The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-08-03
College Education for Farmers.

An article upon . question which Is
certainly of much interest to all think
ing farmers is given below. 1t is from
the pen of E. p. Powell, and considers
nearly all sides of the question. "Shall
the boy go to college to become farm
err" The writer says that the answer
to this question is frequently an ignor-
ant sheer. Book-farming is laughed at
not only by Mark Twain, in his good
natured banter, but by men who mistake
the real question at issue. 1t is not
book-farming, but brain-farming, that
is needed, and can only be secured by
a thorough education. Many boys are
spoiled for practical work by college
charlatanry, but not one is spoiled BY
a college that understands its business.
If the boy can only be set to spend two
thirds of four years in studying what
will be rather a damage to him as a
farmer, the question answers itself. If
the whole influence of the association
and the curriculum combined is op-
posed to the farm as q desirable object
for an educated mind, then the question
is answered with emphasis.
A college that furnishes boy not the
least special fitting for his special en-
plOyment is also of no use to him.
Many of our colleges give nothing, ex-
cept a general course in chemistry, that
bears in the direction of improved farm
life. So that there must be careful
choice of colleges in the first place. 1t
would be invidious to specify in this ar
ticle any of those that approximate the
needs of the farm-boy. There certainly
are colleges that by their special courses
foster the independence requisite to
depart from the professions and devote
life to productive industries.
Yet after all is said and allowed in
this direction, it must not be forgotten
that the end and object is to do good
FRAMEWORK on the farm; and the boy
must secure thorough mind discipline
as well as, or rather above, special in
formation. There is no other depart
ment of work to-day where so much
opportunity for original investigation
and practical science occurs as on the
farm, and there is no other place where
so much thorough mental work is being
done as on the farm. Brains, on q
farm, make the scientist. Brains must
hereafter do the farming. The clod-
hopper will be eliminated and the
farmer become synonymous with the
highest educated of all classes. The
necessities of the case will compel this.
The boy who hopes to do farm work
hereafter must be better educated than
the lawyer.
But shall he go to collegep In some
cases, no, if he has a strong individual
bias to some specially which he cannot
be specifically aided in by any available
college. But if the boy can go to col
lege where his bias will be respected
and taken advantage of, by all means
let him go. l have y young friend who
took his food for one weeks supply
twentymiles from home to college,
cooked it himself, and so worked his
way through the institution. 1 said to
him: why do you work so hard and
undergo such privation to be a collegi-
an? If you are to be farmer you can
learn the practical part at home" He
said: II prefer to endure anything
rather than own farm that 1 do not
understand. l must know my soil. my
trees, my fruits, my waters, my air,
and everything else 1 own" He is
now on his farm in fuller ownership
than an untaught person could possibly
be.
There are two things to be educated
for-to do and to be. take it, educa-
ton means less the former and more
the latter. No labor is the end of life.
The man who fits himself to do farm
work makes himself of less account
than the farm. The proper education
makes farming a mere means of self
culture. The end is to be, and not to
do.
The question of collegiate education
Involves the unfortunate condition of
all education or of all schools. The
system and grading do not point toward
the farm. Either the boy is sent out
with very general quality of informa-
ton, or he is headed toward profess
sion. The result is, that trade has
caused the gap in its direction to be
filled up with commercial schools. We
need, quite as much, hundreds of agri-
cultural schools tributary to agricultural
colleges, yet, to an extent, complete in
themselves. / think we shall either
soon have them, or we shall have
grated on our public-school system in
dustrial art culture of the broadest kind.
Whatever may be true of the profess
sions, there is no other occupation in
life that does not require training of the
hand and eye, as well as of the brain.
for the vast majority is
apart from experiment and
The farmer, as things are,
get very little education that fits him
for the farm.
A good deal of scientific study might
be carried on in connection with regu-
lar agricultural employment. Geology,
botany and chemistry are, naturally,
products of the soil. No education can
be even tolerable that does not provide
such studies for the coming farmer; but
it is the practical application of these
studies that most concerns the question
in hand-botany becoming horticulture
and plant culture; geology becoming
and culture. The experimental school
seems to be the natural outlook. What,
hen, should such agricultural schools
be? Certainly not rivals of a public
school system, but supplement. They
should be practical, direct, scientific,
on farm, with compe-
.ent, practical teachers. They should
cover the old apprentice plan of train
ng, brought up to the requirements and
possible requirements of this genera
ion.
There is one feature of farm life that
cannot be too carefully considered. 1
refer to heeffect of modern machinery
On the training of the boys. 1t is a fact
hat we can hardly find a boy of eighteen
Or twenty, who has all his life worked
IN farms, who can handle scythe with
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