The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1893-12-23
Learning and Labor.
From the Rockville Advocate.


Al the meeting of the Teachers Institute
| in Rockville recently, Prof James A. Diffen-
baugh, Secretary Of the Carroll County School
Board, had the following to say on LEARNING
AND LABOR;
II is frequently more the duty of those who
are charged with the guidance of educational
forces to point out direction which those
forces might proftably take than TO watch
their daily progress along the course. Real
izing that this is, in the main, an agricultural
community, and that the teachers whom |
have the honor to address are. for the most
part instructors of the sons and daughters OF
rural populations, | have ventured to hope
that ! might, without improperly, lead you
out of the school house, away from the daily
routine of the class room, to consider briefly
one of the practical lessons suggested by cur
rent experience, apart from the books we
study, and one which involves somewhat the
relations of the schools, or if you please, of
Labor in which you are most vitally interested.
From every country village the better class
of youth are fleeing to the distant city. to es-
cape the drudgery of their paternal acres, and
court the equally repulsive slavery of the of
fee or the counter, not because it is prefera
Bile in itself but because it is supposed to give
larger opportunities for observation, intellec-
tual development and choice of companions.
Where one youth is heartily seeking the far
mer's life from choice, there are fifty striving
or pining to escape 1t.
And so talent, knowledge and skill, which
are greatly needed in the domain OF rural
life. crowd and jostle one another on the city's
pavement, and are often driven by want to
sell to Capital for months livelihood
some happy combination or invention which
should have secured competence for life.
We can hope to arrest this destructive exodus
only by turning the in9uiring minds of the
young away from the deusive temptations
which are misleading them, to that avocation
in which there are untrodden fields and vast
rewards.
The deep want of the time is that the vast
resources Of mind, the far-stretching powers
of genius and Of science, be brought to bear
practically on agriculture, the mechanic arts,
and all the now rude and simple processes of
day labor. The position of the farmer, for
instance, will never be what it might and
should be so long as the other walks OF life
draw away from it the activities which might
deyelope and improve it. Instead of being,
as in manufactures and navigation, the diree
tor and controller of the blind forces of ma
ture to bis own use and profit, the farmer al
lows these TO escape him in uselessness or
mischief, aud feebly endeavors to supply their
places by overtaxing his own sinews.
II is the mission of our age to regenerate
and dignity Agriculture by rendering it prac
ticalIy an intellectual and expansive vocation,
to which nearly all the natural sciences as
well as mechanical forces shall advantage
ously minister.
Yet the farmers vocation needs something
more than increased efficiency and mastery
over nature to reconcile it with lofty and
generous ideal. We need a change in the
man himself, and in those circumstances
which vitality affect his character. The soil
tary farm. house, with its half dozen denizens,
its motley array of auxiliary acres, its petty
flock and herd, its external decorations of
piggery, and hennery, and stable-yard, must
be replaced by some arrangement more ge-
NAL, more expansive, more social in its as
poets, afording larger scope to aspiration,
and wider field for the infinite capacities of
mans nature. And to secure this We must
teach our youth of promise to carry back to
the neglected and despised pursuits of their
fathers the stores of wisdom opened to them
by scholastic training Above all, we must
teach them to renovate and reanimate our
Industry by bringing to bear upon its processes
all the powers Of science, all the forces of
nature, al the vast economies Of combination.