308 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



We as teachers are to blame for much and have a greater responsi- 

 bility than many of us are aware or willing to assume. Sometimes 

 I am not surprised that we do not have the interest and support 

 of parents when we are doing so little that deserves their support. 



If we expect the co-operation of parents we must make efforts 

 and render service that merits support. Inefficient service on our 

 part often is responsible for a lack of interest on the part of parents. 

 We need a higher standard for teachers, better trained teachers. 

 The Legislature should give us a minimum age limit of not less than 

 twenty years. Children can not command the respect and support 

 of the pupils or parents ; neither can incompetent teachers, though 

 they be as old as Methuselah. These are some of the causes for 

 the absence often of co-operation. They are defects of our system 

 which must be largely remedied from within. I have dwelt on 

 them because to treat a malady successfully we must know its 

 nature. To treat a state of indifference on the part of patrons we 

 must understand and remove the cause. But aside from this we 

 often find on the part of patrons a lack of interest, a state of 

 lethargy from which they must be aroused before we can secure 

 their co-operation. What will awaken them? Only one thing. 

 That is to cause them to see how the proper training of their chil- 

 dren is dependent upon their co-operation, how the success of our 

 schools is so largely determined by the hearty and intelligent sup- 

 port of the patrons. The one way is through the child and the 

 child's welfare. Some one has said, "Take a child by the hand 

 and you take the mother by the heart." Interest the boys and girls, 

 arouse their enthusiasm by better teaching, by the teacher coming 

 in real touch with their lives, and you reach the patrons. If our 

 work in the school room were real teaching in place of merely 

 hearing recitations, if the child were more deeply interested by 

 vitally relating the work to the child's life, there would spring up 

 an enthusiasm among the children and spread to the parents all 

 over this land that would, I believe, bring us the improvements 

 needed. 



We have a country district in Montgomery county where the 

 board paid the teacher more than was paid to any grade or high 

 school teacher in the county. In that district they voted more than 

 the limit for school purposes and when I told them that the Con- 

 stitution of the great State of Missouri safeguarded their boys 

 and girls against too much education by limiting them to 65 cents, 

 they said, "Then we will raise it by subscription." One man 



