The Republican journal., 1907-10-17
THE FARM HOME=MAkER.
The Importance of Good Citizenship on
the Farm.

The Importance of Good Citizenship on
the Farm.
president Roosevelt at Keokuk, Iowa.
You in Iowa have many manufac-
turing centers, but you remain, aud
agricultural State. l hope that the
means of transporting your com
modities to market will be steadily i'm
proved; but this will be of no use un-
less you keep producing the commodi-
ties, and in the long run this will large
ly depend upon your being able to keep
on the farm high type of citizenship.
The effort must be to make farm life
not only remunerative but attractive,
so that the best young men and girls
will feel inclined to stay on the farm
and not to 60 to the city. Nothing is
more important to this country than
the perpetuation of our system of
medium-siZed farms worked by their
owners. We do not want to see our
farmers sink to the condition of the
peasants of the Old World, barely able
to live on their small holdings. nor do
we want to see their places taken by
wealthy men owning enormous estates
which they work purely by tenants and
hired servants.
AU PlCoSllt UllC OlulldIJ Id Ilcl llOluS
his own in the land as against any pos
Slble representative of the landlord
class of farmer-that is, of the men
who would own vast estateS-because
the ordinary farmer unites his capital,
his labor and his brains with the max
ing of a permanent family home, and
thus can afford to hold his land at
value at which it can not be held by the
capitalist, who would have to run it by
leasing it or by cultivating it at arms
length with hired labor. In other
words the typical American farmer of
today gets his remuneration in part in
the shape of an independent home for
his family, and this gives him an adj
vantage over an absentee landlord.
Now, from the standpoint of the nation
as whole it is pre- eminently desirable
to keep as one of our chief American
types the farmer, the farm home
maker, of the medium sized farm. This
type of farm home is one of our strong
est political and social bulWarks Such
farm worked by the owner has prov
ed by experience the best place in
which to breed vigorous leaders alike
for country and city. 1t is matter of
prime economic and civic Importance
to encourage this type of homecoming
farmers.
EDUCATION FOR THE FARM.
Therefore, we should strive in every
way to aid in the education of the
farmer for the farm, and should shape
our school system with this end in
view; and so vitality important is this
that, in my opinion, the Federal gov
eminent should cooperate with the
State governments to secure the need
ed change and improvement in our
schools. 1t is significant that both
from Minnesota and Georgia there
have come proposals IN this direction
III the appearance of bills introduced
into the National Congress. The Con-
gresSional land grant act of 1882 ac-
complished much in establishing the
agricultural colleges in the several
States, and therefore in preparing to
turn the system of educational train
ing for the young into channels at once
broader and more practicable - and
what | am saying about agricultural
training really applies to all industrial
training. But the colleges can not
reach the masses, and it is essential
that the masses should be reached.
Such agricultural High schools as those
i'll Minnesota and Nebraska for farm
boys and girls, such technical High
schools as are to be found, for instance,
in both st. Louis and Washington,
have by their success shown that it is
entirely feasible to carry in practical
fashion the fundamentals of industrial
training into the realms of our second
airy schools. At present there is gap
between our primary schools in coun- |
try and city and the industrial collegi- |
ate course, which must be closed, and |
If necessary the nation must help the |
State to close it. Too often our pres
ent schools tend to put altogether too !
great premium upon mere literary |
education, and therefore to train away |
from the farm and the shop.
We should reverse this process.
Specific training of a practical kind !
should be given to the boys and girls ,
who when men and women are to make |
up the backbone of this nation in me-
chanical industries, in arts and trades;
IN short, who are to do the duty that |
should always come first with all of us,
the duty of home-making and home |
Keeping. loo narrow literary educa- |
ton IS, for most men and women, not IA |
real education at all; for real educa-
ton should fit people primarily for the |
industrial and home making employ |
ments in which they must employ the |
bulk of their activities Our country
offers unparalleled opportunities for do
mestlc and social advanc ement, for
social and economic leadership in the
word. Our greatest national asset is
to be found in the children. They need
to be trained to high ideals of everyday
living, and to high efficiency IN their
respective vocations; we cannot afford
to have them trained otherwise, and
the nation should help the States to
achieve this end.