Home Makers^ Conference. 359 



His grain and livestock are housed in barns of modern design admir- 

 ably adapted to the purposes for which built, the latest and best farm 

 implements and machinery to minimize labor; but with comparatively 

 few exceptions the countrv^ school is but little changed from those of our 

 grandfather's days. 



Hear what one of your most active members wrote me; "I am a 

 Missourian and my parents were both born in iVIissouri, so that I am 

 a native for two generations, and I know that our people in the rural 

 districts have not yet been brought to the point when they will give 

 their children the educational advantages that is their due. My first 

 experience was in a coimtry school, and I do not doubt for a minute 

 that the very building in which I started to school about thirty years 

 ago is either still standing or has been replaced by one exactly like it 

 • — and that is in one of the best counties in North East ^Missouri. Our 

 farmers must not only be willing to put more money in the schools, 

 but they must be willing to put in a whole lot more money than hereto- 

 fore. Most of the work towards improvement that has been done here- 

 tofore has been through the teachers, but I do not believe that any 

 teacher on earth can bring about permanent improvement until the co- 

 operation of the patrons of the school is secured. Teachers can start 

 the work, but teachers change, and permanent good can come only 

 when the parents themselves are interested." This is the burden of 

 sentiment obtained from thoughtful and patriotic men and women 

 from all parts of the state. 



Mr. Roosevelt's question implies among other things, that the coun- 

 try school has not kept pace with the city school; that the good teacher 

 has gone to the city; that the good scholar has followed him there, 

 too, often taking with him the family, never to return, all of which 

 operates to sap the vitality of the country school not only as to at- 

 tendance, but as to personal interest and financial support as well. 



Thoughtful people everywhere are coming to recognize the equal 

 rights of the country child in the matter of education, and this, too, 

 without breaking up the family home, and that anything short of this 

 is unfair to the child and unprofitable to the community. 



Available statistics do\\Ti to 1904 show an appalling situation: In 

 Michigan of the 6,452 districts of the state, 51 had two pupils or fewer 

 and held no schools; 83 schools in the southern peninsula enrolled five 

 pupils or fewer, that over 1,000 country schools in Michigan are main- 

 tained at a cost per pupil more than double that of the most expensive 

 city schools. Iowa's 1909 report shows that in December, 1908, 3,244 

 rural schools had a daily attendance of from one to twenty. 



The Missouri report for 1902 shows more than one fourth of all 



