This illustration of a schoolhouse (Fig. 292) is taken from Bulletin 160, published by the College of Agriculture of Cornell University. The title of the bulletin is "Hints on Rural School Grounds." I wish you would send for the bulletin. It will be mailed you free if you request it. The picture is not an imaginary sketch, but a faithful representation of what stood in a prosperous rural community less than five years ago. To one familiar with country school buildings it will not be considered as a solitary "awful example," but rather as a type of many that are scattered over the State. I hope it is not your misfortune to be teaching in such a house, even though it is my desire to reach every teacher who is that luckless. However, to make my talk more real let us "make believe," as children say, that you are the priestess in a similar temple of learning. Together we will plan how we can make the most of very uncongenial surroundings. [Illustration: _Fig. 292. A country school property._] It would be safe to wager a red apple that the inside of the building is every bit as dilapidated as the outside. A community that tolerates such a building would not be likely to have anything but the rudest furniture and most of that on crutches. It would be something out of the usual if the box stove is not short a leg or two, with brick-bats being used as substitutes. You will be fortunate if the stove door has two good hinges and if the wood is not green. At the last school meeting, did the patrons instruct the trustees not to pay more than six dollars per week for your services? Was the proposition that the district raise five dollars, to which the State would add five more for the purchase of books for a library, unanimously voted down and the poor man who introduced the resolution expected to apologize for his temerity? The leading man in the district each Sunday during summer drives two miles to salt his young stock, inspect fences, and see how the yearlings are prospering; but he never thinks of visiting the school to see how his children are progressing. Yet the people of this district are not bad. They are counted good citizens by the bar and judge, when they are drawn on juries. The public buildings at the county-seat are models of their kind and these gentlemen do not remonstrate as to the expense. Perhaps it has not occurred to them that school buildings and grounds should have as high a standard as those of the county. A correct public ideal is everything. It is not a hopeless undertaking to advance such an ideal in the community of which we are speaking.