farm must be interested in it and in
its various phases, whether he be a renter or a worker. He must be
careful, watchful, industrious, intelligent, and a lover of domestic
animals; otherwise the farm will go backward and the stock will not
thrive and be productive of profits. The man who drives a farm to a
successful issue must be a leader, and, if he is not the owner, he must
cooperate with the owner in order that there may be interest, which is
the great essential.

=The Owner.=--If the farm is operated by the owner himself and his
family, there is still greater need of leadership on the part of the
father and of cooperation on the part of all. Money and profits are not
the only motives or the only results and rewards that come to a family
in rural life. As the children grow up to adult life, both boys and
girls, for their own education and development in leadership and in
cooperation, should be given some share in the business, some interest
which they can call their own, and whose success and increase will
depend on their attention, care, and industry. That father is a wise
leader who can enlist the active cooperation of all his family for the
good of each and of all. Such leadership and cooperation are the best
forms and means of education, and lead inevitably to good citizenship.
How often do we see a grasping, churlish father whose leadership is
maintained by fear and force and whose family fade away, one by one, as
they come to adolescence. There is no cementing force in such a
household, and the centrifugal forces which take the place of true
leadership and cordial cooperation soon do their work.

=The Teacher as a Leader.=--We have already spoken of the teacher as the
natural leader of the activities of a social center, or of a community.
In such situations the teacher should be a real leader, not one who
wishes or attempts to be the direct and actual leader in every activity,
but one "who gets things done" through the secondary leadership of a
score or more of men, boys, and girls. The leader in a consolidated
district, or social center, who should attempt to bring all the glory
upon himself by immediate leadership would be like the teacher who
insists on doing all the reciting for his pupils. That would be a false
and short-lived leadership. Hence the teacher who is a true leader will
keep himself somewhat in the background while, at the same time, he is
the hidden mainspring, the power behind the throne.