=Regularity, Punctuality, and Attendance.=--The larger spirit and life
of the consolidated school induce greater punctuality and regularity of
attendance. When pupils are transported to school they are always on
time, and when they are members of a class where there is considerable
competition they attend school with great regularity. There are many
grown-up pupils in the district who would not go to the small schools,
but who will go to a larger school where they find their equals; and so
the school attendance is greatly increased. We have, then, the
advantages of greater punctuality, greater regularity, and more pupils
in attendance.
The school spirit is abroad in the consolidated school district; people
are thinking and talking school. It becomes the customary and
fashionable thing to send children to school.
=Better Supervision.=--There is also much better supervision in the
consolidated school; for, in addition to the supervision given by the
county superintendent or his assistants, there is also the supervision
of the principal, or head teacher. This is in itself no small factor in
the making of a good school. Good supervision always makes strongly for
efficiency.
=The School as a Social Center.=--Other effects than those above
mentioned will necessarily follow. The consolidated school can and
should become a social center. There should be an assembly room for
lectures, debates, literary and musical entertainments, and meetings of
all kinds. The lecture hall should be provided with a stage, and good
moving-picture exhibitions might be given occasionally. There, also, the
citizens may gather to hear public questions discussed. It could thus
become a civic and social center as well as an educational center. All
problems affecting the welfare of the community might be presented here;
the people could assemble to listen to the discussion of political and
other social and public questions, which are the subjects of thought
and of conversation in the neighborhood. This is real social and
educational life.
=Better Roads.=--Not only does consolidation tend to all the above
results but it does many other things incidentally. It leads to the
making of better roads; for where a community has to travel frequently
it will provide good roads. This is one of the crying needs of the day
throughout the country.
=Consolidation Coming Everywhere.=--Consolidation is now under way in
almost every state of the Union and wherever tried it has almost
invariably succeeded. In but very few places have rural communities
abandoned the educational, social, and civic center, and gone back to
their former state of isolation and deadly routine.
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