Home Makers' Conference. 363 



making good dirt roads and the increasing popularity of the automo- 

 bile with farmers. 



In this question of bad roads is involved other traffic : mail and 

 milk are being delivered under present conditions, then why not children, 

 also? "Hesitancy on this account not only deprives children of school 

 privileges, but also shirks upon them, and their feet and legs a job eon- 

 ■sidered too hard for the horses." In response to the usual "roads are 

 often drifted in the winter and impassable from the mud in the spring" 

 argument, Superintendent Devine of North Dakota asks: "Shall it be 

 the horses or the children that shall wade through?" 



Remind your opponent that transportation is a fact in Missouri, 

 but done at private expense. I wish we had data showing the expense 

 and extent of the present practice of carrying country boys and girls 

 to the village or town high school. 



It would help matters if farmers would examine the expense ac- 

 count for tuition alone paid for the older children in town schools. In 

 Winnebago county, Illinois, between 1895-1904 more than $30,000 in 

 tuition was paid at private expense. Iowa's 1909 report shows 14,034 

 country children paying tuition into the town corporations to the 

 amount of $176,270. ^Missouri's 1909 report will show 5,713 non-resi- 

 dent pupils attending town schools ; estimating the average yearly tu- 

 ition at $20.00, our farmers have paid $100,000 in addition towards 

 maintaining local schools that are inadequate and more expensive than 

 those of our best city systems. 



I do not want to be understood as advocating the centralization of 

 school districts as a state wide measure in the sense that county supervi- 

 sion is ; what I do urge is a state-wide publicity campaign by the various 

 educational forces showing prevalent conditions and suggesting various 

 means of improvement that will crystalize into effective laws, for an 

 aroused public conscience must be back of legislation to make it effec- 

 tive; and this appeal is made in behalf of the children of JMissouri. 



TEACHING DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN THE RURAL SCHOOL. 



(Mrs. Ivy Harner Selvidge, Columbia, Mo.) 



The possibilities of Domestic Science in the one teacher rural 

 school has been much discussed in meetings of those interested in 

 Domestic Science subjects. All agree that it should be taught, but 

 many doubt that it is practicable luider existing conditions. The argu- 

 ment is brought forward that the teacher is now teaching more sub- 

 jects than she can handle well. It was noticeable in ]\Iissouri that 



