The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1907-10-01
MECHANICS AND ECONOMICS


the state of Minnesota, has introduced bill into
the federal house of representatives which is
worthy not only of the consideration but also
the support of every citizen interested in the
welfare of his country. 1t is such bill as the
people of the country afford to become in
terested in and their congressional repre-
sentatives to become interested in, because it
has to do with the making of the future citizens
of the United States, the posterity to whom we
hope to leave, after generation of unparalleled
progress, the richest heritage the world has
known.
Time flies, and congress meets and fills whole
sessions with the discussion of railroad rate bills
and antitrust legislation A ship subsidy bill
arouses whitehead interest, and then congress
adiourns. Our legislators seem mad over indus
try and commerce. swollen fortunes and bloated
corporations and other subjects are too dry and
uninteresting for slight consideration. In
the meantime the children of today and the men
of tomorrow are growing and learning under
much the same conditions as we did ten and
twenty years ago. There accrued adj
vantages. There more schools and better
equipment and more studies perhaps, but except
in few exceptional instances, they are still
learning the same impracticable things as in
discriminatory distributed as they were years
ago. There is the same examining with Latin
for the child of unprOfessional or nOn-l1terary
bent There is the same compulsory course in
physics and chemistry for those who have no
inclination toward science or any of the things
that pertain to these studies There are thou
sand non-essentials crammed in and made COM
pulsory while a million essentials which the in
dividual will have to learn somewhere or other
are entirely overlooked and eliminated.
We think have progressed and doubtless
we have along industrial and commercial lines
and to considerable extent along educational
lines, but in the latter instance the progress has
been mostly in the higher branches where it
offoo mot ont of tan
being educated. The primary and medium
branches of education which affect the bulk of
the citizens of the next generation are woefully
lacking in the essentials of good citizen making.
And the making of better citizens must be the
base of all progress. We want less crime and
more honesty, real capability and less re-
sort to extreme ways of making livelihood. And
this can only be accomplished by the careful
training of citizens at the stage when they
in the making.
The title of Mr. Davis bill is Technical Edu-
cation in Agriculture, Mechanic Arts and Home
Economics" The purpose of it is to secure an
appropriation on the part of the federal govern
ment to be allotted to the various states, accord
ing to their population, and administered by these
states to encourage industrial and agricultural
education which will train the of the
people for the practical affairs of life Mr. Davis
has kindly forwarded the speech he made on
this bill last March, together with letter going
briefly into his purposes, which the reader will
find in the Mail Bag department He urges in
his speech that such appropriation On the
part of the federal government, while not large
would to encourage large state appropria-
lions to be used in conjunction with the sums
allotted by the federal government with the result
that an enormous amount of progress would be
accomplished toward the ultimate purpose In
Mr. Davis own words, the purpose of this bill
is ito simple justice to the workers and
home makers of our country We have too long
confined technical education to the professional
classes Let carry out the wise plan begun
by congress in 1862-the land-grant act estab
fishing colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts
and provide, along with general schooling, indus