pointed by the State Board to carry out its policies with regard to school administration and to act as technical advisors.

In

The manner in which state boards of education are made up varies very materially throughout the United States. For example in many states the legislature prescribes who shall constitute the State Board of Education. In some cases it expressly provides that this board shall consist of educators. Virginia, for instance, the board is made. up of a Superintendent, the President of the State College and the States Attorney General. So it will be seen that the legislature of New Hampshire diverged from the established custom when it decided that New Hampshire's State Board of Education should be made up of practical men and women rather than technical educators.

The directors of a large business corporation lay out the general policy and leave the execution of this policy to people chosen for this purpose. So the present State Board formulates the educational policy to be carried out in so far as it is consistent with the law, and leaves the execution of this policy to the different local school boards.

These local school boards receive their authority not from the State Board of Education, but from the people through the legislature-from the same source that the State Board of Education receives its authority. The State Board of Education, the Commissioner and his assistants are directing heads to aid the local school boards in carrying out the obligations which these boards have assumed. The policy of the present State Board is to decentralize authority in so far as it is possible to do so, and the real management of New Hampshire schools is in the hands of the local school boards. We cannot impose good schools upon an unwilling community. We must have the interest of local school boards and we can only have this interest by making these boards feel the great responsibility which they have assumed as the direct representatives of

the people who elected them.

There are about nine hundred members of local school boards in the State

of New Hampshire. These school boards have much power and their responsibility is great for the present law provides that the different school boards shall decide what they wish to have taught in their schools. The State Board of Education recommends courses of study to the different school boards, but it is for the local boards to decide whether they will accept these courses of study or not. The school boards nominate their Superintendents. To be sure the state hires them but it can be assumed that an organization which has the decision as to who shall represent it would have charge of that representatives's operations.

There seems to be a misunderstanding in some parts of the state in regard to the relation of the Superintendent to the various school boards. It has been suggested that the Superintendent is sort of a superior officer of the local board. This is a wrong interpretation of the law. While it is expected that the Superintendent would have great influence with the local school board and that the local board would be willing to consider the Superintendent's suggestions, it is nevertheless wholly the business of the local boards to determine exactly how they shall run their schools as long as they comply with the requirements of the law. The State Board of Education will rarely interfere with the management of school boards and never when they are carrying out the obligations which they have assumed.

The law of 1921 with relation to the salaries of the Superintendents provides that the limit of the liability of the state in the case of each Superintendent should be two thousand dollars, and anything in excess of this amount is paid by the local communities.

The state is divided into different districts and sixty-eight superintendents are employed in these districts. These Superintendents must have a college ed

ucation, must have taught school five years, and are obliged to pass a very rigid examination. There has been a feeling in some sections of the state that the matter of supervision is being carried too far. Apparently this is not a just criticism. It certainly would be an ideal condition if all teachers in public schools could reach the high standard that is required of Superintendents. This is impossible owing to the expense it would involve and the inability to get the necessary number of such highly competent teachers. However we more nearly approach this ideal condition under our present system than would be possible in any other way. A good Superintendent may increase in many instances the efficiency of a teacher by nearly twenty-five percent. Think for a moment, what an advantage it is for an inexperienced young teacher located in an outlying district with her little flock of from fifteen to twenty pupils, to have an opportunity to consult with a Superintendent of ability and experience. His advice concerning her different problems is most helpful.

We are spending about two hundred. thousand dollars yearly for the salaries of Superintendents. The valuation of property in this state amounts to six hundred and seventy-five million dollars, so we are spending for Superintendents less than one-thirtieth of one percent each year of the state's valuation and only four percent of the entire amount expended for public schools.

New Hampshire's present investment in school property is valued at about twelve million dollars, and there are seventy thousand pupils in our public schools. The educational law provides that each community must raise three dollars and fifty cents on each thousand dollars of the equalized valuation of that community for these public schools. If any community finds that five dollars on each thousand is not sufficient to maintain a standard elementary school, that community may call for state aid to make up the amount that is required.

This additional money is paid out of the state's equalization fund an appropriation which totaled three hundred and forty thousand dollars in 1923. Perhaps some may have mental reservations as to the justice of compelling some communities to help out other less fortunate communities in the matter of raising additional school funds. Owing to the present complicated nature of society which makes communities depend on each other in many ways, this equalization feature of our state law is considered just and right.

Another feature of our state educational system is the normal school. These are of major importance because upon them hinge the proper training of the teachers who are what might be termed "the finger tips" of the educational organization. There are other features of our state law which space limitations make it impossible to mention in this brief summary of our public school system.

That New Hampshire is keeping pace with the present day trend of educational advances is evident by the equalization feature of its present educational law, a feature which makes it possible for the child in remote rural districts to receive as nearly as circumstances will permit the same thorough education that the children in our cities enjoy.

There is great need to-day for intelligent interest in the public schools of our state and of the nation. Those in charge of our educational destinies must chart a careful course in order to be certain that coming generations are taught those principles which are of paramount importance if we are to solve. the tremendous problems which confront us, keeping in mind the fact that the welfare of the individual must be looked after and in exactly the right proportion. To be successful in this tremendous task we must have the hearty co-operation of of every right thinking man and woman in America, so that the sum total of human happiness in the world may be increased.

than the rental he would have to pay for a hired home; in fact it costs little more to pay for a home on the co-operative monthly installment plan, than it does to pay rental, year after after, to find one's self at the end of life living in a house owned by a landlord. There are, in fact, thousand of families in New Hampshire, and even more in New England, who have paid in rental twice the cost of the house in which they have lived for a generation or more and no better off at the end of life than when they started.

The will to do, the stern determination to have a home of your own, is the deciding factor. I know a young man who resolved that, come what would, he would own a shelter of some kind for his growing family. No more rental for me, he said. However humble the home might be he would have one. First he purchased a piece of land one mile from the Post Office. Then he obtained second-hand lumber out of which he constructed, by working overtime, a one room shelter. Little by little, as his family grew, he added to the house until at last he had built, by grit and sweat, a plain but attractive house, the picture of which is given here. He was poor while he lived in a rented house and today he is made rich by living in a house of his own. This man was not a carpenter, but he had the will to do and he did it himself. It was, in fact, a joy to him to put so much of his time into the building of his house. As he expressed it "The more of yourself you put into it the more it will mean to you."

Of course a poor man, in order to own his home, must sacrifice many of the so-called luxuries during the early years of his married life, until the house is, in part, paid for, but, as I see it, extreme sacrifice is worth while in the satisfaction of living in a house of your own, each nail of which represents hard and earnest endeavor of the entire family unit.

It is true many of us must start in a humble way, as this man did, so that

the early payments may not be a greater burden than can be borne without a breakdown and the consequent loss of the home. In starting a home necessities should come first and luxuries later. An automobile, for instance, is by no means a necessity and should come after and not before, the home. Do you realize that the cost of operating and maintaining even the lowest priced automobile represents a sum of money which, if saved for say a period of 10 years, would build a home, or a sum, which if paid in monthly installments to a co-operative building institution, would pay for your home early in your life? Is not the ownership of a home more important to family welfare and happiness than the ownership of an automobile? A furnace is desirable but that, too, is not absolutely necessary. Practically 60% of the families of that wonderful country, Canada, have not even seen a furnace and yet they live, with stoves alone, comfortably and happily, in the coldest habitable climate of this Continent. Even a bath tub and electric lights were unknown to our fathers and yet they were cheerful and healthful-fully as much so as their sons are in this age of hectic and abnormal activities. I do not belittle the advantage of having all of these modern conveniences and luxuries but why not delay until at least the home has been, in part, paid for.

It seems to me that there is no satisfaction so great as the privilege of helping a worthy and thrifty family in the upbuilding of a home. As I see it every corporation, or business concern, should encourage and assist its workers to become a home owning community so as to stimulate an increased interest in home life and too, closer participation in the economic and social welfare of the city, or town, in which they live. Bolshevism, Communisn, I. W. W. ism would find poor soil in which to plant the poisonous seed if home owning, rather than home renting, were the prevailing custom of American life.

T

The County Agents

BY H. STYLES BRIDGES

HE County Farm Bureau is primarily an organization through which Extension work in Agriculture and home economics is done. Extension work brings to the farmer on the farm, and the farmer's wife in the farm home, and the boys and girls of these homes the most efficient practices and methods of farming and homemaking.

Every County in New Hampshire has a Farm Bureau, and these Farm Bureaus work in practically every community in the State.

The first County Farm Bureau was organized in Sullivan County in 1913, and the second in 1914 in Cheshire County. Belknap, Coos and Merrimack in 1915; Grafton, Rockingham and Hillsborough in 1916, and Strafford and Carroll in 1917.

Each County Farm Bureau is

"Doctor Sawbones, are you 'keeping up with your profession?" "

the

"Of course, I am," replies doctor, "a physician's training never ceases, for the medical profession is moving forward and compels each practitioner to move with it. by means of medical journals, societies and clinics."

"Perhaps you are not aware, Doctor, that farming is as old and dignified a profession as yours and that it is equally A never-ending progressive. education in the science of agriculture is necessary for the farmer's success.

If you didn't know this, read about the work of the Farm Bureau as related by H. Styles Bridges."

governed by officers and an executive committee elected by the farmer members annually, and the program in each town is looked after by a community chairman or local director.

Each County Farm Bureau in co-operation with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Extension Department of the University of New

county workers, a staff that compares favorably with any in the country. Each agent must be an expert and an executive of the highest order. The old saying that "a jack-of-all-trades is a master of none" is not supposed to hold true with these

agents. For example, the County Agricultural Agent must be, first of all, a trained man along agricultural lines, and a leader of men. He is expected to be an expert on dairying, poultry, sheep, swine, horses, beef cattle, orcharding, small fruits, soils, crops (including