The earliest argument in favor of the consolidation of rural schools was its economy. But experience has shown that consolidated schools cost rather more than the one-teacher schools. The more recent argument in their favor is that they are more efficient in securing educational results. This claim is for the most part based upon general appearances rather than upon actual statistical evidence. The present writer during a visit to Delaware County, Indiana, in which consolidated schools have

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... ted for more than a decade, and in which they are as well developed as in any other county in the country, attempted to secure some statistical data from the records of the county superintendent showing the relative efficiency of the consolidated schools of that county as compared with the ungraded one-teacher schools. The records of the office related only to attendance and scholarship as shown by the eighth-grade examinations given at the end of the school year in both graded and ungraded schools. Attendance statistics were secured from six graded consolidated schools each having from four to eight teachers. Similar statistics were obtained from thirty-four one-teacher rural schools taken at random having an aggregate attendance about equal to that of the six consolidated schools. The yearly term for most of these schools was one hundred and forty days. Where the length of the term varied slightly from this number, as in a few cases, the figures were reduced to the 14o-day basis. The average number of days attended by each student was, in the consolidated schools, i i . I days; and in the ungraded rural schools, 107 . days, a difference in attendance of four days in favor of the consolidated schools. In the latter the pupils attended on 169 This content downloaded from 128.123.