. The American public school; a genetic study of principles, practices, and present problems . s ; and besides it fails to provide fornational unity. We have made a very fortunate de-velopment in overcoming this localism since 1890. (a) Consolidation. There are those who claim thatthe backwardness of rural education is our most criticalsocial problem. Farm life has been very greatlymodified by the industrial and social changes of thepast fifty years. The oxcart, the saddle, and even thespring wagon have gone, so have the double-shovelcorn plow, the cradle, and even the reaper. But theold one-r
. The American public school; a genetic study of principles, practices, and present problems . s ; and besides it fails to provide fornational unity. We have made a very fortunate de-velopment in overcoming this localism since 1890. (a) Consolidation. There are those who claim thatthe backwardness of rural education is our most criticalsocial problem. Farm life has been very greatlymodified by the industrial and social changes of thepast fifty years. The oxcart, the saddle, and even thespring wagon have gone, so have the double-shovelcorn plow, the cradle, and even the reaper. But theold one-room school remains, almost exactly as itwas fifty years ago, except that the big boys and girls THE RECENT PERIOD, 1890-1920 209 are ashamed to attend it. It is a disgrace to anyprogressive farm community. It would appear thatthe consoHdated rural school is the key to its solution,because only thereby can secondary education be madeeasily available to country boys and girls. Consolida-tion means the abandonment of several one-room ruralschools in adjacent districts, and the substitution in. Back to the Farm. A home talent play very popular inconsolidated schools. their stead of one large graded school. This involvestransportation of pupils, and provides for a highschool. This movement had made a beginning inMassachusetts as early as 1890. Several other states,— Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont,Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, — followed duringthe next decade; that is, permissive laws were passed,and a few schools were consolidated. Since then themovement has spread quite generally, though the vast 210 THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL majority of the old one-room schools remain to thisday. At the present writing, there are no statisticsavailable as to the number of consolidated schoolsnow in existence. This is partly due to the fact thatthe definition of a consolidated school has not beenstandardized. But those in a position to be best in-formed estimate that there are
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