The Iuka vidette. (Iuka, Miss.) 1894-1912, 1909-07-22
Department of Public Education,
State of Mississippi.
Jackson, Miss, 7-16-' 'o9.
Board of Supervisors,

JdCkSOl, Miss, /-lO- w.
Board of Supervisors,
Gentlemen: The time is ap-
preaching when you will fix the
tax levy for another year. | hope
you will pardon me, if in this
connection, | take the liberty of
making a plea for better oppor-
tunities for the children and for
the development of the agricultu-
raj resources of your county.
The State Department of Educa-
ton believes that the establish
ment of an Agricultural High
School in each county will go far
toward solving our rural school
problem. The state gives 81 900
annually toward the support of
one such school in each county
The remainder must be raised by
local taxation supplemented by
the usual amount the School dis
trict, in which the Agricultural
High School is located, receives
from the State and County. A
very small tax levy in most of the
counties will be sufficient to main
tain such a school.
submit that these schools are
no longer experiments. Massa-
ch sets, whose agricultural re-
sources are extremely limited,
maintains twenty such schools.
The people of Wisconsin, where
there are numbers of such schools.
have developed their agricultural
resources and are educating their
children in these schools. Num-
bers of western and northern
states are dotted with agricultural
high schools. The interests of
the people of Mississippi are more
largely agricultural than in any
other state in the Union. Shall
we not.~deuelop her resourcesl
Shall we not give her children
better educational advantages?
Can you afford to make this levy?
Is it not better to spend money 10
make strong earnest Influential
men and women than to sacrifice
children to save mouey? Do you
want the rural schools in your
countyto be stimulated and en-
couraged? If SO, provide this
school in order that the boys and
girls may have better opportuni-
ties to look forward to when they
complete the course of study N
the rural schools.
You will appropriate money for
bridges, good roads, courthouses,
Jails, courts, ETC., and this is
right, but why not appropriate
money to be invested in the child
hood of your county? You believe
with all thoughtful people that
the only intelligent and logical
system of education is that which
carries the best school advantages
to all people. Will you not help
develop such system. Are we
not educating our people way
from the life around them? Are
we not training our children tc
become lawyers, doctors, preach
ers, school-teachers, orators, poll
ticians and statesmen only. More
4 than eighty percent of our people
are engaged in agriculture Would
you reach the many as we'll as the
few? Do you not think the time
has come to give intelligent direc-
tion to the hand as we'll as the
mind? Do you not think we ought
to give dignity to labor? Shall
we not develop our agricultural
resources through these schools
as other states are doing? Shal
not the children of Mississippi
have opportunities equal to those
in any other statei
! beg that you will give this
matter sthe serious consideration
it merits, and if your county has
not already established such {
school, will you not use the influ
ence at your command and the