Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 311 



separating school officials from politics; decreasing the number of 

 school directors in a county; the introduction of elementary agri- 

 culture and domestic science into the curriculum; a modern heat- 

 ing and ventilating plant in each room; a sanitary water supply, 

 and a house arranged for carrying out the work in agriculture and 

 manual arts. While we are agreed that many of these changes 

 would prove beneficial, we are all agreed that in order to carry out 

 these plans successfully we need an improvement in the teaching 

 force and a more permanent tenure. It is folly to expect inefficient 

 persons who are still in their 'teens and who have not learned to 

 govern themselves to be leaders in the great work of revitalizing 

 country life and country schools. We are in great need of persons 

 of mature mind who are efficient leaders that are in sympathy with 

 rural life and rural conditions and who are willing to devote their 

 entire energies to the uplift of the rural school, the rural church, 

 and the rural home. This is necessary to attract and hold our 

 boys and girls on the farm. 



I would rather my girl should learn to become a good home 

 maker, to sew, sweep, dust, bake, wash the dishes — in short, be a 

 good home maker — than to learn so much that she cannot use in 

 this life that now is. For what shall it profit a man if he should 

 gain a wife who could read all the Latin ever published, demon- 

 strate all the propositions in Euclid, and yet lose his own good 

 digestion, or what would a man give in exchange for a good home 

 maker? 



We need less about the geography of foreign lands and more 

 about the composition of our own soil, and how to restore its fertil- 

 ity; less about cube root and annual interest, and more about how 

 to feed and care for stock; less about the rivers of the world, and 

 more about a pure water supply in our homes. 



In order to carry out this plan we need a few rural schools 

 established in every county, having in connection a small tract of 

 land, on which would be found the home of the principal of the 

 school. This farm should be a model experiment station in agri- 

 culture toward which farmers in the community could look and 

 from which they could learn many valuable lessons. 



The school room should be properly lighted and heated and 

 provided with the necessary appliances for carrying out the work. 

 The library should contain, in addition to the good literature and 

 history, and science, all the free bulletins published by the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in both our State and Nation. This would be 



