SCHOOLS AND FARMING 



Now, I look on the school of the future as 

 the little university of its community, 

 working out the problems of the commu- 

 nity and developing leadership. The school 

 should aid the rural community (my sub- 

 ject is country life, and I leave it to others 

 to write of town life) to better roads, bet- 

 ter cattle, better butter, to more eggs and 

 more crops, to better seed corn and better 

 alfalfa, and to higher efficiency everywhere. 

 It should be a local forum. It should co- 

 operate with the church, the library, the 

 fair, the farmers ' organizations, with every 

 farmer and every housewife, tying the 

 community together and making it a better 

 place to live in. 



This cannot come about without active 

 cooperation by the people. We do not 

 even yet take our schools seriously. They 

 must become a part of the government of 

 the community, and be just as essential as 

 the crops or as politics. The school must 

 have much more money, particularly in the 

 rural districts, than is now given it ; and the 

 people will provide the funds when the school 

 begins to do the work. 



One of the means of improving the 

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