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greater part of the state. More than onefourth of the country schools of Wisconsin have a total yearly enrolment of less than 20 pupils. Six per cent. have a yearly enrolment of less than 10 pupils. There is strong reason to believe that less than one-half of our country schools have an average attendance of 20 pupils. Taking the second superintendent district of Rock county as an example, we find that out of 81 rural schools only one had an average attendance of 30 pupils, while 20 schools had an attendance of less than 10 pupils, and 65 schools, or 80 per cent. of the whole, had an attendance of less than 20 pupils.

The average attendance for the whole 81 schools was only 16 pupils per school. In Lafayette county, for further instance, out of 114 schools, 20 have an average attendance of less than 10, and 75 average less than 20 pupils. The daily average for the whole county is 19 pupils per school. We estimate that probably 1,000 teachers in Wisconsin are spending their time on less than 10 pupils daily.

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It is too much to expect of ordinary human nature to imagine that a school district having only a dozen, or half-dozen, of children in school will take that interest in their education which is necessary to the proper selection and adequate compensation of a good teacher. On the whole, the most stubborn and serious handicap on the country schools lies here, that the people of a district having few children will not tax themselves to the degree necessary for providing efficient teaching. such cases, the few children actually in school lose interest and gradually drop out or go elsewhere; and thus the situation goes from bad to worse. And it is simply impossible that even a good teacher should keep up effort and ambition when surrounded by only a discouraged handful of pupils. One can hardly imagine a surer way to spoil a promising young teacher than to set her to marking time in such a school. All enthusiasm, all energy, and ambition must soon evaporate.

Thus far, we have dwelt on the reasons why poor teaching is so generally the lot of the rural schools. We must now pass to another factor governing the condition of these schools. Whether teachers be good or bad, there is need of a co-ordinating and unifying oversight, of intelligent, forceful supervision. But where teachers are largely inexperienced, untrained, and shifting in tenure, there is an absolute necessity for such supervision to save all effort from being wasted through misdirection and isolation. Not the least of the evils besetting our country schools is found in the sheer inadequacy of our county superintendency to meet the needs of the case. And, in

this, we lay no fault at the door of the superintendents themselves. Under the conditions which exist in our rural regions, the distances to be traveled, the condition of roads, etc., it is a physical impossibility for the most enterprising and faithful superintendent to discharge the functions of genuine supervision towards more than fifty separate schools. But consider the conditions which exist. There are county superintendents, not a few in Wisconsin who yearly act the solemn farce of "supervising" from 200 to 300 scattered country schools. Under such circumstances, what can a superintendent do for the help, guidance, or uplifting of the young, needy teachers under his nominal charge? He can be little more than a dispenser of third grade certificates. Two-thirds of all the county superintendents in Wisconsin find it hopelessly impossible to do for their schools that which most needs doing. Each one is like a hen trying to cover a hundred eggs. And their disability grows not alone out of the impracticable amount of territory which they must overlook-overlook is the word-but quite as much out of the fact that their office is "in politics," that they must so continuously silence their official conscience at the dictate of the law of self-preservation. It is unjust and a continual menace to a strong, vigorous administration to allow this important office to be at the mercy of the popular vote. No official is so subject to public criticism as the county superintendent, because his work brings him into daily contact with the people, through teachers, pupils, parents, and school boards; and the polls afford only too safe and convenient an opportunity to "get even" for fancied grievances. Further emphasis is furnished by the fact that at the last election, when there was no political overturn, 40 per cent. of the county superintendents in the state were denied a re-election.

Yet another element in the present condition of the rural schools calls for consideration, viz: The effect of city schools and higher institutions on the country schools. It has been so often, and confidently asserted in late years, that the country schools are depleted by, and thus suffer injury from, the high schools and the preparatory departments of the normal schools, that it seemed to us worth while to make a thorough investigation of this matter. Accordingly, a canvass was made of the state with the following results, of which a fuller statement may be found in the WISCONSIN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION for November.

During the school year of 1897-8, there were 3,452 non-resident pupils enrolled in the

208 high schools of the state, being 21.6 per cent. of the whole enrolment in those schools. In the preparatory departments of the normal schools, 214 country pupils were found, making, with the high schools, 3,666 country pupils. But it is to be remembered that these are largely persons who hold common school diplomas, or have completed the work of the country schools. We estimate that not more than one-third of these would be in the country schools, even if higher schools were closed to them. One-third of 3,666 is 1,222.

But in the high school towns we found 1,530 country pupils enrolled in grades below the high school, with 163 more in the model departments of the normal schools. Furthermore, there are in the state, 87 graded schools of three or more rooms, but without a high school department. In these, we found 718 non-resident, country pupils. Combining results, we have a total of 3,633 pupils drawn from the country schools by the combined attractions of normal, high, and graded schools. We have, in round numbers, 6,400 country schools. Dividing the 3,633 pupils among the 6,400 schools, we find that each school has suffered a loss of 56 per cent. of one pupil each, or about one pupil in two years. This does not seem a destructive loss. These figures effectually explode the popular assumption that the preparatory departments of the normal schools are injuring the country schools, since they all combined draw less than oneeighteenth of a pupil annually from each country district.

But it remains to be said that the high schools do exert an appreciable influence, indirectly, to the disadvantage of the country schools by detracting from the interest felt in those schools locally. The few leading people in every district who have a purpose to educate their children well look over the country school to the high school or other institutions beyond. And the fact that many of the better class of farmers are constantly leaving their farms to renters and moving into town to give their children the better advantages there afforded, has two bad results. It leaves a renter for a school patron, and it makes the remaining farmers discouraged and dissatisfied with their school. But perhaps the worst effect of city on country schools is to be found in that laudable competition by which the cities gather in the best teachers, by paying better salaries and exercising more intelligence in the selection of teachers, and thus leave the "culls," the weak, the immature, and the unambitious to wreak their incompetency on the country children.

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With this diagnosis of the actual condition and prospects of the schools themselves, and this exposition of the inequality of privilege entailed upon the country child, let us turn to consider, as briefly as may be, the inequality of burdens imposed upon the country taxpayIf man had exhausted his ingenuity in seeking a device to produce inequality of taxation for this common good, he could not have scored a completer success than in the adoption of the small-district system prevalent in Wisconsin. These thousands of school districts make no approach to equality in either territory, wealth, or population. The injustice and mischief which this works may perhaps best be shown by some examples from different parts of the state. A much more extended showing could easily be made if time allowed. But a few instances must suffice.

Let us compare two prominent counties. Manitowoc county is well-to-do in material ways and is rich, beyond most counties of the state, in children. There is reason to believe that it has suffered less mischief from the small district system than perhaps any other in Wisconsin. Let us observe its inequalities in local taxation.

In the town of Franklin: Dist. No. 13 enrols 35 pupils and raises on these, by district tax, $4.28 per capita. Dist. No. 1, with 62 pupils, raises 80 cents per capita.

Town of Cooperstown: Dist. No. 5 raises $3.61 per capita on 28 pupils; No. 2, 64 cents per capita on 78 pupils; while No. 3, with 80 pupils, levied no district tax at all.

Town of Manitowoc Rapids: No. II raises $5.28 each on 52 pupils, and No. I raises 71 cents on 35 pupils.

Town of Newton: No. 1, with 90 pupils, raises $6. 10 per capita, and No 6, with 71 pupils, raises $1.04.

Town of Two Rivers: No. 2, with 21 pupils, raises $16.38 per capita, while No. 6, with 65 pupils, raises 76 cents each.

No. 3, in the town of Mishicott, raises $10.32 per capita on 49 pupils, while four districts in the county raise no district tax what

ever.

Thus in Manitowoc county, where country school conditions are thought to approach the ideal, there is a range in district taxation from $16.38 per enrolled pupil down to nothing at all.

Rock county is also a wealthy county, but it is no longer rich in children. We find here such inequalities of local taxation as these.

Town of Beloit: Dist. No. 8, with 31 pupils, raises $4.03 per capita; No. 4, with 8 pupils raises $21.87 per capita.

Town of Bradford: Joint Dist. No. 14, with 40 enrolled, raises $4.77 per capita; No. 6, with 18 pupils, raises $12.50 each.

Town of Johnstown: No. 2, with 38 enrolled, raises $3.94 per capita; No. 5, 14 pupils, $17.85 per capita.

Town of Lima: No. 9, with 35 pupils, $3.37 per capita; Joint No. 5, with 7, pupils, $25 per capita.

Town of Rock; No. 7, $3.64 per capita on 48 pupils; No. 5, $11.75 each on 20 pupils. Dist. No. 3 in Clinton raises $3.12 per pupil; while Dist. No. 12 in Turtle, whose schoolhouse is only one mile from the city limits of Beloit, raises $28. 57 per capita on seven pupils, for a six months school.

Here, then, are districts only a few miles apart in one of which the per capita of local taxation is nine times what it is in the other. And in Manitowoc county the per capita rate in one district is 23 times what it is in another, making no mention of districts which raise nothing. The average rate per enrolled pupil in Manitowoc county, as a whole, is $3. 10. In Rock county, as a whole, it is $6.41, more than twice as much, while in the eastern half of the county it is $7.14. In Rock county, the very lowest per capita rate of district taxation is greater than the average rate in Manitowoc county.

It is a matter for regret that we have not found time to gather facts concerning the inequality of burdens as reckoned on the basis of assessed valuation of property in the districts. This is a work which ought yet to be done.

Returning to the condition of the schools themselves, and the quality of the results they are accomplishing, we recapitulate as follows: The country schools are suffering very generally and seriously from poor teaching due (1) to inadequate compensation, which prevents teachers from making more adequate preparation for their work and drives the better grades of talent into the city schools or into more remunerative callings; (2) to the lack of intelligence and discrimination shown by the majority of school officers in the selection of teachers, and their failure to get as good service as might be got; and (3) to the unequal distribution of pupils, some schools having more than can possibly be well taught by one teacher, while others, and by far the larger number, have so few as to be destructive of interest on the part of patrons, pupils, and teacher alike. Accessory evils are found in the grievous inadequacy of supervision under present conditions-an evil easily avoidable by a more liberal expenditure for this purpose -and in the indirect influence of city schools, tending to diminish the interest of the rural

population in their own schools, and drawing the cream of the teaching profession steadily away from the country.

It might seem, then, that the country school is the victim of inexorable natural conditions, laws of nature, so to speak, from which it has no hope of deliverance. Even Dr. Harris, U. S. Commissioner of Education, writes to this committee, "I have been in despair in regard to the improvement of the rural schools since 1870 and up to the time of writing my part of the report of the committee of twelve." But we must not accept any hopeless or pessimistic view of the future of the rural school; though it is true that new conditions now environ it. The conditions of forty years ago can never return; nor is it desirable that they should. We must rouse ourselves from our Rip Van Winkle nap and push hard to create new conditions more genial and less perverse than those which now prevail. And, first of all, we must face existing facts and not thrust our heads, ostrich-like, into the sand to delude ourselves into a sense that all is well. We must agitate; we must investigate; we must not let the public mind be hushed to sleep with the assurance that there is nothing the matter and that we can not help it, anyhow. But we must not be content with criticism and analysis. We must put forth constructive and remedial effort.

We must consider, then, what agencies will best accelerate the slow and halting progress of the country schools. These schools will never reach their best estate, never satisfactorily fulfill the ends for which they exist, until more money is spent on them. We must remember that in education more than anywhere else, "there are no cheap things;" the cheapest is the dearest. Better prepared and matured teachers, better supervision, better schoolhouses and equipment, all mean greater expenditure.

But good schools do not call for extravagance; they call only for a wiser economy, in the true sense of the word. We ought to be getting better returns from even our present outlay. The first essential to this is better administration; but this means more intelligent, public-spirited, and faithful school officers; in short, better men in charge of school interests. That system of school admistration is best which will tend most surely to put such men in charge of school affairs, and especially of the selection of teachers.

It is thought by some that the apathy and indifference of the farmer class towards their schools could be removed and a fresh interest and faith in universal education be aroused by a remodeling of the course of study of

country schools, introducing and emphasizing new studies or exercises calculated to stimulate a love for rural life and pursuits. To make such a departure practicable and successful, would involve also a new departure on the part of our normal schools in the way of a new and differentiated preparation of teachers for this new work, which to be vital and effective, must be presented objectively, and not after the traditional text-book methods. Your committee are not agreed as to what might be reasonably expected of such a movement; but there are those in the land who have confidence in the value and efficacy of such a change in the country school curriculum; and their proposals should receive thoughtful attention.

To bring to a focus all that has thus far been said, it seems clear to this committee that three advance movements are essential to secure the proper development of the country schools:

1. A remodeling of our system of supervision, in which the county, regardless of size or population, is made the unit of supervisory organization, and the substitution of a new unit such that no superintendent shall be charged with the supervision of more than seventy schools as the outside limit. Along with this, should go such a change in the manner of appointing superintendents, and in the tenure of office, as will give them greater independence and make it no longer dangerous for them to discharge their responsibilities faithfully. Such a change would add but slightly to the burdens of any tax-payer and would greatly diminish certain evils from which the schools are suffering. It would seem that the time is now ripe for a vigorous movement in this direction.

2. The consolidation of weak districts and the elimination of at least all schools averaging less than ten pupils each, except in special or peculiar cases. This consolidation would, naturally, involve provision for the free transportation of pupils living at long distances from the school. The number of schools and schoolhouses in Wisconsin could be greatly reduced to the benefit of all concerned. Fewer and better located schools, with better teachers, better classification, better equipment, and a revived local interest are easily practicable whenever we can cut loose the bonds of inertia and tradition which yet invest us.

3. The lodging of school administration in fewer, more intelligent, and more responsible hands, to the end that greater care and discrimination shall be exercised in the employment and support of teachers.

The two measures last mentioned are so closely related, so largely necessitated by the same causes, namely our suicidal small-district system, that their accomplishment must be sought by the same means, and at the same time. Consolidation of weak schools into stronger ones, and consolidation of school administration into fewer and better hands, these are the great means for the regeneration and higher development of the country schools.

This is an age of consolidation, in business, in industry, and, let us believe, in education. Says Supt. Stryker, of Kansas: "Combination and concentration are the order of the day. This concentration, this combination, this division of labor, this increased skill of each laborer, this increase in the product, this crowding out of the smaller by the larger, must continue until it becomes universal in every department of human activity." The rural school will be no exception. It is only a question of time, and a question of how to accomplish the change with the least friction. The small district as a unit of school administration must go, sooner or later; what shall take its place? There is something to be said for the county as a unit. That is already the unit in most of our southern states. But the political township is more in consonance with the traditions and practice of our northern states. The township is our natural and historical unit of political administration. No smaller unit has ever been successful; indeed, no smaller has ever been attempted except in this one particular of school administration. The whole logic of our political development points to the township as our unit of local government.

But we are not left to mere theorizing. The township as a unit of school organization has been thoroughly tested and thoroughly approved. Some states like Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, have given it long and satisfactory trial. Others, like Maine, Vermont, and New Jersey, have more recently fallen into line, but are enthusiastic in praise of the new departure. It seems pertinent and useful to introduce here the testimony of these states to the merits of the township system, as embodied in letters to this committee from their state superintendents. These are not ancient deliverances, but up-to-date, expressions of current experience, viz.:

From the State Superintendent of Indiana. INDIANAPOLIS, Nov. 29, 1898. "Concerning the township system, I have this to say: I think it is the proper unit of school management, because in this unit the

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adjustment and readjustment of school districts may be made much easier than when the district is the geographical unit. I think the people in Indiana would not go back to the district system under any consideration. the first place it is very convenient for the state department to reach the educational officers of the state since the number is comparatively smaller. All told, the school officers of Indiana are about 1,200. Then, making a county board of education out of the school trustees of the township enables the county superintendent to unify and classify the work of his county through this agency. I feel sure that the township system is by far the most economical one. In some of the recent comparisons of the district and township unit systems, the authors have made the statement that the township system is much more expensive than the other; but these persons have failed in making their comparisons to show the conditions in the district-system states. In the comparison above referred to, there was nothing said about the very low salaries and about the very large number of teachers who were nothing more than young girls. In Indiana, one rarely enters the profession under eighteen years of age, and a very large per cent. of our teachers are mature; they are persons of from twenty to fifty years of age; many of them remaining in the work from three to thirty years. The teachers of our country schools very rarely teach for less than $30 per month, many of them receiving as high as $50 and $60.

Under the township unit system we have also organized the township institute, which is one of the most important factors in our system at this time. These institutes are held once a month, at which time the teachers in many instances conduct the institute very much like model normal schools.

This system has made it possible for us to do more with the Young People's Reading Circle than we could have done otherwise. The Teachers' Reading Circle has been made more helpful, it seems to me, than it could possibly be under the district system. I may be very biased in my views, but it does not seem to me that there is any end to the argument in favor of the township unit system as compared with the district system."

From the State Superintendent of Ohio.

COLUMBUS, Dec. 5, 1898. "The township system has this distinct advantage over the small-district system of school administration, viz.: Pupils may be transferred easily from one school to another; taxes may be levied more equitably, and public sentiment

quite as freely consulted. We have tried both in this state.'

Maine, Vermont, and New Jersey all changed to the township system in 1893. After five years of trial, this is what they say: From the State Superintendent of Maine. AUGUSTA, April 9, 1898.

"Since the township system went into effect in 1893, we have reduced our schools by someUnder the old system, thing over one-fifth. about half of the teachers were relatives of the school officials. At present, that number is reduced to about one-fifth.

The time which teachers remain in the same school is materially increased. A larger proportion of our teachers than ever before are scholastically and professionally fitted for their work because of the greater care which has been used under the township system in the selection of teachers.

More has been done in repairing and improving the schoolhouses in the past five years than in the previous fifteen.

Many who formerly bitterly opposed the law are at present among its ardent supporters.

The township system will not cure all the evils from which the public schools are suffering, but under it we shall have better teachers, longer terms of service, more suitable better physical surroundings, and hence

schools."

From the State Superintendent of Vermont.

MONTPELIER, Nov. 20, 1898. "The town system has been in operation in Vermont since April 1, 1893. The system has greatly minimized the evils indicated in your paper. It equalizes taxation in the towns themselves. Under the district system thre was great disparity in the taxation in the di ferent districts. The system secures better teachers, and gives them greater permanency. Under the town system there is a consolidation of schools. In Vermont there was a reduction from 171 to 65 schools of six pupils or less made by the transition from the district to the town system. By the introduction of the town system, the expenditure of transportation was doubled."

From the State Superintendent of New Jersey.
TRENTON, April 27, 1898.

"The township system has certainly tended to diminish the number of feeble schools in New Jersey, and is destined to accomplish much in that lime. The matter of discontinuing small schools and transporting pupils is now under consideration by many of our school boards, and an enactment of our last legislature for this purpose will, I believe, give

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