Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 77 



country will be able to secure not only an elementary, but a high school 

 education. That type of school 1 look forward to is not a copy of the city 

 school, but a school tliat is thoroughly democratic and that serves the 

 interests of all classes — not particularly an agricultural school because 

 there are some boys on the farms who may not have a taste for the farm 

 life, and then from the farm we must have recruits for the clergy, for 

 teaching and other professions, and therefore the sort of school needed 

 ill the country is one that will serve the interests of all classes, more ex- 

 tensive in its course of study than the school in the town, affording to 

 thp people of the country facilities for the study of all those things the 

 town people study, and in addition opportunities for improving knowl- 

 edge about farm life while attending school. To let a boy study in 

 school for three or four years without any opportunity to study the 

 activities of. the farm is practically to insure the fact that he will not 

 return to the farm, and we must correct that condition, and in establish- 

 ing these rural high schools all over IMissouri see to it that we establish 

 schools in which our sons and daughters can get not only English and 

 Ijatin, but Home Economics, Agriculture and such work; and let us not 

 be as narrow as the city people have been and give to them the opportun- 

 ity to get only an agricultural education as the city furnishes only a 

 literary education, Imt let us take wisdom from the history of the past 

 and make these schools well rounded, democratic, and adapted to all 

 sorts of peoi)lc and all interests, because those who live in the country'' 

 represent all tliese interests. I might mention in this connection the fact 

 that there isn't a state university anywhere in this country that does not 

 draw almost its entire faculty from the country. Nearly all the pro- 

 fessors of this uuivcisity were born and reared in the country, but all 

 had to leave their homes in order to get anything more than the mere 

 rudiments of an (Mlucation, and tliose of us who have drifted away from 

 the agricultural profession might l)e engaged in that work today if 

 we had had the proper opportunities at the proper time. I have often 

 remarked to my friends who are engaged in teaching agriculture that 

 T am sure I would be with tlicm now if I had ever heard of an 

 agricultural college while I was attending country school. But such a 

 thing was not conceived of as possible — it was beyond all conception, 

 and so there was no opportunity for us to get an agricultural educa- 

 tion. 



I welcome you, then, who come here to consider the problems af- 

 fecting your life in the county districts. I want to say that I think the 

 badges that some of our boys are wearing this week show the correct 

 attitude; it is not show me but ask me. That is the attitude we take 



