LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 503 



Experience has convinced me that during winter it is profitable to give 

 warm feed at least twice each day, and besides this, by the use of a cooker, 

 we can utilize many things about the farm with our swine at a profit to us, 

 much better than any other way. 



COUNTRY SCHOOLS. 



BY PROF. H. R. PATTENGILL. 



Report of Talk at the Lake Odessa Institute. 



Mr. Chairman", Ladies and Gentlemen: The school is an appropri- 

 ate topic in any American audience. In our history it has stood side by 

 side with the church in the advance of our civilization from the foun- 

 dations of our pilgrim fathers to the founders of each of our western States. 

 They developed not only our public schools, but public academies, the 

 university, the agricultural college and the normal school, and today these 

 higher schools are not excelled anywhere in the nation. 



We pay much for these things, and I want to seek out the several essen- 

 tial factors of a successful school. Each of these factors must be pregnant 

 to save the product from being zero. The three factors of a good school 

 are pupils, teachers and patrons. Pupils to be good efficient factors should 

 come to work with some ambition in them and understanding something of 

 the possibilities before them, what success in life means. Is it necessarily 

 political preferment or wealth? 



No, young man. He who establishes himself in a good and useful activity 

 where he can do all the good that he can, to all the people he can, in all the 

 ways he can, and as long as he can, and does it, is a success. Trashy litera- 

 ture affects injuriously mind, memory and morals. Guard against it ; not by 

 scolding or forbidding it, but by furnishing something better. That is 

 success. 



Much of the benefit of a good school depends upon the patrons. You pay 

 your taxes well enough ; in fact you pay more for schools than for anything 

 else, and watch it less. You say that is the teacher's business. Is that the 

 way you have your hired man take care of your sheep or your colts? 



Don't visit the school just to find fault. Don't find any fault with the 

 teacher before the pupils or let them know of your criticisms. Above all 

 don't let little neighborhood quarrels break up a good school. I don't know 

 whether this coat fits here or not, but if it does please put it on and wear 

 it. Don't let your disagreements come near the school. 



Again, you should be a judge of a good schoolhouse. Not that I want 

 you to tear down your schoolhouses, but you can often remedy defects of 

 ventilation; e. g., put a zinc jacket around your stove to within four 

 inches of the floor and let in cold air from the outside by a pipe running- 

 from the outside beneath the floor and opening under the stove. If you 

 build a new one don't build just as Noah did for Shem, Ham and Japeth. 

 Don't be as the cap makers, who refused to make ear tabs where the 

 ears were because they had not been made to fit before. 



Don't be too much afraid that the children will study themselves to death. 

 Some of them do die, but it isn't often the fault of too much study. It is 

 cigarettes, dancing, roller-skating and such things — bad dresses, bad food, 



