Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1895-01-31

our agricultural colleges are greatly in
need of revision, and such a one as 100
able thinkers, with from twenty to
forty years of practical experience in
agricultural and allied pursuits, might
be able to make. l regard that the
study of any of the sciences related To
agriculture, If pursued without any
practice of a practical nature, as abSo-
lutely worthless. These statements
are very generic, it is true, but ex-
tended reasoning and illush ttion will
fully demonstrate their truth.
Give the young man at college an
education with a strong practical bias,
and when he is old he will not depart
from it. This can be done only by the
| performance of work in the field and
workshop, that is not unlike the kind
of work with which he will come in
contact in the future
can remember how forcibly | was
impressed with the statements of our
teacher in surveying, who would occa-
Sionally illustrate how worthless some
of the authors suggestions were. Hav
ing handled the transit and chain, in
mud and rain, over boys and hills,
through woods and over streams, he
was thoroughly educated practically.
Such an instructor stirS up an interest
in education that cannot be aroused by
man OF broader education, but of a
less practical turn of mind.
The ideal farmer is a man who was
born and reared on the farm, schooled
in the district or town school, and ed
ucated at an agricultural college hay
ing the most extended and practical
means of illustrating the science of
agriculture.
He is man who at the age of six
teen to twenty vowed that he would
specialize in the science of agriculture
and make it his life work, unless un-
forSeen misfortune should arise. He
one eminently capable of deciding up
on the most economical and profitable
means of executing a multiplicity of
jobs that are constantly presented. |
His motto, "Feed the brain and the
brain will feed thee" has more mean.
ing than these lifeleSs words might at
first convey; for seated in his studio
you are impressed with the fact that
he is a constant subscriber to sOme of
the best and most prominent periodi- |
Gals of the day. He never stops with
the liberal education that entitled him
TO diploma, but is ever eager to learn
of new methods and improvements in
his business. His spare moments are
spent in reading and not in the grOg
shop or at the gambling table. He is
a liberal minded man, who, as Agassiz
says, believes that another "can hold
an opinion dramatically opposed to
that of mine in tone quite reVeren-
tial as my own" He and his family
are not without religious bias. He is
a liberal giver to institutions of an
eleemosynary nature. He is man of
mild and unexcitable disposition and
one who never loses nights sleep
fretting over unexpected losses. He
lives economically, within his income
and not upon starvation diet. AS far
as practical he consumes of the farm
products. One-half of the food cost of |
living is produced on the farm, and he |
is a man who has always carefully kept
a general and detailed account of his
receipts and expenditures, thereby be-
ing enabled after years of records to
know approximately what the relative !
cost of production of farm produce has |
been. He knows that about IS per |
cent of the food cost of living is made
up from the items of meat, butter, coal,
wood, milk, sugar, coffee, eggs, flour
and potatoes. His wife should be
master of the culinary art and always
eager to improve in her methods and |
management. She carries the purse
ne-half the time and uses half that is |
in the purse. Shoddy goods she never
buys and tritiing expenditures she
never makes. Their motto of disburs-
ing their earnings is incorporated in
the brilliant and oratorical sentence of
Ingersoll when he said, "I'd rather be
a beggar and spend dollar like a king,
than be king and spend dollar like
a beggar. j. N. MUNCEY. in Rural
Lite.