The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-06-25

i might say something this week of what
IN a recent trip from Virginia to Massachusetts
This subject, it happens, is especially adapted to
our Educational Special" not only because of
what saw in Massachusetts, but because first
went to the University of Virginia where l had
heen asked to make an address agriculture in
the schools.
The authorities of the University of Virginia
are greatly interested. as all educational leaders
should be, in the development of rural life. A
Rural Life Week" is now a regular feature of
the University Summer School for Teachers, and
during this week speakers from all over the
South and from the National Department of Agri-
culture are present to make speeches, the object
being to interest the teachers In agricultural edu
cation and in all the problems OF rural develop
ment
1t is to be regretted that every university in
the South does not show a similar interest in
adapting education to the farmers needs When
one goes to the bottom of the whole matter 1t APP
pears that re-directed system OF education is the
fundamental need in the whole problem OF rural
progress anyhow. l talked with an editor-farmer
from New York State not long ago and he told me
that in spite OF good roads rural mail delivery,
rural telephones, etc. the drift to the towns in
central New York still marked.
And II is bound TO continue was his remark.
until the schools themselves recognize the dignity
OF farm life and begin TO teach the boys and girls
In the formative period of their lives that know-
well as to other work. So long the objective
point OF our rural educational system seems to be
n town Job, long will the drift to town con-
tinue."
| believe that this theory is correct | recall
that when myself pupil in country school, one
of my deskmaes came to me one day and said,
Il am not going to school any longer as have
decided to be n farmer.'-and his decision was
the natural and logical result fthe msfit scheme
of instruction in force in all our rural schools.
II is high time. indeed, for to develop Sc
ries OF textbooks and a complete educational sys-
tenn which will train pupils for farm life as we'll
as for town life.
It is also especially fitting that this subject
should be emphasized at the University OF Vir-
ginia for as DR.. Chas w. Eliot has recently
pointed out. Il Thomas Jefferson. the pioneer
In so many other things. who was also the pioneer
advocate OF agricultural education in America.
Hardly any modern writer would express the mat
more forciby than Jefferson did in n letter to
his friend. David Williams. November II, 1903;
1.-The schools instead of storing their pu-
pills with n lore which the present state or
society does not call for, converted into
schools of agriculture. might restore them
Their graduates to that great calling quail
fed to enrich and honor themselves. and to
increase the productions of the nation instead
OF consuming them.
There was another thing in which Jefferson was
deeply interested to which wish to call attention.
an idea. in fact. which was the one great unreal
lied ambition of his life. This was his anxiety to
establish in the South the township system OF gov
eminent which has been such a tremendous fac
tor in the development of New England. At the
first session of the Virginia Legislature, he tells
us, his bills abolishing entails and primogeniture
laid the axe to the root OF pseudo-arstocracy.
And had another which had prepared
been adopted by the Legislature, our work
would have been complete. 1t bill for
H. III o. learning This