Missouri Home Makers' Conference. 



593 



can and should help each other. They should meet to discuss 

 the problems of mutual interests, they should organize home- 

 makers' clubs with the object of securing the best of conditions 

 in the schools, and in their home life, of broadening the outlook 

 of the home, of encouraging the social spirit and of elevating 

 the character of farm life. 



The rural teacher and the rural preacher should be very 

 active in this social and educational work. Country schools 

 should have teachers trained for work in rural schools, teachers 

 of sound judgment, understanding the nature of the child, and 

 tact in dealing with him. A live, trained progressive teacher 

 can be a great force in a community in advancing progressive 

 movements. Modern education is a mighty movement in 

 modern life. Young men and young women were never so 

 alive to the needs of education, technical training, vocational 

 guidance and creative power as now. This new position means 

 that the farm woman must take advantage of labor-saving 

 devices in the home, that she may have the time and strength 

 to fit herself for the new relations and the new responsibilities. 

 She has been too busy at home to be much in the limelight, but 

 she has been thinking, and through the school, the church, the 

 home makers' club, the University short course, she will make 

 herself felt in raising better children, building better homes 

 and a better commonwealth. When the Romans got into 

 trouble and had to have a dictator they sought the old farmer 

 Cincinnattus. The farm woman, wife and mother, rearing her 

 family in the quiet homestead, has the chance to cultivate the 

 sanity that will be the saving salt in many of our complicated 

 situations. 



