The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1907-10-25
DAVIS SPEAKS 70 THE farmers;
HIS ADDRESS 1T OKLAHOMA CITY
CONTINUED From Page One.]

are available to the many, are properly
called the peoples Colleges" Gun
higher institutions of learning reach
only one or two per cent of the popu-
lation. My correspondence, personal in
vestigation and conferences in relation
to this technical high school bill have re.
lvealed to me many facts concerning oul
general and industrial educational ia
cilities and theories, and 1 come to lay
before you some questions that you
may think over. 1t clearly appears
that congress inauguI ated 4 rCvolu.
ton by the land grant act of 1862 an
ready to question whether mere liter
airy education is not radically narrow
for the great body of our boys and
girls, nearly all of whom must work
in the productive and home making
vocations.
Of some things my Investigations have
given me, decided opinions: they are
past the stage of inquiry. I knew that
agricultural research as DEVELOPED in
the United States department of agri-
culture and in the state experiment
stations, is a public enterprise of vast
good to our agricultural industries
and to our home making. Agricultural
schools, too, have become a very great
power for good. The agricultural co.n !
es in our state colleges and universe
ties are coming into their own and
| their graduates now form the nucleus
of an army which is to transform Amer
lean country life so as to give us a
higher rural civilization. These gradu-
ates have already begun the work of
developing country life education into
a system in which are articulated
agricultural sollegiate courses, agricul-
dated farm school courses, supplemented
by various forms of college extern
sion, such as travelling schools, farmers
Institutes and demonstration farms; and
by literature which will make avail
able to all farmers the results of
agricultural research.
The Morrill, land grant act of 1862,
the Hatch act of 1887, the second
Morrill, act of 1890, the Adams act
of 1906 and the Nelson act of 1907,
provide four million five hundred thou
sand dollars annually from the feder-
al treasury for the support of forty
eight state colleges of agriculture and
mechanic arts and for the same num-
Der of state agricultural experiment
stations. This proposed measure would
provide for approximately 300 agricul-
tural high schools, with a branch ex-
pertinent station at each, and for in
Reason for Broadening Education.
struction in city industries and home
making, between eight and nine million
dollars annually. This is about one per
cent of the federal revenues.
The paramount reason for broadening
our education is that we may pro-
duce a higher and more efficient civili-
cation. We want leaders who are more
definitely trained as to their hands,
their pens, their speech; as to their
power to be useful in productive in
dustries, in home making and in char
acter building; we want the whole
people to produce sufficient wealth
that they can afford means for schools
and time for going to school. And we
want the home, the school and the
great school of practical life organized
to develope men according to the high
est standard, each man and woman
combining high efficiency in practical
production or in home making with
the ability to be useful to their fell
lows in whatever may arise.
Those who are personally in contact
with the education in such agricul-
tural high schools as that at st. Paul,
Minnesota, or Lincoln, Nebraska, and
those who have followed the young
men and women when they returned
from these schools to the farm COM
munity are unanimous in their belief
in agricultural high schools. These
young people are to be the nations
guarantee that our agricultural and
country homes will be of that quality
which our ever improving times make
possible. We need no better evidence
o. the value of our city mechanic
high schools than the fact that manu-
facturers are ever alert to secure those
graduates who have been developed in
to efficient technical workers.
When the original bill creating our
system of state colleges was enacted
we had not as yet clearly divided our
schools into primary, secondary and
collegiate courses, The discussions of
the second Morrill, bill show that the
promoters of that measure intended it
to reach the real workers in argri-
culture and in the mechanical indus
tries. The history of these institutions
during the construction period of the
system of our higher education shows
clearly the natural forces at work
which have caused most of the funds
to be used for classes in higher eduoa
ton. Only occasionally has much of
the federal appropriations been used
for young men and women who were
in school to prepare for the WORK of
the farm, of the bench or of the home,
and nearly all the money heretof re
appropriated will be annually needed
| to use in collegiate courses to train
L E..