LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 505 



where there were less than ten scholars per district, and the average cost is 

 $55 per head, while for the State at large it is but $7. 



It has been tried in Alpena county in five out of seven townships by spe- 

 cial legislative act. Those five townships had twice the school at one-half the 

 cost of the old system. I see no reason why we should not have a local 

 option law permitting townships, when they desire, to adopt this system. 



Pres. Willits: How is township system organized? Say here is a district 

 with ten pupils who have to walk a mile, will you unite it to others and 

 make them walk two or four miles? 



Prof. Pattengill : Make the whole town one district so the pupils can go 

 to the nearest school. Yes, in certain cases schools will be discontinued, 

 and if necessary children would be carried to school at public expense, and 

 that will cost less than keeping a separate school for them. Also a central 

 high school will probably be organized in the township. 



OUR COUNTRY SCHOOLS. 



BY MRS. HETTIE WARNER BRADLEY. 



Read at the Albion Institute, February 30, 1889. 



Every loyal heart is filled with patriotic pride and enthusiasm when think- 

 ing of our country. A vision immediately presents itself of her vastness and 

 productiveness ; of her talented and cultured inhabitants ; of her progress 

 and prosperity; of her churches and colleges; and of her remarkable com- 

 mon schools. 



Our country's schools are among the grandest institutions of the grandest 

 nation on the face of the earth. The framers of the constitution, under 

 which we live and thrive, realized fully that general intelligence and enlight- 

 enment is the only safe support of their government plan. How to rear a 

 nation of thinkers has been a question ever prominent before the public 

 mind. And this is the universal answer: Through the medium of the 

 schools. 



Agriculturists, as a class, depend upon the district schools for the educa- 

 tion of their children. There are many exceptions. We find hundreds of 

 farmers' boys and girls acquitting themselves finely in the colleges and uni- 

 versities, but even there their advancement will depend upon the thorough- 

 ness of early teaching. Some of the wisest and best men and women, who figure 

 in the history of this republic, and others who are doing grand work at the 

 present day, received the elements of their education in country schools. 

 Then may our boys and girls feel encouraged, remembering that in some 

 respects they have the advantage. As all grades recite in one room those 

 especially gifted have opportunity to cultivate that particular talent. 

 Younger children hear the recitations of more advanced classes, and become 

 familiar with knowledge above their grades; while the older pupils have no 

 opportunity to forget the fundamental principles underlying all school 

 training, as they hear them daily repeated. Then the invigorating walks 

 along the public highways where they may learn so much of vegetable and 

 animal life, and other ennobling influences, which seem to bring them 

 in closer fellowship with the Great Ruler and Creator, and cannot fail to 

 lead their thoughts " through nature up to nature's God." 



