The greatest opportunity for better homes and better farms and a better country life is in enlisting the children of the country in the movement.  When I say the children of the country, I do not mean to exclude the children of the villages and towns whose tastes may lead them countryward.  We should never stop or attempt to stop the free movement between the country and the city.  It is good for both.  The children of today will be the farmers and farm home makers and the business men and women of tomorrow.  Are the children of the farmers looking forward with interest to farming as a business, and life in the country as attractive?  The movement to the city in ever-increasing numbers is the answer, but it is the answer to what has been and now is, rather than to what is to be.  A new day is dawning, in which the brightest minds and the choicest spirits will again choose to live in the open country and make there the ideal homes from which shall continue to come the life and vigor of the nation.  But if it is to be so, the schools of the country must furnish real intelligent leadership and the country church must come again to spiritual leadership.  We must all help to bring this about.

Minnesota has a plan to accomplish this, and it is working out even better than we dared hope.  Experience has shown that by consolidation or the cooperation of several districts, good results may be secured at no greater cost than the same type of school costs in town.  The small school of today is expensive because it is inefficient.  The consolidated school is giving the children of the country the education that they need and is doing it better than it can be done anywhere else.  The consolidated school is becoming the rural community center.  An important feature which has been adopted by many of the consolidated districts is the building of a home for the teachers in connection with the school.  This home may be made typical of what the modern home should be, not expensive but substantial, artistic, convenient and sanitary.  The grounds should be suitably planted with trees, shrubs and flowers, and there should be a garden.  The school building is also made to fit the needs of the community.  The larger rooms may be used for entertainments, farmers’ club meetings, lectures, etc.  There should be facilities for testing milk and other agricultural products, examining soils, etc.  There should be a shop for wood and iron work, or at least a work bench and an anvil.  There should be a library of good reading and a place to cook and bake and sew.  There should be a typewriter, a piano or an organ, and such other conveniences for teaching and social center work as the community may wish and be able to secure, and, best of all, teachers living at the school who know how to operate the plant in every detail and to make it useful to the community.

[Illustration:  An ideal plan for consolidated school grounds.]