compatible. The coming
generation of strong men and strong women is crying out now for good
roads. "There is a close and permanent relation," said Alabama's
superintendent of education, "existing between good public roads and
good public schools. There can be no good country schools in the absence
of good country roads. Let us be encouraged by this movement looking
toward an improvement in road-building and road-working. I see in it a
better day for the boys and girls who must look to the country schools
for citizenship." "I have been longing for years," said President Jesse
of the University of Missouri, "to stump the capital state, if
necessary, in favor of the large consolidated schoolhouse rather than
the single schoolhouses sitting at the crossroads. But the wagons could
not get two hundred yards in most of our counties. Therefore I have had
to smother my zeal, hold my tongue, and wait for the consolidated
schoolhouse until Missouri wakes to the necessity of good roads. Then
not only shall we have consolidated schoolhouses, but also the principal
of the school and his wife will live in the school building, or in one
close by. The library and reading-room of the school will be the library
and reading-room of the neighborhood.... The main assembly room of the
consolidated schoolhouse will be an assembly place for public
lectures.... I am in favor of free text-books, but I tell you here and
now that free text-books are a trifle compared with good roads and the
consolidated schoolhouse." It is found that school attendance in states
where good roads abound is from twenty-five to fifty per cent greater
than in states which have not good roads. How long will it take for the
consolidated schoolhouse and increased and regular attendance to be
worth half a billion dollars to American men and women of the next
generation?

This applies with equal pertinency to what I might call the consolidated
church; good roads make it possible for a larger proportion of country
residents to enjoy the superior advantages of the splendid city
churches; in fact good roads have in certain instances been held guilty
of destroying the little country church. This could be true within only
a small radius of the cities, and the advantages to be gained outweigh,
I am sure, the loss occasioned by the closing of small churches within a
dozen miles of our large towns and cities--churches which, in many
cases, have only occasional services and are a con