Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1882-07-26
Education for the Farmer.

| I-'e~O'Na HNV Nhiuf9o iOi llAlll-tll II you
want boy ts be good mechanic send
him to school where he can study en
glneerng and drawing; if you want him
70 be a civil engineer you do not star,
hlm out carrying a chan, bat you send
MN to school where he can study civ
'ngineering; and if vou wsnt bov
1ecome chemist you do not make him a
clerk in drug store, but send him to -
well appointed laboratory. In every d. q.
pdrtment of work meu are making al-
vances and Improvements and inventions (;
md if man is to keep up with the time
he must be thinking and reading AS wei
IS working; if he works to day as he diu
'e'' years ago he will get left behind; am
Il boy is to hold his own with the hes
IL must have the advantages of he best
1t is just rs true of farmers sons as of any
Hhor class of boys. 1t is getting to b..
generally understood that lawyers and
min AN~s and doctors are not necessarily
wiser or greater than the rest of mankind :;
nor are they the only ones who need to
use their brains. If you say that a farm
er 8 boy, or girl either, doesn't need edu
eating, you say that the amount of intelli-
gence and brains needed to work and
manage farm is less than in any other
pursuit. That is not true. If farming is
10 be made to pay.-if it is 10 be Just as
honorable to be farmer as to be a mer
chant or lawyer or a mechanic, If the
comforts and requirements of civilized life
are to be brought into and kept in the
farmers homes to the same extent they
are in those of their city friends,-if a
farmers sons and daughters are to feel
that they have, and have right to have,
the same culture and intelligence and
respectful consideration that other people
have,-then those sons and daughters
must have the same chance for an educa-
ton that is given to every one else. And
if this is not Soft farming is business
that doesn't need brains and scientific
education for the same, then urge every
boy and girl Of youl acquaintance TO leave
the farm and get into some business where
they can look down on the life their
fathers led. And if that time ever comes
we shall indeed have lower class, and
this country will no longer be republic,
but will be governed by an aristocracy :;
and we will have to change the dcclara.
ton of independence so that it shall read
that all men except farmers are created
free and equal, and that all men except
farmers are entitled to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. That is Just exactly
what it comes to. And that is Just exactly
what it isn't coming to, because all men
know better. Farming never was making
such progress as it is at the present time /;
never until now were agricultural books
and papers so numerous; never before
were so many farmers sons and daughters
fitting themselves for life.work in our
higher schools.
Within the recollection of midde.aged
men, there has grown up in this country,
as we'll as in other countries, what we
may regard as the most encouraging sign
of the tmes-a demand for q practical
education. 1t is not the first time in the
history of the world that such demand
has been made; and it always means
intellectual growth
In the fifteenth century, when the study
eff Greek was introduced into the English
universities, it was bitterly opposed by
the most of the teachers of that time; but
there was a real need and demand for it,
for the learning of the time Lad degener
ated into pedantry, and the study of Greek
gave new birth to notions, not themselves
new, but which had almost died out, OF
political freedom and independence of The
mind and no study was ever more prac-
ticed than was Greek at that time, lor il
brought in the new current Of thought
and feeling which soon gave rise to the
English Bible and the reformation,-
religious and civil liberty. Does any one
study Greek for such a purpose nowP Nc
one pretends to. 1t serves as a means oi
intellectual training of a certain sort, very
perfect in its way but no one now eveI
thinks to get new ideas or practical meth
DDS from it. Undoubtedly classical itera
ture abounds in eloqucnce and sense; but
the man who, on reading Plato, said
" there were great many new things ir
that book" " is generally quoted with tha
Massachusetts man who, after attending
the performance of "lIamlct,' said "ht
didn't believe there were ten men in Bos
ton who could write play like that"
Now we have the complaint that the
time which can be given to getting ar
education is inadequate at the best; ant
that the exclusive study Of the classic!
leaves youth ignorant Of the great scien
tiic progress of the age, without knowl
edge of which he is unfit to enter tht
world of business. 1t is useless for The
advocates of classical education to pretenC
that the classical courses of study have
been SO modified as to contain the mair
things in scientific knowledge; the fact il
that all the scientific knowledge studen
in classical course Of study gets is the
merest smatterings; it is very doubtful
whether it is worth what little time i
spent upon it or not. 1t would be bette
to say, what no one disputes, that if a maj
wishes to be lawyer or minister Thu
best training he can get is classical one
and let it go at that. Almost every classica
, graduate spends year or so in teaching
as soon as ho is through college; it i
because he can ilnd nothing else to do
, seldom or mover do you find n graduate o
scientific school teaching, for bette
: salary awaits him in somo technical work
This shows that there is 4 real demand 70
, strictly scientific education. 1t cannot b,
objected to this that teaching is the high
=, est grade of work, for, in fact, it is goner
: ally the least in point Of remuneration
and the condition of our public schools i
disgrace to our country.
, Now, what sort of an education does
! farmer want? | believe that the popula
verdict is right,-as it generally is,-an'
+ that the best that the schools can do fo
him is to teach him rs much as possible o
the real things ho will encounter in hi
, every day, out-of.doors life. Let him b.
.. taught to understand correctly what b
sees, and know the true reasons for things
and to have genuine scientific methods o
| thought; not descending to verbal quib
{ blcs or rhetorical whimscalities, bu
0 grasping tho truth rs Il whole, with
, thorough knowledge of tho principle
t which govern tho details, and with ;
practical experience OF tho best way o
0 examining tho details themselves. Sucl
/ knowledge as this is what every scientific
/ school gives; if it does not it has no righ
g to the name. We hear great deal from
} time to time about the breadth of cul
/ ture " given by n classical education
r which is what men who know nothing bu
0 classics are pleased to call d" liberal ed
! ucation;" how it tends to make maj
t more of man, and u more intelligen
D ctizen,as if scientific study did not do tn
; same. To my mind, it is sheer humbu
/, to talk of breadth of culture as belongin;
| to man who is ignorant, as most classco
f graduates are, of thorough knowledg
Q of the methods and facts of modern scien
l. tific discovery and research: and whel