354 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE NEEDS OF OUR DISTRICT SCHOOLS. 



COM'R J. W. SMITH, BAY CITY, AT BAY COUNTY INSTITUTE. 



What the district Bchools of nearly every township in this State need just now is to 

 be reduced to a system. At present they are a little more than a disjointed collection 

 of schools, some good, some bad, but whether good or bad, they have no chain of inter- 

 dependence and nothing to look forward to for the next step in a higher course than 

 the neighboring city school. In the same sense in which a city system of schools may 

 be said to exist, there is no such thing as a system of district schools in Michigan. 

 Some attempt has been made of late years towards reducing the district schools to a 

 system by the introduction of a graded course of study extending through eight grades 

 and bearing a close resemblance to the course of study found in the average city school. 

 But beyond that nothing is even attempted. There ought to be, and under proper con- 

 ditions there would be, enough pupils in every townshipcontainingfour or five hundred 

 children of school age to give employment to at least one teacher who should give all 

 his time to the more advanced classes. For the accommodation of these pupils there 

 should be erected in the center of the township, as nearly as may be, a school known as 

 the township high school. The course of instruction should contain all those branches 

 that are necessary to prepare the pupils to enter the State Agricultural College. The 

 pupils who graduate from this township high school should be given diplomas entitling 

 them to enter the Agricultural College without further examination. . 



PROSPECTS FOR THE YOUNG FARMER. 

 JAMES Y. CLARK, ORION, AT OAKLAND COUNTY INSTITUTE. 



We predict that the future will eralve an organization through which the farmer will 

 transact his own business through his own paid agent, when he will remain in full 

 ownership of his produce until it passes into the hands of the wholesale consumer; an 

 organization that will eliminate all needless intermediaries between the farmer and his. 

 customer, and return to him the whole income from his crop less actual carrying 

 charges; an organization that will gradually become national in its character, because 

 of being a financial benefit to every farmer that joins it— one that will increase in a 

 ten-fold ratio the farmer's potency in legislation, and forever remove mere questions of 

 business from the realm of partisan politics. 



And when such an organization comes, as it must come, if the farmer is not to become 

 a mere cipher in our body politic, then will the wall that has melted away and com- 

 pelled us to compete with cheap lands and pauper labor, rise again. Then will the 

 parasites who fatten on the misfortunes of the farmer be removed from the carrying 

 trade of his produce; then will our financial system expand broad enough for the needs 

 of the poor as well as the luxuries of the rich, and the agricultural interests of this 

 country obtain consideration in a measure commensurate with their importance. 



THE OLD LOG HOUSE. 



MRS. KITTIE C. MCCOY, WALLED LAKE, AT OAKLAND COUNTY INSTITUTE. 



It stands by the roadside, deserted and lonely, 

 A quaint looking structure now crowned with decay ; 



The roughly hewn timbers are slipping asunder ; 

 Time-worn and discolored and crumbling away. 



'Tis many a year since the door has been fastened. 

 The threshhold is sunken, the floor is worn thin, 



The windows are broken, the roof small protection. 

 The snows of the winter drift drearily in. 



