that
astute wire-puller's definite choice of a place in the bandwagon. "Tell us
what you want, Jim!"

"What do I want?" asked Jim. "More than anything else, I want such
meetings as this--often--and a place to hold them. If I stay in the
Woodruff District, I want this meeting to effect a permanent organization
to work with me. I can't teach this district anything. Nobody can teach
any one anything. All any teacher can do is to direct people's activities
in teaching themselves. You are gathered here to decide what you'll do
about the small matter of keeping me at work as your hired man. You can't
make any legal decision here, but whatever this meeting decides will be
law, just the same, because a majority of the people of the district are
here. Such a meeting as this can decide almost anything. If I'm to be your
hired man, I want a boss in the shape of a civic organization which will
take in every man and woman in the district. Here's the place and now's
the time to make that organization--an organization the object of which
shall be to put the whole district at school, and to boss me in my work
for the whole district."

"Dat sounds good," cried Haakon Peterson. "Ve'll do dat!"

"Then I want you to work out a building scheme for the school," Jim went
on. "We want a place where the girls can learn to cook, keep house, take
care of babies, sew and learn to be wives and mothers. We want a place in
which Mrs. Hansen can come to show them how to cure meat--she's the best
hand at that in the county--where Mrs. Bonner can teach them to make bread
and pastry--she ought to be given a doctor's degree for that--where Mrs.
Woodruff can teach them the cooking of turkeys, Mrs. Peterson the way to
give the family a balanced ration, and Mrs. Simms induct them into the
mysteries of weaving rag rugs and making jellies and preserves--you can
all learn these things from her. There's somebody right in this
neighborhood able to teach anything the young people want to learn.

"And I want a physician here once in a while to examine the children as to
their health, and a dentist to look after their teeth and teach them how
to care for them. Also an oculist to examine their eyes. And when Bettina
Hansen comes home from the hospital a trained nurse, I want her to have a
job as visiting nurse right here in the Woodruff District.

"I want a counting-room for the keeping of the farm accounts and the
record of our observation in farming. I want coo