Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/27

Rh Results may be raised to the n$th$ power by manifold utilization of means. Our State Board of Education and State Library Commission give avenues always through which the homes and the State may be reached directly. We have one hundred and twenty schools doing high school work scattered over the State; twenty of these do four years' work, and twenty more three years' work. There is one interesting venture: a union high school at Hood River collecting students from several districts. There are forty traveling libraries going about the State. One of the commissioners, Mr. W. B. Ayer of Portland, has just given another $500 to the library fund. Now, are not each of these one hundred and twenty high schools and forty traveling libraries means through which farseeing women of the State may achieve two or three things at once?

In contemplating the ways and means at command through which to aid permanently in the building of a State a peculiarly congenial field offers a plan that must come in early in previsions for the welfare of any community, and that is a plan to develop definite, feasible methods of fostering industry, manufacture of something, the love of labor and the productive spirit. Whatever we wish to put into Oregon's life we must put into Oregon's homes and Oregon's schools. Not the idle whittling of many whistles and the noisy blowing of them is the best thing for a boy. Let him grow early into the knowledge that he can make things for use and for beauty; let the girl early learn how to shape cloth into a garment. Manual training for boys and girls means more than dexterity. The use of the hands and the achievement of things home-made and hand-made with the growing sense of power over raw material and love of industry,—these will give vigor to any community; will help to prevent