Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-10-15
A Vermont Teacher on Agricultural
Education.

to the practical thing. One thing needed is
farmers secondary school, that is, school
to rank with good academies and high
schools, to be exclusively an English school
which shall offer good instruction in the adj
vanced departments of the so-called com
mon branches, and good round OF higher
branches, giving special attention to botany
mineralogy, zoology, with other subjects in
natural history and the most important sub
jects in physics.
GLOW to get such school Suppose
the farmers secure a small endowment fund
to begin with, say $4,000, and then raise
sum sufficient to purchase some school or
hotel property, well located, with land if de-
sired, to fit up such property and invest say
$4,000 in apparatus, cabinet and library.
Then, if no farm is attached, the school
might have one solid session from Novem-
Der lst to May LIST, or thereabouts, leaving
the summer for work at home In such
school young people could be fitted to enter
agricultural colleges and other scientific
schools, and could be prepared for good cit
liens and farmers should they not go beyond
the school described"
Such school as our correspondent sug
gests could be made very useful, and we
wish we might have one in every county in
Vermont. But we think that difficulty
would be experienced in raising the neces-
sary funds for even one. There is lack of
confidence among the farmers as TO the pos
sibility of getting the proper instructors for
such school. The great difficulty all over
the Union with the agricultural colleges has
been the literary turn given them by those
into whose hands they have fallen and the
fear exists that such a fate would be in store
for any agricultural high school that might
be established. This may be frankly said
without any imputation of wrong purpose
on the part of instructors. The fact is that
a class of industrial educators has yet to be
developed. When we have them they will
work upon altogether different principles
and methods from those of the existing
schools.
1t seems to us, also, that the objective
point of reform and progress in this matter
should be our primary or common schools.
Beginning with agricultural colleges and
high schools we regard as starting at the
wrong end, unless it be with the express
purpose of educating teachers for the COM
mon schools. We fear their tendency would
be, if successful toward the development of
an agricultural "upper-class, "a division
among the farmers between educated and
uneducated, which would tend to become
permanent, and to result in a freezing
out of the latter and the establishment of
landed aristocracy with tenant farming,
somewhat after the model of England, but
which England is getting sick Of. Our idea
would be to develop our normal schools on
the practical side, and if we had hundred
thousand dollars to use for the promotion of
industrial education, we do not know how
we could better bestow it than to divide it
between our normal schools for that object.
Also we think we should try to get back
that able and Jealous young Vermonter,
Professor Atwater, from Connecticut to take
the superintendent of the work.
Another matter is referred to by our cor
respondent. He says "The people refuse
to pay for good teachers what they can earn
at some other employment, or in some other
place. The school is often, for substance
of fact, put up to the lowest bidder, and
billiards and inexperts are found in the
schools, while persons of tried competence
are left to enter other pursuits The people
can have well educated and skillful teachers
just when a proper demand is made fol
them. They get as good teachers as they
pay for, and just about as good as they
want"
There is some truth in this charge agains
the people, and we, in times past, have urged
it ourself. But we try to be always learn
ing, and with the process of time and OBJ
servation we have modified our opinions OIL
this subject. 1t does not stand to reasol
that our people really will not pay for
good education for their children. Their
are individuals, too many of them, who vii
not but they are not the majority. Tn
trouble seems TO be this For certain mod
crate stipend teachers can be found to teac
our children how to read, write and ciphe
tolerably well. For double that price W
may get an academic or normal school grad
uate, who will teach these branches som'
what better. Double the price again an
we can obtain college graduate, no bette
and often not so good teacher of the con
mon branches as one from normal schoo
None of them can teach the physical science