The rural school problem will never be solved until we are able to provide teachers who are thoroughly prepared for the work which they have to do, and who look upon this work as being as important as any other profession. At present the rural school teachers fall into two rather large classes: first, the young, inexperienced, and often untrained teacher; and, second, the old, often out-of-date teacher, who has been unable to keep step with the progress of the town schools and has been pushed out into the country. Neither of these classes is fitted to give the best instruction in the rural schools; neither of them considers the position of a rural teacher as a permanent one, and in order to accomplish his best work the rural teacher should be expected to live in one community for a term of years so that he may fully understand and appreciate the problems of that community and become thoroughly acquainted with the patrons of his school. The wages of the rural teacher should be such as will enable him to live in comfort, and as part of his wages the Government might very well assign him a parcel of land, together with living quarters, which would tend to make his residence in the district more permanent and which would enable him to carry on experimental work in agriculture at his own home. There is no doubt but that the time will come when consolidated schools will be established in each _barrio_ for the benefit of the children of the community. In this way, better teachers, better school buildings, better equipment, and a better arranged schedule of studies can be provided, as an untrained teacher who works with poor facilities and who has to handle two different groups of children in the day and who may have six grades to teach, is working under a disadvantage which greatly handicaps the work. This is especially true when the teacher has no permanent interest in the rural school problem and regards his term of office there simply as a stepping-stone to a place in the graded school system of the town. In the annual report of the Commissioner of Education for 1914-15 we find the following data in regard to the rural schools of Porto Rico: