Missouri Country Life Conference. 241 



Now, my friends, I am not saying that we should teach the 

 things that I have mentioned to the exclusion of some other 

 things that we are teaching. We must have the three "R's," 

 "Reading, Riting and Rithmetic." They are the fundamental 

 things. Boys and girls must learn these. They can learn their 

 history, their civil government and their geography and their 

 grammar if they want to, learn them just like some of us did; 

 learn to say, "I love, you love, he loves; plural, we love, you love, 

 they love," if they want to, just as they learn right along with 

 it, "I farm, you farm, he farms; plural, we farm, you farm, they 

 farm," if they expect to go out into the country and build homes 

 there. 



Now, my friends, I am not claiming that you can teach the 

 things we are already teaching and these other things that I have 

 mentioned along the line of agriculture and home economics in 

 the one-room school, but I am saying that if we cannot teach 

 them in the one-room school let us, for goodness sake, build 

 schoolhouses of more than one room in which we can teach these 

 things. In the not very far distant future I can see a school- 

 house of more than one room. Near this schoolhouse a dwelling 

 in which the master lives and spends his days, a leader in the 

 community, a leader in society, standing for all that is good and 

 best for the community. Around this home and school I can 

 see ten or, maybe, twenty acres of land on which the boys and 

 girls grow the crops they grow in the fields on their fathers' 

 farms. Not far from this schoolhouse and the home I can see a 

 church, and near this church a dwelling, the pastor's home, where 

 he lives and spends his days, a leader in religious work, a leader 

 in society and standing for all that is good and best for the com- 

 munity. 



In many parts of the State today people are talking "Com- 

 munity life." In many counties there are already community 

 organizations. My work takes me into many fields; farmers' 

 institutes, teachers' associations, school officers meetings and 

 even rural pastors are demanding some of my time, asking that 

 I come to the churches out in the country on the week days and 

 hold agricultural meetings there. Last spring I spent about 

 two months with rural pastors in Callaway county, Audrain 

 county, Ralls county. Pike county and Lewis county. Some- 

 times I find somebody who says, "I don't think the church is the 

 place in which to hold meetings of this kind." Then I say: 

 "Why isn't it the place to hold a meeting of this kind? There is 



