Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-07-06
Farmers and the Press.

Farmers and the Press.
Perhaps 0hough it is very doubtfuD
there is more than one man among those
who "reads the papers that would ask for
evidence of the statement that the average
writer for the newspaper press undertakes
the need of good education for farmers.
The fact is that this notion Gt has not the
respectability of an opinion) permeates all
literature. Few are the farmers who have
shrunk their purses to send daughters to
" first-rate Schools" who have not been
stung by the unconscious ingratitude of the
speech, "Oh father, | wish you wasn't a
farmer" This universal low estimate
placed upon the business of agriculture, in
tellectually regarded, has quite as much to
do with the anxiety of our well-schooled
children to leave the farm as anything else.
In what is called cultivated society they
constantly hear the farmer alluded to slight
ingly. In every novel they read, in every
play they attend, the farmer, when he ap-
pears, may be honest may be kindly, shrewd
or witty, but he is always illiterate. He
goes in with the tinker and the tailor to
make up the mass of the common people ="
who are, Of course, not to claim entry into
"good society" There are exceptions to
this state of things, but in our northern
states it is the almost universal feeling
among those who write for the press that
the farmers are intellectually an inferior
class, and need not be otherwise. 1t would
not be difficult for an industrious general
reader to fill a large scrap-book in short
time with sentences and paragraphs in
which this belief finds conscious or uncon-
scious expression. Aud let a writer take
the other side of the question vigorously, as
we have done, and see, as we have seen, how
he will be regarded. That he is either a
quixotic enthusiast or a demagogic self
seeker will be the right and left hand limits
of opinion about him among I" the people of
culchah.'
Just as there are democrats who have
been persuaded by their republican fellow
that democracy is a synonym for slavery
and free rum, and think that party fealty
requires them, however reluctantly, to sup
port denominations of that sort, so there are
farmers, too many of them, who doubt the
value of thorough education preparatory
to the business of agriculture. So long as
education is held to mean only course of
literary study, the academic course" there
is solid foundation for the existing belief
that "education units and draws away
our youth from the business that is the foun-
dation of our national existence and pros
perity. But literary study is not education.
1t is but fractional part of education, and,
for businessmen in the working age, a COM
paratively unimportant, though, by no means,
useless part.
Nevertheless, as practical education, out
side of little reading, writing and arith-
metic, hardly exists as yet on broad scale,
and as the conservatism generated by agri-
cultural life tends to make many engaged
in it think that what always has been al
ways must be, there are considerable num-
ber of farmers pretty full of prejudice
against learning, and occasionally one who,
as writer, will try to make for himself a
little popularity by fattering that prejudice.
But it is cheap work, and the pay will not
be large.
Much is said about the "Spirit of the
age" If this age has spirit distinct from
that of other ages, it is the spirit of enquiry
whether things must always be as they have
been. Must farmers always be binds, -
"clod-hoppers," Doors "good enough in
their way, but not fit for association with
cultivated people, ,"-or so considered Must
those who do all the cultivating not be cul-
tivated
Truly was it said in the general editorial
columns of this paper not long since that
upon the subject of popular education the
interest in this state is "not quite at a
white heat" and that "the announcement OF
a meeting to be held to consider the needs
and means of improving our common schools,
is not exactly bugle call" to either the
kind of teachers we have. or the "yeomen u
generally, to turn out and attend. We
thank our associate who wrote that article
for saying 30 much and saying it so well and
so frankly. We wish every paper in the
state, every pulpit aud every one who has
influence with either tongue or pen, could
be recruited to the task of lifting up the
work of popular education to the level OF
consideration and action where it ought al
ways to stand. The common schools are
the peoples colleges" A large majority OF
our citizens never attend any other. If the
popular intelligence is to be enlarged, il
must and can only be done by the develop.
ment of the common schools into teaching
centers, capable of making their pupils suf-
ficiently masters of their own tongue to
read all ordinary books understandingly
and to know at least of the existence and
use of the sciences that have to do with
their daily work. 1t is said, very truly, that
it is for the interest of newspaper men, pc
cuniarily, TO labor for a better education oi
the mass OF the people. So it Isl and 30 il
is for the interest Of parents to visit the
schools and fully inform themselves of what
is done there and how it is done; but where
do we find even pecuniary interest so indi
rect as that powerful enough to produce the
action required, and overcome the inertia Of
narrow selfshness, or fossilized indiffer
ence. We see most of the papers of thu
state, more or less, and we hardly re
member to have seen in a year any
really vigorous and intelligent statement
even, of the defects of our school system
and its administration, except perhaps in
superintendent's report On the contrary
anybody who intimates that our schools cal
and must be improved, and suggests any
thing to be done, or how, fluids the puppy
dogs OF the press, "Tray, Blanche ano
Swee heart" barking at his heels, his view
distorted, and his words misquoted, for tn
manifest purpose of exciting the prejudice
OF the selfish and Indifferent who do no
want the present state OF things meddlet
with-tor fear their tax-bils will be in
creased. We want somebody in ever,