Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1904-08-19
Agricultural Education.

OF the earlier days Of the settle
ment OF the Mississippi Valley
states was the principal factor in
the elevation of our great middle
class which made of the American
nation a people of intelligent think
ers, ready and able in time of cris-
is to decide right and to do. High
er education has followed and new
systems and methods have sup
planted the "Hoosier Schoolmaster"
and the birch rod, identified with
the little red school-house. The
educational level of the country
has undoubtedly risen many de-
grees, but with this advance have
come problems more perplexing
than those which troubled the peda-
gogues of our fathers. The trend
of the country raised boy is all too
irresistible toward the city, while
there is no countervailing current
impelling the young people of the
cities to fill his place in the coun-
try. The problem is one for the
most serious consideration of our
best statesmen, this constant and
centripetal movement which is over
crowding our centers of industry,
where men work for day wages,
and which is steadily drawing from
rural communities where men own
the land they live upon and get
their sustenance from the soil.
Yet there are quiet forces at
work, year by year becoming better
organized and of broader power
whose tendency is to overcome this
hurtful condition and induce a mi
grafton back to the land and away
from the evercrowded centers. In
dustrial and agricultural educa-
tions are playing an important part,
and nature-study courses, and city
school gardens where children are
taught to know something about
the soil and plants and the real
wonders of nature working around
US at every hand, are no longer
looked upon as fads. An interest
ing move in this direction was
made the other day in the organic
alton of the American League for
Industrial Education, in Chicago,
with such national characters for
officers and sponsors as n. 0. Mel
son of ST. Louis, who has founded |
the village and school of lie Claire,
to his factories at Edwards
vile, Illinois; Thomas Kane, presi-
dent of the Winona Assembly, |
which is establishing an institution
for the teaching of agriculture in
Indianapolis; J. H. Krauskopf, |
founder and president of the now |
noted national farm school at
Doylestown, Pennsylvania; John
H. Patterson, president of the Ma
tional Cash Register Co., whose
school gardens and model factory
equipments at Dayton, Ohio, have
awakened widespread interest;
Gen. R. S. Tuthill, through whose
Efforts the ST. Charles Home for
Boys at Chicago was founded; 0.
J. Kern, superintendent OF schools
or Winnebago County, Illinois,
Who has done a great work in the
of county schools,
md perfected plans for ENGRAVING
IN them methods for the practical
of improved agriculture in
gardens; E. B. But
er, president of the board of trus-
ees of the Illinois Manual Train
ng School Farm; and Milton
George, the founder of that School;
lane Adams, head resident OF the
chicago Hull House Social Settle
nent and others of note in this
The league is working for an in
lustrial public school system which
will include the teaching OF domes-
ic science and both agricultural
nd manual training in all the
,ublic schools, so that children
hould be taught to work with
heir hands and farm as they are
aught in the public schools of
france and Denmark. 1t MAIN