The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-09-07
COUNTY.
Representative,
H. G.. JACKSON.
FARMING IN THE SCHOOLS.

ent of the Pennsylvania State Board
of Public Instruction relative to the
plan to teach practical farming in
the schools is printed in a conspicu-
Gus place in The Citizen today. We
trust every man and woman with
children-yes, and every man and
woman that expects at some time to
have any-will read it. There is
much food for thought in DR..
SCHAEFFER'S short but simple
presentation of the reasons for this
effort to teach the essential facts
about soils and crops to the boys
and girls of Pennsylvania.
There is, we grant, some opposi-
tion to the farm course in High
school-an opposition, we take it,
that eminates principally from the
boys and girls themselves. Some of
the youngsters, as stated in a news
item in one of last weeks issues of
The Citizen, feel that they would
lose their standing as 'citified" peo-
pie if they studied the work of the
farmer at High school. What alb
solute bosh and nonsense! The
farmer of today in most parts of the
East is not much behind his city
cousin when it comes to "citified"
appearance and conversation; and
we all of us know that when these
two minor qualifications for desir-
able citizenship are dismissed and
attention is directed to the more
vital topic of how to get comfort
able living and accumulate decent
anchor to windward that can be
counted on for old age, the farmer
is the one man who does not need
to worry, fret, stew or borrow
trouble over tomorrow's victuals.
The fellow willing and able to work
at the only wholly Independent oc-
cupation mankind has ever known
is never going to be the fellow out
of a job No chance for any argu-
ment on that!
The cost of living is high. Not
to be pessimtstic or peevish about
the matter, we may add that, though
perhaps the rise will be but a tenn
porary one, the price of eating meals
and wearing clothes will be more
before it is less. Here, then, is the
most potent argument that can be
adduced in support of the effort to
teach farming-scientific thorough,
Twentieth century farming-to the
boys and girls now halfway through
those important formative teens.
Not all of them have the mechanical
ingenuity to learn the more skill
full trades that pay SO or more for
a days labor; not all of them have
the selling capacity to go on the
road and earn $125 a month dis
posing of goods to retailers or di-
rectly to consumers. Not all of
them, again, have the physical quail
ifcations to endure the close, con-
tining work of shop or store or Of
fee, day in and year out, without
nervous strain or even breakdown.
But there is no man or woman in
ordinary health and gifted with or
dinary industry who cannot make a
living in the country If he or she
goes about the country job with the
superior equipment of a thoroughly
scientific training for the work of
the field, the orchard and the gar
den. The wonder is that in times
OF Industrial depression, when Tom,
Dick and Harry cannot find an
hours occupation in the city, there
is not universal exodus to the
country, where a man with no farm
experience whatsoever can easily
earn his bed and board and where
the fellow with the farm training
the schools are urged to install
could speedily demonstrate his
ability to earn much more than his
bed and board.