546 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



it were not for the helpful influences of our rural schools the 

 future would indeed be dark. 



These are the problems that this organization must meet, 

 for farm women, by their sympathetic understanding of similar 

 experiences, are the logical ones to help solve and apply the ways 

 and means. These are not the women yx)u meet at a conference 

 like this — women who are competent to give as well as receive — 

 but through this council all gain the stimulus to reach out and 

 take hold of neighborhood conditions. Helpfulness is the 

 necessary spirit that all club women must have. 



Do you realize the privilege that is yours today, how you 

 can help? All can see the wonderful vision that is coming to 

 those who join hands in bringing cheer to so many lonely, un- 

 satisfied women in rural communities. 



^ The Missouri Home Makers' Conference during its first 

 few years was full of formulating useful programs, thus hoping 

 to attract and interest the farm women. Today we realize 

 that an annual meeting is not sufficient to meet its growing 

 usefulness, so a few departments have been created, and through 

 these avenues of effort we hope to come in closer touch with varied 

 interests of farm life and yet keep them broad enough in the 

 outlook to embrace State and general problems of mutual 

 interest. 



The scholarship to the home economics department of 

 the University of Missouri was the first effort in this direction, 

 and through it we were able to offer one girl its advantage last 

 year in the tomato growing contest. This past summer the 

 prolonged drouth put all of their efforts out of commission, 

 but with great joy we hear they are eager to enter the race for 

 the coming year's contest. 



The child welfare department was organized last year to 

 meet a demand that has been felt all over the State. We are 

 slowly realizing that Missouri's best products are the boys and 

 girls, and that we have too long neglected them. Our State 

 Board of Health gives us most appalling statistics on child 

 death rates; the State lost 10,000 children last year under five 

 years of age. As a small effort toward stemming this terrific 

 tide we last year started a baby health contest. Thirty babies 

 were entered and were physically measured and judged by a 

 score card; these score cards were sent to the parents in the hope 

 that they might awaken interest in other parents. 



