Home Alakers' Conference. 353 



is to occupy so important a place in our political, intellectual and social 

 economy ? 



In my judgment it is important that we all work together for the 

 building up of the rural social institutions. The man who lives on the 

 farm is the chief factor in this development. It is to him that we must 

 demonstrate the value of the better organization and development of 

 the church and the school. With these must go hand in hand the farm- 

 ers' organizations, including co-operative enterprises of all kinds. The 

 reason why towns have better schools, churches, lights, streets and 

 water supply, is because the town has worked out more carefully prac- 

 tical methods of co-operation. It will be far more difficult for the coun- 

 try to co-operate because the rural problem is one of isolation, while 

 the city problem is one of congestion, but nevertheless, there remains 

 a large opportunity for co-operative enterprise. 



THE RELATION OF THE RURAL SCHOOL TO THE RURAL 



HOME. 



(Mrs. H. C. Harvey, Kirksville, Mo.) 



The Home Makers' Conference Association of Missouri has selected 

 me to speak to you tonight about the relation of the rural school and the 

 rural home partly, I suspect, because of my insistence before that body 

 a year ago that there is a vital relation between coimtry life (the home), 

 and the country school, as yet not generally recognized, and partly be- 

 cause of my strong convictions that there is a feasible plan by which 

 the country schools can more adequately prepare children for country 

 living. 



Country born and bred, later a teacher in the rural district — and 

 for six years both directly and indirectly connected with a school that 

 receives hundreds of young men and women from the farms of Missouri, 

 I have had exceptional opportunity to understand general conditions 

 and problems; since October 20, this year, I have conferred with fully 

 500 rural teachers, directors and patrons with this effect upon myself — 

 I am so deeply interested in the question before us that I presume to 

 stand before this audience far less concerned about representing the 

 Homemakers' Association to their satisfaction, than I am about how well 

 I shall present the cause of 621/2 per cent, of Missouri's youth, her 

 country children, who so far as educational facilities are concerned, are 



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