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I know some of you are thinking that you have consolidated schools. 

 You have your township high school, but township high schools are not 

 consolidated schools. You still have those one-room country schools, with 

 your two sets of directors and two sets of taxation for schools. We want 

 to do away with those. Make your township high schools into consolidated 

 schools, and abandon all those one-room school houses, where you have 

 neither good teachers nor the correct surroundings for the children. 

 [Applause.] 



After stating these facts, I believe I know what some of you are thinking 

 to yourselves in defense of Illinois. This one is saying: "We cannot have 

 consolidated schools in our community because our roads are too bad." If 

 so, go to work and have them made fit for consolidated schools. See that 

 you have the right kind of supervisors, then agitate good country roads 

 until you get them. Have road days several times a year. Make a gala day 

 out of them, with a fine dinner prepared by the women and some good times 

 thrown in with the hard work. Good oil roads are always possible with 

 proper grading and an Intelligent use of the oil. Where there is a will 

 there is always a way. Nothing should be impossible to the father and 

 mother that have the future welfare of their boys and girls at heart. 



Another is saying: "We cannot afford to have consolidated schools." 

 Now, be honest with the thought and study it pro and con, and if so, I am 

 sure you will say: "We cannot afford to be without them." [Applause.] 

 You certainly wish the best in education for your boy and girl, and you 

 know it Is impossible to have it in the neglected, unattractive, ill equipped 

 one-room school house. Better fit your boy and girl to take care of them- 

 selves through some useful line of activity and an education that fits them 

 for life than to leave them dollars or acres of land. [Applause.] 



Why can you not see that not a dollar can be taken into the future, 

 but, women, we can take the souls of our little girls and boys into the 

 future! You know it has been said that if we could have children from 

 the day they are born until they are 12 years old, the world can have them 

 after that. Why don't you see that the most important period of a child's 

 life is from the time he can begin to toddle until he reaches that age of 

 12 or 14? Why don't we have the very best training and the very best 

 schools for our boys and girls at that time of life, and we cannot have it 

 under present day conditions in the country. It is utterly impossible. 



EDUCATION OB FOOLISH LUXT7BIES? 



"Cannot afford it," you say? Cannot afford it, when America spent for 

 luxuries in 1920, $22,700,000,000; more than twenty-two times as much as 

 we spent for education in 1918 and $6,000,000,000 more than we spent for 

 education in all our nation's history of 300 years! Some of these luxuries, 

 such as face powder, cosmetics, perfumes, soft drinks, cigars, cigarettes, 

 tobacco; snuff, chewing gum, ice cream, candy, joy rides and pleasure resorts, 

 we could dispense with and be the better for the practiced self-denial. 



What couldn't we do for education in America if we could have the 

 nation for one week practice self-denial in some of these luxuries that they 

 think they are obliged to have! Don't say you cannot afford it. When we 

 look at the county of Champaign and think that it is the third county in 

 the United States in its value of agricultural products, and yet not a con- 

 solidated school within its boundaries. Some earnest efforts have been 

 attempted, but failed because some few thought more of their dollars than 

 of opportunities and proper training for the boys and girls for successful 

 home making and citizenship. 



Some of you are thinking of the transportation and the difficulties to 

 be met and overcome. But it has been found that when that difficulty is 

 weighed in the balance, the moral and physical side of the scale far out- 

 weighs that of all the obstacles to be overcome. 



I could continue reading your minds as you think out difficulties that 

 you believe are unsurmountable, but I must hasten to give you some things 

 that will prove how great an advantage It will be to your community, your 



