154 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



live stock and bought a very fine Percheron stallion. He cost 

 $2,400, and having such a valuable horse they properly felt they 

 must be particular to get a careful and competent groom, and so 

 they devoted a great deal of attention to getting the right man, 

 and they finally got such a man at a salary of $75 a month and 

 board. Shortly after that it happened that they needed a new- 

 school-teacher, and some of those same men, directors in this 

 horse company, were also directors in 4he school. After looking 

 about, and after a good deal of hair-splitting and bickering, they 

 selected a young lady from town who did not know enough to 

 boil water without burning it, and they paid her a salary of 

 thirty doilars a month and she boarded herself — and was sup- 

 posed to train the children. Now that little humorous story, 

 which is really a very serious one, may help drive home the 

 point. We think much of our live stock and all that sort of 

 thing, and, of course, much of our children, yet we forget or 

 neglect properly to do the greatest service we can ever do our 

 children — that is, put them in proper environment and see that 

 they receive such an education as they are entitled to. 



Now, the church follows along with the school. The school 

 and the church must be our community centers. 



Just the other day in our magazine, "The Banker-Farmer," 

 that we are getting out and that goes to the bankers all over the 

 country suggesting ways and means whereby the bankers may 

 be of service in helping toward a better agricultural and rural 

 life, we referred to the fact that the country minister of the 

 future must know something about the geography of the country 

 this side of Jordan. I got a letter from a country minister in one 

 of the neighboring states who had happened to read "The Banker- 

 Farmer," and he said that it was right, but, said he, "I will tell you 

 one thing perhaps you can do, and that is to see that the farmers 

 are more prompt in paying their country pastors. If they were 

 more prompt things might be in better shape. Farmers are in 

 the habit of getting their living out of the farm and they don't 

 realize that the country pastor has to buy in the country town 

 everything that he uses, and so you will be of service to the 

 country pastor if you pass that on to the farmer." 



Now the answer to that comes back again to the "geo- 

 graphy this side of Jordan." If the country pastors and a large 

 majority of our city pastors would get in touch with the people 

 to whom they are preaching and among whom they are living, 

 just as Mrs. Harvey has gotten in touch with the conditions in 



