Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-04-15
For the YOrkyille Enquirer.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
A FEW Words TO FARMERS ABOUT THE
EDUCATIONAL WANTS OF THE SOUTH
TIE TILLMAN MOVEMENT, ETC.

TIE ILLMiN MOPEMENI, Ell.
NO /.
Whilst other counties are having prelim-
mary conventions Of farmers and general
conventions in reference to the choosing OF
delegates to the Farmers State Convention,
no county convention to this end has been
held in York. Why is York Indifferent in
a movement bearing so directly upon its
most important interests? The OriginatOrs
of the movement have disclaimed the idea
of creating any dissensions within the Dem
ocratic ranks, or of injecting politics in any
form into the farmers movement. The
farmers having already the majority of
numbers in the Legislature the opinion of
all classes and professions is, that general
organizations of the farmers of the State,
for the discussion of matters purely agri-
cultural may accomplish much good. AS
every county has its demagOgues anxious
ly waiting for the farmers movement"
the folly of the "new DEAL" estate House
tinued until the selection of delegates in
each county, for the delegates so selected
will be chosen with regard to their COM
prehension of the facts and due apprecia-
ton of the real needs of the farmer.
Being a chemist, and an educator my in
terest in the cause of agricultural advance
ment is not supposititious but real. 1t is
not many years since the young men of the
South were studiously instructed to despise
mechanical employment, even on his W
farm or plantation, and as for the "greasy
mechanic" from the North he was an object
of scorn, and the true Southerner was ex-
pected to thank God that few Of that class
were ever likely to venture across Mason
and DiXon's line. In some of the Southern
States a most encouraging change has been
wrought in popular sentiment during re-
cent years. Factories are s%pringing up, ag-
ricultural and mechanical colleges are crea-
ted, undeveloped resources are being turn
ed to use and profit; and almost every
where except in South Carolina the feel
ing is become one of respect for and de-
sire for a rapid development of the ag-
ricultural and mechanical arts. If l ex-
cept this gallant little. State it is because
our ablest and best men in the past were
too much given to theoretical talk, consti-
tutional distractions, and too deeply in
love with the platitudes of Cicero, and ever
now they prefer to leave the practical and
homely misunderstanding affairs of soil and
Calhoun and Cicero. Whilst South Carroll
ma is hugging the past it may be we'll to
look abroad and see what other Southern
States are doing in the matter of supplying
educational wants of the South. The fol-
lowing have technical or industrial schools:
Maryland has two schools for white boys,
not counting the naval academy.
Virginia has two institutions where man
ual labor is taught white boys, and one for
colored.
West Virginia, one for whites.
Kentucky, two for whites.
Tennessee has two schools Of this kind
for whites.
Georgia has just appropriated So 5000 for
a school ''of technology" Atlanta has an
artisans institute, and Oxford a technical
department we'll equipped.
Alabama has one State school for whites.
Mississippi, one State school for whites.
Arkansas, one State school for whites.
Louisiana has two manual training schools
for whites.
Texas has one, at least.
The comments of the leading neWspa-
pers 60 to show that a very remarkable
change has taken place in the public mind
with respect to what's known asa classical
education" The importance of this change
can scarcely be overestimated, for While
reforms are slow, in Church, in Government
and in schools, and is not likely torecotution-
ize the conservative methods Of the univer-
sites, it will have a very wholesome effect
on the purposes and aims of the young
men who seek a university education, the
final result being, that our institutions OF
learning will eventually adapt themselves
to the necessities created by educational
Sentative South Carolina, because of the
conditions which call it forth and of the
coming change in public sentiment. A
writer at Lexington to the NeWs and COu-
rier, says:
1.-THE people Of Lexington are in full
sympathy with any movement which has
for its object the ameliOration of the condi-
ton of the farmers and the advancement
and improvement of our agricultural inter-
| ests generally; but the average Lexington
farmer has no confidence in an agricultural
college, or a college for farmers only"
1t is quite possible for us to have no conf
dence in what we have never had and do
not understand. In agriculture, as in other
pursuits, Science is revealing her secrets to
the non-sceptical student, but he must drink
deeply at her spring for there, as in religion,
shallow draughts i~ntoxicate the BRAIN"
1t is true, much Of what we are pleased
to call progress is really superficiality. The
number of studies included in the average
college curriculum of our day is absolutely
appalling. Our schools are all attempting
to do too much, and in too short a time. A
one mule pillow, scraping the top of the
ground, makes rapid progress. You can =.
60 over a great deal of ground in a day, but
when you come to reap you can still make
great progress in going over the ground, for
there is but little on it to gather.
4 college acith q weU equipped coordinate
agricultural Department is perhaps better
than an exclusively agricultural college. do
not believe in that exclusive system which
places a student upon a Procrustean bed and
shapes him according to a common pattern.
A broad and liberal education in matters,
not of the nlythologies of three thousand
years ago, but of practical nineteenth centu-
ry demands, will respond to differences Of
tastes, of capacities and of needs. The
study of Science with modern languages,
modern literature and PHILOSOPHERS as aids,
does all for the mind that the old Latin and
Greek education ever did, and more. 1t
trains memory and the perceptive faculties,
leads to a higher utility and brings men in
to closer relations to the spirit of modern
civilization. Professor Dryasdust finds a
smattering of Latin profitable because it
is his living in some cob webbed walls, but
Young Lightfoot, who is compelled to face
the world outside the college campus gener-
ally discovers that it is a rude, practical
rough-and-tumbIe world which cares no
more about his so-called accomplishments
than it does for soap bubbles of the most
gaudy colOrs. Why, it has even been dis
covered that society can be as polite and as
polished without the Latin and Greek clas-
sizes as with them, though this fact is by no
means admitted by those who AVE thrown
away years in puzzling over dead languages
and yet cannot mend their farming imple-
ments, set up a cotton gin or analyse a
pound of soil or So-caUed fertilizer.
The Farmers State Convention will, of
course, be addressed by Capt. Tillman, who,