302 Missouri AgricuUural Report. 



frost bites during severely cold weather. Its equipment is in keeping 

 with its structure. The yard, bare and bleak, joins a cemetery on the 

 one side and slopes so as to carry the drainage from both yard and 

 cemetery into the well which furnishes the drinking water for that 

 group of helpless children. 



It would amaze Missourians generally to know how many school 

 buildings have no water supply, in how many districts children are 

 forced to go long distances for the "pail" of water, or learn to elo icitli- 

 out rather than drink water that is distasteful because unclean: 



Besides wretched, ill-kept, poorly furnished, and inadequate school 

 buildings tvhich are the rule, not the exception, of what else is there lo 

 complain? Numbers are too small to present conditions for successful 

 work. What are the disadA^antages in small numbers'? Briefly, small 

 numbers kill the spirit of emulation in work and in play. The classes 

 in fully three-fourths of our schools are exceedingly small, containing 

 in hundreds of instances hut one pupil. While individual instruction 

 should never be precluded, there is high value in class instruction ; mind 

 clashes with mind ; the spirit of emulation is aroused ; the interest is 

 sustained, and advance more rapid. If a school is to prepare for life, 

 there must be enough children in the school room or on the ground, to 

 make social life a reality. The small school fails to give the child a 

 true notion of what community life is since with but few children in 

 a school group there is no particular right to defend or duty to perform. 



What else? Poor classification, short terms, frequent change of 

 teachers, teachers deficient in scholarship, teachers not in sympathy with 

 country life, incompetent and disinterested school directors, patrons 

 unthinking hence inactive, school houses located so that children must 

 walk excessively long distances, bad roads and so on. Enough sug- 

 gested. 



It has become popular to charge the country teacher with the re- 

 sponsibility of the low status of education in country districts. This is 

 a story in itself. We touch upon it merely to suggest thought on how 

 and ivhy the supply of competent men and women for teachers is not 

 equal to the demand in the country. The compensation of teachers, as 

 well as preachers, has always been inadequate, and in these days of 

 rapidly increasing cost of living, it has become impossible for men and 

 women with no other source of income to remain in a calling that calls 

 for an outlay of time and money in preparation entirely disproportion- 

 ate to the salary usually paid. Because brains and energy are better 

 paid in other callings, many competent men and women will no longer 

 teach school. And, too, few ever pause to consider the serious and in- 



