eed it is
usually less expensive. It is a good thing for society to give a day's
education to one child; then education pays as it goes, and the more
days' education it can offer, the better.

=More Life in the Consolidated School.=--No one can deny that in this
larger school there can be more life and activity of all kinds, and a
much finer school spirit than was possible in the smaller schools.
Education means stimulation and where a great many children are brought
together and properly organized and graded there is a more stimulating
atmosphere and environment.

=Some Grading Desirable.=--In these consolidated schools a reasonable
amount of grading can be secured. It may be true that in some of the
large cities an extreme degree of grading defeats education and the true
aim of organization, but certainly in consolidated rural schools no such
degree of refinement need be reached or feared. Grading can remain here
in the golden mean and will be beneficial to pupils and teachers alike.
The pupils thus graded will have more time for recitation and
instruction, and teachers will have more time to do efficient work. In
the one-room rural school one teacher usually has eight grades and often
more, and sometimes she is required to conduct thirty or forty different
recitations in a day. Under such conditions the lack of time prevents
the attainment of good results.

=Better Teachers.=--It is also true that, where a school is larger and
attains to more of a system, better teachers are sought and secured by
the authorities. As we have already said, the cities are able to bid
higher for the best trained teachers, so the country districts suffer in
the economic competition. But the consolidated school being organized,
equipped, and graded, and representing, as it does, a large community or
district, the tendency will be to secure as good teachers as possible.
This is helped along by the comparison and competition of teachers
working side by side within the walls of the same building. In such
schools, too, there is usually a principal, and he exercises the
function of selection and rejection in the choice of teachers. All this
conduces to the securing of good teachers in the consolidated center.

=Better Buildings and Inspection.=--Similar improvements are attained in
the building as a whole, in the individual rooms, and in the interior
equipment. Such buildings are usually planned by competent architects
and are more adequate