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21 <br />NPS 1=arm 10-900-a OMB No. 1024-0018 <br />(8-86) <br />United States Department of the Mterior <br />National Park Service <br />NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES <br />CONTINUATION SHEET <br />Section 8 Page 10 Mumhev School <br />name of property <br />Orange County, NC <br />county and state <br />towns and cities. With eighty percent of North Carolina's population living in rural areas, the <br />majority of people were not receiving an adequate education. Knight pressed that consolidation <br />was the answer to improving the rural school problem, stating, "It means more comfortable, <br />convenient, and attractive and better equipped school buildings. In such buildings the health and <br />the morals of the children are safeguarded to a greater degree than is possible in the smaller one- <br />room school." Included in the plan of consolidation endorsed by Knight was a.teacherage, a <br />feature constructed on the Murphey School property.s <br />For consolidation to fulfill its purpose, Knight also admitted that the state must first embrace a <br />policy of road building in order to transport rural students to the newly consolidated schools that <br />possibly were not located within walking distance. Without the "Good Roads" movement during <br />the 1920s, consolidation would not have been successful. Knight encouraged each consolidated <br />school to purchase wagons or buses and to hire dependable drivers. In 1925 Orange County <br />operated five school trucks costing $168Q.70 for.oil, gas and repairs and $783 for drivers.? Knight <br />explained that though the new consolidated school .would be more expensive than its older <br />counterpart, the costs to the taxable district would be offset by state funding available through <br />programs such as the State Special Building Fund, established to provide funding to each county <br />for the erection of public school houses. Another aid to local school districts was the Division of <br />Schoolhouse Planning, created in 192p by an appropriation from the legis{ature to assist the State <br />Board of Education in providing sufFicient buildings for public instruction. The Division of <br />Schoolhouse Planning set new design standards for educa#ional facilities and helped to organize <br />their construction. $ _ <br />Even with the great solution of consolidation, many rural newly consolidated schools sat in strong <br />contrast to their sister schools in the city. Often small rural schools like Murphey School were <br />inadequately staffed and short on materials and equipment. Rural schools, including elementary <br />and high schools, emphasized more of an agricultural education due~to the number of students <br />who would choose professions such as farming.and domestic Life. In Orange County there were <br />forty-seven rural schools in 1925 with ninety teachers. Orange County public schools' agricultural <br />departments not only focused on farming methods in the community, but also instructed adult <br />farmers and organized county fairs,9 <br />s Knight, Edgar W. "The Consoiidatian of Rural Schools v 2"d ed., University of North Carolina Extension <br />Leaflets, vol. 3, no. 8, (Chapel Hi[I: University of North Carolina, 9920}, p. 5-18. <br />~ Andrews, Nita. "A Study of the Public Schools of orange County," Masters Thesis, (Chapel HIII: University of <br />North Carolina, 1925), p. 65. <br />a Knight, Edgar W., p. 5-18. ~ . <br />s Andrews, Nita. p. 64-66. <br />