The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1906-11-13

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tic poverty-stricken State, as it were
in comparison with yours, has accom-
modation and now in attendance 65t
boys; and we are at work on a new
dormitory for 200 boys more, be-
cause we have demand for the kind
of education we are giving, and a.
long as there are three or four OF
five hundred more applicants than
our present dormitory will accommo.
date the board Of trustees will con.
tinue to spread out, if the money
holds out.
When I am told by your president
that he is now compelled to make ar
rangements for some of the overplus
here by putting some Of the students
in tents, I realize that Texas her
self, or the young men of Texas arc
beating at the doors of an wholly in
adequately supplied school. I am
not merely going on the question OF
numbers, for your buildings do not
compare with ours, and I am sure
that the entire equipment must be
inadequate or else the people Of
Texas are not as anxious for that
kind of education which this school,
along with others like it-ours and
the Mississippi College in particular
are intended to afford.
Early Realized Need Of Schools.
In my earlier efforts in the begin
ming of my discussion and agitation
for the establishment Of college in
South Carolina that should practical
ly educate and equip young man for
the battle Of life and enable him
when he got out Of college to go to
work for himself rather than have to
begin, as for instance, in law or me-
dicine or in any other profession or
any other calling, my idea was that
his hand and eye should be trained
when he is educating his head and
getting the ordinary drill in the
branches usually taught in a college.
Give him something to make bread
and butter--if I may come down to
so practical an idea as this, I real
lied from my own experience as a
farmer how little I knew about the
science Of agriculture and how little
qualified to promote it, except from
the butting ont of my brains against
experiments and trying TO learn as
did my father and my fathers father
in the old ignorant, slipshod and
good-for-nothing methods.
1t was from my own experience l
evolved the idea that the system Of
education which We had was wholly
erroneous and founded upon a condi-
ton which obtained before the war;
whereas the war had left all Of us
poor, our lands were impoverished
and badly run down and the condi-
tions were so desperate there was n
need for scientific drill and for
specializing in the different branches,
in fruit husbandry, in dairying and
other things like that, and studying
over the question Of giving my own
boys better chance than I had. They
both went to the Agricultural College,
went through and graduated after it
was established. One Of them is now
a farmer; the other has studied law
since and is beginning to sit around
in the Office waiting for clients; and
whatever may come of them in the
future, I have always felt that the
contact with parctieal life and the
observation Of practical conditions
which ought to be obtained at every
agricultural and mechanical college
can but prove beneficial to them.
Your State is SO large and it's popu-
lation so rapidly increasing to that
degree that this school cannot begin to
accommodate the pupils who will ne
cessarily want this kind Of drill, I'M
less you are better provided with
funds. Because even on rich land
and you have got a great deal of it
rich land farmed with intelligence
and brains will produce far more
than if it is farmcd with ignorance,
sluggishness and laziness, and while
your State has made little or no move
yet in the effort to establish manu-
features, those will come in time,
necessarily, and 7 think it will prove
here as it has proved with us that a
great many young men come into the
world who under no possible condi-
tions are ever fit to farm.