The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-10-27
4 GOOD COUNTY
 FARMERS SCHOOL Better Than Any District
 School In Alabama AT MENOMONlE, WIS. Views of Superintendent Powers of Mississippi Who Is With Educa- tional Party on the North
 west Trip.
MEN0M0NIE,a WIS.
BY HERVEY w. LAIRD.

Private Car, Southern Superintendents of Education, Milwaukee. Wis, October 25.-(Special.)-In the opinion of State Superintendent J. N. Powers of Ms sissippi. the County Agricultural school at Menomonie. Wis, is the best thing of it's kind he has ever seen, and it's outlook for practical usefulness is as vast as the growing generations of the county. Though given over to the work of a county only, there is not a district agri- cultural school in Alabama. Mississippi or Georgia that is approaching it's record in real service to those who need help.
 Mir. Powers, who will write a paper for the association of superintendents on the county agricultural schools seen on the trip believes that this school is actually undertaking and working out the task of taking the school to the people, the only logical way of making the school of service to them. For a long time it has baen the policy to bring the people to the school, which results in training the very life blood out of the country We must democratise our schools says Mr. Powers. .'The institutions must reach out after those who need education and
 
 give 1t to them in such way as to bring them back to their own lives"
 Technical School.
 MT. Powers illustrated his view by the fact that at Lynn, Mass, where there are great shoe factories, there Is school with buildings that cost $5O,Oo0 The dom- inant thing taught applies to shoe mak- ing, but they get also the academic grades also. In a word these children are educated not only in the books but the business that gives life to the com munity in which they live. Japan cot ton factories earn as high as 70 per cent. They buy our cotton, making it into goods and selling these back to Us at a great profit. The towns where these schools are located maintain schools where the children are taught this work, while in the mills. where they are given medical attention and school advantages of the book kinds, and in every way fit- ted for the highest output of service to which they are attached.
 Switzerland, the father of education, buys it's coal and It's cotton and sells us more cotton goods in value than the United States ships to the rest of the world. The Germans are impressed with our ability for great combinations, with our stores of raw material, but they say their own manufacturing lines need not ledr TOT u long llule, as we nave not yet begun to emphasize the value of quality in output All the industrial excellences of these countries grow out of their trade schools, thinks MT. Powers, and this country must come to it if 1t holds it's own in the future march Of progress.
 Many County Schools.
 Recognizing the importance of this idea and that 1t must develop it, Wisconsin has begun to dot the state with these county agricultural schools. They go to the poor boy and the poor girl and give them chance in life without educatin them away from their homes and the occupations of their fathers. The cost Is too high, Mir. Powers thinks, and CO., operative dormitories should be installed, where the girls and the boys can help to make their own board. In the Mississippi schools now this Is done and board has been reduced to as low as SS per month fin some cases. At one place a small canning factory was put in at a cost of S65 and with it the students put up enough fruit and vegetables to last the school the balance of the session.
 The tendency to teach agriculture should not be allowed to crowd out the books, nor has this been done at Memo monie, thinks Mir. Powers. However, there Is more expense in fine cattle and other things than might be justified, his Idea being to put this money into boys and girls instead. But the schools of this kind in Wisconsin are doing vast good already. It is developing the youth of the state farms and bringing agriculture to the front. Boys and girls of the country are given a chance in life and fitted for the farms. The business of agriculture dignifed along with labor, and the whole calling elevated not only to the outsider but the ones who have a part in it.
 Will Increase Values.
 Commercially the acres that have been doing well will be made to do twice as much, with less actual labor," says Mir Powers. Domestic and home train ing will make the home life better, and the whole tenor and spirit of country life will have an uplift. There has been a restlessness in our school life from the kindergarten to the university, a result of feeling that our education is not reaching the people. This industrial line ifs going to remove this and give us con fldence that we ought to have. And 1t has come to us from over the waters.
 And the best thing of it all is that 1t is adaptable to our southern states. We can raise as much corn as these people LID here if we fix our lands for 1t. Where to cotton and by educating our output much more than it is. think the county agricultural school is absolute ly usable in all of our states and l also know that when we bring in them and other schools the education to the peo-