226 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



So I say we need a change in ideals. We need ideals of the 

 happy, thrifty farmer and happy farmer's wife. We need to 

 teach the boys and girls the idea, the truth, that the man who 

 improves the farm, the soil, and makes it more productive, is no 

 less a benefactor, is no less great, is no less happy than the presi- 

 dent or governor or statesman or the professional man. We 

 need to exalt country life by giving it proper interpretation. 



To bring that change about we need two things; I think 

 we need, first, a change of textbooks. I mean we need to change 

 the matter and nature of our textbooks and put in them some 

 things that pertain to and teach of country life and things in the 

 country. Our teachers are sent out to teach, and we superin- 

 tendents and institute lecturers urge them to teach agriculture 

 and the things that are vitally connected with country life, 

 but we place textbooks in their hands and expect them to 

 teach those textbooks which have little or nothing of that na- 

 ture. And that is why so many of our teachers, especially young 

 teachers, fail to teach the things they ought to teach, and the 

 things that will make boys and girls love the country and coun- 

 try life, and that will tend to keep them on the farm. 



Another thing we need is — well, I think the Legislature 

 ought to give us a law fixing a minimum age of 20 years for 

 school teachers. I think the time has come, or it has been all 

 the time, when children should not teach children, should not 

 teach school. 



Then the rural school should be a school for country boys 

 and girls and not a school modeled after a city school. The rural 

 teacher should be a teacher specially trained and educated for 

 teaching in the rural school; not less educated than the city 

 teacher, but if any difference, better educated, more extensively 

 educated and along somewhat different and more numerous lines. 



Time fails me to elaborate on this as I should like, but sum- 

 ming up, I would say that we need for our rural schools, in order 

 to bring about the needed improvement of country life, first, a 

 textbook reform; second, a special rural teacher; and third, a 

 special school properly equipped for the country boy and girl. 

 Rural education should be such as will enable our boys and girls 

 — the future farmers — to see in the hogs and sheep and cattle 

 they raise and work with and sell more than the mere dollars and 

 cents they represent, to see something of the wonderful beauty 

 God has placed in these animals. Then, too, the rural school 

 should train the boys and girls to see and appreciate and love 



