• FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 43 



put a little schoolhouse, a little board house that they called a school - 

 house. The educational sentiment was low in that district because the 

 boy teacher, without very much preparation, was willing to work at low 

 wages. Low wages, low sentiment, carelessness, indifference toward the 

 school; the picture can be duplicated a thousand times in the State of 

 Michigan. There is a reason and an illustration for consolidation. I 

 leave the picture with you. It is not a pleasant one. Those people down 

 there realize what they ought to do and I think the first consolidated 

 school, centralized school, that we hear about in Michigan will be in the 

 township of Bertrand. 



I have been asked one question. I will answer that and then close. 

 "Why do you not address yourself to the question which has been made 

 in many quarters, that we improve the schools as they are and add two 

 grades ?" 



The answer is an evident one. You are asking at the present time one 

 teacher, oftentimes a seventeen-year old girl, to teach eight grades. How 

 a teacher can begin at nine o'clock in the morning and go through eight 

 grades and do anything like justice I cannot for a moment understand. 

 It cannot be done in that way, but we must enlarge the district by con- 

 solidating the weak schools together, build a better school house, pay 

 better wages, to better teachers, have a three or four room school, giving 

 the same chance to these teachers in the country schools to do justice to 

 the pupils as you do the teachers in the city. 



I am very glad to come to your farmers' club meetings and discuss 

 the question with you and I am sure I can find plenty of help with men 

 who have preceded me in this office, until by intelligent thought, crystal- 

 lized bye and bye into action, we shall see a great advance in this part of 

 our educational system which is today the weakest part — our rural 

 schools. We shall be glad to see the day ushered in when every boy and 

 girl in Michigan will have at least the equivalent of a high school 

 education. 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 



Hon. E. P. Allen in the chair. 



Mr. Allen in taking the chair said that this question of forestry has not 

 attracted the attention of the masses until recently. Our fathers came 

 to Michigan with their axes in their hands confronting great forests. 

 The forests threw down the gauge of battle and man was compelled to 

 fight. Many a pioneer went to the grave, because in the terrible work of 

 destroying the forests he destro3'ed himself. Out of these forest lands 

 were made fertile farms and almost treeless plains; but now we have 

 begun to find that God knew more than man about the economy of nature, 

 and that a tree is as important as a man in its place. W^e have found that 

 we must build up where our fathers tore down. We must restore the 

 climate in southern Michigan to its normal, for it is a question in southern 

 Michigan as well as in northern Michigan. We must build for the next 

 generation. 



