312 MissouH Agricultural Report. 



an excellent source from which to draw material for essays and 

 compositions in language and grammar work, and at the same time 

 be learning the best methods of the various phases of farming. 



The teacher of this school should be paid by the year for his 

 services and the salary should be sufficient to attract a well-trained 

 man who would devote his entire time to the school work of his 

 district, and during vacations he could exemplify on the small farm 

 the best methods, and work in connection with the farm adviser in 

 stimulating an interest in better crop productions. The teacher 

 should be elected for a period of three to five years and so long as 

 he makes good he should feel secure in his place, as the banker, the 

 doctor, the merchant or the lawyer, since the efficient teacher would 

 render a service as valuable to the community as any of those 

 named. When conditions require it an assistant should be pro- 

 vided to do part of the work and extend the course of study in 

 such a way as to bring the school work, the home and community 

 into closer relationship to the material improvement of each. 



Not all rural schools should soon take on this new condition, but 

 many should, and in order to carry out the plan more money and 

 a higher rate of tax should be allowed. There is something wrong 

 with our system of taxation when one rural school maintains an 

 eight-months term on a levy of five or ten cents on the hundred 

 dollars valuation while another is forced to pay sixty-five cents and 

 then can support only a six or seven months school. I think we 

 need a county unit for school taxation and then it would be possible 

 to give each district a square deal in the matter of school ad- 

 vantages. This seems to me to be just and right. 



We would sum up the needs of our rural schools as follows : 

 First, in most cases more money; second, better teachers and better 

 salaries with a more permanent tenure; third, larger school units 

 and a small tract of land and house owned by the district and 

 occupied by the teacher; fourth, a modern, well-lighted and venti- 

 lated building equipped with all the necessary appliances for suc- 

 cessfully carrying out the work in agriculture, domestic science, and 

 manual arts; fifth, a county unit of school taxation. 



