " means new buildings, rebuilding, and grading. Where extensive improve- ments are in progress on rented farms, it is to be understood that such improvements are to be credited to the non-resident owners of these farms, not to the renters. 36 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools y. ^ o > >> X X ■7J &< w O hJ m o < H P m 03 H I rt'>S<-^C^-H'<*l,-H>-(i-(,-I.HlM-Hf<|C»5i-l'-'-H-H.-t.-4 tH auoqciaiax Jo 'tsoQ sauotjdapj, ^000'HOOC-l--iO'-OC<) .-i.^O'-i'-i'-HO'-lOi-<0'-lO'-<'-l'-lOi-iC OOOOO'-iOOOOOOCOOOOOO OOO'-HOO'-HOOOOOOOOOOOO OOO'-'OCOOOOOO'-lO'-iOOOO 0'-iO'-irH,-l,-HO'-l>-lOOOOOOO'-lO OOOOCCOOOOOCOOOOOOO OOO'-i'-iOiMOO'-HOOOOO'-iO'-iri jiji ji ^ ^ J3 ji J3 ^ ^ £^0^ C-°0 OOOMCCC'-i.-iOOO'-iOr-ic>10'-iOO OOONOC0(NOO'soo g-goo go a >C^'^0 ■-(O'-lMIMlNOOO'-KN'OM'-lOOroC^ C(NCC-^^SJOi •oocoooo h;oo "^ '- M a> oj C u. *;*- C3 >> „ E'S a 2 9)— C \\c JO euoi}i3zint!SJO ut saoyjo SuipBay 2uij'Ejnoaio •-I00000050COOOOOOWOOOO oo supaung jB.iapaj; 'q-j supajing a^jB^g 'q-s sjadBj tnjBj[ 'cl-j sauizBaB|5 ■tn sjadtidsAiai^ 'n pnba -a •K^^ -q 'Xj^nnoQ -v — Suipuodsajjoo jBnbg -a CON'-ii-l T-H (N i-i ftN i-H (N-HM—I -HIN IM -Hr-I COrH ■-<■* :--ii-lM (N OCOO >-l CCNNi-ir-l • e<5-Hi-l-HTlilM--i(MIN'--iTl^^ il>^^ X1J5 ^^' 03^ oi c3j2 c6c3cje«csca«>"aja) o5^ * ej pasfi s3{oog .tJBjqrj COC^C0SOO00>n05OC0OOt-"5OOO oc jBa^ 'jsBj pasrqojnj ssjoog pauMQ e3[ooa oo— O'^MOO'COOOOO'-iOOONIN OO >-Cr-l r-li-( tHCO Suinag ''\ 'SuiXiig "B jaqninjjj ooo oo ^o^ ooo o o Financial, Community and Family Data 39 .-. T-l rH O) (N o o.i: o.i; o o c o ^.Is o o o o o.h o.ij.i: coo oooooooo u.s o t> o o o o OOcaKojOOoOXaOCOOOsjXjjsiCOO 0OOXCOXO>0-^00 0^-^-OCi>0 00000000000-< lO - - -HTjI^OlO -H,-^ CC-* CM - (N Mr5Nt^(N dCJC-l W*05 ■0 N C-1 ?1 M N <-,-l,-irtM.-Hioe1 M M M CO CI CI re M CI re :o ci is'®^' cijix s aj caja cs a5 oJ^ja^ oj^ si osjd a' ai^ _: M^ c- rt a)^ K rt^j2 ea^^ s 530_qC (i;_£_q j, j3_£ ce^,j2X> c3j2 a' C3 «J3^' - » c3 oi 1* = rt^j: c3 c3 J3 cS rix,0 ci -^ccocc-ooocoooooce<5fooc"3c>n 00'<*'OOCOOC>OM 00000 lOTOtOOOIMOOOOOOOOO iOOONOOreOOCOTt<-^iOOOC)C;iOOOlO t^-oot-HOOiccso CI i^ioreo io^hioco o ociioioreo reireT'-"ore'*r-i >-i CliOiOrt rtW-^lOCIrtCiCI 00 "H 000 OOOOOOOOOX! O O OOOCOOOjDOXlOOOO See dcicitsdnjojcj 53^ OS ,-rt-<>-HCMicrorecnric)^cM'*cjcirerereocireioci reociict^oociciorecicDMcoro 40 Two Types of Rural Schools > vJ o jaqran^ e>3r-iN<-iCO(NOir)C<;oO(Ni-i(Ni-(r-i|^IM^.iOC<5»OfM C55OO3MIO00 ■"^ 1X1 05 IN >Ci CCt^05!NlO WW auoqclapx Jo *soo 00 0000 om ■* CO lO >oo sauoqdajax O^-iOO^'-iOrMr-lO'HOi-iOOO'-iOOO'-*^ uoi^BzraBSJQ aAijBjado-oQ oooooooooooooooooooooo 8sjno3 uoisna+xa OOOOOOOrtOOOOOOOOOOOOOO suoi^iSZiaBSjo ppog oooooooooooooooooooooo ajrj; 'q 'aJi^j "'b — aonBjnsaj Xi ^St£l Xl ^ OOO-^'o-^' O-^'o-^" (S ea 03 05 o3 c5 ej cs oj d es sajtmaa^Bjj eOOOOO-iONOCO^HOOOOOINOO^-HO aouBpaaj^Y OAOA^oop-opjop-a-o^oooortopi diqi5jaqai3i\[ looqog XBpang ogooooogoooggo oooogo^ aauBpua^-Jv o^AA^opjp-o^-op^rto^Aq-oo^o^ diqsjaqui3|\[ qojnqQ WW t: .^' pq WW ■g.WW ja W . .-j-ooo's-So .o . .oS- . .o«oo . "o o X. m a o ■< B ::;:;::: :g ::::::::::: : :::■■;::: o 1> w ........... , None Poor Govemmer None Gives chance tor None i/tJOiOBjspBg looqDg SI ?inoj anipBJx o^ aoaBjsiQ looqog o? aoaBjsiQ grt rt-H (N(NM^5 -H (M rt .-IWN najpiiqo (N'*rHT)tOi-H>(M'HCOCOroOOOrHrtO-^'-1«N!M aay OI^IN'^'Ot-M-^OOCDOlOO-^COiO-HtOOMiOCn POC<5CO'*0(NCOC<5WCOiO'0'i5AAA« AOAtfAAOtftftfoW A®®A<=' tfA® « . .oooB't! .000 C"* ^ 900 . .oooijjjjo . j;oo ro Kg a "c c Q. c "0 a, t. z i a 1. c t 'c "a > H?*'*' Pi(*^^A^>«IXi^^M c c LlNOOOOfflCOO'-l'-li-lC^NM'-lO'-li-l i-l-^cqO'*OOlNOOC0t^ O'-IO'-'O O--^ i-lrtNOOCOOOOOO'-lr-lrHi-Ht-li-irH i-H O "-I O O O OO O --I •-< --I 1-1 N t-l .-I f-l .-1.-1 COC^'<1.!DCONWt^t^OiOOOt^'-i'-iCOf;oO •'I'CCt^COCO lMa>i-c05NCD05QOCOCOiOOOCO>.0OCDO'*C<3 t^M r-i^^ T-( r^ ,-< ,-1 r-^ ,-t ,-4 ^.^ r^ i-H i-« rH ^ ^H i-l rH C^ d C4 42 Tivo Types of Rural Schools K W t s M •S tf "^ >* o H O « C/J r^ (>4 X o 'A iz; o W (— t ►-1 3 H H J8quin»^ M •-- — t^ ?1 1^ \^. JC iC IN sasitnajj ^lO^zVi JO U0TSSaJdini"(BJ3U8r) .!3 o.«.!3 o o.ti o o.l o!oac300(aooca«o6oo6ooo'^ „ ii,fcfepi-iOOOOOOOOWOOrHOO auipBay SuijBjnoJiQ -0 „• Bupajing [Bjapaj -q-j J3 sai^aijna ajBig -q-s SJatlBJ UliCj^ -fJ-J [4 MN(M -H rt --.M SaUTZBSBJ^ 'UI A x},rtrt-HTt CO-'CO -H IN^ ^ -^ sjadBclsAva^ -u |Bnbg -a 'X}i3 -q 'AJ}uno3 -8 — SuipuodsajjoQ l^nbg a 'A^ij -q 'Aj^nnoQ "b — 3ui;isi^ .•1-l--^^^ -^o5o! cj^ K pasj;^ s5[oog jtJBjqi'j JBa_;;^ :)sbj pasBqojnj sijoog pauAVQ s5{oog 3ut[jag -q 'guiXng -b jaquin^i Ot^OOOOO'-iOt-PStOfflOOOOOO'OOO O'MOOOC<:O0OlNOO T-l MN .-1 cjo «=> cj^ooo • 000 rt'o -;oo Financial, Community and Family Data 43 rt,-icv)(MiM u.i: o o.- o o o o.i:.i;.i3 o.is o o o o o o o o.^.ti o.t;.!3.i; c.t; o o o.i3.i: c o.s >^ :j c3^ dJD aj (D s^ OOOOtDOOO(MC'-lOOOC(NOO (N rH l-H .-lT-< rt ,-H ,-iiO OO J rfOO J --oo J oO ^ ^oo oi^^(So3^^^cSo3c:tf'-^oj O ^-OO JOj^OO ^ ^ 55 ^_£^0 105^05(NC00500COCO'OOOCO'nc^5D005CO-*'OCJCt>-Ot^OOCDb-00'COO'*COt>-C<3 >N-t-t^ ■c^>C'Oi»ic cot^oscot^oc^co 44 Ttvo Types of Rural Schools Distributions Summarised. The foregoing tables present in detail the facts about two random samplings of owners and renters. Table XXVI presents the summaries of these facts, in so far as the several items lend themselves to significant state- ment in summary. TABLE XXVI Relative Facts About Owners and Renters Summarized Items Median age of heads of fam- ilies Median No. adults in homes No. homes without children . Median No. children Median distance from school. Median distance from trad ing point No. dissatisfied with school. Homes represented in church membership Homes represented in church attendance Homes represented in Sun- day school membership . . . Homes represented in Sun- day school attendance. . . . Homes represented in frater- nities No. carrying no insurance . . No. carrying fire ins. only. . . No. carrying life ins. only. . . No. carrying both Homes represented in social organizations . Homes represented in some extension course .... Homes represented in co- operative organizations . . . Homes without telephone service Median cost of telephone. . . No. using mail for buying or selling produce OWN- Rent- ER.S ers 49 2 58% 1 1 i mi. 38 2 33% 1 f mi. 2 J mi. 15% 2h mi. 5% 60% 60% 68% 71% 55% 43% 56% 48% 43% 8% 55% 1% 35% 38% 38% 25% 15% 21% 10% 5% 20% 3% 10% 1% 43% $15 63% $15 37% 53% Items Median No. books owned. Median No. books purchased past year Homes making use of library Median No. Library books used Visiting mostly in country. . . Visiting mostly in city Corresponding mostly in country Corresponding mostly in city Median No. newspapers taken No. taking magazines Median No. magazines No. taking farm papers Median No. farm papers .... No. taking government bul- letins Median No. bulletins No. taking circulating read- ing Homes represented in offices of various organizations. . Homes having modern con veniences No. making improvements: a. Simple (repair.s) b. Extensive (building) . . . Median general impression. . Own- ers 50 6 40% 9 50% 31% 30% 43% 2 65% 2 60% 1 70% 6 5% 26% 36% 20% 8% Good Rent- ers 45 7 43% 10 63% 20% 36% 36% 2 56% 2 43% 1 16% 4 1% 15% 23% 6% 8% Fair Items of Comparison. In the foregoing table, the first item shows that the median age of the sampling of owners was 49 years ; of the sampling of renters, the median age was 38 years. This is very significant in relation to such following facts as: per cent of homes having no children, number dissatisfied with school, the ownership and purchase of books and the use of public libraries, the location of the visiting and correspondence of the families, the reading of current publications, and the number of homes represented in the offices of various organiza- tions. The tenure of renters, a fact not learned by this survey, would no doubt be very useful in explaining some of the par- Financial, Community and Family Data 45 ticular differences between owners and renters. To what ex- tent the present owners have been renters; to what extent the present renters have risen from the ranks of farm laborers ; and to what extent present renters were already owners in fact and in intention — these items, if learned, would lend much additional significance to what has been presented. However, since the owners are approximately seventy-seven per cent of the population of the townships surveyed, and are conceded to be much more permanent in their tenure and, by the fact of ownership, are likely to be much more vitally interested in taxation and in the effectiveness of local institutions, it is safe to look to the statistics of owners for the community stand- ards in the items concerning which inquiry was made. In mat- ters such as, for example, the percentage of attendance at church, the use of the mail in buying and selling, and the use of library books, in which the renters had better standards than the owners in these particular localities, it cannot be doubted that the renters prove a spur rather than a handicap in the improvement of personal and community standards. In concluding this chapter, it may be w-ell to expand the statement of the introduction — that the second chapter will pre- sent econom.ic, institutional and family data in detail with only explanatory discussion. This has been the plan and purpose of the chapter ; but there has been also the general purpose of es- tablishing a setting, or perspective, for the next chapter which is an inquiry in detail into the significant phases of the existing school situation in the same communities. It has been the func- tion of this chapter to present facts showing: 1. The relative economic resources of the compared areas. 2. The relative standing, at present, of common community activities in the contrasted townships. 3. The relative well-being of the homes in the several lo- calities, together with a differentiation of owners and renters in this respect. CHAPTER III SCHOOL STATUS Available Records In an attempt to measure the exact school status in detail for the academic year of 1910-1911, recourse was had to the teachers' records on file in the districts, to the proceedings of the annual school meetings, to the reports of the district boards, to the State Departments of Public Instruction, and to personal in- spections of physical equipments and interviews with officers, teachers, parents and children. Personal Co-operation. At least one teacher in each of the districts studied has made a personal contribution of care and time to aid in accumulating the data presented in the follow- ing pages. In each of the four Ohio consolidated districts, a resident teacher, who had been for several years familiar with local conditions, was employed ; and in Michigan the County Commissioner of Schools was a very generous contributor of everything in his power to make the investigation thorough. The personal part required nearly a month of working early and late in Ohio, and a much longer time in Michigan. Any one who undertakes a work like this will be sufficiently impressed with the very great advantage of " Consolidated " school records. In none of the localities studied was there sufficiently acute supervision to enforce uniformity or thoroughness in the com- mon records of pupils' attendance and work kept by the teach- ers. In Ohio, the principal teaches too much and is too little prepared to do much with even the machinery of supervision. In Michigan, the County School Commissioner's services are radiated too far from the county seat ; and only by means of con- centration, through the focus of some particular phase of school activity, which he may elect to emphasize for the time being, may he hope to make his influence decisively effective in all parts of the county. The splendid records kept by a few 46 School Status 47 teachers in each locality were obviously due to special endow- ments of executive ability. Scope of Divisions. The statistics presented in Division I, relative to the districts, are as accurate as the records in so far as the items are matters of record. Such items as the number of legal voters in the district and the number of women voting, are not shown by the records ; and these, together with others of like character, were obtained by asking some person, usually an official who was present at the annual school meeting. In Division II, relative to teachers, the items were furnished by the teachers themselves in every case ; but, since records had not been kept by many as to the number and length of visits to their schoolrooms by outsiders and visits made by themselves to homes and attendance at social functions in their districts, they did not respond with much confidence touching these items. What they did say is presented as a careful estimate made by the teachers. In Division III, relative to pupils, the items are such as the existing records afford. The conception of each pupil's whole school record, as a unit, has not yet been formulated in the schools here studied. The attempt to establish the educational pedigree of each child on the school census list falls short just to the extent that the records are imperfect in items for which there is pretension of record ; and to the extent to which records, at best, are incomplete, i.e., records in which no itemization of the activities of children not in the home school, is attempted. In Division IV, relating to the general features of the schools' activities, the items were given by the teachers, partially from records, and in part from memory. Some of these items were very crudely presented since they were new and had been of very little concern to many of the teachers. Division i. The Districts Related Groups. The statistics for the districts are presented in related groups in the following tables. The distribution of items in the several small districts of the Michigan townships, with such township summaries as the items permit, will be shown in connection with the most comparable Ohio consolidated 48 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools T3 "S -a -a (U D. W 7i£ a ,-H S-S.2- dSa 13 ej-S £'2 O m SiOO ^■^i go§ t^ t-oo 032 Oi •too c-S 2 lO "to oi-_ 2 a I/; -c^io C. 3g 10 -■* - »c -xo HI O €© to" imiocoth a" ^rc CO 2 fl,° >o ;> a OS ^ S X o H «(* OoH e© *oEh Sfir «« O o a .2- a a 2 '£ 2 3 w o c -* iC a m p 0 H lOOOLO CO --1.^1^ C-i'-'Xt^ INt^-HO> (NCMX-* _« lO e© a; 00 e^ rH «© t> e» "o K» "o e© "o "o ee JS J3 ^ w .d ^ ^ ^ ^ U3 t< cooo IN -00 C'l to S O o CI l0^50 U3 (O nt -t^o u MO^oo C^QOXM* CD <» CO «© e© *^ o t^ CO w -coo "o KM -com •*• -too "o o 0000>« "o CO coo^oo 00 oit-rt CO •^ "TrHrtin o CO «o 00 «© t^ as j3 10 e« a o 01 m ^ CO o Q Q t^ M o ooo u »iO saCDOO -g IC -JDO t^ "h -00 b "« -C^IO t-* CO -00 COM^OO CO C>) 00 '.'5 t* c>) r~ — lO a cx» •*< «» Oi «> -f e© «© 01 IS p o to s e© 5 ^3 e» s o PC 05 O 0> a OJ CO s „Bt^ 0\ O C14 _a ^cOOO a> C3 ■* "h -coo lo 2 ■=n -C^JtO -t. -00 p ^ CO00-<-H (NNOO^ ^OC0-»< tf X co-^x"; 2; >o «« j-j ee 00 «© *» «© « CO e© «> aE> o CO S „»iOOO MOO Lh oqoo -H M -V. -!0>0 •«t4 -»i -00 OO—iCO IM^— 1 ^ coc^-HO CO-f X«^ CO (» oc e» rH tfj ■*• s© c© e@ a» o» o 10 CO ooo 10 „B>00 « N t*e -(DO nto -00 M "h -00 CO «* -00 lOOlrt-^ M CO'^Ol^ COOS COO COlOXLO r-( «« 10 e© a^ M «e «^ e^ «© w o CO 05 CO ^ . ooo c^oo „ptOOO •ooo H«i -5DiC c^ «-. -OUO 01 "m -coo 01 *-M -too CO CO .-. t^ ■^CO^-H T^IO 1-HlO CO IN 1-00 o as s© s© -K «fe a^ ©9 03 o CO o IM cooo i>oo -0(M -H r-l -n -coo Tjifflr^M ■«0>r-l,-l -(; § :«;; § ■.^.>. . . >. '3 ■ o-ti ■S • cti •3 • CTt '^ ■ at. in Sec strict . te in S Prope -co a> a -CK 0) 9. -m <-■ ■^•— d O a> " e« 0) oj ® d 5- g^o^^ S^ojS ^2^2. 32^2 Z OS. 2 c3 £ (S.2 OS tH cd 2 ^ " 03 2 «8 •<>a3t> -<>JZ> ■<>!»> <>txi> School Status 49 township in each of the tables, four townships in each state being presented to afford a sufficient area for comparison. Following these distributed and summarized tables, a table of summaries alone will be presented ; and, concluding this division, will be a table presenting such totals, medians, averages, and frequencies for all of the four district school townships in comparison with all four consolidated school townships as it is hoped will be helpful to the reader. Areas and Valuations. In Table XXVII, the areas, tax valua- tions and valuations of school properties are shown. This table reads as follows : Districts one, one-fractional, two, three, four, five, five-fractional, and six of Alamo township, had areas of four and one-half sections, 3%, 5^, 5"/i«, 3Vi6» 3» 2^ and 3j^, respectively, making a total of 31% sections; and the area of the Ohio consolidated districts was 25 sections respectively. The reason the district areas in Michigan do not add up to 36 sections, or a complete township, is that fractional districts, i.e., districts partly in one township and partly in another township, are administered in the township in which the school-house stands ; so that the school township varies in area from the geographical township. The reading of the other items in this table is readily seen from the reading of the first item. Cost of Instruction. Table XXVIII presents the tax rate, the per capita cost, the salaries of teachers, and the cash on hand at the end of the year. The noticeably high tax rates and cost of instruction in District Number One, of Alamo, and Dis- trict Number Five, Richland, are caused by the attempt to pro- vide some high school instruction in these districts, which are village districts. The greatly increased tax rate in the consoli- dated township districts is due in part to the maintenance of high school instruction, but much more largely to the expense of transporting the children to school. Vernon paid $2,974.41, or a per capita of $16.52, for transportation ; Gustavus paid a per capita of $15.13; Kinsman paid a per capita of $13.30; and Johnston paid a per capita of $14.64. These items are not cor- rected for days lost on holidays, but are approximately correct. The large amount of cash on hand at the end of the year in the Michigan townships is due to the strict division of the school so Two Types of Rural Schools « « S ^ T3 -a 1 T3 1 -a o ,! O O o > a'^ o IOI>COMO o-hmcoo ■"am $.010 5858 32 2320 1265 Kinsman onsolidate Township o: -t o LO o ton late jhip OSOOOOIN OO (M Ot^coOO ON ^O W2 -^^ $.00 60i 241 Deficit O o 1 " o a. 1 2S?*x^"^::;; .2* OMM .-< 00 OS o. C0>0-T 1^ &: 0) ^ ^ <0 ■-< oioooo C01NOt» ti 0-* COIN (N - «» ooooinmr- O O O O a>.^c^^--< iCiC^Ot^ cq^* coco coco CO "j» o o i;^ o o ID i «^ ? 0= I 1 6^ i" 1 0>0t^0-fl l-H O t» lO « -< ^oo^^ OO-I-OIN H COOO'-HCIOO "o o j3 00.-(CC OUOINCOO CI 00 -H O O o o OO ■"T-q o 00 0-* CO.-! o * 0-* CO-* e- o ti CO J3 CO P CO 1 ^ CO e« ; _u «e 5 w 1 OOCDNOb f-cCn-^iOrl lO 00 •* O 00OO>O00 _o 1 ^MrHCOO C OI N ^ CK :; 'n -HOCOt^-H -HCONpt>. OiO ^o Ei. *(.< (mt:< COM" 'C Ct CO-- u fCO ININ o t^ i o 'S t^ s - -T3 3 a t^ O O *-* s o ^ K 5 ^ - p v D. O 6 m ei» - G t» t- .-^ lO 00 -^ 1-hO-^COC OOt^O- C> IN -* O r-^ n s O-*CM— 1 COCOIN-*t» S MO COO OiO coc 1 "3 •S"* OilN c ^ — CO IN 5 t O O o 5 o OCO rH O tf 00 o o 09 e^ wj " «4 r^ocoOM — lOOiOO INriOCOC CO — imN-i (N" WON IN o C'O .-■ a 1 INCMlNOrt CO 00 IN OS CO ■*C0 CO'* (NCO COC b (MiO -rji ^ OCO (N-^ CO o ■* O o o o O o e^ e« »9 m 1 CO c) — ' o o r}<.-4 POOCS lOOOOO'n t-**0'0i0 O— ilNult^ r^co-H^c ■^lOOJOOIN oaco — CO — ■* CO(N U4 CO ^ coc^ •-' CO IN.-I NCO CO IN O O OJ o o CO O O CO o o W " s> s» »» OOINOO!/ Oioiiotor^ COr-llOOO ot^cooo OCTNOO ■O O IN O tX OOO IN 00 IN >OONN«) (.1 IM-* COC^ ^^ t^-;t OC«5 IN -*■* eo IM O'-H (N IN "^ o O O e% e4 «« «l» 'S'OCO'OO CO-iO'-- t^ 1^ CO OC M t^ocoot-- lOCO o COiO CO!N CO-*i CO-* N>0 CON *"* O'-l .-1 o '"' 8 '^ ""* v 1 «© ^ «» * _^ ■ '-J. : ^ t* ■- c X • c X n ^;i oj 1 ■ One-Mil on Enro Wages, f Year . One-Mi on Enro Wages . f Year . One-Mil on Enro Wages . f Year . a ^ o t-i 01 . V b a) g^i a n c5§T3>« ax. inc. ucation Based achers' , End o ^ g-a « ° ax in ucati Base acher ; End ax ini ucati Base acher : End ^S^H^ ^§^'^^ C-T3 - 0) t: fHT3 -S-S -a o -"O "S o -TS tJ o ^T3 ■a" o ^T3 2 oO.S c of Vote Cost of apita Ci Paid in on Han of Vote Cost of apita Ci Paid in on Han of Vc Cost apita Paid on Hj of Vo Cost apita Paid nn Hi S'S'-'IS^ ^rt^'^ja aj'^^'^^ «'^^^^ II t; <-■ ti -1^ 01 "ti +J t- -W M 1 c? rt O 4> O 1 C3 o 0) 5 cj o QJ O 1 CIS 4) O 6 II School Status 51 funds into separate funds for designated purposes only; and to the fact that the needs of these specified purposes and the amounts apportioned to meet these needs are not automatically adjusted. Library Status. Table XXIX presents the existing condi- tions as to school libraries in the several district school and consolidated school townships. Five of the thirty-one schools of the district townships have no library; and nine of the twenty-six districts having libraries added no books within the year. Reference to Table VII shows that Richland has a Ladies' Library containing 11 60 volumes, to which 23 books were added within the year. The splendid library conditions in Kinsman township are due to the union of the public and school libraries and the devoted care of a voluntary and very competent librarian. TABLE XXIX School Libraries Numbers of Districts Vernon Consolidated School Items Alamo District Schools 1 Ifr 2 26 1 3 71 1 4 123 15 5 75 25 5fr 60 in 6 78 14 Whole Township Whole Township Total Number of Volumes 168 91 q 692 75 600 Number of Volumes Added This Year 80 Cooper District Schools Gustavus Consolidated Township 1 71 18 2 134 14 2fr 68 14 4 300 5 50 7 67 22 8fr 21 21 — — Township Total Number of Volumes in Library Number of Volumes Added This Year 711 89 575 56 Richland District Schools Kinsman Consolidated Township 1 2 20 1 3 4fr 85 12 5 111 51 7fr 9 8fr 113 llf 12 f 89 5 Township Total Number of Volumes in Library Number of Volumes Added This Year 427 69 1800 500 Ross District Schools Johnston Consolidated Township 1 49 2 3 4 6fr 8fr 100 9fr 60 24 14 fi 135 Township Total Number of Volumes in Library 348 24 567 Number of Volumes Added This Year 60 52 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools Enrollment and Attendance. Table XXX reads : In Alamo township, the districts had 51, 25, 20, 23, 37, 44, ^y, 'and 26 children of school age respectively, making a total of 263 for the township ; and Vernon Consolidated School had a total of 232 children of school age. In Alamo, 196 children were en- rolled and 136 were in daily attendance, or 71 per cent of the enrollment. In Vernon, 180 children were enrolled and 125 were in daily attendance, or 69 per cent. For a tabulation of the actual attendance of each pupil, in days, see Table XLIII. The slight discrepancy which appears between the statistics given in Table XXX and those given in Table XLIII, is due to the fact that the figures found in Table XXX were taken from the official reports while those in Table XLIII were ob- tained from an actual count from the records of each teacher. TABLE XXX Census, Enrollment, Attendance of Pupils Numbers of Districts Vernon Consolidated School Items Alamo District Schools 1 1 fr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 Whole Township Whole Township Children of School Age. . . . Total Enrollment 51 41 30 .73 25 21 15 .71 20 20 16 .80 23 14 10 .71 37 24 16 .66 44 36 20 .55 37 22 15 .68 26 17 14 .82 263 196 136 Med. .71 232 180 Average Daily Attendance. Percent, of Attend. Based on Enrollment 125 .69 Cooper District Schools GustavuB Consolidated Township 1 37 27 23 .85 2 47 46 30 .64 2fr 38 34 22 .64 4 14 10 5 25 19 12 .63 7 29 20 15 .75 8fr 55 34 25 .73 Township Children of School Age. . . . Total Enrollment 245 190 132 Med. .64 215 181 Average Daily Attendance. Percent, of Attend 152 .83 Richland District Schools Kinsman Consolidated Township 1 2 3 4fr 5 7fr 8fr Uf 12f Township Children of School Age .... Total Enrollment 21 16 13 .81 21 15 11 .73 18 14 8 .60 22 20 16 .80 78 74 64 .86 21 9 5 .61 31 23 18 .78 10 9 8 .89 25 20 9 .45 247 200 152 Med. .78 349 263 -Average Daily Attendance. Percent, of Attend 213 .80 Ross District Schools Johnston Consolidated Township 1 28 18 14 .77 2 22 18 10 .55 3 19 13 10 .77 6fr 17 15 10 .66 8fr 24 14 8 .57 9fr 40 20 18 .90 14 fi 44 34 24 .73 — Town.ship Children of School Age .... Total Enrollment 194 132 94 Med. .73 245 211 -Average Daily Attendance. Percent, of Attend 184 .86 School Status 53 Tenure and Salary. Table XXXI shows the months that school was maintained in each district, the number of different teachers working in each school during the year, and the monthly salaries of teachers. Districts No. i, Alamo, and No. 2, Cooper, are two-room schools ; District No. 5, Richland, is a four-room school. Of the twenty-eight one-room schools, twenty-three kept the same teacher throughout the year; each of the other five one-room district schools made one change in teachers dur- ing the year. Thus 82 per cent of the teachers had whole-year tenure. This condition for the same localities in 1881, was 10 per cent. In the four consolidated school townships, but one change occurred in the teaching corps in a year. Where the TABLE XXXI School Year, Teachers, and Monthly Wage Items Number of Months School . Number of Different Teach- Average Wages Per Month Number of Months School . Number of Different Teach- Average Wages Per Month. Number of Months School . Number of Different Teach- Average Wages Per Month. Number of Months School . Number of Different Teach- Average Wages Per Month. Numbers of Districts Alamo District Schools 1 Ifr 2 3 4 5 .5fr 6 9 9 8.6 9 9 9 8 9 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 45 S40 S42 $40 S42 S40 840 8135 Whole Township Med. 9 10 Med. $40 Cooper District Schools 2fr 8fr Township Med. Med. $40 Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr 5 7fr 8fr 11 f 12f 84 8 8 9 9 8 9 8 9 1 1 1 2 4 $S3 1 2 2 1 .«45 «35 S35 .S45 45 $35 $36 $37 $40 Township Med. 8| 15 Med. $40 Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr Sfr 9fr 14 fr 9 8 9 8 8 9 9 1 $40 1 $40 1 $35 1 $37 2 $30 1 $45 1 $40 Township Med. 9 8 Med. $40 Vernon Consolidated School Whole Township 6 Supt. $95. $40 Gustavus Consolidated Township $100. $40 Kinsman Consolidated Township $95, $524 Johnston Consolidated Township $90,$40 54 Two Types of Rural Schools school had more than one room, the salary of the principal is shown without being included in the average wages being paid by the school. Annual Meeting. In Table XXXII, items are shown in re- gard to the annual school meeting, which are not matters of re- cord, e.g., the number of legal school voters and the number of women voting. These items are given in every district where an estimate could be obtained from persons considered com- TABLE XXXII Attendance at Annual School Meeting Items Number of Legal School Voters Number of Voters Attend- ing Annual School Meet- ing • Number of Women Attend- ing Number of Legal School in-Votera Number of Voters Attend- ing Annual School Meet- ing Number of Women Attend- ing Number of Legal School Voters Number of Voters Attend- ing Annual School Meet- ing Number of Women Attend- ing Number of Legal School Voters Number of Voters Attend- ing Annual School Meet- ing Number of Women Attend- ing Numbers of Districts Alamo District Schools Ifr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 72 83 21 27 27 21 14 10 15 3 20 10 12 6 2 4 Whole Township ? 265 104 13 Cooper District Schools 1 2 69 2fr 20 4 16 5 ? 7 13 8fr 25 30 5 25 11 3 14 5 6 4 Township ? 173 68 4 Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr 5 7fr 8fr llf 12f 1 26 25 24 18 89 27 10 14 21 11 12 4 3 15 17 5 7 6 5 2 6 Township 80 13 Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr 8fr 9fr 14 fr 44 23 20 22 20 7 25 10 4 6 12 7 4 10 4 4 Township ? 154 53 Vernon Consolidated School Whole Township 210 150 Gustavxis Consolidated Township 235 119 Kinsman Consolidated Township 218 135 1 Johnston Consolidated Township ISO 3 School Status 55 petent. Where the estimates could not be secured, question marks are inserted in the table, and also opposite the totals. The percentage of attendance of voters at the annual school meet- ing is more than twice as great in the consolidated school town- ships as in the district school townships. In neither locality do the women voters manifest very much interest in voting. General Summary. The summary of the two types of town- ships enables the reader to see at a glance the differences which have been shown in particulars in the foregoing tables of this division. In Table XXXIII, the most noticeable contrasts are in the total areas of school sites ; the wide divergence in the rates of school tax; the greatly increased cost of education in the consolidated townships, due to transportation and the main- TABLE XXXIII Summarized Cojiparison of District School Townships and Consolidated School Townships Items Area in Sections Tax Valuations Sites in Square Rods Value of School Property Rate of Local Tax Total Cost of Transportation Per Capita Cost of Transportation Total Paid in Teachers' Wages Annual Cost of Education *Per Capita Cost, Based on Enrollment. . . . Cash on Hand at End of Year Volumes in Libraries Volumes Added During Year Children of School Age Enrollment Average Daily Attendance Percentage of Enrollment, Based on Census Percentage of Attendance, Based on Enroll- ment Days of School Different Teachers Median Wages Per Month (Excl. of Supts.) Estimated Legal Voters Voters at Annual Meeting Women Voters at Meeting District Townships Consolidated Townships 11.3.3 ;, 126,800 4283 $28,450 S. 00254 $13,190 S18,169 $23 $12,182 2178 257 949 718 514 .76 .70 177 41 $39 866 305 38 100 $2,943,579 1785 $38,000 $.00905 $12,034 $15 $11,348 $29,049 $34 $2,765 Deficit 2,500 3486 658 1041 835 674 .80 .80 167 26 $40 918 584 4 * In determining the jier capita cost for the district school townships, District No. 5 Richland, a village district, was eliminated. 56 Two Types of Rural Schools tenance of high schools ; the better library service in the con- solidated schools ; the better percentage of enrollment and atten- dance of the consolidated schools ; the longer school year of the district schools ; the much better attendance at the annual meet- ing in the consolidated schools ; and the greater, though even at that still very small, attendance of women at the annual meet- ings in the smaller districts. The facts regarding the Comstock consolidated school, which is the largest school of its type in Michigan, are given in Appendix A. DrvisiON 11. The Teachers The teachers of the schools reported in these pages responded, with very few exceptions, cheerfully, promptly, and as com- pletely as possible, to the twenty-five inquiries addressed to them. Very few teachers failed to understand the importance of giv- ing all the items but several were unable to give some items be- cause they did not have the facts. The data collected are shown in the following tables in their entirety, with only necessary ex- planations and supplemental statements. Personal Items. Table XXXIV shows a distribution of the teachers of the several districts in the items of age, sex, and father's occupation. The abbreviations are self-declarative, with the possible exception of " R. F. D.," which means a rural route mail carrier ; " Book," which means book-keeper ; " Oil," which means an oil producer ; and " Liv," which means liveryman. The summaries and further explanatory and supplemental dis- cussion of this and the following tables, which present the in- formation about teachers in detail, will be found preceding Table XLI. TABLE XXXIV Age, Sex, and Parentage op Teachers Numbers of Districts Items Alamo District Schools 1 1 Ifr 2 21 M Agri 3 4 5 21 F Agri 5fr 6 Age Sex Father's Oc- cupation . . 20 M Agri 20 F Agri 20 M Agri 19 M R.F.D 35 F Agri 22 M Agri 18 F Agri School Status 57 TABLE XXXIN— Continued Itbus Age Sex Father's Oc- cupation. . Age Sex Father's Oc cupation . , Age Sex Father's Oc- cupation . . Age Sex Father's Oc- cupation. . Age Sex Father's Oc- cupation . . Age Sex Father'.s Oc- cupation . . Age Sex Father's Oc- cupation. . Vernon Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 34 M 20 M 21 F 22 F 23 F 20 F Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri Merch Cooper District Schools 1 2 2 2fr 4 5 7 8fr 20 F 36 M 21 F 19 F 19 F 25 F 20 F 22 F Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri Gustavus Consolidated School Supt Asst 6-7-8 3-4-5 1-2 34 M 31 F 20 F 32 F 31 F 24 F Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr Supt Asst 5-6-7 1-4 7fr 8fr llfr 22 F 19 F 21 F 23 F 30 M 33 F 24 F 23 F 40 F 25 F 18 F Agri Agri Agri Agri Cont Bldr Bldr Agri Agri R.R. Agri 12fr 20 F Liv Kinsman Consolidated School Supt Asst Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 34 24 33 35 20 21 22 Al F Lake F F F F F Agri Capt Agri Agri Agri Agri OU Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr 8fr 9fr 14fr 20 M 24 F 24 F 20 F 26 F 21 M 71 M Agri Agri Agri Agri Agri R.F.D Agri Johnston Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 25 M 21 F 19 M 20 M 21 F 22 F Agri Book Agri Tchr Agri Lab 58 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools Educational Qualifications. Table XXXV shows, in the first item, the total years of school attendance by teachers. Nine years means the completion of the 9th grade ; 10 years, the loth grade; 11 years, the nth grade; 12 years, the 12th grade; and more than 12 years means normal school or college study. A paragraph gives the particulars about the kinds of teachers' cer- tificates in the two states. In the months of normal school in- struction, one and one-half indicates attendance at a normal school summer term of six weeks. In District No. 14 Fractional of Ross township, Michigan, an old man is teaching who reports 375 months of experience. This experience has been mostly in one-room schools. The writer knows two other such teachers in a county adjacent to Kalamazoo. In this and in later tables blanks indicate no definite answer. Ciphers indicate a negative answer. TABLE XXXV Academic and Professional Training of Teachers Number of Districts Items Alamo District Schools 1 1 Ifr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 Years of Educational 14 3rd 12 11 R 20 18 12 3rd 9 11 R 0? 12 3rd H 9 12 2nd 6 90 11 2nd 12 44 11 A.R. 10* 16' 12 3rd 9 Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mob. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper. . . Vernon Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 6-6 3-4 1-2 Years of Educational 14 H 6 109 12 H 1 16 12 E 23 14 E 10 23 12 E 1 32 13 E 3 17 Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mos. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper. . . Cooper District Schools 1 2 2 2fr 4 5 7 8fr I Years of Educational 10 R 20 18 12 2nd 140 12 3rd 3 18 12 3rd J' 12 3rd 9 12 3rd 12^ 12 R 27 9 11 R 9 12 Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mos. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper. . . School Status 59 TABLE XXX\— Continued Items Gustavus Consolidated School Supt Asst 6-7-8 3-4-5 1-2 Years of Educational 15 L 8 124 14 H 5 65 12 H 16 12 E 42 12 E 58 12 E 2-i 24 Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mos. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper. . . Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr Supt Asst 5-6-7 1-4 7fr 8fr llfr 12fr Years of Educational 12 G 9 26i 12 3rd 3 13 9 3rd 12 17 11 A.R 10 27 14 1st 10 87 12 2nd 5 103§ 12 G 18 27 12 2nd 12 45 12 3rd 18 210 12 2nd 65* 12 A.R. 21 3* 12 Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mos. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper. . . A.R. 19 8 Kinsman Consolidated School Supt Asst Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Years of Educational Preparation Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mos. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper. . . 17 L 4 90 16 H 27 14 H 120 10 E 2 135 12 E 3 17 12 E 2 25 14 E 27 26 Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr Sfr 9fr 14fr Years of Educational 12 2nd IS 12 2nd 3 37 12 3rd 27 12 3rd 3i 31' 11 2nd 3 54 12 A.R lU 9' 12 2nd 10 375 Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mos. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper .. . Johnston Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Years of Educational 16 H 25 14 H 27 15 12 E n 16 10 E 2 16 12 E 16 13 E 9 24 Kind and Grade of Pre- sent Certificate Mos. Normal Sch. Instr. Mos. Teaching Exper. . . Teachers' Certificates. In Michigan, teachers' certificates, granted by the County Board of School Examiners, are designated as First, Second, and Third Grade Certificates. Third Grade certificates are granted to suitable persons who pass an examination in the common school branches ; Second Grade certificate examinations include a choice of 6o Two Types of Rural Schools two out of four secondary school subjects; and First Grade certificate examinations include five secondary school subjects. The abbreviations " L," " G," " R," " A. R," in Table XXXV, read Life certificate, Graded School certificate, Rural School certificate, and Advanced Rural School certificate. These cer- tificates are all granted by the Michigan normal schools, and the last three are limited in application and duration. (State of Michigan, General School Laws, 191 1, Compilers' Sections 183, 184, 288, 312.) In Ohio the teachers' certificates, granted by County Boards of School Examiners, are Elementary, High School, and Special, and are indicated, in the table, by " E," " H,' and " S." The first is valid for all branches of study below high school rank; the second is valid for all high school subjects; and the last is valid for schools of all grades, but only for the branch or branches named therein. (Ohio School Laws, 1910, p. 138.) Current Aids. Table XXXVI shows the use of current pro- fessional aids by teachers in service. The teachers are indicated by the schools in which they taught, and, in the schools of more than one room, the particular part of the work that each had is indicated. The direct benefit which close supervision might secure in all of these items in both types of schools, is suggested by the figures in this table. TABLE XXXVI Current Professional Aids Used by Teachers Numbers of Districts Items Alamo District Schools 1 1 Ifr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 Days attendance at In- stitutes This Year Reading Circle Books This Year 1 2 3 2 3 3 2 2 1 2 3 2 2 2 3 2 1 3 1 School Journals Taken This Year Vernon Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Days Attendance at In- stitutes This Yeai .... Reading Circle Books Read This Year School Journals Taketi This Year 1 i 3 7 3 1 5 1 2 5 2 7 1 5 1 4 School Status 6i TABLE XXXNl— Continued Items Cooper District Schools 1 2 2 2fr 4 5 7 8fr Days Attendance at In- stitutes This Year Reading Circle Books Read This Year School Journals Taken This Year 3 3 2 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 Gustavus Consolidated School Supt Asstj 6-7-8 3-4-5 1-2 Days Attendance at In- stitutes This Year Reading Circle Books Read This Year School Journals Taken This Year 5 4 5 6 3 1 1 5 4 2 5 4 2 5 4 Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr Supt Asst 5-6-7 1-4 7fr 8fr llfr 12fr Days Attendance at In- stitutes This Year Reading Circle Books SilRead This Year School Journals Taken This Year 1 2 3 2 1 1 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 Kinsman Consolidated School Supt Asst Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Days Attendance at In- stitutes This Year. . . . Reading Circle Books Read This Year School Journals Taken This Year 12 4 4 3 5 3 5 4 1 2 1 5 1 3 3 Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr 8fr 9fr 14fr Days Attendance at In- stitutes This Year Reading Circle Books Read This Year School Journals Taken This Year 3 2 2 1 1 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 3 1 Johnston Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Days Attendance at In- stitutes This Year. . . . Reading Circle Books Read This Year School Journals Taken This Year 4 2 2 2 1 6 1 2 5 4 1 5 4 2 5 2 1 62 Tivo Types of Rural Schools Actual Income. Table XXXVII shows the annual tenure in days, the salary per month, and the larger items of incidental personal expenditure such as, board, room, and travel per month, where such items could be secured from the teachers. The individual teachers are indicated by the numbers of the district schools which they taught and, in the cases of schools of more than one room, the teachers are indicated by the particular positions or grades in which they taught. For example, in Vernon Consolidated School, the teachers are indicated as super- intendent and assistant in high school, teacher of 7th and 8th grades, teacher of 5th and 6th grades, teacher of 3rd and 4th grades, and teacher of ist and 2nd grades. TABLE XXXVII Employment and Remuneration of Teachers Numbers of Districts Items Alamo District Schools 1 1 Ifr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 Days Employed in School This Year .... Wages Per Month Cost of Boarrl, Room and Travel Per Month 80 $70 180 $45 180 $40 $15 100 $45 $15 ISO $40 $13 ISO $45 $20 ISO $40 160 $40 $20 180 $35 $14 Vernon Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Days Employed in School This Year .... Wages Per Month Cost of Board. Room and Travel Per Month 16.3 $95 163 $40 $13 163 $40 $15 163 $40 $15 163 $40 $13 163 $40 $20 Cooper District Schools 1 2 2 2fr 4 5 7 8fr Days Employed in School This Year .... Wages Per Month Cost of Board, Room and Travel Per Month 180 $40 $12 180 $50 180 $35 $8 180 $35 $15 180 $35 $12 177 $42i 176 $35 180 $45 $17 Gustavus Consolidated School Supt 157 $100 Asst 160 $50 6-7-8 3-4-5 1-2 Days Employed in School This Year .... Wages Per Month Cost of Board, Room and Travel Per Month 160 $45 $14 160 $40 160 $40 160 $40 School Status TABLE XXXVII— Continued 63 Items Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr Supt Asst 5-6-7 1-4 7fr 8fr llfr 12fr Days Employed in School This Year .... Wages Per Month Cost of Board, Room and Travel Per Month 170 S45 160 S35 SI 2 J 1.55 $35 $14 180 $35 $12 160 $85 $20 180 $50 180 $40 180 $40 $10 160 $35 $10 ISO $40 160 $38 160 $40 Kinsman Consolidated School Supt Asst Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Days Employed in School This Year .... Wages Per Month Cost of Board, Room and Travel Per Month 180 $111 180 $65 $25 180 $60 180 $50 $17 180 $45 $14 180 $45 $12 180 $52i $16 Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr Sfr 9fr 14fr Days Employed in School This Year .... Wages Per Month Cost of Board, Room and Travel Per Month 175 $40 S12 160 840 $10 180 $35 157 $36i 160 $30 $10i 180 $45 $22 ISO $40 Johnston Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Days Employed in School This Year Wages Per Month Cost of Board, Room and Travel Per Month 160 «90 157 $50 160 $40 $12 160 $40 $16 157 $40 $11 157 $40 OMcial Direction. Table XXXVIII presents the numerical items learned about calls received by teachers from supervising and inspecting officers. In the district schools, the supervisory function of the County Commissioner (or Superintendent) of Schools was performed, in so far as direct contact with the teacher at work was concerned, in all but a few instances, by one annual visit varying in length from 15 to 150 minutes. This is supplemented by correspondence, by telephoning, by circulars and bulletins, and by calls upon the commissioner at his office in the county seat on Saturdays. In the consolidated schools, the superintendent has very little time left for supervision after teaching his classes in the high school. There is a wide variety of practice by different superintendents ; a supervisor of superin- tendents would find work. 64 Two Types of Rural Schools TABLE XXXVIII Supervisory and Other Official Visits Received by Teachers Numbers of Districts Items Alamo District Schools 1 1 Ifr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 Visits by the Superin- 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 U 1 1 li 1 IJ 2 1 Ave. Length in Hours . . Visits by Officers Ave. Length in Hours. . Vernon Consolidaterl School Supt .\sst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Visits by the Superin- 6 i 10 i 8 1 15 Ave. Length in Hours. . Visits by Officers Ave. Length in Hours. . Cooper District Schools 1 2 2 2fr 4 5 7 8fr Visits by the Superin- 1 2 1 i 1 2 1 2 1 li 1 2 1 3 1 1 2 2 1 i 2 1 1 li o 2* Aye. Length in Hours. . Visits by Officers Ave. Length in Hours. . Gustavus Consolidated School Supt Asst 3 6-7-8 3-4-5 1-2 Visits by the Superin- 3 i 32 h 32 2 32 i 3 i Ave. Length in Hours. . Visits by Officers Ave. Length in Hours. . Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr Supt Asst 5-6-7 1-4 7fr 8fr llfr 12fr Visits by the Superin- tendent Ave. Length in Hours. . Visits by Officers Ave. Length in Hours. . 1 5 i 1 1 2 2 1 3 6 i. 1 2i 1 1 1 1 Kinsman Consolidated School Supt Asst Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Visits by the Superin- 1 i 1 1 i Ave. Length in Hours. . Visits by Officers Ave. length in Hours . . School Status 65 TABLE XXXVUl— Continued Items Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr Sfr 9fr 14fr Visits by the Superin- 1 S 6 2 1 t 1 6 1 i 2 i 1 3 1 1 2 2 Ave. Length in Hours. . Visits by Officers Ave. Length in Hours. . Johnston Consolidated School Supt 8 3 Asst 7-8 5 i 1 5-6 3-4 1-2 Visits by the Superln- 1 30 i Ave. Length in Hours . . Visits by OflScers Ave. Length in Hours. . Visits Exchanged. The items presented in Table XXXIX are such as could be secured from the teachers, and the figures were given from memory in almost every case. The larger inter- change of visits between homes and schools in the district school townships may be due to several conditions. The teachers of these schools work with smaller groups of children and social conventions are less restrictive in the smaller groups of people; both of which facts aid the teachers in making closer acquain- tance and establishing personal ties. There are few homes represented in the school and all are within walking distance, so that a teacher who desires to do so may hope, without too great an expenditure of time and effort, to visit all of her pupils and their parents in their homes. Acquaintance and friendship with the teacher make visiting the school easier for the parents. TABLE XXXIX Visits Interchanged by Homes and Teachers Numbers of Districts Items Alamo District Schools 1 1 Ifr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 Visits by Patrons not Officers Ave. Length in Hours. . Number of Homes in District Visited by Teacher .... 10 H 12 50 2 20 10 2 9 23 2 12 8 4 1^ 10 13 3 6 5 12 i 6 66 Two Types of Rural Schools TABLE XXKIX— Continued Items Vernon Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Visits by Patrons Ave. Length in Hours . . Homes Visited 5 3 10 1 15 6 50 2 10 50 2 8 Cooper District Schools 1 2 2 2fr 4 5 7 8fr Visits by Patrons Ave. Length in Hours. . 31 8 14 3 9 18 3 8 1 3 6 1 3 10 1 2 8 1 8 2 8 Gustavus Consolidated School Supt Asst 6-7-8 3-4-5 1-2 Visits by Patrons Ave. Length in Hours. . 4 83 4 i 12 12 6 3 1 10 ,1 Richland District Schools 1 10 1 7 2 3 4fr Supt Asst 5-6-7 1-4 7fr 8fr llfr 12fr Visits by Patrons Ave. Length in Hours. . 12 3 11 4 1 5 1 2 6 12 4 20 10 2 i 25 2 2 15 3 6 5 1 i 3 2 I 9 Kinsman Consolidated School Supt Asst Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Visits by Patrons Ave. Length in Hours. . 1 2 1 2 5 8 6 i 15 Ross District Schools 1 2 3 6fr 8fr |9fr 14fr Visits by Patrons Ave. Length in Hours . . 4 2 2 2 3 6 6 3 3 5 6 1 18 1 16 6 1 6 1 1 Johnston Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Visits by Patrons Ave. Length in Hours. . 10 3 40 25 i 10 12 2 10 10 14 50 2 Social Service. The items in Table XL are given as reported by the teachers. The unexhausted possibilities of both the dis- trict and the consolidated types of country schools, for both social and entertainment service to the teachers and pupils who School Status 67 are in them, and to the environing community which supports them, are made obvious by a thoughtful consideration of this table. A tabulation like this suggests the pressing need for a widely published and often reiterated definition of the purposes and activities of the modern public school. TABLE XL Social and Entertainment Activities by Teachers Numbers or Districts Items Alamo District Schools 1 '1 Ifr 2 3 4 5 5fr 6 Social Gatherings in Dis. Attended by Teacher. Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainments Given by School 6 5 3 2 2 1 4 2 3 1 Vernon Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Social Gatherings At- tended by Teacher. . . Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainments „ Given by School 9 5 5 6 3 7 5 7 20 2 8 Cooper District Schools 1 2 2 2fr 4 5 7 8fr Social Gatherings At- tended by Teacher. . . Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainments i> Given by School 5 3 2 3 3 2 2 2 2 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 3 Gustavus Consolidated School Supt Asst 6-7-8 3-4-5 1-2 Social Gatherings At- tended by Teacher. . . Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainments Given by School 6 4 8 4 8 6 4 2 1 10 1 Richland District Schools 1 2 3 4fr Supt Asst .5-6-7 1-4 7fr Sfr llfr 12fr Social Gatherings At- tended by Teacher. . . Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainments Given by School 3 1 3 2 1 1 2 3 20 5 3 1 68 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools TABLE Xl^-Continued Items Kinsman Consolidated School Supt Asst Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Social Gatherings At- tended by Teacher. . . Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainmentf Given by School 3 3 1 20 1 9 3 1 Rcss District Schools 1 1 1 2 3 6fr Sfr 9fr 14fr Social Gatherings At- tended by Teacher. . . Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainments Given by School 3 2 3 2 3 2 1 Johnston Consolidated School Supt Asst 7-8 5-6 3-4 1-2 Social Gatherings At- tended by Teacher . . . Social Gatherings Man- aged by School Public Entertainments Given by School 20 10 10 5 5 12 1 10 3 1 General Summary. The foregoing tables in Division II, rela- tive to teachers, are summarized for all of the teachers in each type of school under consideration, in Table XLI following. The salient facts emphasized in this table are: The advantage rests with the teachers in the consolidated schools to the extent that they are two years older, have had nine-tenths of a year more educational preparation, were two and one-quarter days more in institutes in the current year, have had eight months more experience in teaching, received four dollars per month more pay, had more supervisory visits, attended more social gather- ings, and gave more public entertainments ; the advantage rests with the teachers of district schools to the extent that they have had three months more (or twice as much) normal school in- struction, were employed one-half month longer in school in the current year, paid one dollar a month less for board, room, and travel, had longer supervisory visits and both more and longer visits by school officers and patrons, and themselves visited more homes. And the two groups were approximately equal in the proportional representation of the sexes, in the sig- School Status 69 nificance of the kinds of certificates held, in the number of school journals taken in the current year, and in the occupations of their parents. In this last item, there was a slight divergence. Of the teachers of district schools, 83 per cent were the children of farmers, while but 80 per cent of the teachers in the consoli- dated schools were the children of farmers. The remaining one- fifth, or less, were children of parents engaged in various lines of industrial work and one was the child of a teacher. TABLE XLI Summary of Relative Facts About Teachers of District Schools AND Teachers of Consolidated Schools Items Median Age in Years Number of Male Teachers (M) ; Female (F) . Father's Occupation Median Years of Educational Preparation Kind and Grade of Present Certificate. . . Median Months of Normal School Instruction Median Days Attendance at Institutes, 1910-11 Median Number Reading Circle Books Read, 1910-11 Median Number School Journals Taken, 1910-11 Median Months of Experience in Teaching. . Median Days Employed in School, 1910-11. Median Wages Per Month, 1910-11 Median Cost Per Month of Board, Room and Travel Median Number of Visits by Superintendent Median Length of His Visits in Hours Total Number of Visits by District Officers. Median Length of Their Visits in Hours. . . . Visits by Patrons not Officers Median Length of Their Visits in Hours. . . . Homes Visited by Teachers Social Gatherings Attended by Teachers.. . . Social Gatherings Managed by Schools Public Entertainments Given by Schools . . . District Schools 22 M.,10;F., 25 »(A)29; (R)2; (L)1;(B)3 12 ^1-3%, 2-40%, 3-57% 6 21 177 $39 $13 1 1^ 34 U 289' 2 308 78 38 36 Consolidated Schools 24 M., 7;F., 18 (A) 20; (M) 1; (L.C.)1;(0)1; (T)l;(Bk)l 12.9 H-40%;E-60% 4i 2 2 29 167 $43 14 i 28 a 286* u 271 125 38 80 1 (A) Agriculture, (R) Mail Carrier, (L) Liveryman, (B) Builder, (M) Merchant, (L.C.) Lake Captain, (T) Teacher, (O) Oil Producer. 2 Reads: 3% had 1st Grade; 40%, 2nd Grade; 57%, 3rd Grade; 40%, High School; 60%, Elementary School certificates. See paragraphs after Table XXXV. The Comstock consolidated school, the largest school of its type in Michigan, is summarized in Appendix A. 70 Tzco Types of Rural Schools The writer's personal observation, resulting from actually meeting the teachers and watching them at work, is that below the high school grades there is no appreciable advantage to either type of school in the localities studied, in so far as the teachers are concerned. Occasionally a particular school will give evidence of unusually strong teaching. The constant inter- mingling of the several teachers in the consolidated schools is an aid in a group dominated by strong teachers and it is a handi- cap in groups dominated by weak teachers. The undivided re- sponsibility of the teacher in the district school is the determin- ing element in establishing the morale of its situation. Division III. The Pupils In collecting the data for children, all whose names appeared in the school census and who had been counted in making the distribution of public school moneys, were taken into account in so far as any traces of them could be found. It is believed by the writer that all citizens who appear in the public record as the recognized wards of the State for educational purposes should be kept in a debtor as well as in a creditor record. That is, every child for whose education money is distributed by the State should be insured the benefits of his share of this state money by the necessary laws. Necessary Records. These necessary laws are impossible of enactment, except upon mere conjecture, unless there is a reasonably reliable and complete record kept, with official sanc- tion, covering the annual educational activities of each such citi- zen as is of the age recognized by statute as school age. The facts here presented about children who, by the act of enroll- ment in some school, gained entrance to the public school re- cords, furnish many indications usable for diagnosis of the school situation, exclusive of those children whose names did not gain admittance to these records. In the succeeding tabulations of facts, chiefly taken from school records, all children whose names were in the school census for the year under review are counted; and the number for whom practically no significant information was available in the school records of the districts where they held their citizen- School Status 71 ship is presented as a challenge, at least, for the recognition of the rights of these children as citizens, now very largely ignored by the states except in so far as compulsory attendance laws are indifferently well enforced up to a fixed minimum age or other minimum limit for leaving school. Age-Grade Distribution. In Table XLII, following, each child whose name appears in the school census of the eight townships being studied is accounted for by age and grade or other status in so far as the records reveal the facts. Follow- ing the age and grade distribution of the children enrolled in the home school, the number for each age who are reported as in school elsewhere is shown as well as the number not entered, which is made up of young children who are entering late and of children who came into the school jurisdiction in time to get on the census list but not in time to make it worth while to enter schools just closing for the year. Those enumerated in the table under " Moved, Left," are children whose residence in the dis- trict, within the interval covered by this study, was too brief to enable them to become identified with the attendance record, and children who left school upon the completion of specified grades but about whom no other information was obtainable. A distribution of the children enumerated under occupations will be found in a " grades completed " distribution in Table XLIV. The unaccounted for are partly errors in taking the census, partly children who maintain a residence in the district claim- ing them, but live with grandparents or other relatives else- where and probably attend school or work where they live. The percentages of over-ageness for each type of school may be seen and compared at the conclusion of this table. For further com- parison of these percentages with the conditions in a city school system of good repute, the percentages of over-ageness in the public schools of Indianapolis for 1908 and for 191 1, after the problem had been directly attacked, are shown. {The Elemen- tary School Teacher, October 191 1, March 191 2.) The very few children shown in the table as defective, include only such as were either physically or mentally incapacitated for either school attendance or work. 72 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools TABLE Complete Distribution of Children on School Dbtmct School Townships Age Grades In school else- where Total in school Not ent- ered De- fec- tive Moved Left Inoc- Unac- Grand 1 24 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 tions edfor 5 24 13 37 6 54 7 1 62 11 2 75 7 29 32 10 1 2 74 1 5 3 83 8 6 24 21 14 3 68 5 2 75 9 2 6 22 25 13 1 3 72 1 73 10 1 7 17 25 5 3 2 1 61 5 4 70 11 1 4 5 25 18 16 4 1 1 75 1 1 1 5 83 12 1 1 2 6 7 12 19 4 1 3 56 3 4 63 13 1 3 2 12 15 27 3 r 1 64 1 3 1 3 72 14 2 1 2 15 19 3 2 6 50 3 7 5 1 68 15 1 5 14 7 3 1 9 40 2 1 10 9 6 68 16 3 4 5 1 1 12 26 4 13 19 = 67 17 1 1 6 1 2 2 17 30 3 1 19 28 6 87 16 2 2 1 1 4 10 2 8 33 5 58 19 116 73 67 74 1 78 56 76 77 24 8 2 1 3 14 16 4 13 49 6 88 Tot. 74 728 44 4 94 145 50 1065 .08 .14 .21 .23 .15 .43 .30 .27 Percentage of Overage Children in 1st Eight Grades .08 .12 .14 .14 .14 .13 .13 .03 Percentage of Overage ip Indianapolis in 1908 ,05 .03 .05 .04 .04 .03 .04 .01 Percentage of Overage in Indianapolis in 1911 Late Entrance. In reading the Age-Grade part of the fore- going table, the first thing to notice is that the census age in Michigan is 5 to 20, and in Ohio, is 6 to 21. This fact ex- plains, in part, the large number of under-age children in the grades of the district schools and the large number of over-age children in the grades of the consolidated schools. The fact that 65 per cent of the six-year-old children in the consolidated districts did not enter, is due to the distance from school and consequent necessarily long day away from home required by attendance at school. Basis of Calculation. The basis for calculating over-ageness is, as indicated in Table XLII, the use of ages 6 and 7 for the School Status 73 XLII Census by Age and Grade or Other Status Consolidated School Townships Grand Total Unac- count- ed for Inoc- cupa- tions Moved Left De- fect- ive Not ent- ered Total in school In school else- where Grades Age 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 74 48 26 26 6 77 1 5 71 49 19 3 7 59 1 2 3 53 5 32 13 3 8 80 1 1 2 76 2 24 33 15 2 9 62 1 2 1 4 54 1 4 14 22 11 2 10 82 1 4 77 1 1 11 22 27 12 1 2 11 80 1 1 4 74 1 1 3 9 26 20 12 2 12 75 6 69 6 12 15 20 14 2 13 78 2 2 74 1 2 2 7 12 19 20 8 3 14 89 3 8 1 3 74 1 2 9 19 16 18 8 1 15 77 1 8 4 3 61 1 3 6 12 21 9 9 16 79 1 19 6 3 50 2 1 2 2 2 11 9 11 10 17 75 3 41 3 1 2 25 3 4 4 6 8 18 64 4 44 1 1 14 6 1 1 6 19 73 4 61 1 7 7 20 1124 22 181 23 3 90 805 20 84 .11 .08 .05 81 .37 .12 .03 79 .38 .14 .05 80 .50 .14 .04 89 .55 .14 .04 75 .55 .13 .03 79 .58 .13 .04 69 .45 .03 .01 64 34 27 24 Tot. Per cent Overage in 1st Eight Grades. . . Per cent Overage in ndianapolis in 1908 Per cent Overage in Indianapolis in 1911 first grade, 7 and 8 for the second, 8 and 9 for the third, 9 and 10 for the fourth, 10 and 11 for the fifth, 11 and 12 for the sixth, 12 and 13 for the seventh, 13 and 14 for the eighth, and continuing thus through the secondary school grades. The late entrance and the frequently interrupted attendance of small chil- dren in the consolidated school tend to give the grades a wider range in age, and the bulk of membership in these grades is dis- tributed quite proportionately in numbers to three years, and noticeably in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grades to four years. In the district schools, over-ageness is greatest in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, no doubt due largely to the convenience and value of child labor on the farm, a factor which 74 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools should be considered also in connection with the consolidated school. The fact that ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade pupils are shown in the district school townships is accounted for by the presence of the ninth grade in several of the districts, the presence of the tenth grade in the two-room school in Alamo, and the presence of all high school grades in the four-room school in Richland. Including children in school elsewhere, non- resident attendants in available high schools, and a few of the higher ages in colleges, 60 per cent of the fifteen-year-old chil- dren of the district schools were in school, 40 per cent of the sixteen-year-olds, 34 per cent of the seventeen-year-oldo, 17 per cent of the eighteen-year-olds, and 18 per cent of the nine- teen-year-olds. The corresponding figures for the consolidated schools show 79 per cent of the sixteen-year-olds in school, 63 per cent of the seventeen-year-olds, 33 per cent of the eighteen- year-olds, 22 per cent of the nineteen-year-olds, and 10 per cent of the twenty-year-olds. Later entrance in the consolidated schools explains a large part of the apparent difference. Attendance Distribution. The actual total attendance in days for the year is significant to one who is seeking the causes of over-ageness. Reference to Table XXXIII will show that for the children enrolled the percentage of attendance based on en- rollment was .70 in the district schools and .80 in the consoli- dated schools. Inspection of the same table will show that in spite of the absence of high school grades in most of the district schools, these schools enrolled 76 per cent of their census to 80 per cent of census enrolled by the consolidated schools. These lump percentages do not tell much about the actual details of at- tendance and, to give this information as well as to offer a fur- ther explanation of the large number of over-aged children in the grades. Table XLIII is offered. This table shows a complete distribution, in ten-day groups, of the actual attendance of all the children enrolled in both types of schools. Striking Contrasts. The striking contrasts in Table XLIII are seen by adding the highest four-day groups, i.e., 140-150 days, 150-160 days, 160-170 days, and 170-180 days, which shows that 57 per cent of the children of district schools had the possibility, by getting sufficient attendance, of completing a School Status 75 rHCO OOO —1 I> (MOt^OO _ 03 Tt< GO X' — 1 CO 00 CO !>• lO O) c3 rt r-^ _, r_| O l:^ 1-1 r-H C^l 1-1 -t-i O o H H s^ O 00 00 1 hi C 5 C- 1 i> 'i 1 Tfl ss fOTf^roc 1 T H C- 1 f- H C 3 CO 1— t r- H ^ 1—) rH is CO t^co c i L' J t> C > c- 3 C3 ■* ss r-ICOCO 1- H C > 1- H OC 3 CO Tt^ 1— r-H ss lO »0 00 1^ 5 C 5 C C£ < c 1 O 3 Tf ^ C^l CVJ O Jo .— 1 1— 1 1— 1 I- H c: 5 H C 3 T "-H c^ ] T— t T— I ?§ (M lO lO C ^ 1- ■< a 3 CC 5 OC D CO 1-1 t^ t^ O S r— I f— ( r-H ir ^ c ^ O "-H 1 ♦"* sS OCD rt<0( D a 3 cr 5 ir 1 t!-3 ■< 1-1 —1 CO ;z; 1-H I— ( 0" : c 5 C 3 T f— I 1 *~^ §s ^ CO(M"" 5 c H 1 3 -^ 1 C 3 IC CO Tt ■ sS ED 1—1 f— 1 C D C 3 C n O 2§ lOOO ir 5 ^ c 3 i- 1 C ■> c 3 C^ rH ^H »— 1 < Q 1?; o° (O^ Oi^ i C£ 5 5 < o: H n ^ -^ T-l coc 3 io tc om C- 1 C 3 1 ^ Oi^H 02 oo a; t-i (M ^(Mit- c- 1 C 3 1 C- 3 C t> M ococc 05 1— I f HH < a O Q g§ co (^^ rt - ^ t- c > c < If 3 rH (MCTiC 5 oO 00 <^ Q :2: o z a H H <5i <> c»- g^ ,-i,-<^ 1 T H O c 3 r-( Tf< TtH r- ^ g§ "" s C ) c «: = a 1 §^ (MrofOi> 1 C 1 -- c 3 t> lOrH 1-1 §S ^ c > c ►■I I ir 3 11" Cs *T< ^^ lO CO Tfi u" 5 C 0" c 3 1-1 CO -^l 1- ^ ?§ C~ 1 c > C ki^ o Tt ^9 C^ l> r-H C 3 C 5 C Oi-H -H C^ ^ ^5 z ^ C ) c o gs !>• C^ C 5 Cs a 1 — H C c OC ) rt C0 1- ^^ K '^ a H 2^ 1-1 '^ (M CV a J T- c «: COC^J r- 2S 1-1 c c o 1 o COlMr- cc ) c c 1—1 1 o 1—1 1—1 c > c 1—1 r-H J o pj o o X 2 m X (1, ^ £ 02 W o ffi m a a. « tc H Z b ) b ) ^ Z O > CS c; as -1^ K O CI a O (• « i2 o H (in c3 f2 o 2 a a r; c3 o m O S W,aj cj-s I r-H 00 c-i lo o c-i t^ 00-^^ lOOCOOiCOO lO LO o o o o o OiOO oo OOO oo "O ^ I OiOO oc o ■g « 5HW HI X! s B 0^ 3 m ^i 1^, £ « H — ^^ s w rH IM -^i- 1 O O IZ 5^ X! O a 3 J3 /, a) (U C H fl •^ js X fc S c S o MCtf o« -5 mo m"j 2'-5 e'^.« •t; C r.' O >.'r aj 3 C3 £ !- CS— o O <-l ^2 ^ ^s g r1 =>' TO « C^ CO 3 S-5 •^££55g ES ■S -Sw O lO o»o*oio School Status 83 o o 1-1 X O tf s 8:30 8:40 9:00 9:20 9:35 10:00 10:15 10:35 10:55 11:15 ^3. s M CO 1:50 2:00 2:20 2:40 CO «2 •S " o P 8 a M BO g 5 « -. 2 O « §■:? w <^ o ^5£P bq 2 s S t- O.S 5^ &< fi s £ S! O & 5 ISO :z « eS fe:w 3 2^ z Q.2 r< a 2i a oPn Q,ai H H £ B X M ^ M ^ O C3 Z W OJ ^ 0* SJ«2 CO 't- Si5 S= s o»oo o»o 00 00 »-H C^ & -<^a 2 -&: « oooo lOO'TH'^ -HT14 a 2 o z a „ a Q s O a g g i*^ 5? lliji 63'^ 3:2; g a 'C CO ^ 'c^g P^ p^t^ Pi a" -a , -^ CO o "< ^Sa 05^ g CO o ?3 z a d g tw r:;-^ -, , ^ O < fci ' OOOOOiO OiOiOiOiO coco "^ 9; Tl "^ ^ 84 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools " I tried to make work in school pleasant and not a drudgery." " I introduced construction work and art, and tried to give the children their rightful freedom." " I gave talks on lives of great men and tried to cultivate the personality of the pupils." Answers from teachers of consolidated schools mentioned hav- ing college men give addresses, holding entertainments, using an outline given by the Superintendent and supplementing it, and the use of story telling. School Property. Another inquiry asked what had been done to improve the school grounds, the buildings, and the equipment. The district school teachers had cleaned the yard, set out trees, trimmed trees, planted flowers, set woodbine by buildings, and made gardens. For the improvement of the buildings one teacher scrubbed the floor, one washed the windows and woodwork, others had new steps built, new blackboards put in, and one said : " We have had a hammer and saw, and when anything was out of repair, the pupils fixed it." Under the improvement of the equipment, library books, chairs, desks, library case, pic- tures, and construction materials, are mentioned. One teacher provided a bell and a clock, by means of entertainments and socials. The teachers of the consolidated schools reported such items as planting flowers and trees, keeping the grounds clean, and securing laboratory equipment, new seats, and a piano. Special Efforts. Several teachers in each type of school re- ported special efforts to develop patriotism and morality, but these answers specified nothing further than the observance of national holidays and the use of good example. Under the in- quiry as to special work accomplished, the following items were given : For the district schools — introduced individual drinking cups, created sentiment for politeness, interested older pupils in higher education, secured instructive exhibits from manufac- turers, and aroused athletic interest; for consolidated schools — introduced use of pupils' reading circle work, organized a display of work at the Grange fair, and secured a stronger course of study. Present Needs. In replying to the inquiry — What are the present needs of this school? — the teachers of district schools mentioned a wide range of particulars. Among the items speci- fied were — school-bell, teacher's desk, new floor, maps, library. School Status 85 chairs, pictures, window-shades, materials for elementary grades, supplementary text-books, reference books, book case, new roof, more blackboard, flag, mirror, sanitary drinking facili- ties, new stove, new seats, gravel in yard, globe, porch, paint, and instruction in agriculture. The responses from teachers of consolidated schools to this inquiry included mention of — library books and supplementary materials for lower grades, longer school year, more room, another teacher, music teacher, draw- ing, agriculture. The presence of a superintendent and the em- ployment of a janitor in the consolidated schools relieve the teachers from much direct personal responsibility for the school plant. Nature Study and Agriculture. The last inquiry relative to the school was — What have you done in nature study and agri- culture? Fifty per cent of the teachers of district schools had done nothing. Where work was undertaken, few discriminated between nature study and agriculture. The topics considered were — ^grains, fruits, flowers, birds, insects, trees, seed testing, animal husbandry, soil, and weather maps ; and several used facts from nature and reference to books and bulletins on agri- culture in connection with language work, geography, history, and morning exercises. Ten per cent of the district teachers re- ported school gardens. One teacher, who was the daughter of a farmer and had graduated from an excellent college, did no- thing with either nature study or agriculture. The consolidated schools reported regular classes in agriculture in three of the four high schools, and miscellaneous work touching various topics of nature study and agriculture in the grades. One school had regular class work in agriculture in the seventh and eighth grades. Several teachers made good use of plants in the school- rooms for nature instruction. Unworked Problems. The foregoing paragraph summaries conclude the presentation of the school status. Other items could be added by a more intensive study and greater accuracy could be secured by a more prolonged research. However, the serious reader of this chapter will be safe in relying upon the trustworthiness of the data given. The captious critic is asked to conserve his wit in constructive suggestion ; for, certainly, no 86 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools part of American educational activity can profit more from scientific research and eflficient publicity than rural education. Perhaps the most obvious omission is that of a presentation, with explanatory discussion, of the high school work done by the consolidated schools. It has been thought best to adhere to the intention stated in the introduction to make this study refer chiefly to elementary education. The provision of worthy secon- dary school instruction for the youth of rural communities is probably too expensive a task for any one strictly rural town- ship; at any rate, that was the impression gained by the writer in repeated visits to the high school departments of the con- solidated schools reported in this study. A scientifically thorough study of the problem of secondary education in the country, to- gether with competent digestion and statement of the actual facts and possibilities, would be a very valuable public service. Before proceeding with the next chapter, which will offer some constructive interpretations of the data already shown, a brief recapitulation of the purpose and contents of this chapter is given. Chapter II sets forth the relative situations of the sev- eral localities in their economic, social and domestic phases, and this chapter is intended to present the various school situations ; the number of communities studied in this respect being doubled to give a broader and safer basis for comparison. This chapter has tabulated and explained four groups of facts : 1. The relative economic and administrative phases of the school status. 2. The relative educational, professional and social qualifica- tions and activities of the teachers and supervisors. 3. The relative attendance, activities, progress and occupa- tions of pupils. 4. A summary of relative facts of a more general nature. CHAPTER IV CONSTRUCTIVE INTERPRETATIONS Division I. School Considerations Paralleling Conditions. The method of paralleHng the dis- trict schools and the consoHdated schools, used throughout Chap- ter III, will be continued in the constructive interpretations con- cerning these schools in this chapter. Published studies of both types of country schools have dealt too much with the extremes of existing conditions. Today, the public knows the worst and the best rural schools ; and the district schools, because they are familiar in caricature and from without rather than in fact and from within, have been far too often classified among the worst ; on the other hand, consolidated schools, because they are novel to persons writing about them, physically younger, and less well typified in current thought — since what they seem to be, rather than what they really do, is known — have been too often, in fact well-nigh always, classified among the best. Paralleling facts which seem to cover the same activities and results in two different types of the same institution, is obviously dangerous to the extent that the types are really different, which introduces an as yet poorly defined margin of error in practically every comparison of items. However, in the present unscientific stage of thought and knowledge about rural schools, this margin of possible error will prove a convenient cloak for the impatient advocate of either type who may have printed first and informed himself afterwards. Experience and Science Exactness in Education. The Harvard Teachers' Association, at its twenty-first annual meeting in March of this year, dis- cussed tests for school and college efficiency. Professor E. L. 87 88 Two Types of Rural Schools Thorndike stated that education has at last begun to be appre- ciated as an exact science based on verifiable, quantitative knowl- edge which is capable of rigid, unambiguous measurements. Dr. L. P. Ayres said, " In the management of our schools, as in our teaching, there must be a scientific basis." And again, " Scientific management and method have invaded the educa- tional camp and demolished tradition." Both of these men are leaders in substituting evidence for speculation and knowledge for opinion in school publicity. Dr. Ayres deprecated super- ficiality and pseudo-expertness and said, " Only acid and ques- tioning scrutiny of the work of experts, as well as novices, will prevent disaster." {Journal of Education, March 14, 19 12, p. 302.) In the same discussion, Assistant Superintendent Thompson, of Boston, stated clearly the conviction that it is not best to attempt measurement of all educational achievement. He held that there are personal, spiritual values, which cannot be sub- jected to tests which are all right as applied to the material fea- tures of school work. The two points of view illustrated in this discussion are at present in the process of adjustment to each other. The writer admittedly has by training and experience much less of the scientific than of the spiritual viewpoint ; but the possession of both, in harmonious and stimulating inter- action in thought, is coveted. The Setting Early History. In the early days of this nation, country chil- dren were in such vast majority that they realized on a very large part of the general interest in education. Before the rise of the secondary schools, other than the academies, elementary education also drew a predominating proportion of local educa- tional interest and effort. By the multiplication of cities and the rapid increase in their population, together with the rise of secondary education and higher institutions of learning as public enterprises, rural education and elementary education in general lost rank in the public's educational program. The depletion of natural resources, the improvement in facili- ties for transportation and the invention of large capacity manu- facturing machinery, together with the mechanical devices for Constructive Interpretations 89 saving hand labor in agriculture have been the chief among many causes resulting in the necessity of reconstructing rural life and its institutions to fit a distinctly different situation. The new situation, has, however, been gradual in development and somewhat insidious in that it has taken long enough to allow its total effects to be distributed, in the localities under discus- sion, to three generations — the pioneers who saw the changes begun, their sons who lived out their active lives in the period of the transition, and their grandsons, the present active genera- tion, who were born into the flood of new life. Education has suffered severely in the country by the pre- dominating emergence of urban life, by the absorption of public educational interest and resources disproportionately, by the newer and more aggressive secondary schools and universities, and by the time element in rural progress being too long to allow the full significance of the changed situation to be felt by the pre- sent generation. Readjustments in Progress. However, readjustment of the rural school in a multiplicity of particulars has been in progress throughout the years under the suggestion of the best informed men in the local communities, prompted by suggestions of the press, by public speakers, by state and county officials, and by observation and thought upon existing local conditions. How the phases of this readjustment have run, comparatively, in Michigan and Ohio, may be seen in the introductory chapter. As suggested there, and reiterated in the paragraphs preceding this one, there has not seemed to be enough need felt at any one time to initiate a thorough-going revision of the whole situation. It is possibly safe to accept the current judgment of the passing years that no wholesale changes were necessary. Among the larger forms of readjustment in rural education, the consolidation of small schools by twos and threes to form other small schools, has been going on slowly, without much public interest, for many years. Between 1881 and 1907, the number of districts in Kalamazoo County decreased from 134 to 122; but these changes did not change the type of school, as only new one- and two-room schools resulted from these con- solidations. However, in the past twenty years, there has been a wide-spread and insistent assertion by educators and others go Tzvo Types of Rural Schools that nothing short of the consohdation of enough districts to make a school Hke the urban graded schools and of sufficient financial resources to maintain a high school, could save the rural educational situation. This propaganda has resulted in a slowly increasing number of consolidations on the scale indicated, and most unstinted praise has been given to this newer type of rural school. But still the movement for general consolidation lingers ; in fact, it cannot get under way at all in a great majority of rural locali- ties. Meanwhile, the proponents of the new form of organiza- tion have, in many cases, lost interest in the existing district schools, thus dividing the local initiative already in many dis- tricts so small that this time honored institution was not given a fair chance. Unanswered Questions. In spite of the conceded difficulties of reorganizing local institutions and ignoring the attitude im- plied and sometimes expressed by educational enthusiasts that farmers as a class are opposed to all progress, there have been voices raised with increasing frequency to inquire if the con- solidated school is the true up-to-date type of rural school ; and, if such is the case, why do not the farmers — who are now^ pretty thoroughly familiar with a long list of published disadvantages of their present district schools and, if possible, a longer pub- lished list of the advantages of consolidated schools — why do these people, who are certainly the most vitally interested, hesi- tate to act favorably on the proposition? To afford materials for working out an answer to this ques- tion, more intensive studies than have yet been made into the actual services rendered by both the district and the consoli- dated types of rural schools, are needed. And, as forming the perspective for these intensive studies and thus lending and multiplying significance to facts learned about these schools, comprehensive studies of the entire rural situation for the pur- pose of telling the whole truth as nearly as it may be know^n are essential. Studies of various phases of the school situation alone have been published occasionally and, at present, the amount of real research study in rural education is rapidly increasing. The new Division of Rural Education in the Federal Bureau of Education will no doubt be an effective clearing house for the Constructive Interpretations 91 evaluation and the wide and prompt diffusion of the new infor- mation gained. The Discussion Large Considerations. Two major questions suggest them- selves to the students of the rural school : What, in the essentials of its autonomic activities, is the effectiveness of this school as an institution, and What is its worth as an integrating agent in the life of its community? Attempts to answer these questions must be based upon an inside, itemized research in the minor facts of the sustenance and life of the institution ; and from a logical organization of these facts, there must be worked out, first, the success of the school as a distinct institution. Cer- tainly the school will make its first and greatest community con- tribution by dignifying its own name and work with the badge of conceded success. In a successful school, internal activities beget their own external affiliations to an extent which opens the way for a consideration of the school as a dynamic factor in the life of its community. Section I. Maintenance Administration. Taking up the first large question — that of the essentials of autonomic activity — maintenance, including the discovery, accumulation, and most effective use of maximum financial resources, is the first essential. In rural schools, the whole matter of maintenance is left to local lay administration, except in so far as state constitutions and statutes may fix and enforce some minimum limits and may provide state aid funds. Minimum limits are set up to insure a school year of sufficient length, the regular attendance of young children, and instructors of sufficient intelligence to safeguard the rights of the child and the well-being of the state at large as well as the local com- munity. State aid funds re-enforce, with the right and the means of execution, the minimum limits set up. Inspection of Tables XXVII and XXVIII shows that in the district school townships, separate school jurisdictions varied in the areas included from 2 13/16 sections, in District Five, Cooper, to six sections in District Four, Cooper. In considering district areas, the reader should ignore the fractional districts because parts of these districts not in the township where the 92 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools school is administered, were not always obtained. District areas are determined by the topography of the land, the way the roads run, the location of the homes, and the willingness of the people within the area at the time of organization to undertake the maintenance of a school. But these areas remain fixed in boun- dary for years without much regard to fluctuation in the popula- tion. .aoi' \ .001 \ A l\ ,ao3 A 1" i n N/ 1 V J .0 1 V Di shuts I / fr rr» 5 3 V- r Fig. I. Alamo Township Variations in Rates Per Cent of School Tax in Eight Districts Taxatioti. Again, inspection of the same tables shows that district valuations in these Michigan townships ranged from $30,530, in District Three, Alamo, to (omitting the village dis- tricts) $200,000, in District Nine Fractional, Ross. This tax valuation is the largest item in the explanation of a range in the local tax rate from one mill, in several of the districts, to .0043, .0045, and .0048, in other districts. Forceful illustration of the inequalities of the tax situation in district school townships, may be had in a comparison of Districts Two and Three in Alamo townships. These districts, though nearly the same in area, vary Constructive Interpretations 93 in valuation from $119,660 to $30,530; and in tax rate from .0019 to .0042 ; and yet on a tax rate less than one-half that of District Three, District Two paid $412 for education to $416 paid by District Three. This inequality is further emphasized by the discovery that the poorer district pays a per capita cost eight dollars higher than the richer district. Tax reform could be accomplished by making the township the unit for taxation and administration regardless of whether or not the schools I lO.aoo /to, 006 ii.Oii 70, too c Ci, 6C0 i'o, too "V^^ 60 O 3o,o 0' i IF^ ^ 3 -y >- 6'Fy A Fig. 2. Alamo Township Variations in Valuation of Taxable Property in Eight Districts were consolidated. The consolidated townships have solved this problem. These facts for the district school township of Alamo are shown graphically in Figures i and 2. Line A-B, in Figure i locates the tax rate necessary to raise the same amount of money for school support with the township, instead of the district, as the unit. Line C-D, in Figure 2, shows the median valuation of the districts of Alamo township. If the districts in Alamo township which are paying more than the median tax rate wish 94 Tivo Types of Rural Schools to relieve themselves by making the township the unit of taxa- tion, they may have recourse to the optional township unit statute, bring on a township referendum of the matter and force the wealthier districts, which in this particular township have a majority of the votes, to say whether they will help them. The fact is that administrative unity in the townships of Michi- gan has become identified with the idea of a township consoli- dated school. The present Michigan law is aimed at administra- Gustd-VUS Kil\STn2L.y\ JoK-nsto-n S/ernon MIS .009 .00^ .607 .(I0(> .oof \ \ s \ V J_ '- V \ \ Ross Fig. 3. Comparison of Tax Rates Consolidated Townships at top. District Townships at bottom. tive unity alone, and no doubt more use will be made of this law when its true character becomes better known. Figure 3 shows, comparatively, the tax rates of the four consolidated school townships, at the top, and the four district school townships, at the bottom. The dotted part of the line, for Johnston township, indicates what the tax rate would have been if enough money had been raised to cover the whole annual school budget. There was a deficit of $2500. Constructive Interpretations 95 Rate of Tax. This figure raises another question of school maintenance equal in importance to the whole question of an equal distribution of the burden of taxation. What is the maximum bearable tax rate for school purposes in these rural communities? If Gustavus township, which has a per capita ownership of taxable property of $672, bears a school tax of ten mills, and only eleven heads of families out of 164 interviewed make any objection to the school and none of these eleven men- tion the tax rate; and if Cooper township, which has a per capita of taxable property of $642, pays a rate of about one and one-half mills and no one objects to this rate as either too high or too low, out of 192 heads of families interviewed, may it be safely concluded that the school tax rate is largely a matter of habit? If so, then it is pertinent to inquire at what maximum and what minimum limits would a school tax rate break out of habit into consciousness? That scheme of administration which is able to employ this taxpaying habit nearest to the maximum margin is obviously the best scheme, in so far as the getting of the school budget goes. Estimates of Results. The estimates put on the results of the school service by heads of families in the Cooper and Richland district school townships, were that the schools are satisfactory; for 85 per cent said " Yes " and 15 per cent said " No, we are not satisfied." In the consolidated school townships of Gustavus and Kinsman, the percentages of satisfied and unsatisfied patrons were the same as in the district school townships. From these facts, it appears that the schools of both types are equally satisfactory in the opinion of their patrons. The miscellaneous remarks, printed in Table XI, strike no outstanding common objection to either type. For the district schools, the objections relate chiefly to the officers, teachers, general conduct of children, and the curriculum. For the consolidated schools, objections are raised to the length of school day, distance and waste of time, spread of diseases and the effects of the long ride on frail children. Cash on Hand. The amount left on hand at the end of the year was more than three times as great in the district school townships. Out of thirty district schools, seven carried over more money in their budgets than they spent for teachers' wages in the current year. An amendment to the state constitution, 96 Two Types of Rural ScJwols voted in April, 191 1, eliminates from participation in the annual appropriation of the state common school fund, such districts as have enough of this fund on hand at the close of the school year to pay their teachers' wages for two years and also pay tuition of eighth grade graduates for that length of time. In the whole matter of getting a large tax without serious hard- ship and distributing the burden equally over the whole township as well as in the use of this money in the year for which it was intended, the consolidated scheme of administration makes a far better showing than the district scheme. The purposes for which money is spent, under the two types of administration, ap- pears in Table XXXIII; but the proportion which is wasted in each system, is not easy to determine. The fact that the con- solidated schools pay a per capita for school maintenance, which is one-half larger than that paid by the district schools, raises again a question which was first suggested by the more than double tax rate of the consolidated schools. State Aid. The real range of difference in local contribution to the school maintenance budget, could be seen by eliminating the per capita state apportionment from the total per capita spent, if all of the money in the annual budget were expended each year. But, as has already appeared, there is a compara- tively large amount carried over from year to year, especially in the districts ; and there being no way to tell, from the tables pre- sented, how much of this surplus is state aid, little can be done here in an attempt to differentiate local and state funds. This differentiation would furnish a prime object for an intensive study of the district schools of Michigan. However, the total per capita may be broken up to show approximately what shares of it are used for upkeep, for transportation, for high school in- struction, and for elementary school instruction. The state ap- portionment in Michigan, for the school year of 1910-1911, was $7.90 per capita, and in Ohio, this apportionment was $2.00 per capita. Per Capita Cost. The gross annual per capita cost of educa- tion in the district school townships, was $23 ; and in the consoli- dated school townships, it was $34. The per capita for care and upkeep in the district schools, was approximately $7 ; and in the consolidated schools, it was approximately $5 ; the consoli- Constructive Interpretations 97 dated schools paid a per capita of $15 for transportation and a per capita of approximately $4 for high school instruction. Eliminating care and upkeep, transportation, and high school in- struction, it appears that the district schools paid a per capita of approximately $16 and the consolidated schools paid approxi- mately $10 per capita, for elementary school instruction. Expense of High Schools. The city of Kalamazoo had 15 per cent of its total enrollment in the high school grades in 191 1 and it paid 25 per cent of its annual budget for teachers for the instruction of these grades. The consolidated schools considered in this study, spent 46 per cent of their annual budgets for in- struction for the 19 per cent of their total enrollment found in the high school grades. The high schools had an average enroll- ment of 37. In one high school, at the time of the writer's visit, a teacher, who was a high school graduate with two years' ex- perience and five weeks' normal school training, spent the 35 min- ute recitation period teaching a class of one pupil in Latin ; while on the same floor, another teacher, who was a high school gradu- ate without experience and without any special training, passed a 35 minute recitation period of mutual endurance with a gram- mar grade class of 23 in English. Each of these teachers was responsible for another group of children who were in their seats during this recitation period. This is an exceptional in- stance in the high school, but it is not so exceptional in the grades. High schools which average 37 pupils in four grades are cer- tainly as much to be deplored on the maintenance side as are ten-pupil district schools. Both are glaring examples of waste in education. When it is remembered that these 37 high school pupils, who are but 19 per cent of the school's total enrollment, receive 46 per cent of the annual school instruction budget, the situation changes from a farce to a tragedy. Constructive sug- gestion will be deferred until other phases of the school situation have been presented. Section II. Instruction Teaching Corps. Estimates of the worth of rural school in- struction may be gained from research in the items of the per- sonal, academic, and professional preparation of the teachers. 98 Two Types of Rural Schools Personal preparation turns, very largely, on percentage; and Table XLI shows that 83 per cent of the teachers in the district schools were children of farmers, while 80 per cent of the teach- ers of consolidated schools had this parentage. The meaning of this fact has been discussed at length by Dr. L. D. Coffman, in his study of " The Social Composition of the Teaching Popula- tion." On page 79 he says : " This condition means that the population which teaching selects is restricted as to its oppor- tunities for personal improvement and liberal culture; that in the main it must enter the field of teaching with little or no pro- fessional preparation." And he adds the question : " What wonder is there that teachers receive small salaries and that there is a woeful lack of professional spirit among them? " Educational Standards. Table XLI shows that the median years of educational preparation for district school teachers is 12; and for teachers in consolidated schools, 12.9. This means high school graduation in the first case, and approximately one year in addition to high school graduation in the other case. If, as is probably true in both cases, the high school instruction was largely in village and consolidated school high schools, there is a wide range in the real limits of its possible meaning. Vil- lage high schools in Michigan and the consolidated school high schools seen in Ohio are about as little standardized as is pos- sible for them to be and still use the name high school. Elimi- nating all of the teachers of secondary school grades, in both kinds of schools, the teachers of the elementary grades in the district schools show an average of 11.6 years of educational preparation ; and these teachers in the consolidated schools show an educational preparation of 12.1 years. This indicates a quan- titative advantage of one-half year for the teachers of consoli- dated schools. Professional Preparation. In the same table, it is further shown that practically the same status exists in both groups of teachers in the significance of the kinds of teachers' certificates held. The teachers of consolidated schools have had practically one more year of such professional preparation as comes from unsupervised teaching experience. The median number of months of normal school instruction was six for the teachers of district schools and three for teachers of consolidated schools. Constructive Interpretations 99 Eliminating the teachers of secondary school grades in both in- stances for each kind of school, it appears that teachers of elementary district schools have had approximately two years of experience and approximately one year of normal school in- struction ; and the teachers of elementary grades in consolidated schools have had approximately three years of experience, and approximately one-half year of normal school instruction. In determining the approximate experience, extreme cases were eliminated in both instances. Age, no doubt, has value as a professional qualifier. Table XLI shows that the median age of the district school group of teachers was 22 years, and for the consolidated group, 24 years. Confining this item to teachers of elementary grades in both kinds of schools, it becomes for district school teachers, 23 years ; and for consolidated school teachers, 23.3 years. Growth in Service. The facts presented in the two preceding paragraphs were derived from Tables XXXIV and XXXV. Table XXXVI presents facts indicative of the professional growth of the teachers while in service by means of attendance at institutes, reading the books offered in the Teachers Reading Circles of the states, and taking current educational periodicals. In the matter of days spent at institutes during the year, the teachers of consolidated schools show four and one-half days to two days shown by the teachers of district schools. In both cases, the teachers went to practically all the institute sessions that they had opportunity to reach. In the other items men- tioned, the median numbers were the same — ^two, in each case and instance. Stimulation to growth by effective supervision is missing from both types of schools. The annual visit of the County School Commissioner to the district schools may be more effective than appears on the sur- face when the commissioner has kept acquainted with the situa- tion by aid of correspondence and the telephone, and by the visits to his office of officers, patrons, and teachers. Superin- tendents of the consolidated schools, who have a tenure long enough to beget acquaintance and confidence and who are well enough prepared in the several high school branches which they teach to give them some freedom, may use the very brief time at their disposal for supervision to some effect. Reference to loo Two Types of Rural Schools Table XXXVII shows that, in the four consolidated schools under review, the supervisory activity of the head of the school ranged from no visits to four rooms, to 32 visits to each of three rooms. These items were given from memory by the teachers. Social Stimulations. In such encouragements tO' growth, self- respect, and professional spirit as teachers may get from visits of officers and patrons to the school and from being entertained in the homes of the pupils, there is no noticeable difference, as the summaries of these items in Table XLI show. Summaries of the items — social gatherings attended by teachers, social gatherings managed by schools, and public entertainments given by the schools, are also given in this table. In these particulars, the advantage, in two out of the three items, rests with the teachers of consolidated schools quite decidedly. Further refer- ence to these items will be found in Section IV, following. Specific constructive discussion is also deferred to the conclusion of the section mentioned. Section III. Children Degrees of Effectiveness. The relative effectiveness of dis- trict and consolidated schools in their actual service to children, in so far as quantitative measurements reveal this fact, may be seen in the actual attendance, in an age-grade computation, and in the daily recitation and study programs of the schools. This is granting to their teachers approximate equality of training, experience, and capacity for management, instruction, and in- spiration. There is also an outside index of the administrative effectiveness of the school, in such items as " In School Else- where," " Not Entered," " In Occupations," and " Unaccounted For," shown in Table XLII, especially when the item as to oc- cupations is broken up, as in Table XLIV, to show the grades that were completed by the children who have left school to go to work, Age-Grade Index. Keeping in mind that the legal school census age in Michigan is 5 to 20 years and in Ohio is 6 to 21 years, a fact directly related to later entrance in school in the consolidated schools, there is still a very noticeable excess in the percentage of over-ageness in these schools. Reference to Table XLII shows that the percentages of over-ageness in the first Constructive Interpretations loi eight grades in the district schools, run from the first to the eighth as follows: .08, .14, .21, .23, .15, 43, .30, and .27; the corresponding percentages for the consolidated schools, are: .11, .37, .38, .50, .55, .55, .58, and .45. This means that the per- centages of children who, by age, ought to have finished each grade, who really did not finish, were (district schools first in couplet) — first grade, .08 — .11; second grade, .14 — .37; third grade, .21— .38; fourth grade, .23— .50; fifth grade, .15— -55; sixth grade, .43 — .55 ; seventh grade, .30 — .58 ; and eighth grade, .27 — .45. How much of this over-ageness is due to late entrance and irregular attendance is not determined. Over-ageness for these causes while largely waste, since in these particulars the schools are probably planned somewhat with a view of taking care of children in the age-grade groups to which they normally belong, may not be so bad on the human side as over-ageness resulting from poor organization and poor instruction ; since repetition of work may discourage as well as delay the child. The far better showing made by the district schools in this respect is directly related to the nearness of these schools to the homes and the earlier entrance of small children. The prac- tice of some district school teachers of distributing a grade, by putting some members of the grade partly in the grade below and some niore largely and more often in the grade above, also affects the comparison. The incidental instruction, which a child gets by listening to higher grades recite, is also an aid to many district school pupils. Where the morale of the school is high, the wider diversity of interest and the larger unity of program of the dis- trict school may add a stimulus. The figures shown in Table XLII, from the Indianapolis city schools for the years 1908 and 191 1, show an example of reducing over-ageness from 30 per cent to 70 per cent, in each grade, by giving this matter the close consideration which its importance deserves. Actual Attendance. Table XLIII shows a distribution of actual attendance in ten-day groups, in which it appears, as al- ready explained in connection with that table, that 14 per cent of the district school pupils attended school but three months or less, while but 6 per cent of the children enrolled in consolidated schools had so poor a record of attendance. This fact is doubt- less partly due to the presence of district school children about I02 Two Types of Rural Schools home both before and after school, long enough to prove the great convenience and value of child labor in the house and about the farm. This research was not able to get sufficiently accurate data of the reasons for absence on which to base per- centages; but, in a study of the whole county of Kalamazoo by the writer in 1907, which was more intensive in this particular, the chief reasons for the absence of children from the district schools were: work, 51 per cent; sickness, 23 per cent; and lack of interest, 12 per cent. (Rural School Efficiency in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, Bulletin No. 4, 1909, Michigan Department of Public Instruction.) Transportation increases regularity and establishes punctuality in school attendance. It appears further from Table XLIII that but 57 per cent of the children enrolled in the district schools studied had a total attendance of seven months or more during the year, while 75 per cent of the children enrolled in consolidated schools had as good a record, though the school year of these schools was ten days shorter. When the percentages of over-ageness in district schools are considered in connection with the foregoing facts of very poor attendance, it seems certain that many district school children must be completing their grades in less than seven months of actual attendance. In Secondary Schools. How this affects the secondary school work of district school pupils cannot be closely shown, since the 36 per cent of district school pupils of fifteen years of age or older, who continue in school chiefly outside of their home district, are likely to be a more select group than the 50 per cent of children of the same age in consolidated townships, who continue in school mostly in their own schools. A consensus of the opinions of the principals of the high schools in Kalamazoo County, taken in 1907, showed the district-school-prepared high school students to be less well prepared than the town-school- prepared high school students, in the single subject of Eng- lish. The relative preparedness of students leaving each type of school to go to work, is shown in Table XLIV. The figures here are more complete for the consolidated schools ; but their larger percentage of high school attendance would easily ac- count for their better showing. The noticeable fact in this table is the relatively large number in the consolidated schools who Constructive Interpretations 103 finish high school before entering some business occupation. Neither type of school has as yet in these localities helped pupils entering the occupation of farming to a median preparation of more than eight grades, though here, also, the advantage rests, as would be expected, with the consolidated school in the number held through the high school. Recitation Periods. Tables XLV and XLVI show the dis- tribution of children to each grade in the two types of schools and the distribution and totals of daily recitation times, by sub- jects and by grades. Waiving the stimulus that is said to come to children and teachers from large classes, and placing the comparison on a quantitative basis, expressed in minutes (put- ting the showing for each grade in both types of school in a couplet with the districts first to facilitate reading), each first grade child gets: 13 — 6; each second grade child, 20 — 4; each third grade child, 22 — 5 ; each fourth grade child, 27 — 7 ; each fifth grade child, 2/ — 7 ; each sixth grade child, 30 — 7 ; each seventh grade child, 26 — 8; and each eighth grade child, 45 — 8. The great apparent advantage of the district school is larger than shown by these figures, since the typical district school has 16 children in six grades. The long recitation time in the first grade of the consolidated schools is due to A and B divisions of the beginners' section really making it three grades as com- pared with two in the district school. Individual grades in the district schools get from one-third to one-half the recitation time in each subject that the individual grades of the consolidated schools get, with the exception of such subjects as spelling and penmanship, where the difference is less. Neither type of school reported instruction in music; drawing was reported taught in the consolidated schools, and nature study and agriculture are taught more or less in each kind of school. District School Program. When reading the daily programs of recitations and out-of-class activities presented in Tables XLVII and XLVIII, it should be kept in mind that the typical district school of the four townships reviewed had but 16 pupils in six grades. However, even such a district school presents a complicated program-making problem, if the out-of-class activities are successfully controlled and directed by I04 Two Types of Rural Schools the teacher. A very noticeable difference in these programs is the much shorter day of young children in this district school. There was much play outside of the school-room for all of the younger children; and a reading of the whole day's program of recitations and other work must make the teacher of one or two grades skeptical. However, the writer knows, from fre- quent visits to this district school, that programs as complete as this one shown were put through day after day ; and that teacher and pupils exhibited an attitude of exhilaration and joy. As was said when this program was first offered, however, it represents the best, not the typical district school found — the possible rather than the actual situation — the problem of dis- trict school organization and instruction well started in the pro- cess of being worked out. Consolidated School Program. In connection with the pro- gram of the elementary grades of the best consolidated school found, it should be remembered that this school was selected from only four observed. The greater maturity, better educa- tional and professional preparation, and longer experience of the four teachers in this school, all proved valuable in the actual work of the school, at least to the extent of the ly per cent better wages received by these teachers. In this school, the elementary grades were in a separate building and the principal of the building was a mature woman of excellent personal poise and good executive ability. There was unity of spirit and ag- gressiveness of action in this school. Good examples of the same merits were found in separate rooms in other schools, but this school had team work. In no respect is the child so much at the mercy of the teacher as in the recitation period ; and if the teacher has slight capacity for instruction, the small class and the short recitation period may employ to the child's advantage the little that the teacher has. A teacher of the minimum legal age, without practice ex- perience, with a meager fund of information, with no profes- sional knowledge and no effective supervision, in the presence of a large class with twenty or twenty-five minute recitation period and with another grade of twenty pupils in the same room, is swamped. It is merciful to consider the poor teacher in such cases, but is it not both merciful and just to think of the Constructive Interpretations 105 children, for in so doing, mercy and justice are both multiplied as many times as the number of children in the room exceeds the number of teachers. The injustice which has been done to many district school children for years in the grade of instruc- tion provided for them, is reiterated and accentuated by the situation in such rooms as the one just described, in the con- solidated school. Neither the best school of either type, repre- sented by the programs printed in Tables XLVII and XLVIII, nor the worst condition in schools of either type suggested in the preceding paragraph, represents the general situation ; but the best schools encourage, and the worst schools demand, in- vestigation. Relative Merits. Which type of instruction, — that typified in Table XLVII, many grades with a few pupils in each grade with a short and sharp recitation period and a long period of pretty much entirely self-directed out-of-class activity, in the presence of a lively variety of life in the actions of a group of children ranging in age through the whole elementary school period; or that imperfectly typified in Table XLVIII (the true type of graded school has but one grade in a room), two grades in each room, a large group of pupils in each grade, a long reci- tation period, a less long but more consciously directed period of out-of-class activities in the presence of necessarily much less wide scope of life in both words and actions — which of these types gets the best results for the children, is not settled by the unscientifically established concession of superiority to the graded type, which is common among educators. Since this whole question rests, as yet, largely on opinion, and believing that this investigation and a half life-time of somewhat intimate experience in the rural educational situation gives some basis for an opinion, the writer feels free to say that, in the light of facts of both research and experience, the kind of school typi- fied in Table XLVII, the whole school type if it may be so desig- nated, is, in so far as developing life is concerned, the better type for country children. These children live in whole homes which produce as well as consume ; they know about a whole in- dustry and participate in it all in thought, if not always in ac- tion; they know a whole church, if any; they have time to fill in by imagination the meager outlines of government which the io6 Two Types of Rural Schools local life affords ; they think in the large terms of Nature's sea- sons and laws ; in short, they have a long youth, their life is ex- tensive rather than intensive ; and the district school when at its best is a whole school, and it is the best type of elementary school yet devised for purposes of instructing country children for their kind of a situation. This is neither denying nor affirm- ing the superiority of the graded type of school for urban chil- dren, whose whole life situation is in many respects distinctly different. Section IV. The Institution Institutional Service. But meager statistics were accumulated which bear directly on the institutional services of either type of rural school in other respects than those already discussed, which pertain directly to the schools as if they were isolated from the community family of institutions. The large social service which a school renders by exemplifying individual insti- tutional success has already been suggested. Its outside social service is directly related to its inside life and it is not a matter which lends itself readily, as yet, to expressions in statistical de- tails and summaries. However, some materials are at hand bear- ing on the matter. That a school is chiefly a physical thing in general thought, is suggested by the well known practice of exhibiting buildings and equipment to visitors rather than show- ing teachers and products. That the school teachers in both types of schools have somewhat this same attitude, is shown by their answers to the question — What are the present needs of this school? — for, in practically all cases, the answers had refer- ence to the school plant. Actual Conditions. In pictures for which the camera has been judiciously placed in front of the school building and at an advantageous distance, many district schools and most con- solidated schools look fairly well ; and a closer inspection would, in most cases, verify the first good impression. But in too many cases, with both types of schools, the camera would see another and a very different sight if it were placed within or behind these same buildings. For instance, behind one consolidated school which presents a broad and innocently open front to the highway and to the general public through a widely published picture, there is an example of assembling, without consolida- Constructive Interpretations 107 tating, several district school out-houses. The most comfortable explanation of the existing conditions in the particular just re- ferred to, which is as bad on a smaller scale in many districts and in many particulars less directly related to sanitation and decency, is that of utter financial exhaustion. However, it is only honest to say that very bad physical conditions are the ex- ception rather than the rule ; and that, on the whole, the school plants are a true reflection of the ideas of the several communi- ties, which are wholesome in most respects. Model Plants. Students of rural education are familiar with the model rural school houses and equipments of the district school type exemplified on the campus of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., and on the campus of the State Normal School at Kirksville, Mo. These models suggest the possible uses of an up-to-date school plant in rural localities for the illustration of ideas of architecture, utility, and sanitation. The model building for the consolidated rural school, located in the open country away from the facilities for lighting and sanitation of larger buildings which town location gives, is a much more difficult and a much less well worked-out problem. Nothing ap- proaching a model school plant was found by this study. Community Co-operation. There is very little evidence pre- sented in any of the tables relative to the co-operative activi- ties of schools and other community institutions. There is considerable unconscious co-operation such as appears in pupils taking questions home for assistance; homes making effort to promote regularity and punctuality in school ; a few instances of interchange between the school and the industry of agriculture, in seed-testing and the use of garden tools ; schools preparing parts or all of programs for Grange meetings ; exhibits by schools at fairs ; the inviting of schools to attend farmers' institutes; and the taking part by adults in special school programs, literary societies, and lyceums. The best example of co-operation is suggested in Table VII in the item showing an annual circulation of 4438 volumes by the Kins- man library. The school children and vans help to make this large circulation possible. io8 Tzvo Types of Rural Schools Extension Education. The value of either the district school or the consolidated school for purposes of extension educa- tion, is as yet unknown. But it seems certain that, since extension teaching for the most part must be at least of secondary grade, the consolidated school is much more directly adaptable to such work. Some items were shown which signify the extent to which such indirect means as the annual meeting, the school libraries, the course of study, social activities and public entertainments, and the inter- change of visits between the homes and the school or teacher, were utilized. These items were not in all cases closely veri- fied, but they are as nearly correct as first-hand interviews with directly interested participants could get them. They are summarized in Tables VII, XXXIII, and XLI. A richly localized curriculum which still keeps its balance in a philoso- phical appreciation of the past and distant as well as of the near and present, is yet to be worked out for rural schools. Such a curriculum will afford multiple opportunities for sym- pathetic, voluntary, competent and unostentatious promotion by the teacher of the best things in the community life. Supplementary Evidence. In a study of the efficiency of the consolidated rural schools in Delaware County, Indiana, by J. F. Bobbitt (see The Elementary School Teacher, December, 191 1) some facts which supplement this discussion were established by statistical evidence. This evidence was gained from the official records of six graded consolidated schools, each hav- ing from four to eight teachers, and of thirty-four one-teacher rural schools of about the same total enrollment as the con- solidated schools studied. Mr. Bobbitt's findings are : The average number of days' attendance by each student was, in the consolidated school, iii.i days; and in the one-room schools, 1 07. 1 days. The attendance in the seventh and eighth grades is 8 to 12 per cent better in the consolidated school. In the consolidated schools, 61 students took the final exam- ination; of these, 45 passed and 16 failed. The percentage successful was 73.8. In the one-room schools, 71 took the final examinations — 52 passed and 19 failed. The percentage of successful was 73.2. Constructive Interpretations 109 Section V. Specific Constructive Suggestions In writing some of the foregoing sections, it has seemed to be impossible to make constructive suggestions until the whole school situation had been canvassed as closely as the facts in hand permitted. These facts have now been reviewed with as much fullness of itemization as the patience of the reader is thought to warrant. The following suggestions may seem to be, even after all the detail of information, some- what naked of qualifications and hence dogmatic. But they represent the present stage of thought of the writer and, though they are stated confidently, there will be no hesitancy in abandoning them for something better when further in- formation and thought shall prompt a change. Organisation. As was intended in Section I of this chapter, taxation is very unequally distributed in the district school townships. This could be corrected by making the whole township, instead of the district, the unit for taxation and administration. This larger unit of administration would enable, also, the most economical distribution of the children of the township to the minimum necessary number of ele- mentary schools. There would also be opportunity for unified and more economical provision of high school instruc- tion for the children, either within or without the township ; and the whole range of administration, including such major items as — employing teachers, securing effective supervision, purchasing supplies, and keeping records of funds and school statistics, could be simplified and improved. It seems likely, judging from the township administration as shown in the consolidated schools, that more money would be raised and spent for education. Richland township adopted the town- ship unit for purposes of taxation and administration by a referendum vote April i, 1912. There was a majority of three votes. Transportation. The high tax rate and the high per capita cost of the consolidated schools results from the great cost of transportation and the provision of high school instruction for a small number of pupils. Transportation expenses were distributed as follows, in the consolidated district of Vernon : no Two Types of Rural Schools Amount Number Paid of Driver Per Day Distance Children No. 1 $1.05 5 miles 11 No. 2 2.20 10 " 14 No. 3 1.85 7i " 14 No. 4 2.90 10 " 26 No. 5 1.68 5 " 22 No. 6 2.25 9i " 12 No. 7 2.00 8 " 22 No. 8 1.85 7 " 16 No. 9 2.00 8 " 18 No. 10 .55 4 " 3 The last item is that of one family living on a hilly road and having the only children on that road, which made it economical to pay this family to furnish their own conveyance. For the ensuing year it was planned to divide route four, a long and inconvenient route, into two routes. These items show the dis- tinctly local character of the problem of economical transporta- tion. The exigencies of the case suggest that every able-bodied child within a distance of two miles be permitted to walk. Little children should not be penalized to the extent of very long and uncomfortable days away from their parents, and subjected to the care and teaching of an immature, inexperienced, and illy prepared youth, in order to save money to maintain a high school of low standard. The School Unit. The township is too large a unit for an elementary school and too small a unit for a high school. The 148 pupils in the high schools of the four consolidated schools under review, could be taught much better and more economic- ally in one high school having four teachers, each teacher in his own field of science or mathematics or history or language and literature, than they are now taught in four high schools by nine teachers. The township or, as advocated by Professor E. P. Cubberley, the county, afifords an excellent unit for taxa- tion and administration ; but the unit for the elementary and the high school must be different, by the dictation of physical condi- tions governing a sparse rural population whose chief economic resource is farm property. It seems clear that if the rural town- ships studied here ever get good secondary school instruction for their youth within driving distances of their homes, they will be helped to it by the state. (See "The Improvement of Constructive Interpretations in Rural Schools," E. P. Cubberley, Riverside Educational Mono- graph Series.) Professional Safeguards. Constructive suggestions for the improvement of instruction in rural schools are difBcult to make because the present possible maximum limit of statutory safe- guards is not known. Neither has an adequate minimum require- ment been placed at the threshold of the profession. The writer suggests a minimum age of i8 years, a minimum academic preparation of twelve grades and a minimum professional train- ing of six weeks, for beginners, the training to be increased to twelve weeks before the second year of teaching and to nine months before the third year of teaching. It is further sug- gested that enough money invested in capable and devoted super- visors of rural teaching, in both types of schools, would provide a direct and effective method for improving instruction. Compulsory Attendance. Granted an adequate school plant and successful teachers, the remaining duty of the state is to insure the benefits of these provisions to every child who is capable of being instructed. The largest economy is found in the fullest use of the provisions for which money has already been spent. Specifically, the suggestion is that the present truancy law, which covers all unexcused children between the ages of seven and sixteen years in Michigan, and in Ohio, all unexcused children between the ages of eight and fourteen years, be rigidly enforced. It is suggested, also, that the Ohio age period for compulsory attendance be extended two years. Successful Teachers. Two school problems persist through the years; one, to get the maximum service at a minimum cost; the other, the provision of good teachers. Neither of these problems is being very successfully solved by either of the types of rural schools studied. Maximum school service for these communities should include first class elementary and secondary schools. Good teachers for rural schools must make specific preparation for their peculiar work in addition to the develop- ment of a rich personality sustained by intellectual, social, and spiritual culture. The states must provide, as they have not provided in the past, the opportunity for prospective teachers of rural schools to get the specific preparation needed to equip them for their distinctive task. This preparation should include 112 Two Types of Rural Schools three groups of subjects : first, such as give a knowledge of children and of their organization, management and instruction; second, such subjects as give power for localizing the curriculum in natural, industrial, and domestic illustrations and applica- tions ; and third, a group of subjects intended to develop social intelligence and inspire purposes of rural social participation and leadership. Demonstration Schools. One further and more general sug- gestion seems fitting. Workable methods and an applicable curriculum for the rural common schools must be derived in these schools. For refining the processes of instruction in these schools, certain typical rural schools should be maintained. These demonstration schools should be in affiliation with normal schools and agricultural colleges and should be taught by teachers of splendid personality, first rate ability, the best training and experience, and at a salary sufficient to command their services long enough for them to adapt their processes of instruction and the variety and selection of the materials used, to the true perspective of rural education. The greatest need of the rural elementary school is the revelation that would come from such demonstration schools. Rural teachers should receive this revela- tion before beginning their work. Division II. Community Considerations Necessary Qualifications. The background of the whole ques- tion of the maintenance and efficiency of rural schools is deter- mined by the standards of life — physical, industrial, intellectual, social, and spiritual — of the rural population. Local studies of rural education must, therefore, attempt to define this back- ground. This was done in Chapter II directly, and in Chapter III incidentally; and the suggestions just made in concluding Division I of this chapter were made with this background in mind. The extent to which the suggestions offered are applicable to other localities, must be determined by research in each particu- lar locality. Unauthenticated generalizations about both types of rural schools have been sown broadcast in public prints. All unqualified statements in this study should be understood, once Constructive Interpretations 113 for all, to be intended for application in the specified local areas from which the facts upon which they are based were obtained. The conviction has grown upon the writer that this study is too broad in its scope ; that it should have been intensive rather than comparative ; that a mass of unscientific experience is, perhaps, more directly applicable in service than it is in defini- tive discussion ; that details are appreciated in value by famili- arity ; that respect for the whole truth is bred by the necessarily plodding approach to it through what the inexperienced research student finds to be a veritable fog of facts ; and that there are as many wonders awaiting the skilled handler of the social micro- scope as ever glorified the physical world to the histologist. A Whole Situation. This study has tried to keep the whole rural situation in view. Rural communities challenge general statements and snap conclusions by the apparent simplicity of their organization. These statements and conclusions become the tinsel warp and woof of a shoddy fabric, which may take a very dignified name. Forms in social study have been derived, chiefly, in the practice of studying human beings in groups ; and the forms, vocabulary and phraseology of such study have be- come the common possessions of reading people. Teachers, preachers, editors, politicians, research scholars, and publishers are using this same outfit of forms, words, and phrases in studies of country life. This stained glass inspection can not see the real rural situation. Social studies of country life have generally gone about as far as the words isolation and individual- ism and have stopped there, apparently forgetting that isolation is a physical fact and no longer, if it ever was, necessarily a state of mind, and that individuals who have the time and the inclination to think for themselves may be as interesting subjects for social study as are the herded groups of mankind. Country people are not easily grouped ; they question their leaders, they suspect philanthropy, they hate patronage, and they despise the dilettante when they recognize him. Community Characteristics. Persistent human habits, both personal and social, are rooted in the common characteristics of humanity ; and their manifestations as between individuals and as between communities vary less elementally than in forms of expression. The student of country life must learn to identify 114 Two Types of Rural Schools correctly the various surface indications with the true grade of thinking which they imperfectly reveal. He must set up new standards or, at least, mark the existing urban social standards with a new scale of values. Prolonged and intimate association by the writer with the people of the localities which form the basis of this discussion, has forced the conviction that it is not true, as might be sup- posed from observing these communities still puzzled with the coarse institutional adjustments of society, that many of the finer social adjustments, usually credited to institutional inter- course, have not been acquired. Native human equipment includes capacity and aptness for social adjustment, which tends to keep a dynamic character in spite of the lack of institutional opportunity. Because of this characteristic of consciousness, one novel and therefore vivid experience plus time to work it over mentally may teach more than multiple experiences of the same kind, with a diversely pre-occupied mind. Industry An attempt to develop a conception of solidarity in the life of one of the rural communities being considered must take account of the kind of people and the sort of place. The features of a country locality for the purposes of a social study are its relative location, its soils, its rainfall, its temperature and their distribu- tion. The facts of most significance about the kind of people are the qualities of the native stock as revealed by their origins, traditions and history and the proportion of native and foreign born, as well as the ratio of owners and renters. In thinking the place and the people into the close and happy articulation which is necessary in order to arrive at the conception of the community as a unit, the industrial factor is the first large feature of the situation. Economic Questions. When thought begins, questions multi- ply. Is the population the exact quota needed for industrial development? Are the financial resources of the population truly representative of an economical and proportionate distri- bution to them of the results of their production? Are the local public utilities administered to the point of maximum service at the least consistent cost? Is the community, or inter- Constructive Interpretations 115 community, employment of truly expert industrial advisers feasible? Answers to these questions must be found in intensive research. Here, as in the school situation, the chief demand of aggressively ambitious men is for more money. Industry affords many examples of too small a working capital. This is con- spicuously true in agriculture. On many of the farms which underlie this study, farm and domestic plans and conveniences showed clearly a lack of money. Is the lack of working capital in agriculture to be supplied from within, by the enhanced pro- duction aided by the better markets resulting from a concentra- tion of population ? Will the millions of federal appropriations for minimizing waste from pests and ignorance, solve the ques- tion of capital for the industry of agriculture? Is the economic situation, as it relates to the cost of collecting, distributing and marketing agricultural products, in great need of statesmanlike revision? The writer was very earnestly told by three leading farmers of as many localities, in a series of farmers' institutes recently, that what they needed in order to make suggested improvements in their schools was, not so much the inclination — they already had this — but the money. There was no doubting the honesty of conviction of these men, all educated, travelled, financially well to do, and fond of farming; that they spoke for the farmers of their localities ; and that to ask these localities to maintain such an institution as the school at a rate of local taxation equalling that of a nearby city was foolish because it was an economic impossibility. What to do in a rural locality, without supplemental aid from outside, in and for any one of its fundamental institutions, must be determined in full recognition of the rights and the condition of every other one of these institutions and in the presence of things as they are. No transient observer is likely to get into this presence. The one thing that is most deeply veiled is the economic situation ; and this is the most important thing to know, in order to decide what can be done. Speaking of the rural community as a unit, its first need is maximum industrial results and the distribution of these results to individuals and to families in accordance with the principle of the square deal. Agricultural Survey. The best agricultural survey yet made in America is reported in Bulletin 295, The College of Agricul- ii6 Tivo Types of Rural Schools ture, Cornell University. For the rural communities being studied here, the most valuable constructive fact of industrial significance presented in this bulletin, is found on page 524, under the " Summary of Most Profitable Farms," where it is said : " One of the most striking characteristics of these successful farms is the diversity of products. On each farm there are two to four leading products, and in most cases many minor products. Those with three leading products are doing better than those with only two. By combining two or more leading products, the receipts are greatly increased without much increase in expenses. For example, milk, potatoes, and hay may be raised for sale with little more labor than is required for producing milk. The combination of all three requires little more horses or equipment than is required for any one. Other combinations are equally efficient. The minor enterprises, as eggs, colts, etc., also help." The Homes Such an estimate as could be gained by personal inspection and interviews and from the Federal Census Bureau statistics (see Tables I to V, inclusive), leads to the conclusion that the local farming areas studied were at least equal to the average general farming communities of the Lake Region, in industrial success. The question which is always raised by presence in such communities, and which was intensified in interest by the closer observation of the house to house survey reported in Tables IX to XXVI, inclusive, is — What sort of home life is typical of these communities? This question is answered, in so far as the information gained by this survey answers it, in Table XXVI. Composite Picture of Homes. In the following paragraphs, the composite picture of the homes visited is presented. The items for owners' homes, yy per cent of the population in the townships surveyed, are given and the same item, when it is different, for renters' homes is given in parenthesis immediately following the numeral for owners' homes, in each case. This facilitates comparison and saves repetition. Owners' homes, in these areas, are headed by people of the median age of 49 (38) years; there are two adults; 58 (33) per cent have no children and the median number is one child in the 42 per cent of homes having children; the school is one and one-fourth miles away, Constructive Interpretations 117 and the trading point two and one-half miles; 15 per cent (5 per cent) are dissatisfied with the school ; 60 per cent are repre- sented in church membership and 68 per cent (71 per cent) are represented in church attendance; 55 per cent (43 per cent) have members in a Sunday school, and 56 per cent (48 per cent) have attendants at these schools ; 43 per cent (38 per cent) are represented in the membership of fraternities ; 8 per cent (38 per cent) carry no insurance; 55 per cent (25 per cent) carry fire insurance only; and i per cent (15 per cent) carry life insurance only, while 35 per cent (21 per cent) carry both fire and life insurance; 10 per cent (5 per cent) are represented in social organizations; 20 per cent (3 per cent) are represented in some extension course; 10 per cent (i per cent) are mem- bers of co-operative organizations; 43 per cent (63 per cent) are without telephones; $15 is the median cost of the telephone; and 37 per cent (53 per cent) use the mail for buying or sell- ing produce. The median number of books owned is 50 (45) ; median number of books purchased the past year, 6 (7) ; 40 per cent (43 per cent) make use of library facilities and the median number of library books used is 9 (10) ; 50 per cent {6^) per cent) visit mostly in the country; 31 per cent (20 per cent) visit mostly in the city; 30 per cent (36 per cent) correspond mostly with country people, and 43 per cent (36 per cent) mostly with city people ; the median number of newspapers taken is two ; 65 per cent (56 per cent) take magazines, and the median number taken is two; 60 per cent (43 per cent) take farm papers and the median number taken is one; 70 per cent (16 per cent) take government bulletins and the median number taken is 6 (4); 5 per cent (i per cent) take circulating reading; 26 per cent (15 per cent) are represented in offices of various organiza- tions ; 36 per cent (23 per cent) have modern conveniences in the home; 20 per cent (6 per cent) are making repairs; 8 per cent are building; and the median general impression given by owners' premises is good, while the median for renters' is fair, in a scale of " excellent," " good," " fair" and " poor," It is difficult to keep all of the features of this doubly com- posite picture in perspective. These homes seem to have too small families and too little young life. There seems to be at ii8 Two Types of Rural Schools least a generation's difference in the homes of the owners and renters; but the renters are eleven years younger and possibly some of them will catch up to the grade of owners by the time they reach the owning age. The ten to seventy per cent who do the things inquired about are far easier to consider than are the thirty to ninety per cent who do not do these things, in solv- ing the problem of what is known, thought about, discussed, and done, in the homes of these farm communities. Constructive Problem. The home which has individual mem- bers enough to allow range of age and consequent variety of interest; which has inside vitality and outside connections, through visiting, correspondence, travel, trading, telephone, pub- lications taken, school, and active membership in various local organizations, with the probability of some of the family hold- ing executive offices, and the possibility of their going as dele- gates or visitors to outside county or state federations of these organizations ; such a home is likely to become a clearing house of information, custom, manners, taste, modern conveniences, and self-respect. This home is enfranchised with a most signifi- cant vote in the life of the community. The constructive problem of increasing the number and en- riching the life of such homes and thereby extending the power of the domestic franchise in all matters of community interest — this is a problem demanding the devoted activity of all other community agencies for progress, working separately and to- gether. The right solution of this problem, united with maxi- mum industrial success, makes up very largely the human and material endowment insuring stability and growth in the educa- tional, governmental and religious institutions which are the superstructure of rural community life. " The Healthful Farm- house," by A Farmer's Wife, and " The Country Home," by E, P. Powell, are helpful books. The Church The present status of church membership, property, annual maintenance, and ministers, may be seen in summary in Table VI. As suggested in explanation of this table, Kinsman town- ship, which has lost least in population, has the most satisfac- tory church conditions. Decrease in population is no doubt Constructive Interpretations 119 largely due to the change from hand tools to horse-drawn ma- chinery and it may be that the population of these townships is still larger than the economic conditions warrant, although the readjustment seems to be complete. Conditions of population and economic possibilities cannot be ignored by church organiza- tions. A determination of the church needs and possibilities of the several farm communities reported in Table VI, would evi- dently furnish ample reasons for reconstructive action. Present Status. The Michigan townships are relatively twenty-two per cent less well represented in church membership than the Ohio townships; while their fraternity membership is 25 per cent of their population to 17 per cent in the Ohio areas. The facts as to the age, experience, educational and professional preparation of the ministers in these several communities, as shown in Table XII, tell their own story. A combination, for work, of churches that had not pulled together much, in a small community, though each could hear the songs and sermons of the other on summer days when the windows were opened, does not, on the surface, seem difficult ; but such action would be in- deed drastic in actual application, and nothing short of an in- spired conviction of the utter desperation of the present situa- tion could possibly bring it about. Granted that, including the unchurched population which is 48, 35, 34. and 26 per cent of the total in the several townships, any one of the townships could support two churches which ought to co-operate for community welfare and in many ways mutually reinforce one another, the question becomes — What are their resources and their inspiration for interesting and get- ting the unchurched into membership ? It is a stubborn fact that human resource in this matter turns on financial resource; and country churches do not bond for improvements. This initial recapitalization must evidently come from the presence of more money inside and possibly be supplemented from outside the townships, at least until the local churches gain access to the financial resources of the now unchurched 26 to 48 per cent of their population. Their inspiration for this work is, of course, the native impulse of the Christian religion itself re-enforced by the strongest human instinct — self-preservation — and the de- veloping social impulse for community welfare. 120 Two Types of Rural Schools Constructive Suggestion. The best constructive suggestion that has come to the writer was given by an aged minister, who has had a hfetime of famiHarity with rural churches. He con- ceded the necessity for consohdating some of the churches, but said that the situation demanded that young ministers of first- rate ability, training, and consecration acknowledge the need and embrace the opportunity of service in rural parishes, and that their service must be enthusiastic and patient in spite of the small salaries. Charles O. Bemies, of McClellandtown, Pa., and M. B. McNutt, of Plainfield, 111., and doubtless many men un- known to the public, including one or two referred to but un- named in this study, exemplify this idea. W. H. Wilson, of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, New York City, and G. F. Wells of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ, in America, 215 Fourth Avenue, New York City, have made searching study of the rural church situation and much of their work is obtainable in print. Civic Life Although no specific statistics were gathered to show the civic spirit of the communities studied, the lax enforcement of the truancy law and the small attendance at the annual school meet- ing, together with other facts of general observation, yielded a suggestion in this respect. Without losing the present union of personal and public interest in civic matters and without de- creasing the personal factor but rather broadening it, could an increase be made in the public factor to the extent of giving to it the balance of power in controlling the civic pulse ? Specific Suggestions. The suggestion is that contempt in the court of government comes from too great familiarity with the minor forms and facts of the local applications of civic authority, and that to counteract this low tone, there is need of reiterated statement and illustration of the fundamental rights and duties of citizenship. Personal and local perspective must get its correct color from a constant revivifying, in memory and imagination, of the historical perspective, rich as an autumn landscape with the lights and shadows of the great personalities of the generations who turned their life currents into the river of freedom. Constructive Interpretations 121 In short, the right of religious freedom, by which every citi- zen may contribute to establish the moral tone, which becomes the civic tone when expressed in constitution and statute, has its correlative duty of obedience; the right of free speech, by which all citizens may participate in determining the civic policy of action, has the correlative duty of service ; and the right to vote, by which male citizens and, in school matters, female citi- zens, may fix the public expenditures, has the correlative duty of tribute. There is no divorcing of freedom and duty. This is the lesson that needs to be taught in order to conserve the civic needs of these local communities. Community Solidarity The foregoing pages are offered in an attempt to keep the original plan to make this study of two types of rural schools find its true perspective and balance itself in the presence of things as they are in the communities where the particular schools studied are located. It is felt that a segregated study of any rural institution, unless correlated with separate studies of the other fundamental institutions of the same communities, may lose the force of reality and tend to dissipate rather than con- serve the essential unity of life in small communities. When the general public has become familiar with current standards of institutional and community life in the country, then intensive studies of one institution and, later, of parts of one institution may safely proceed. But, for the present, the exhibitor of the results of social studies in rural life must carry his stage setting with him. Adequate Leadership. This suggests the greatest present need in rural progress which is a rationally thought out and clearly stated theory of the whole economic and social situation in the country — certainly beyond the scope of this study and the intel- lectual range of its author. As already suggested, such a theory would of necessity use new forms, new words, and new phrase- ology. This would insulate it for the time being from the gen- eral public; but the rapidly increasing group of rural life stu- dents would welcome it and seek to popularize the general ideas. Leaders would mature this theory in service. 122 Tivo Types of Rural Schools Further progress in country community building calls for a more adequate provision, tlirough institutions founded for such purposes, of men selected, specifically trained and enlisted for life in rural community service. Native talent, enriched intelli- gence, sensitive sympathies, resolute will, — in short, an indi- vidually refined and a socially cultured personality — these are the presuppositions of a leadership equal to the constructive pro- gram by which the new country community is to emerge out of the old without losing the worthy ideals of the old. APPENDIX A The Comstock, Michigan, Consolidated School For purposes of comparison with the Ohio consolidated schools studied, and to show the largest consolidated rural school in Michigan, which is in Kalamazoo County, and adjacent to Richland township, whose district schools furnish a part of the research materials for this study, the tabulations presented here have been made. The Comstock consolidation was made in 1906 and consisted at first of four whole districts and parts of two other districts. The area has since been extended to 18 sections, or one-half of a township. The development has been veiy rapid in the curric- ulum, which now includes Domestic Art, Manual Training, Drawing, and Music. Library, laboratory, and class room facili- ties have been accumulated and excellent service has been ren- dered by the school, which has become one of the best graded schools in the county, outside of the city of Kalamazoo. For transportation, three vans and a trolley line which crosses the district and passes near the school, are used. The chief ex- pressions of dissatisfaction are in respect to the tax rate, which has risen from .0024, the first year of consolidation, to approxi- mately .012 in 1911, and to the difficulties of transportation. Extension of the school site, enlargement and improvement of the building, and a comparatively liberal budget for current expenses account for the increase of tax rate. 123 124 Two Types of Rural Schools TABLE I Summaries of District and'Teachers District Teachers Area in Sections 18 $566,340 100 $7,000 .012 31,375 $5 $3,747 *$9,210 $34 31,217 785 50 337 270 252 .80 .93 180 9 $45 200 60 11 Median Age in Years Number of Teachers 25 M-1; F- 8 Father's Occupation .\-4; 1-4- T-1 Value of School Property Rate of Local Tax Total Cost of Transportation. . . Per Capita Cost of Transp'n... Total Paid in Teachers' Wages Annual Cost of Education Per Capita Cost of Education Based on Enrollment Cash on Hand at End of Year . Educational Preparation Kind and Grade of Present Med. 14 yrs. Life-62%; 2-25%; 3-32% Median 18 mos. 2 Normal School Instruction . . . Days Attendance at Institutes Reading Circle Books Read.. . School Journals Taken 1910-11 Months Experience Teaching . Days Employed in School 1910-11 Volumes Added During Year . . Children of School Age Enrollment Average Daily Attendance .... Percentage of Enrollment Based on Census Percentage of Attendance Based on Enrollment 2 36 180 Wages Per Month 1910-11 . . . Cost of Board, Room and Travel Per Month $110 $45 $18 Visits by Superintendent Length of His Visits in Hours. Visits by District OiBcers .... Length of Their Visits in Hrs. Visits by Patrons not Officers. Length of Visits in Hours .... Homes Visited by Teachers. . . Social Gatherings Attended by 1 i Total 19 Median Wages Per Month (Ex- clusive of Superintendent).. . Estimated Legal Voters Voters at Annual Meeting Women Voters at Meeting Median J Total 75 Median ^ Total 77 • ^ ■• m. Total ; 1 58 Social Gatherings Managed by 3 12 Public Entertainments Given 7 *The item for "Annual Cost Education" includes $1000 paid on debt, $600 paid for enlarging site and improving building, and $600 paid for electric and water facilitiee These items raised the tax rate to .014. Appendix 125 TABLE II Age-Grade Distribution COMSTOCK CoNSOLroATED SCHOOL Age Grades In school else- where Total in school Not ent- ered De- fect- ive Moved Left Inoc- cupa- tions Unac- count- ed for Grand Total 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 S 9 10 11 12 5 21 1 22 4 1 27 6 24 1 25 2 3 30 7 19 7 26 1 2 29 8 5 9 2 3 19 1 1 21 9 5 9 9 3 1 27 1 1 28 10 1 1 3 8 7 1 21 1 3 25 11 1 5 8 9 2 25 2 27 12 1 3 7 4 6 1 22 2 24 13 1 3 3 7 5 2 1 22 3 25 14 1 3 4 3 8 1 20 1 1 22 15 2 1 3 6 3 3 1 1 20 2 6 6 34 16 1 2 2 3 2 1 11 2 7 1 21 17 1 2 7 10 2 8 2 22 18 1 2 3 6 13 1 20 19 4 4 1 12 1 13 Tot. 71 .10 25 .32 14 .21 26 .23 26 .31 22 .27 17 .30 20 .20 18 .11 8 .25 8 .00 12 .00 13 280 4 1 12 47 30 373 Percentage over-age for grade TABLE III Distribution op Actual Attendance 1-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 Total 1 .00 2 .01 5 .02 6 .02 13 .05 14 .05 5 .02 5 .02 7 Per cent .03 90- 100 100- 110 110- 120 120- 130 130- 140 140- 150 150- 160 160- 170 170- 180 Total 4 .02 7 .03 7 .03 6 .02 9 .03 11 .04 23 .09 35 .13 102 Per cent .39 126 Two Types of Rural Schools APPENDIX B Township Maps The following maps show the relative size of Michigan and Ohio townships ; the irregular areas, valuations, tax rates, and per capita cost of education in the district schools of the Michi- gan townships ; the valuation, tax rate, per capita cost of educa- tion, per capita cost of transportation, and the school van routes of the consolidated school townships in Ohio ; as well as the sec- tion lines, highways, railways, churches, school-houses and resi- dences of the several townships in both states. It will be ob- served that each Ohio township has an area of twenty-five square miles, while the Michigan township has an area of thirty-six square miles. GusTAvus Township — Section line. = Road. -1-|-|-|- Railroad. H Van Route. □ School House. ± Church. ■ Residence. Appendix 127 Cooper Township Section Line. = Road. -l-l-l-l- Railroad. District Boundary. D School House. ± Church. ■ Residence. 128 Two Types of Rural Schools Kinsman Township H,tSu^" — Section Line. = Road. -H-l-l- Railroad. f- Van Route. D School House. ± Church. ■ Residence. Appendix 129 Richland Township Section Line. = Road. -1-H-l- Railroad. District Boundary. D School House. ± Church. ■ Residence. 5 \9n: Ill* 021 731 367 3 Si!.3!;iKxi!.iKi iii;i m. mm ■mM !i|l'l« •i^*^«ii :i:;i|';f!' lilf i