306 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



Much of the blame for the poor conditions in our rural schools 

 is charged up to the teachers. As a teacher speaking for teachers, 

 I will say that we may have our faults and shortcomings ; we may 

 not be as well prepared for our work as we should be, but seldom 

 do we get any encouragement in the way of an increase of salary, 

 long tenure of position or even sympathetic support in order to 

 make an improvement. I do not wish to plead an extenuation for 

 the teachers but I do wish to say that we cannot solve this great 

 problem alone and it is pertinent to ask what are the school board 

 and patrons doing to make the rural schools any better? 



THE CO-OPERATION OF PATRONS. 



(W. T. Hupe, County Superintendent of Schools, Montgomery County, Mo.) 



To most of us it seems self-evident that the hearty co-opera- 

 tion of patrons is absolutely essential to the success and progress 

 of our schools. A proper discussion of the subject, it seems 

 to me, demands a discussion of the causes of the absence of 

 interest on the part of patrons. To answer the question, how to 

 secure co-operation, imposes the necessity of discovering and re- 

 moving the causes of its absence. Therefore a part of my paper 

 deals with this phase of the subject. 



Certain conditions are dependent upon the patrons and certain 

 improvements and reforms essential to the welfare and progress 

 of our schools must come directly from or through the patrons. 

 When I became county superintendent, I worked hard with the 

 teachers to improve conditions and bring about better teaching in 

 our schools. We succeeded to some extent, but I soon discovered 

 the teachers were not responsible for all the defects and inefficiency 

 of our schools, and that some improvements and some remedies 

 must come from and through the patrons. I use the term "remedies" 

 advisedly, for it is a fact, and a lamentable fact, that our schools 

 and our school system have long and greatly suffered because of 

 certain faults and defects which must be remedied or corrected 

 before our schools can do the work they should do. Now, do not 

 hold up your hands in horror, or mob me because I said our school 

 system needs "remedies." And do not charge me with being car- 

 ried away with the articles in the Ladies' Home Journal. I am 

 not. I have for several years been advocating and fighting for 

 some of the very reforms the Ladies' Home Journal is urging. 

 Permit me to digress just a little here and say that while the 



