The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-06-25
The Educational Demands of Our Time.

thoughts The first of these is, his or her
individual responsibility for the educational prog
ress of the community, and the second is the fact
that education is not mere matter of the teach
ing of children in school house, but is a vital
process which must go continually in the life
of every person. young or old.
The one great problem of the South to-day is
education,-the fitting of the boys and girls for
their lifes work,-for this is what education real
ly is Nor need this training be confined to the
boys and girls The men and women need 1t just
as much as do the children. and in the new day
which is coming will have almost good chance
to get it, The farmers institute is as truly an
educational institution the public school or the
college, and is for which there is just as real
need.
For years now have read and heard much
about practical education,-that is, the sort OF
school training that directly prepares the pupil
for some trade profession. 1t is high time
too, that this should be So 1t is because we
Southern farmers are. class, uneducated that
our fertilizer bills increase faster than our average
crop production per acre, and that we throw out
year after year thousands Of Of land which we
have made too poor to pay for cropping any long
er. If we do not want the next generation OF
farmers to continue to out the soils OF our
Southland we must give them what this gen.
Grafton did not have-practcal education along
the lines OF farm work
10 DO this, however, must convert the
speeches and the editorials OF the politicians, edu-
Gators, and newspaper men into action There is
going to be no notable progress along educational
lines until the farmers Of the South realize the
need of the work and take hold OF it themselves
There is going to be no progress worth mention
ing in your community until you and your neigh
bors get down to business decide what needs to
be done for your own boys and girls. and then
proceed to do it.
we are giving in this issue some advice from
men and women distinguished as educators as to
the lines along which this new educational work
should be directed. and what is more to the point
we are giving few specific instances OF what
communities or individual men and women can
accomplish. These are the features to which We
would especially direct attention 1t is we'll to be
matter how sure you are that you are facing in
the right direction, you will never get anywhere
until you put your own muscles into action Up
on the general proposition that the training OF
country children has in the past been sadly de-
hcient along the lines of work which they will
naturally expect to follow. and has devoted too
little time to the things with which they are direct
~ concerned, and too much to matters which have
very little connection with their lives, we are
practically all agreed. AS to just what specific
changes are necessary, and as to how the details
OF our new system are to be worked ont there "a
yet much to be learned-much indeed that can
be learned only by actual experience. Having
agreed upon the main proposition. that we must