Middletown transcript., 1897-07-17
Of Interest
to Farmers
AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.


from various sections, the charge
made against our com mon school work
is practically this-that they are edu-
eating farmers sons away from the
farm. The general influence of the
schools, it is claimed, is not toward
agricultural or hortic ultural pursuits,
not towards the farm, the vineyard,
the fruit orchard and the garden of the
country, but rather towards the COM
mercial and professional business life
Of the city. Is this charge true, and il
true, is there remedyp 1t does not
meet tae issue to say that farmers
sons leave the farm because farming
don't pay. Would not, We ask, more
intelligent and better fitted type of far
mers make farming pay? We fear that
our educators, the men at the head OF
our district, union, graded, nigh, aca-
demic and normal schools do not fully
grasp the idea of the need of seien-
tific education for the farmer: Appar-
entity they are following the old idea
that anybody can make a farmer,
while on the other hand Prof. Roberts,
now president Of the New York State
Agricultural society, says that farm
| ing is the most difficult science on the
face of the globe.
Is there not needed among our edu-
Gators an awakening of the tue sclen-
tific spirit? Do not our agricultural
and horticultural interests demand itP
In this department of educational pro-
gress the United States seems to be
tagging. In France education along
horticultural lines is made compul-
sorry in the normal schools. In Ger.
many the children are taught the
principles of plant physiology and the
simpler forms of work in the fruit or
chard, such as budding, grating, and
the various forms of plant propagation.
1t is not enough to say that American
farmers need to bs edlc sted, the time
has come when they must be educated
or 90 to the wall. Our national agri-
culture is spread out over a good deal
of territory. We deal in big figures,
debts included, bit we are as a nation
wretched farmers. Tbs average yield
per acre of wheat in this country is not
one-half what it is in England, of po-
tatoes only about One-thlrd what it is
in Germany, and instead of producing
our supply of sugar AID molasses, and
thereby saving one of Uncle Sans
housekeeping expenses to the tune of
about $150,000,000 annually, we "buy
substantially all from abroad. The
American farmer must be educated
and this education cannot be accom-
plshed in its entirety by farmers, in
| stitu'es and schools of horticulture,
valuable and necessary as these are.
| An experienced educator and author
| of scientific tex books, who has him.
self been teacher in the district
scbooI, the high school, the college and
now the university, says that the be-
ginning of this scientific education can
be made with the smallest scholars in
the primary schools. Bat to do this
there must be properly equipped and
inspired teachers. There is hardly to
be seen i'll Americ IN life more to be
deprecated spectacle, than that of our
bright boys rushing off t. the city,
while the beautiful farm they should
have remained to till, and would if
they had been properly educated in the
scientific farm idea, ara left to fall in
to the hands of such dull, ignorant
peasantry as the European tide Of emf
grafton has thrown upon our shores.