258 THE FISCAL PROBLEM IN MISSOURI 
Another factor in the school problem is the one-room rural 
district. Educators are generally agreed that the great ma- 
jority of one-room schools are relatively inefficient, and that 
in many instances the educational opportunities afforded are 
extremely meager. In a consolidated district it is possible to 
adjust the size of the teaching staff to the number of pupils, 
while in the one-room districts no such adjustment is possible. 
If the teacher in a one-room school with 5 pupils in average 
daily attendance is paid $60 per month, the per pupil cost of 
instruction is $12.00 per month. If in another district there 
are 30 pupils in average daily attendance the per pupil cost 
of instruction is $2.00 per month. 
[t is generally recognized that local initiative is a valuable 
factor in school administration and finance. The consol- 
idated schools in Missouri are a splendid example of the 
effectiveness of local initiative. There is little doubt that 
local pride in a consolidated school is greater when it is 
financed to a large extent by the community than it would be 
if the school were financed almost entirely by a non-local 
agency. Localinitiative should not be impaired; it should be 
stimulated. That is the principle which underlies the 
present state aid to consolidated districts in the state. The 
state supplements the funds raised by local initiative and 
helps to improve the educational opportunities that local 
initiative can afford. As a result, there is no danger that the 
state’s contributions will tend to reduce local initiative to the 
point where the community will come to rely on aid from out- 
side sources without first attempting to solve its own 
problems. 
Assessed valuations in relation to public school finance 
have been dealt with fully in the previous discussion and need 
not be considered further in this connection. A method that 
uses assessed valuation as a basis for apportionment of state 
funds is deficient, since equity can be obtained only if the 
valuations are absolutely uniform and all property that is 
assessable is actually assessed. The extreme inequalities 
that result under the Missouri assessment procedure make 
the basis of assessed valuations a most unsatisfactory one for 
the apportionment of state grants in aid of public schools. 
Finally, the problem of public school finance in Missouri