Local Impotency 145 



education, is perhaps largely an academic ques- 

 tion; but the methods of its disbursement and 

 control, if federal money should be given, is a 

 subject of the first importance to the main- 

 tenance of local institutions. The opportunity of 

 full initiative and independence should be pop- 

 ular rather than official; and every safeguard 

 should be taken to see that national schools 

 should not be forced into close uniformity. 



The lack of pride and gumption in our rural 

 schools is probably already due in no small 

 part to the removal of motive-power from the 

 locality to the state capital. I have in mind a 

 rural school on the premises of which a neigh- 

 bor had placed personal property. For years 

 the teacher and members of the local board 

 and isolated friends had complained and 

 threatened. The material remained. Finally a 

 visitor reported the matter to the state author- 

 ities some two hundred miles away, and the 

 nuisance was forthwith removed. A school 

 locality that is impotent to remove a pile of 

 lumber is also impotent to make very much 

 progress in its schooling. 



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