46 



DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



teacher means more than funds, building and grounds, more than consoli- 

 dation and county unit, more than courses of study and boards of education 

 and expert supervision. Rural school and rural life problems call for men 

 and women with the zeal of the crusader and the spirit of the missionary 

 to solve these problems; for, it will take the enthusiasm of the crusader 

 and the consecration of the missionary to work among and become one of 

 our rural people in the isolated sections of our country. 



No man has ever made a more logical and eloquent plea for profes- 

 tionally-trained teachers than J. Sterling Morton, Father of Arbor Day, and 

 Secretary of Agriculture in President Cleveland's cabinet. The first na- 

 tional conference on teacher training for rural schools held in Chicago last 

 month made his declaration on this question the platform for a nation- 

 wide campaign for better teachers for the rural schools of the United 

 States. Mr. Morton said: 



"We demand for Nebraska educated educators. We demand profession- 

 ally trained teachers, men and women of irreproachable character and well 

 tested abilities. We demand from our legislature laws raising the standard 

 of the profession and exalting the office of the teacher. As the doctor 

 of medicine or the practitioner of law is only admitted within the pale of 

 his calling upon the production of his parchment or certificates, so the 

 applicant for the position of instructor in our primary and other schools 

 should be required by law first to produce his diploma, his authority to 

 teach, from the normal schools. 



"We call no uneducated quack or charlatan to perform surgery, upon 

 the bodies of our children, lest they may be deformed, crippled and maimed 

 physically all their lives. Let us take equal care that we entrust the 

 development of the mental faculties to skilled instructors of magnanimous 

 character that the mentalities of our children may not be mutilated, de- 

 formed and crippled to halt and limp through all the centuries of their 

 never-ending lives. The deformed body will die, and be forever put out 

 of sight under the ground, but a mind made monstrous by bad teaching 

 dies not, but stalks forever among the ages, an immortal mockery of the 

 divine image." 



DEAN JARDINE: 



This closes the regular part of the program for the afternoon. There 

 are a few announcements to make, one, I believe, relative to the appoint- 

 ment of the members from the various states to the Committee on Resolu- 

 tions and the Committee on Nominations. Every state is entitled to one 

 member each on the Committees on Resolutions and Nominations. We 

 would like to have these designated and handed in at this evening's meet- 

 ing. Professor Atkinson of Montana wishes to get in touch wtih all Mon- 

 tana men who are here. 



SECRETARY FAXON: 



We have a treat in store for us Wednesday morning, which it might be 

 well to remember — a little departure from the regular program, the pre- 



