36 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of five, eight or ten pupils. I advocate this not in the interest of teachers 

 or educators, but in the interest of the pupils. Sometimes farmers say 

 to us when we advocate this idea, ''you are pkinning to take away from 

 us the schools of which we are so proud." Are you proud of such a 

 school as I have described? Go into one of these small schools Avith a 

 cheap teacher and see the work done. Send your boys and girls who 

 have been attending these inferior schools to some school of high grade, 

 and see how low your children will rank in comparison, and then answer 

 me. This sentiment of pride is a worthy sentiment, but it is a mere 

 sentiment when it cries out against the removal of the small school. I 

 am glad that you Avant a school that you can be proud of, but you ought 

 to have a school that is worth being proud of. Even on the dollar and 

 cent basis, it is a mistake to keep up the small school. It is the most 

 costly school. Some of you may say, remove the small school and you 

 remove the educational advantages for our children. Not at all. It used 

 to be the cry, "take the public school to the children;'' today we say 

 "take the children to the public school.'' 



You can never have an eifective system of public schools in rural dis- 

 tricts or anywhere else unless you have a core of centralization in it. 

 You must have power lodged somewhere. 



XoAv if we have centralization, we have, of course, to provide for get- 

 ting the pupils to school from long distances. The solution of that 

 problem is to have them transported. You maj" say it cannot be done. 

 That is what they are talking all over Wisconsin, but I notice this fact, 

 Wisconsin is a great dairy state. AVe have multitudes of creameries, and 

 I notice that every week-day morning in the year, the farmers of Wis- 

 consin with the utmost regularity manage to get their milk cans to the 

 butter factory; while these same farmers are the men that say they can- 

 not get a boy to the man factory. But we have the facts on our side. 

 Twenty states of this union have tried transportation in a greater or 

 less degree. These twenty states contain half the population of the 

 United States, and the testimony of these states is unvarying in favor of 

 the plan. There has been an increase of attendance in these centralized 

 schools of from 50 to 100 per cent, and this too without an increase of a 

 dollar's expense. This proposition for centralization is in the interests 

 of your children, for it closes up inefficient schools, and makes a strong, 

 efficient central school. 



My second point was that we need better trained teachers. How shall 

 we get them? We educators keep urging the necessity of the prepara- 

 tion of teachers, but we cannot meet the argument of the timid little 

 schoolma'am who says faintly, "how can I afford it." Indeed, how can 

 they afford it? Can you expect a graduate of a college or normal school 

 who has spent hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars in getting 

 prepared for teaching to teach for f25 a month for seven, eight or nine 

 months a year? As business men you cannot expect it. You would not 

 do .it yourselves, and teachers trained in this way don't have to do it. 

 There are plenty of positions in city schools awaiting them, so the country 

 schools have to take up with teachers from the high schools. Many of 

 these have the making of good teachers, but they are without preparation. 



Over in Wisconsin this great and crying need for better trained teach- 

 ers for country schools has forced itself upon our attention. We have 

 found that though we have seven normal schools, which we regard as 

 good as any in the land, their graduates do not go to the country schools. 



