How lmproved Highways Are Promoting Rural Education

SEPTEMBER, 1929 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Page Fifteen How Improved Highways Are Promoting Rural Education By KATHERINE M. COOK Chief, Division of Rural Education U. S. Bureau of Education in “The Highway Magazine”

BIGGER and better rural school houses replacing the little old red school house of traditional reverence are of growing importance as measures of educational progress in modern rural communities. More and more miles of better and better highways have preceded, accompanied and followed the building of such school houses in thousands of rural communities during the past decade. Ohio offers one example. In the past ten years 4000 consolidated schools have been built there, an average of one a day, replacing thousands of schools of the oneand two-teacher variety. In 1927 Ohio led the state in local disbursements and was among the first 14 in state disbursements for improved roadways. There are in round numbers 44,000 miles of surfaced roads within her borders.

A number of other states which are outstanding in respect to recent progress in school consolidation are equally outstanding in road building, with programs apparently paralleling each other in time as well as territory involved. North Carolina is another excellent example. Hence, if experience is any criterion for judgment, it may be assumed that the two programs (improved roads and improved schools) are closely related.

Last year there was spent $40,000,000 for transporting children to schoolprobably most of them over improved highways. Nearly 15,000 motor busses served 14,695 schools. For approximately four to five million children enrolled in the elementary and secondary grades of our consolidated schools, now totaling 17,000, this expenditure represents an investment in ultimate values difficult to estimate educationally and is a “noble experiment” in offering wider social opportunities.

Whether good roads promote and precede consolidation, or consolidation promotes and precedes good roads may be considered as in that interesting class of questions sometimes labeled “academic.” In a progressive county in a southwestern state in which consolidated

SCHOOLS ROAD BUILDING FACTOR

schools had all but completely replaced those of the one-teacher variety, the county superintendent was invited by the chamber of commerce in the county seat to speak at the weekly luncheon of that body on “How Good Roads Have Helped Secure Consolidated Schools in County.” The superintendent replied that she would gladly accept the invitation to speak if the topic were changed to read: “How Consolidated Schools Have Helped Secure Good Roads in County.” Another county superintendent addressing an educational meeting recently, was asked if the consolidation of schools, which had reached practically 100 per cent in that county, came as the result of improved roads. Her reply was: “No; we decide to consolidate the schools, select the site, proceed with our building, and in the meantime petition the county commissioners to improve the road leading to the schools. In our case good roads follow as well as precede school consolidation.” Barring for the moment the more or less exceptional cases, improved highways are as apt to be a result of school consolidation as is consolidation to be the result of improved highways. Much of the same spirit necessary to promote the one, promotes also the other.

That improved educational facilities for thousands of farm children, through centralization, wait on improved road conditions is a fact not to be overlooked. Isolated homes and communities where the poor quality of the soil, difficult topography, lack of funds for drainage and other fundamental road improvements combine to eliminate the possibility of long-distance travel, are still with us in large numbers and particularly prevalent in some of our states.

CONSOLIDATION BENEFIT

But the significance of improved roads to the education of children in these situations is not confined to the extension of the consolidation movement. Difficulty of walking to and from school, increased by necessity of the children to struggle over muddy, undrained roads, often in deep snow or through inclement weather, has been found in several studies of the question to be the most significant cause of irregular school attendance of country children.

Even if children must walk to the school be the school large or smallgood roads increase educational opportunities to a considerable degree.

Cooperation in school and road programs of improvement is, of course, the satisfactory plan. Schools can and should be located not only centrally in relation to the children served, but centrally in relation to the system of improved highways. Accessibility is far from being in 1929 the question it was in 1910 or even in 1920. Ten miles to school over a good road in a modern transportation vehicle is a short trip. It may and often does involve less danger to health as well as less time than a walk of a mile in cold or wet weather over muddy or otherwise un-improved roads.

Good local roads and school consolidation are bringing education home to the farm education for the parents as well as for the children. They are bringing opportunities for high school education within easy access of country children, permitting them to spend the night under the home roof and in the family circle. Good roads combined with the innate faith of every American parent in the efficiency of education as a means of making for his children a better world than the one he himself has lived in, are changing the social order in farm communities.

In the better organized and more progressive communities, school centralization is proceeding on a larger scale than ever before. Whole counties are now being surveyed and schools located with a view to the best interests of all the children in the county. Several high schools are now each serving territory formerly served by eight to 12 schools. Larger enrollments mean better (Continued on page 23)