The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-07-18

leges with the manual training schools.
In this latter the education is all di
rected to the eye and hand. But not
so in the regular agricultural and me-
chanical colleges. In these and kin
dred colleges, as I stated in the outset,
mathematics is pressed vigorously,
ethics and civics are taken as fitting a
man for republican citizenship, history
to give him the experience of the past,
a course of four years in English, and
to the other studies not necessarily
technical I may add chemistry, botany,
physiology, geology, mineralogy and
physics Hence you readily see that a
graduate from one of these colleges
has no classical training, and in many
no other modern Language than English.
These are almost all the points of de-
parture from the regular college with
the exceptions noted, he adds his tech
nical work which, on the day of gradu-
alton, makes him a wage-earner and
practically independent. His head
may be full of such scientific delicacies
''as any given chemical compound al
ways contains the same elements in
the same proportion by weight" or
1.-The volume of any gas, its pressure
remaining constant, varies as its abso-
lutte temperature" or imam sprang
from a monkey because his vertebrate
structure is similar" or 1.-The nutritive
value of a ration is proportionate to it's
effect OF the constitution, " or coal lies
in extensive sheets but salt in cuticular
Masses" but of all these, save the
monkey, he has had the practical ap-
plication and is ready for work.
We now come to what is expected
from men who have taken this sort of
a course. We don't expect that they
will be right on the spot, full 1edged,
full orbed bale to the,acre, forty
bushels to the half-acre farmers, nor
do we expect that they will be infalli-
BILE on agricultural subjects. But they
will be thoughtful men who have
learned to take pains in all work. Men
whose training will lead them to apply
the same forethOught, skill and intelli-
gent direction to the conduct of a farm
that is applied to the direction of other
| professions; men who will require a
scientific reason for methods of pro
cedure; men who will have all their
faculties sharpened by observation;
men who will love their work, and
hence who will take to that work the
zeal that comes only from love; men
who have a proper insight into what is
required of them and a proper knowl-
edge of what development land and
animals are capable of. Moreover Incl
dentally these young men have been
taught to study a variety of crops and,
what is of no small value, to study
markets. Why is that, while Western
North Carolina is almost the home of
the cherry, when last week cherries
we're selling in New York for 80 cents
a quart almost none were shipped from
our State2 1t is because Jul farmers
have learned little about the care of
nurseries and less about outside mar
kets. Why is that, though North
Carolina is an ideal climate for grapes,
not one farmer in a thousand raises
them9 Because cotton has so absorbed
his energies that he knows nothing of
grape culture or it's profits. Countless
examples might be given of ways in
which intelligence properly directed,
intelligence animated by the confidence
of knowledge, might help the agricul-
ture of the South.
But, says some croaker, can these
things be taught9 Is it harder to teach
an active-minded boy to graft and
prune trees than it is to teach him
metaphysical 1t is no more difficult to
teach him to compound rations proper
ly than it is to teach him compound
proportion in arithmetic. 1t is no more
troublesome to teach him analytical
chemistry if he wants to be a farmer
than it would be to teach him the same
subject if he desired to be a druggist.
1t is no more impossible to teach him
if he wants to farm, to take a micro
scope and study the fungus diseases
of plants, than it is to take the same
microscope and teach him, if he wants
to be a doctor, to study the diseases of
man. These things can be taught and
they will be successfully taught.
Men scoffed at the new ideas Of Co.
lumbus, but our pleasant homes in
America are proof positive that he was
but the electric car that brought you
out here is evidence that he was right
in his new ideas. Just so some men
ridicule the new ideas of educating the
farmers, but we believe that our