188 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



I want to emphasize the small farm and farm ov ner. In 

 our community at present we have a predominance of small 

 farms — the 80-acre, the 120-acre and the 160-acre farm. I also 

 want to say that these farms are the very best improved in our 

 community. Some people think that you cannot improve the 

 farm and keep to the eighty, one hundred and twenty and one 

 hundred and sixty acres. This is not -true, as evidenced in our 

 own community. The very best improvements we have in our 

 community are on the smaller farms. By more careful handling 

 of the soil, more intensive methods, by using your brain power 

 as well as muscles, you can develop the smaller possessions as 

 much as those who hold the larger tracts can develop theirs. 



These (showing slides) well improved, small farms have 

 taught us this fact — all processes of education should be to fit men 

 not merely to make a living but to live. 



The Community Spirit. — I want to talk to you about com- 

 munity spirit. When I first came to this place there was no one 

 especially proud of the community. They were not conscious 

 of any particular reason why they should be proud to live there. 

 People were proud of their homes; people were glad to talk to 

 you about their homes and show you the pleasant features about 

 them, but those were individual ties, and it was simply an expres- 

 sion of individual pride. But from the community idea there was 

 no particularly expressed pride. This has been changed. Now 

 even the children know they are proud of the community. 

 Why? It all comes because we have a splendid community 

 spirit. There are a number of our people who own automobiles 

 and, whenever they go to town, carry pennants bearing the word 

 "Harmony." Thus the community is well advertised. 



Notwithstanding our new church building, the attendance 

 at church was not nearly so large as it ought to be. Often it 

 would be but twenty, sometimes forty, which would be a splendid 

 crowd. The people said to me that since they had built the 

 church they had never been able to get many to attend. It 

 seemed as though building that church had crushed the spirit 

 out of the people and they would not attend. I began to rea- 

 son. While they had perhaps been getting poor service, I could 

 not lay all to that source. I felt that more people should attend 

 regularly. In studying the matter over my attention was called 

 to our road system. Our roads were very bad. At times they 

 were in such condition that the people could not get anywhere. 

 I figure that it was quite impossible for people to come to church 



