In 1900 the board of education of the independent district of Council Bluffs took the initiative by closing one of the suburban schools. Before the school was closed the special teacher of music, the special teacher of drawing and the City Superintendent of Schools were compelled to make frequent visits to this school. This was extremely inconvenient, as there was no street car running in the vicinity of the school, and the school claimed more than its proportion of the time of the special teachers and the superintendent. The school was closed and the pupils, twenty-eight in number, were transported to the different schools of the city at a less expense to the district by fifty dollars per month than was required to maintain the suburban school. The teacher was assigned to a grade in one of the other schools of the city. Thus a beginning of consolidation was made and there is abundant evidence to show that the system is more efficient, convenient and economical.

Soon the township of Garner, contiguous to the city of Council Bluffs, made a levy for two two-room buildings which were built in 1902 at a cost of $5,600. These are modern buildings, scientifically lighted, and heated by furnace according to the most approved plan. The slate blackboard on the wall, and the presence of single seats for the pupils, give them the appearance of modernly equipped schools. These schools accommodate over two hundred pupils. No pupils are transported at the expense of the school corporation. Only a few pupils have two miles as a maximum distance to travel in order to reach tne school; the major portion have less than one mile to travel. Suitable graduation exercises were held in June, 1903, at which time eight pupils were graduated from these schools. They are all now in attendance at the Council Bluffs High School. The plan is meeting with favor and promises much for educational progress in Garner township.

In Crescent, the township contiguous to Garner, the people have taken special interest in improving the educational conditions of the rural schools. In Crescent City, a small village in Crescent township, the tax-payers have erected a four-room modern school building at a cost of $4,500. To this school, from the two adjacent districts, the pupils, thirty-eight in number, are conveyed at the expense of the entire township. The plan is more efficient and economical. The cost of transportation is much less than was expended in maintaining the separate schools. The new building was. opened last winter for an evening school and literary work where the patrons of the district come into closer touch with the work. The school is being recognized as an organ of the community and not a mechanical attachment. Thus it appears that the consolidated school is going to fill a very important place in rural community life of the not-far-distant future.

On August 10, 1903, there was begun in Lake township, Clay county, the first term of the township consolidated school. The schoolhouse is located on the northeast corner of Section Twenty-one, in the geographica

center of the township. The building is frame and was erected at a cost of $3,040.00 and displaces seven district schools heretofore maintained by the township. The building contains four rooms, all on the ground floor, but at present only three are in use.

It is impossible to give figures which will show any relation between past and present cost, for the reason that the township has heretofore had but four months of school in each district, with poor buildings, no interest and poor attendance. The school has been running but two months, but it has demonstrated even thus soon several anvantages over the old system. Tardiness is absolutely unknown, and the attendance is better than that of the average city school.

It permits of graduation superior to the old system and this improvement has even at the start inspired the pupils with ambition.

It secures teachers of far better ability and secures them for a whole year instead of two months. The teachers now employed are of such training and ability that they could not have been secured in any district in the township at the salary previously paid. At the head is a man of training and ability, an individual with whom the pupils under the old system never came in touch.

It has centralized and vitalized the educational interest of a towship. It nas been a wonderful stimulus to other items of progress. A Sunday school has been started, the first ever held in the township. It is proposed to organize a lyceum, one of the most powerful agents in developing individual ability.

The enrollment last year in the seven schools at this time was sixty-eight. This year it is ninety-three, and gives every indication of being much larger. The increased attendance is boys of twelve to eighteen who did not go at all under the old system.

The children are carried in seven closed vehicles. The drivers receive from $40.00 to $60.00 per month. This is the greatest expense and will, in our opinion, make the cost per pupil greater than the old system. But it must be borne in mind that while the cost is greater, instead of seven schools with nine pupils each, one teacher two months and then another for two, there is now a graded school with regular attendance for eight months and an able teaching force provided.

The matter of hauling the pupils is the principal item of cost. In our judgment this can be accomplished in most places at less expense.

The system has its opponents who have fought it from the beginning, and who have said as did the croakers at Robert Fulton,-"It won't go. You can't do it," etc. The road supervisor has absolutely failed to fulfill the plain commands of the law. If some evil genuis had been selecting a township in the fair state of Iowa for the trial of consolidated schools, he could not have selected one in which the plan would have been better calculated to fail. Three large lakes from six to ten miles in circumference dot the landscape, and the township is covered with marshes. The roads are abandoned in some instances. But in spite of all these adverse conditions " It does go" and the new fangled idea"-new here-has been proven to be what it was claimed, a graded school with all the advantages of a village graded school, while the pupil can enjoy all the benefits and infinite blessings of the rural home.

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