Brainard, No. 10, with an average attendance for four years of 7 scholars; cost for 1893, $278.15. London, No. 9, average attendance for four years, 13 scholars; cost the town for 1893, $277.96. Jabbok, No. 6, average attendance for four years, 13 scholars; cost the town for 1893, $274.23. Hubbard, No. 3, average attendance for four years of 12 scholars; cost the town $338.81 for 1893. East Wallop, No. 11, average attendance for four years of 6 scholars; cost the town $253.15. Here were 6 schools with an aggregate attendance of 62 scholars, costing the town $1,689.55 for the school year. The simple perusal of these figures convinces the judgment that this is an extravagant use of school money. To transport these scholars for the past year it has cost the town $1,045, a net gain of $644 55. This saving in money is an item well worth consideration, but more important still is the fact that we have placed these scholars in schools where the advantages are superior to their old district schools. "The committee has been able to reduce the number of schools in the town from 13 to 7, and to accommodate all the scholars without crowding. They have not found it necessary to build any new school buildings, nor to make additions to the old ones. We can not discover that the cost of maintaining our 7 schools has been materially increased by the addition of the scholars from the districts whose schools were discontinued. It is obvious that 7 schools can be carried on for far less money than 13, and this shows what an important item this $1,045 spent for transportation becomes. Whatever money we have saved by the consolidation of schools has been expended in such a way as to render value received for the expenditure. The expense incurred for transportation, although necessary and unavoidable, makes no showing in our record for the year, and we can not suppress a regret that so large an amount of money must be diverted from its legitimate purpose."

RHODE ISLAND.

[From the report for 1834 of State School Commissioner Thomas B. Stockwell.]

Conveyance of children.—In connection with the closing of some very small schools in towns where the district system has been abolished, there has arisen quite a question as to what extent the town should provide free conveyance or transportation for the children whose schools are thus closed to the nearest school.

Upon the general question the law is silent in so far as express terms are concerned, but it has always been the ruling of the department that the powers conferred upon the school committees with reference to the management of the schools were very broad and that matters found to be necessary for the best and wisest conduct of the schools were within the scope of the committee's power, unless specifically prohibited. Accordingly, in a few instances, at different periods, some committees have made more or less provision of this character. But the local feeling against the closing of a school is generally so strong that committees are very loath to take such

action.

The time, however, has fully come when this question of what we will do with these few children scattered over large tracts of country must be answered, and that, too, in a manner that shall be consistent with the rights of the children and the duties of the town.

There are 64 schools in the State having less than 10 pupils cach. These are divided among eighteen of the towns of the State, showing that the evil of small schools is quite well distributed. Now, for the purposes of a school, less than 10 children are worth but little; such small numbers give no chance for any system of classification; they afford no opportunity for the cultivation of the healthy spirit of emulation and interest which numbers always foster; the pupils fail to learn the lessons of personal adjustment and adaptation which are so essential a preparation for life and for which the public school, if it be of good size, affords almost the ideal

conditions.

Now, it is very clear that it is useless to expect that, save in raro instances, these schools will over attain to any larger size; hence, if we are to have larger schools, the only way is to bring these pupils together in a smaller number of schools. But this is impossible in many cases unless provision is made at public expense for carrying the children to and from school; instead of bringing the school to the child, which has always been the idea, we now reverse and carry the child to the school. The result is the same in both cases-the best facilities and advantages possible for the child.

In our neighbor on the north and east, Massachusetts, this experiment has been tried for several years, until it has passed beyond the experimental stage and has become recognized and advocated as one of the best and most satisfactory schemes of modern times.

The last report from one of the agents of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, Mr. George A. Walton, says that eight out of fifteen towns in Barnstable Conuty and thirty-six out of fifty-four in Middlesex County pursue the policy of concentrating their schools into one or two and transporting the children to and

from school without charge. The gross sum expended last year in those two counties for the transportation of children was $21,189.21. It is their experience also that, after the people have once realized the difference between the two methods, they are never ready to go back to the old.

I think, therefore, the time has fully come to advocate this plan as a policy to be taken up and adopted. We have a number of towns where there are several of these small schools scattered all over the town. Not only the matter of keeping up the school must be taken into account, but the schoolhouse itself is in need of attention. Before more money is spent upon all of these small, scattered buildings, it should be carefully considered whether the time has not come to leave them and erect one or two houses in their place.

I believe this course to be in the line of economy, with reference both to the buildings and their care, and also to the efficiency of the schools and the interests of the pupils. While, as above said, it is undoubtedly within the province of a school committee to do this thing, and certainly within that of a town to decide upon such a course, it would very probably be helpful in bringing matters to a crisis if the law were so amended as to provide in express terms for this action.

NEW YORK.

[From report of State Supt. Charles R. Skinner for 1894-95.]

I can not refrain from again calling the attention of the public to the matter of the consolidation of weak rural districts. 铃 There were 7,529 school districts in this State where the average attendance upon instruction in the public schools during the last school year varied from 1 to 20 pupils, while there were 2,983 districts in the State where the average daily attendance during the past school year was less than 10 students. To maintain a school, provide proper facilities, and employ a teacher for so small a number of students is manifestly a perversion of that aid which the people so generously accord the educational interests of the State.

The township system, or some unit larger than the present system, in my judg ment, is the only solution of the difficulty, and until the State shall have adopted that system, its rural schools will continue to decline in efficiency. There is, in my opinion, no better school in America than the union free school and village school of our State, but the results there obtained can not possibly be achieved in the weak rural districts where the average attendance is less than 20 pupils, and as shown above in nearly 3,000 districts, less than 10. The ambitions and rivalries of the students-incentives to greater exertion on the part of the pupils—which prevailed thirty-five years ago in these country districts no longer exist. The school is lifeless, can not be graded, there is little enthusiasm among the students and that activity and earnestness which comes from numbers is entirely lacking.

* * *

My attention has been called to many districts of the State that have maintained a teacher during the past school year by the State teachers' quota of $100 apportioned to each district maintaining a teacher for a period of thirty-two weeks, where there have been no students whatever in attendance. The property in that district thereby escapes all taxation for school purposes, while in the adjoining district property of the same valuation is sometimes very largely taxed to provide the school facilities, and the State aid to that school is diminished by the teachers' quota, which some inhabitants of an adjoining district simply absorb without rendering any service whatever to the wards of the State. If New York hopes to maintain her preeminence in educational matters, this wrong must be righted. In my judgment it can never be under the existing district system. I earnestly bespeak the careful consideration of this problem on the part of legislators and people interested in the school system of the State. Until relief shall have been obtained, however, by legislation in this direction, these districts should be consolidated with adjoining districts. I have caused to be prepared a bill, which has been presented to the legislature at its present session, greatly facilitating such consolidation, and also providing for the transportation of pupils where such consolidation will make necessary long distances to be traveled by the pupils. Should this proposition meet with legislative and executive approval, I look for a substantial improvement in the school facilities of many of our rural districts. This relief is but tentative, and the fall measure of improvement to which the pupils of the rural districts, as well as the taxpayers therein, are entitled will only come by the adoption of some system of district representation other than that which now exists.

CARRYING PUPILS TO SCHOOL.

[Communication to the Wisconsin Journal of Education.]

Some time ago we gave an account of the experiment at Concord, Mass., by which the country schools were abandoned and all the pupils carried to the village graded

ED 95-47*

school at a considerable saving of money and the advantage of having better schools for the country children and more months in the year. The plan has been adopted rapidly in Massachusetts in the last four years, and is now in use in more than half the towns. That State has the advantage of the town system of school government, which makes this method of bringing children to school instead of carrying the school to the children much easier to manage.

Now Ohio is following in the same line. Kingsville, in Ashtabula County, in the old Western Reserve, secured the necessary legislation to consolidate their subdistricts three years ago and carry the pupils to the center. The expense of schooling for pupils in the districts outside the center has been reduced from an average of $22.75 to an average of $12.25. Fewer teachers are employed and better salaries paid, and thus better teachers secured. More pupils attend school and they attend more regularly, and they have the advantage of larger classes and more time for each class. And there has been a saving in money to the taxpayers of more than $1,000 in the three years.

Madison, Lake County, has followed this example the present school year, and we take from the statement of the principal in the Ohio Educational Monthly some things of interest. He says:

"Fifty pupils from three adjoining subdistricts are conveyed in covered vehicles, or barges, at a total expense of $392 for the school year of nine months, three teams being required. All of the children are carried directly from their homes; none are compelled to walk any distance; the longest ride for any one is about 3 miles. (This is an improvement on the Concord plan.)

"The job of carrying these pupils is let under a written contract, each contractor giving a bond of $100 for the faithful performance of his part of the contract. "Following are some of the provisions of the contract:

"1. The contractor to furnish a covered conveyance which can be closed at the sides and ends as the weather requires, seats to extend lengthwise of the vehicle, with steps and a door at the rear end. There must be seating capacity sufficient to accommodate all of the pupils in the subdistrict without crowding.

"2. The contractor to furnish a good team, and robes sufficient to keep the children comfortable, and in very cold weather to heat the inside of the conveyance with soapstones or an oil stove.

"3. The team to be driven by the contractor or some trusty person of adult age who shall have control of the children, and be responsible for their conduct while they are in the conveyance, no profane or indecent language, quarreling, or improper conduct to be allowed therein.

"4. The conveyance to arrive at the schoolhouse not earlier than 8.30, nor later than 8.55 a. m., and to leave at 4.05 p. m.

"Following are some of the good results which I can already see in the new plan: (1) The pupils enjoy the advantages of that interest, enthusiasm, and confidence which numbers always bring; (2) pupils can be better classified and graded; (3) tardiness and irregular attendance are reduced to the minimum; (4) no quarreling, improper conduct, or improper language so common among children on their way to and from school; (5) no wet feet or wet clothing, nor colds resulting therefrom; (6) pupils have the advantage of better schoolrooms, better lighted, better heated, better ventilated; (7) this plan is sure to result in fewer and better teachers, better paid."

We have in Wisconsin an optional township law. This has been adopted only in the north and newly settled part of the State. It has not been popular in the older settled part of the State. But now let some town in Wisconsin try this plan of carrying the scholars to the school instead of the school to the scholars and show practically its advantages and it would be the strongest possible argument for a township system of school government. One public-spirited citizen in a town favorably located could work out this reform in his own town. Could not some one of our county superintendents inspire some school district officer to work up this plan for his own town?

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A CHECK LIST OF AMERICAN SUMMER SCHOOLS.'

I. POSITION AND OBJECTS.

The summer school is an American product and a mixture of two ideas. It stands as the nineteenth century form of the Greek games and represents also the mediaval desire to popularize knowledge. It was suggested largely by the camp meeting which is a sort of religious folkmote-a summer school of religion. It is a cross between the picnic and the lecture room, and in some places the former was made the more prominent of the two ideas.

The summer school is due in part to the fact that twenty years ago few had the idea of making themselves professional teachers; they were doing the work of a teacher as a stepping-stone to something else and all their spare time was used in preparation for their life work. Now teaching has become a life work and summer schools are used in preparation for it. Further, it is one of the results of the discovery that it is unnecessary to loiter away three months of the year, but that a considerable part of this time can be employed to advantage if accompanied with a change of environment and occupation. On this point writes Melvil Dewey, the apostle of the summer school: "Thousands testify after trial that the change of surroundings and occupation, the stimulus of congenial companions, interested in the same subjects, and the many provisions of our best summer schools for healthful recreation are better preparation for hard work the next year than a vacation spent in idleness. In brief, it is evident that the tendency is growing among teachers to congregate for a few weeks during the long vacation; our problem, therefore, is how to get the most good from these meetings."

On the other hand, the summer school has not had a road to travel that is entirely free from obstacles. Dr. W. B. Harlow, writing in The Academy (Syracuse) as early as 1886, introduces an article in opposition to the summer school with the quotation of a philosophic passage from Thoreau: "Sometimes in a summer morning I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, wrapt in a reverie amid the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude, while birds sang around or ditted noiselessly through the house; until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew, in those seasons, like corn in the night. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance." He continued by quoting Dr. Holmes: "All lecturers, all professors, all schoolmasters have rats and grooves in their minds into which their conversations is perpet ually sliding," and with these quotations as a preface Dr. Harlow emphasizes his own fear of the narrowing influence of the summer school by exclaiming: "It is from these ruts that our summer vacations may happily deliver us. During these times of recreation the companionship of others of our own profession may be agreeable; but if this results in so narrowing our lives that no other topic but school can awaken our enthusiasm, let us for two months at least flee from one another as if we were in danger of catching the plague," and continues by asking the question if the majority of "true teachers, after ten months of faithful labor in crowded rooms,” are in a "fit condition to spend their vacation in brain work?” A milder note of objection comes from Anna McClure Sholl, in The Bachelor of Arts, who enters a protest to one phase of the movement by contrasting the propagandism of university extension and the summer school with the usual conservatism of educational institutions; it used to be that the man sought the school, now the school seeks the man and like a real chapman takes to the road with its wares. While the summer school is not an old institution it is one which has already outgrown its name. The term is now used to denote that large and increasing number

1 Prepared by Dr. Stephen B. Wecks.

of schools which avail themselves of the comparative leisure that is offered by the summer vacation of teachers to emphasize methods of teaching or advanced instruction along particular or special lines. The idea of the summer school was at first to give normal instruction, or to make investigations into one subject only, but the movement is now developing into a general summer course, while some institutions, like the University of Chicago, the Michigan Mining School, and the Michigan Agricultural College, throw open their doors to a regular summer session, which they treat in all respects just as they do any other session of the school year.

The summer school has outgrown its original idea in another direction. It is now no longer a summer school, but a winter school as well. As the summer was originally chosen because of its comparative freedom and the greater suitability of climate in the Middle and Northern States, so the idea has been reversed in the extreme South and we have the Florida Chautanqua held at De Funiak Springs in February and March, and the Catholic Winter School of America, which held its first session in New Orleans February 16 to March 14, 1896, and was a financial success.

The length of the term varies in different schools from a few days to three months. The tendency to increase the length of time and make use of as much of the vacation as possible is increasing and there has been a material change in the character of the courses offered. At first it was the custom to give many short courses, or single lectures. It is now the custom to make the courses of lectures as continuous and connected as possible. The summer school has come down to business rather than pleasure.

Summer schools may be divided roughly into the following classes according to the phases of education which they emphasize particularly: (1) Schools that teach special branches of knowledge, as ancient and modern languages, literature, psychol ogy, natural sciences, law, medicine; (2) schools of the arts, as drawing, industrial art, music, oratory, etc.; (3) professional, normal, or schools of methods where the training of teachers is the main idea-summer schools of pedagogy; (4) general, where all or nearly all the subjects in the general curriculum of education are treated; (5) Chautauqua, where the idea of study is united with that of rest and recreation and where the Chautauqua course of reading (C. L. S. C.) is made the basis of the educational work.

Again, from the standpoint of control they may be divided into several classes: (1) Private, which range in scope from a school devoting itself to preparing students for college or to making up the deficiencies of common school teachers, to a private school of chemistry, law, or Bible study; (2) college or university, which are usually more general in character; (3) State, which are generally devoted to the training of teachers, are more or less local and even migratory in character.

In the matter of fees they range all the way from the private with fees sufficient to support the school to the public State schools which are free. As a rule they are not self supporting.

In the matter of location, a change of environment is needed first of all. Consid eration must be taken of the (1) available educational plant, and (2) the advantages of the environment of the locality chosen. Much depends on the contagious inspiration of large numbers with common sympathies. The location should possess several attractions; beauty, healthfulness, etc., are attractions, but many places other than summer resorts should be and are chosen. The value of life for two months to a country teacher in New York City in the environs of an institution like Columbia College are very great, while the advantages of life in the country to a city teacher are equally as great.

The summer school in modified forms now exists also in England, Canada, Scotland, Germany, Wales, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Turkey, and in Japan, where a summer school for Bible study and conference of Christian workers, modeled on the Northfield Conference, was held at Doshisha in 1887, and was transferred the next year to Hakone, where it had soon 200 students and lasted twelve days.

II. THE FIRST SUMMER SCHOOLS.

Harvard College seems to have been the first to recognize that colleges and universities were under obligations to students whose circumstances prevented them from attending the regular courses. In 1863 university lectures were given on Saturdays at Cambridge for the special benefit of teachers in the secondary schools. At a later date these lectures were abandoned.

A few years later, 1869, a dozen professors and students, chiefly from the scientific schools of Harvard University, made a trip to Colorado, where scientific results of considerable value were obtained. During the next four years parties of students under Professor Marsh and other Yale professors made several expeditions to the Rocky Mountains. They secured a large and valuable collection of geologic and mineralogical specimens which are now deposited in the Museum of Natural History in New Haven. Professor Orton, of Vassar, was also accustomed to spend a few