sr
or
V
GARDEHj
VOL. liXLII
NUV 131908
INDIANAPOLIS  NOV    14, 1908.
NO. 46
Rural  Education
Kdltora Indiana  Farmer:
Educational matters are receiving considerable attention in the farm papers as
well   as   others. Even   the  matter  of
educating the farmer has been referred to
President Koosevelt by some correspond-
«Bt.
That this subject cannot receive too
much attention is very evident when we
read what is said in general of the present
system.      President Wilson, of Princeton
University;     says:       "We     all      	
know that the children of the
I*st two decades have not been
educated. With all our training
we have trained nobody; with
all our instructing we have
instructed nobody."
A Kansas superintendent
says: "Our schools are so
taken up with 'fads' and 'frills'
that the matter of any material
progress has become an obsolete thing."
In Wallace's Farmer a correspondent says: "It is a fact
that our schools are much farther advanced than they were
.HO years ago, but no improvement worthy of note has been
made in the last 15 years."
We might quote at length,
but these references are sufficient to cause alarm to the
friends of education. Various
theories are advanced for bettering the conditions, but it is
better first to get at the cause
nnd then find the remedy.
The Wallace Farmer correspondent recommends consolidated schools by concentrating the rural schools and
massing the pupils in the town
and city schools. Another
says: "Our teachers shonld
be college graduates."
In 1858 tbe writer "kept
school," and continued in the
service till 1803. In the begin-
i.;ng our appliances were few ====
and crude, but by persistent efforts we
gained mastery of the subjects
ansl some progress was gained
ytar by year, till at the last
dale the schools were doing fair work;
tl'in came the 15 year halt noted above.
How did tliis occur?
In the earlier school years most of the
tuition was paid by the patrons, there
being no school funds of any great
amount. Later on this plan was super-
seded by the present free school system,
mul then the trouble began. Jealousy
sprang up between the town and city
graded schools and  the rural schools.
The latter were criticised for inefficient
v.<.rk and the teachers humiliated by
these criticisms. Gradually the towns
began to draw pupils from the country
schools  to  their own. This continued
ti. grow, until the schools near towns be-
«.iiiic so diminished in numbers that some
were discontinued and others were supplied by cheap teachers. Gradually all
the good teachers were ostracized and
driven from the work and their places
supplied by the annual output of gradu-
ata s from the town ""hools.
Again   as   the   i 'since   of   country
pupils to the town i ils increased their
drafts on the sch ainds became great-
the teachers gave such evidence of their
scholarship, as when one said: "Ben.
Franklin was the first president of the
United States." Another described
Psychology as "the study of rocks, and
telling how the earth was made." Still
another said: "Cotton grows on sheep's
backs." A fourth said: "James Watt
discovered the steam which now runs our
steamboats." '
Is it auy wonder our schools have stood
still for the past 15 years?
come familiar with the social life on the
farm, and its freedom from the evils of
town and city.
If it is true, as the papers say, that
15,000 hungry children attend school
every day in Chicago, use our surplus
funds in placing them in rural districts
where tha parents can make a livelihood
and their children attend school without
suffering  the pangs of starvation.
Unless some steps are taken to stop
this drain on the rural schools to the al-
Kelgian  Mares  and   Colts  Imported  by    Frisinger     &    Co..     Decatur,      Indiana.
Another trouble with our school system
is the text book problem. Some one
says: "Our text books are designed for
Ihe benefit of the 'Book Trust' and not
forthejbenefit of the pupils." On examination you will find the entire series a
"wishy washy" set of manuals for our
schools.
In early days it required erudite minds
to edit text books, but now-a-days any
ordinary talent can do so if a publisher
can be found to undertake their publication.
The books have to be shallow to meet
the requirements of the class of teachers
now running the schools.
Xow for the remedy. Stop this concentrating process. Keep the rural
schools intact  from the encroachment of
er,    leaving the r
funds,     short  ten
Imagine schools
schools with short
nd  poor teachers.
_ good work where
, the town schools. Place the very best
I teachers in those schools, and pay salaries commensurate with tlheir services.
Require these teachers to familiarize
themselves with agricultural, horticultural and iloricultural subjects. Give
thein  ample grounds  for these purposes.
Cease building two million dollar war
vessels and devote this money to teaching
the arts of peace, good citzcnsliip and
good government.
Place in every rural school literature on
farm subjects to interest the minsl of the
boys  hnd   girls.
Add   farm  journals  that  they  may  be-
ready crowded towns there will be a return to feudal times, as bad as, or
worse,    than those of the past.
The fellow who wrote to the President
wants the farmer educated.
No. Let the fanner alone—educate bis
children.. Teach them to love the true
the beautiful and the good.
Give the farmer relief from l(i hours
daily  toil.
Let his sehool taxes go to the support
oi the rural schools.
Raise his position in society, in church,
in state, by recognizing him as a potent
benefactor to the race, not merely a
dnidgo for others to profit by, and perhaps he will look on life as something
more thau a continual strife to gain
wealth. J.  H.  Haynes.
Delphi.
BRAINS IN FARM WORK.
Mr. A. P. Grout of Winchester, 111.,
owner of several farms, Farmers' Institute director of the twentieth congressional district, and originator of the Farm
School Encampment, gives young men
ot the farm some very plain reasons for
getting nn agricultural education if they
expect to succeed in the business of farming under the conditions of the future,
iu substance as follows:
When a'boy on a Vermont farm Mr.
tiront learned to do every kind    of farm
work and no boy ever worked harder or
more faithfully, but he did not see the
lessons in what he did; he saw only the
hard work. He made maple sugar, became an expert in cradlhig grain and
binding grain by hand, was handy with
an ax, experienced in breaking steers, etc.
He had the physical force to do anything
required. The   same   is   true  of   boys
today. But he says this physical ability never did and never will make a
farmer.
It is    farmers of    this    kind.
^ who    have    worked early    and
late and untiringly but unintel-
ligently, that have ruined and
made desolate many fertile sections of this and other countries. It is farmers of physical force but without knowledge who areresponsible for the
abandoned farms of the eastern
and older parts of this country
—farmers who are working
blindly  and  ignorantly.
Along Fraser river in British Columbia, Mr. Grout saw
the ground whieh had been dug
over for gold; the soil has beeu
washed away leaving only rock
and rubbish. It struck him
that this mining is much like
the kind of farming done by
men who use only physical
strength in their work. We
have a rich soil filled with gold,
uot in the form of metal but in
the nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus aud other elements of
fertility that are absolutely essential to the growth of crops,
which are readily convertible
into gold.
Many    farmers    take    these
plant foods out of the soil every
year in the form of grain and
other products   withoutreturning
any tiling to the soil to enable it
to feed more crops in the coming seasons.    Mr.   Grout  calle 1
such   farmers    merely    miners,
"    plundering and ruining the soil.
Many      are      working        blindly      and
ignorantly.    The  almost     universal  practice has lieen to ruin the land and then
say, "Westward-ho."
He said the real farmer is the man who
glows big erops and returns all the golden
elements of fertility to the soil, so it can
gi% on producing such big crops indefinitely without getting poorer. The "mining"
method of farming is simply robbing the
next generation of its rightful inheritance
in the riches of the soil. Under real
farming the land descends to the children better and more productive than
when the fathers began it.
What would you think of the surgeon
whi se only qualification for amputating a
leg or nnn was his ability to wield a
carving knife and a saw? Strength is
only one requirement, the most import-
rnt one is to know why, how, when and
wbat to do. The farmer must be educated for his calling just as the doctor,
the lawyer, the preacher, the business
man and the skilled mechanic are ed.i-
cated. He must study agriculture. All
tbere is to scientific farming is to farm
according to the best methods known. It
means simply following the accumulated
experiences of observant, thoughtful and
studious men. It means the heeding
of recorded results of experiments, tests,
and trials that have been made by educated and scientific men,    with the view