The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-04-25
Educating Farmers.

It is now universally admitted, at least by all
sensible persons, that farmers require specific
course of education-one adapted to their call
ing and calculated to fit them for its pursuits
| as much as lawyers, or doctors, or clergymen.
Not that farming is a matter of theory merely; !;
it must be learned by practice as much as any
mechanical trade; but mere hand-work will
not make an intelligent farmer, nor can it, as a
general thing, make successful one. Farm
| Ing is both a science and an art. The science
cannot be learned simply by tilling the soil,
1t is by overlooking this combination that
some practical farmers on the one hand have
decried agricultural education, and on the 9TH
er hand scientific farmers have. shown such a
poor fist at practical farming Study and prac-
tice, knowledge and apprenticeship must go
together to ensure the highest success.
In this connection we make q significant ex-
tract from an "Address to the Agricultural
Organizations in the United States, prepared
by the National Agricultural Association, at
Nashville, Oct. 3, 1871" which was read at the
recent Convention at Washington, D. c.:
"The history of the last quarter Of century
records nothing of more Importance to the
world at large than the rapid and widespread
uplifting of the business of agriculture from
condition wherein neither knowledge nor skill
were requisite, but only brute force, to that
wherein wider range of knowledge and q
higher skill may find ample employment, than
is demanded in any other calling. This is no
vain boast, but fact standing out in bold re-
lief and challenging the attention of every
thoughtful student of the present times. The
history of this uprising, though brief, is brim-
full of interest and instruction. 1t is not the
result of any one discovery, though many dis
hut ho
product of any one invention, though many
inventions have aided. Like all great results,
it is the product of many combined forces-the
effect of many far-reaching causes Fully to
understand, or rightly to appreciate this great
uplifting, it is necessary to reckon the number
and measure the extent of the agencies opera
ting to produce it. To enumerate these were
almost to catalogue the arts and sciences, while
10 detail their operations were to write the his
tory of the times either is much beyond our
purpose. II suffices to say that agriculture has
come to be recognized as science and art
second to none other known to man, And,
henceforth, the man who aspires to the fore
most place as an agriculturist, must needs ac-
quaint himself with a wide range of sciences,
and master the principles of many arts: In
other words, the farmer now needs his schools
and his colleges as much as the lawyer and the
physician-schools and colleges too, of equal
grade and wider compass. This is the mean
ing of the movement that, in the world of ed
ucation, marks the present from all other
times. Industrial schools and colleges have
arisen during the present century Ill every CIV
ilized country throughout Christendom. Re-
suits SO widespread, and yet so uniform, can
only flow from force dcep-seated, far-reaching
and irresistible That force is the uprising OF
the Industrial classes"