340 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



are nine counties in this State that have no kind or form of high 

 school whatever, not even a two-year high school or any kind. It 

 does seem to me that this State as a whole ought to wake up and 

 reach out to those counties and say, "Here is money; we are going 

 to help you if you live up to certain conditions." This Legislature, I 

 believe, will pass that measure also. 



And then we are going to have a bill to give aid to and encour- 

 age the consolidation of the country districts, to give aid to these 

 districts under every condition, and I will probably have the honor 

 of handling that bill. 



We will have a fourth bill that will just take the red tape and 

 the conditions off of your present aid to country schools. You have 

 laws now upon the statute books to that effect, but there is so much 

 of red tape and detail that the benefits are probably all lost. 



Now, the question is how to get the money for all these things. 

 Gentlemen, I am glad that a good number of you are from the cor- 

 ners of the State. I would like to say this to the heads of the Uni- 

 versity and the men who are expecting appropriations out of the 

 Legislature. I feel that at this time in our school movement when 

 it will pay you in the long run, the University leaders and the 

 normal leaders, and all other men who are asking for appropriations 

 of the State Legislature, to be patient and not too exacting of 

 the appropriations committee. Let those State aid school bills 

 be cared for by appropriation before you ask too much of it. I 

 believe that is the better proposition, to let some money go to those 

 secondary schools that are unfortunate and cannot help themselves. 

 I make that as a suggestion. I believe, and I am glad, that the 

 schools — the country schools, the University, the normal — are to- 

 day more in harmony than ever before. I am glad that our news- 

 paper men are so willing to interest themselves and take part in 

 these public enterprises, not living just for the advantage they can 

 receive by putting forward their own particular purpose, but they 

 are trying to reach out and broaden themselves and do a great 

 public service along any line whereby they can lift the whole com- 

 munity. I am glad we are living in such an age. I am glad that I 

 will have some part in the new movement to make Missouri better, 

 to better her schools, to better her institutions all along the Ikie. 

 For my part, I think that when the record of the Forty-seventh Mis- 

 souri Assembly is written all of you good men will say we did the 

 very best we could with the means at hand. 



