Mexico weekly ledger., 1893-05-18
BY JOHN J. GILL.
Farm Education.

Taihn IuutatiVhs
According to Webster, to educate
means to raise up; our theme there
fore is not how to instruct farmers
and children, but how to make sue
cessful agriculturalists. There was
q time not very distant when the
hum of the spinning wheel, the clack
of the loom, the sound of the fail
and the noise of the workshop were
heard on every prosperous farm.
Their clatter was significant; the
song it sung vas industry thrift and
independence. All this is changed
now. To-day the farmers buy all
they need; even the tools and imple-
ments they use are the inventions Of
other industries, and therefore en-
tail upon them large OUTLAWS for
their acquisition and repair. The
consequence of all this is that agri-
culturalists feel compelled to make
more money annually than their
predecessors and therefore obliged
either to get better prices for their
products or raise larger crops and
more fine horses, cattle and hogs.
1t may be interesting to look into
how this changed condition Of farm
life was brought about. 1t arose
from several causes, the most prom
inent OF which vas extraordinary in
crease of farms and farmers with
corresponding enlargement of pro-
duction for which there was no ade-
duate and remuneratiye demand.
Advantage was taken of the depress-
ed condition of agriculture to instill
into the minds Of farmers that this
system of supplying their own wants
was the cause of it and that the way
to get out of it was to encourage the
building of cities and enlargement of
manufactures. By this means they
were told that profitable employ
ment would be found for surplus
agricultural populations and that
with this change of producer to con-
sumner ove production would be
stopped and a remunerative market
secured. The little school by the
way-side assisted materially also in
bringing about this change. Arith-
metic is mainly for buying and sell
ling merchandising, calculating and
keeping accounts; grammar relates
to composition and diction geogra-
ply, with its fine pictures and grand
description of cities, manufactures
and commerce, suggests travel and
sightseeing to youth already natur-
ally inclined that way and history
confirms It's teachings. Doubtless
all these studies have uses in farm
as well as in city life, but in the
books prepared for children that has
not been as much as referred to.
The educational power of pictures is
as great as it is insiduous and over
looked. Few notice their effect, the
tastes they form the aspirations they
create, the fears they engender, the
passions they excite. They come in
all shapes. They abound in books,
are found in newspapers and seen
on cards they are used by all classes,
by professionals merchants and me-
chanics; they introduce model per-
sonages and also characters that no
one ought to initiate. They present
the best and worst specimens of hui
mainly with the highest and lowest
forms of animal and vegetable life.
They portray all happenings, the
results of collisions, the effects of
storms, the distractions of steam,
the ravages of fire and the fatalities
of electricity. They contrast the
beauties and defects of architecture
and the relative attractions and re-
pulsions of civic and rural life.
They appeal to the eye and as they
are comprehended at a glance they
outstrip type and render it value
less. They please while they
educate lat the same time they allure
youth from farm to city where the
few succeed and the many fall into
dependence, poverty and misery and
often into vice. The experiment that
was to i%naugurate agricultural pros
perity has been tried. Cities have
been built as large and beautiful as
any in the world Mountaineering
establishments as varied, extensive
and prosperous as are to be found.
The cities have enriched their found
ers and the factories have made
millionaires of their proprietors but
agriculturalists know that produc-
ton still outstrips demand at re-
muneratiye prices, much as they
have contributed to the building of
cities and success of manufacturing.
The problem to be solvedb by farmers
is how to remedy the mistakes that
have been made and secure the pros
perity that such an industry as agri-
~n ~