been afraid of drowning if I had not been used to it and had 

 company. It is hardly better now. No child has reached 

 school this week without being wet and as I write the roof 

 of the woodshed has twelve pairs of shoes and as many socks 

 drying in the sun. When I close the door at night the last 

 thing I see are twelve pair of dry shoes waiting for the chil- 

 dren's return." 



Conditions the Same in Many Places. 



This is typical, I am sorry to say, of almost all the schools 

 of Northern Minnesota during the fall and spring. I doubt 

 if there is a single school where shoes are not drying in the 

 sun or beneath the stove. During late fall this is a menace 

 to the child who gets wet and the children who are in the 

 room breathing the steam from the drying leather and wool. 



Another teacher wrote: "I might as well close school. 

 Out of 15 enrolled I have had two this last month in actual 

 attendance. You cannot blame the parents or children for 

 they would have to wade knee deep to get here and all are 

 under ten years of age." 



Some of the difficulties facing the school boards can -be 

 seen in these two protests from the same place. The old 

 school house is not safe and a new one badly needed. The 

 first one says: 



"Please don't locate the school house on T place. It is 



central, I admit, but all the children will have to walk one 

 and one-half miles and be wet every day. Please let the peo- 

 ple near the old school use it again and build us a new one s 

 our children wont have to walk so far. The other two fam- 

 ilies can be boarded as they will be two miles from either 

 school." 



The second protest says: "Please don't build any new 

 building here yet. We can get along a couple years and then 

 we want a consolidated school. Of course, our road is not 

 ready yet but the new river road will place where three 

 schools can be united and we want consolidation. We can't 

 afford to send our children away and we want them to get all 

 that is possible from the home school." 



