The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-01

enabled the' Danish peasant to compete in extraordinary fashion, not only at home but in foreign countries, with all rivals. Agricultural colleges and farmers in- stitutes have done much in instruction and inspiration; they have stood for the nobility of labor and the necessity of keeping the muscles and the brain in training for industry. They have devel- oped technical departments of high prac- tical value. They seek to provide for the people on the farms an equipment so broad and thorough as fit them for the highest requirements of our citizenship; so that they can establish and maintain country homes of the best type. and ere ate and sustain a country civilization more than equal to that of the city. The men they train must be able to meet the strongest business competition, at home or abroad, and they can do this only if they are trained not alone in the various lines of husbandry but in successful economic management These collelSes, like the state experiment stations, should carefully study and make known the neds of each section, and should try to provide rem edies for what Is wrong.
 Theory and Facts.
 The education to be obtained in these colleges should create as intimate rela- tionship as is possible between the theory of learning and the facts of actual life. Educational establishments should pro- duce highly trained scholars, of course; but in a country like ours, where the edu- cationdl establishments are no numerous 1t is folly to think that their main pur- pose is to produce these highly trained scholars. Without in the least disparag- ing scholarship and Harrington the con trary, while giving hearty and ungrudging admiration and support to the compara- lively few whose primary work should be creative scholarship-it must be remeni- bered that the ordinary graduate of our colleges should be and must be, primarily man and not scholar. Education should not confine itself to books. It must train executive power. and try to create that right public opinion which is the most potent factor in the proper solu- tion of all political and social questions Book learning is verp important, but 1t is by no means everything; and we shall never get the right idea of education un- til we definitely understand that a man may be well trained in book learning and let, in the proper sense of the word, and for all practical purposes, be utterly un- educated; while a man of comparatively little book learning may, nevertheless, In essentials, have a good education.
 It is true that agriculture in the United States has reached very high level of prosperity; but we can not afford to disre- gard the signs which teach us that there are influences operating against the estab- lishInent or retention of our country life upon a really sound basis. The over extensive and wasteful cultivation of pioneer days must stop and give place to a more economical system. Not only the physical but the ethical needs of the peo- pie of the country districts must be con sidered In our country life there must be social and intellectual advantages as well as fair standard of physical com fort There must be in the country, as in the town, multiplication of move ments for intellectual advancement and social betterment We must try to raise the average farm life, and We must also try to develop it so that it shall offer exceptional chances for the exceptional man.
 As Men and Women.
 Of course the essential things after all are those which concern all of us as men and women. no matter whether we live in the town or the country. and no matter