nother in a
few minutes, staying at each as long as he thinks necessary. Little time
is lost in travel. The opposite condition is one of the difficulties of
rural supervision, and it must be overcome in some satisfactory way.

=A Model Rural School.=--It would be a good plan for the state to
establish in each county one model rural school. Such schools might be
maintained wholly or in part by the state, and they would become models
for all the neighboring districts. Children are always imitative, and
people are only children of a larger growth. Most people learn to do
things better by imitation; and so these model state schools would serve
as patterns to be studied and copied by others.

=The Teacher Should Lead.=--The school should be the mainspring of
educational and social life in the community; hence, only such teachers
should be employed as are real originators of activity in rural schools
and in rural life. The teacher should be a "live wire" and should be
"doing things" all the time. He should be the leader of his community
and his people.

=A Good Boarding Place.=--A serious difficulty connected with teaching
in the country is that of securing a good boarding place and temporary
home. This may not be a troublesome problem in the older and
well-established communities, but in the newer states and sparsely
settled sections the condition is almost forbidding. Half the enjoyment
of life consists in having a comfortable home and a good room to
oneself. This is absolutely necessary in order to do one's work well,
especially the work of the teacher. Some of the experiences which
teachers have been obliged to go through are almost incredible. Almost
every teacher of a country school could give vivid and pathetic
illustrations and examples of the discomforts, the annoyances, and the
trials to which a boarder in a strange family is subjected. The question
of a boarding place should be in the mind and plan of every school board
when they employ a teacher for their district. It is they who should
solve this problem for the teacher by having a good available home
provided in advance.

CHAPTER VI

CONSOLIDATION OF RURAL SCHOOLS

Much has been said and written in regard to what is generally known as
the "consolidation of schools." Men and women interested in the cause of
popular education have come to feel that the rural schools throughout
the country are making little or no progress, and public attention has
t