HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 367 Not all the movements which have distin- guished this period, however, have had to do with material wealth; railroad building and swamp reclamation were important in them- selves and led to great consequences. They must have failed, however, of doing that for which they were intended had they not been associated with other movements in the life of the people. One of these was a movement looking toward the improvement of educa- tion. This movement while it had its be- ginning shortly after the war, and led, even then, to the organization and establishment of schools in every district through Southeast ilissouri and brought a public school within reach of nearly every family, did not provide for a complete system of schools. It was pos- sible for a state superintendent of education in 1894, to speak of Southeast ^Missouri as the educational low land of the state and to jus- tify his characterization by pointing out that in all this great section of the state there ex- isted only one, or at the most two schools, de- serving of the name high school, and that in this section also there was only one school, the State Normal School at Cape Girardeau, that was doing any large amount of work above the common school branches. This situ- ation has changed ; and today, there is scarcely a town of any importance in Southeast Missouri that does not have a well organized and equipped high school. In rural communi- ties, too, there is a movement for the organ- ization of rural high schools and a consoli- dation of scattered and isolated districts into larger units for the maintainanee of these country high schools. Along with this increased interest in pub- lic education as evidenced in the establish- ment of public schools, the building of good schoolhouses, and the consolidation of rural schools, has come an increased interest in religious affairs. The time has come in Southeast Missouri when the various com- munities are no longer satisfied with a modi- fied barn in which to hold religious services, but want comfortable, commodious, and even splendid structures erected for church pur- poses. This movement, too, has gone hand in hand with the spread of religious teaching and religious knowledge to every community. There is scarcely to be found within the bounds of Southeast Missouri a single settle- ment or community, no matter how remote, that does not have its regular gospel services carried on by one or another of the religious denominations. One of the movements which has had a place in the history of Southeast IIis.souri in late years is known as the local option move- ment. In 1887 the General Assembly passed a law giving counties the right to determine for themselves whether intoxicating liquors should be sold within their limits. At that time campaigns were made by the temper- ance people in a number of southeast coun- ties and part of them complied with the terms of the law and voted against dram sliops. On appealing to the Supreme Court, however, the law was declared defective and the action of the counties null and void. At a later time, however, the General Assembly passed an- other law which is at present on the statute books, providing for local option elections. By its terms the county may vote on the ques- tion of local option, and each town within the county having a population of more than 2,500 may hold an election separate from the rest of the county. Under the provisions of this law local option elections have been held in a number of Southeast Missouri counties and maijy of them have become dry territory.
