additional year in each course is optional. Most of the girls eagerly
elect it. Mr. Cederstrom takes a very practical view of such educational
matters. "Our girls like the domestic science work," he says. "They take
as much pride in bringing to my office a good loaf of bread, or a
well-prepared dish of vegetables or meat as they do in being able to
give a perfect demonstration of a theorem in geometry, or a perfect
conjugation or declension of a Latin word. Possibly ten years from now
they may have more demand upon their ability to prepare a square meal
for a hungry life companion, or to cut out a dress or apron for a
younger member of the family than they will have need of doing some of
the other things which I have just mentioned."

They do not teach domestic science for its own sake out in Sleepy Eye;
they see farther ahead than that. Mr. Cederstrom is making his work
practical, because, as he says, "We are anxious to do what little we can
toward making our girls more efficient and capable as housekeepers,
wives, and possibly as mothers."

VII How It Works Out

There are two questions that naturally arise: First, what is the effect
of this work on the children? Second, what is its effect on the farmers?
Both questions must be answered briefly, though the answers to both
might be followed out through pages of illustrative detail.

The children like the school at Sleepy Eye. The boys and girls come
early and stay late. The school doors open at eight o'clock and are not
closed until dark. There are always pupils there from the beginning to
the end of that period. The children are not interested in the applied
work alone. Their interest in that has led them very often to an
interest in some of the academic studies toward which they had no
particular inclination.

The homes in Sleepy Eye are also interested in the school. As one woman
remarked: "My girls like to do work about the house now; they never did
before." School work which gives girls a new desire and a new viewpoint
on the work in the home is a step, and a long one, toward building
sounder homes and stronger family ties. There are some Sleepy Eye homes
in which the interest of the boys in the school shops has led their
parents to buy benches and tools which the children may use at home.

The school at Sleepy Eye has interested the farmers. It has persuaded
them that high grade seed is better than mongrel seed. Consequently the
farmers are shelling more