The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-08-22
EDUCATION FOR FARMERS.
THE NEEDS OF THE AGRICULTURAL
MASSES IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

THE NEEDS OF THE AGRICULTURAL
| MASSES IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
An Address by Col. ID. X. Norris, President
OF the State Farners' Association, ut the
Spsrtanburg Encampment
Mr.. President: In 1866 Messrs. Glenn
son, Hsyne and Simpson, members OF
the Pendleton Farmers Society, were
appointed committee by that body to
solicit funds to build and put into oper-
alton scientific school where the youths
of the State might be trained and edu-
Gated in the industrial paths Of life.
Such men as Thomas Pinckney, Jr.,
Andrew Pickens, ]. B. Earle, Josiah D.
Gaillard, Robert Anderson, Patrick
Norris, Jno. E. Cothran and others in
1915; Jno. Maxwell, B. F. Perry, War
rem K. Davis, D. Sloan and others in
1916; Francis Burt, Richard Lewis and
others in 1917, and David Cherry, Jno.
Gallard, Jas. Whitner, Thos. NJ. Sloan,
D. K. Hamilton and others in 1918, all
members of this society and teachers OF
public opinion in agricultural affairs, as
we'll as in shaping and maintaining the
political course of the State, were re-
placed in later times by others, equally
noted for their patriotism and wisdom,
among whom I may mention aayne,
Simpson, Seaborn, Clemson, Lewis and
host of others. These gentlemen re-
allied the importance of technical train
ing as applied to agriculture, and al
though We hear no more, for the time,
of the effort made in 1866 to inaugurate
a school for this purpose, the conviction
OF its necessity abided with the society,
and we live to see one OF them donating
large fortune to accomplish that which
had failed before, it seems, because OF
the impoverished and disorganized con-
dition of the State ct that time.
Other efforts looking to improvement
in agriculture were not wanting, such as
the founding of the society for the pro-
motion of agriculture in South Carolina
in 1875 in Charleston, the organization
of the State Agricultural Society in Co.
lumbia in 1918, and the rapid multipl-
cation of similar bodies afterwards
throughout the State; but, SO far as l
am informed, this effort made by the
Pendleton Agricultural Society was the
first in the State which directly under
took to radically better our agriculture
by educating and training the boys, the
farmers of the future, rather than by
shows, fairs and such hike, stimulating
by rivalries the spasmodic efforts of the
then farmers. The wisdom of their
efforts is witnessed by the 184 colleges
and stations now in successful operation
in Germany; by the passage of the great
educational bill by the Parliament OF
Great Britain after the disappointment
of that nation in the worlds contest at
Paris in 1867, whereby science and
technology have been assigned larger
place in her schools and universities
than ever before, and by the 81 agricul-
tural colleges and industrial institutes in
the United States. This formidable
array of institutions at which the youth
of the various countries In which they
are located are enabled to educate them
selves for the profession in life which
falls to their lot by choice or necessity
attests one truth, and it is this: that the
application of science to agriculture is
successful fact. But what has South
Carolina done? Has she recognized the
great wisdom of nurturing schools of
this kind, and their potency in building
up her waste places? A State, proud of
her history, glorious in her many
achievements and in whose exaltstion
her every true son delights! Oh! that
it were some other rather than one of
her sons to tell the tale! will not re-
count the half-hearted and disparaging
manner in which her feeble efforts in
this direction were conceived and have
been carried on, but would rather dwell
upon the awakened interest and zeal
now manifested in its behalf by all, from
the doubling Thomsses to the convinced
Tillmans on the one hand and designing
politicians and the toiling masses on the
other. The old idea of education WAS
that it had no direct bearing on the
mans work, and it is not only true that
the education OF the past did not at
tempt anything of this sort, but it is
also true that the end and design of that
education was in the opposite direction.
The man was not educated to labor-he
was in fact educated not to labor. 10
the habits of his life and the processes
of his thought the educated man was as
far as possible removed from sympathy
with what We term industrial pursuits.
The march of progress has well nign
reiuted those ideas and to-day We are
witnessing the advent of an education
which will especially fit the individual
who receives it for the only probable
destiny in life which his antecedent Cir
cumstances admit 1t is also in harmony
with the idea that the many should be
educated in contradistinction to the old
idea that it was only possible or necessa-
~ to educate the few. This new de-
parture, if I may so speak, not in the
art, but in the science Of agriculture, |
promises many things. It will enlighten
the minds of the tillers OF the soil and
enable them to comprehend the laws OF
nature which govern animal and Vegeta-
BILE physiology and at once dignity labor
by raising it above drudgery and routine
and making it the scientific means Of
accomplishing the ends of labor. 1t will
make it possible for its possessor, for
himself, and largely for his class, to
overcome the social degradation which
has ever been the lot of the actual work
or, however praised and honored agti-
culture has been in the abstract. 1t