Fanners' Week in Agricultural College. 301 



this phase of the census returns; nor do we need immigration of the 

 class we have been receiving in the past to force her rank upward; 

 rather do we need to conserve Missouri's richest heritage — her boys and 

 girls — by making the best possible provision for their mental, moral 

 and physical development. "Preserve the child and you preserve the 

 State." It is her rank in literacy that should claim the attention of 

 every educational force in Missouri, for the conditions that obtain in 

 the majority of country districts are largely responsible for their de- 

 population, and the exodus of our best types of men and women into the 

 already overtaxed cities. 



The little red school house, so dear to the memory of us all, made a 

 wonderful contribution to elementary education in the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, and was a potent force in the development, of true America'nism. 

 It served its best purpose during pioneer days when industry was cen- 

 tered in the home where they used to grow their own food, spin and weave 

 their own cloth, make their soap, dip candles ; where the child was 

 called "upon while still young to share his parents' activities that gained 

 for him an insight into the industrial processes, habits of work and 

 training for his future occupation. Tlien the school was properly a 

 place to which children were sent for a few hours a day to pick up the 

 essentials of reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling, and a little in- 

 formation about geography and history. 



This is the twentieth century ; industry has passed forever from the 

 home to the factory system. Science, like physics and chemistry, has 

 become a vital factor in the productive process in country and city alike. 

 The home can no longer give the boy and the girl training for life's 

 work. The impossibility of the one-room school doing this must be 

 apparent to all present. 



Do you realize that there are school houses yet in Missouri made of 

 logs with dirt floors, without equipment, where the "best scholars," 

 mere boys and girls, are invited to try the coimty examination by the 

 severely tried county superintendent who "passes" them to secure 

 teaching material? As late as October 23d, the metropolitan papers 

 of the State gave a detailed account of conditions so exceptionally bad 

 in one district that three teachers up to date, had refused to continue 

 work there. 



In a populous and prosperous county in another section, there is 

 a district noted for the contrast between schoolhouse and barns, the 

 barns having decidedly the better of the comparison. The school house 

 is built on piles with large cracks in the floor, which let in so much cold 

 as to compel children to sit on their feet much of the time to prevent 



