le from all parts
of the two counties sit in reserved seats, for which they pay a
good price, and listen to one or two notable speakers and a number
of local functionaries. One-half of the time is devoted to
education and the other to farm interests.

It is a great idea, well worked out, and after fourteen years it
maintains its lustiness, but I confess to disappointment that the
idea has not spread more extensively. It is so useful there, and
the idea is so suggestive, that it should have been well-nigh
universal, and yet despite occasional bluffs at it, I know of no
serious effort to adopt it elsewhere, unless the midwinter meeting
at Shelby, in one of these two counties, can be considered a spread
of the idea. This child of the Hesperia movement, in one of the two
counties, and only twenty miles away, had this year many more in
attendance than have ever been at Hesperia.

This work of uniting more closely the interests, sympathies, and
intelligence of the teachers and patrons of the rural school has had a
test in Michigan of sufficient length to prove that it is a practicable
scheme. No one questions the desirability of the ends it is prepared to
compass, and experience in Michigan shows not only that where the
educators have sufficient enterprise, tact, enthusiasm, and persistence
the necessary organizations can be perfected, but that substantial
results follow. For the sake of better rural schools, then, it is
sincerely to be hoped that the "Hesperia movement" may find expression
in numerous teachers and patrons' associations in at least the great
agricultural states.

CHAPTER IX

THE RURAL SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY

Among the great phenomena of our time is the growth of the school
idea--the realization of the part that the school plays in our
civilization and in the training of our youth for life. Our New England
fathers started the school in order that their children might learn to
read the Scriptures, and thus that they might get right ideas of their
religious duty. Even after this aim was outgrown, our schools for
generations did little more than to teach the use of the mere tools of
knowledge; to read, to write, and to cipher were the great gains of the
schoolroom. Even geography and grammar were rather late arrivals. Then
came the idea that the school should train children for citizenship, and
it was argued that the chief rea