The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-10-04
WORST TALKS
AT SPOKANE
Continued From Page one.

interests of the state very largely de-
pend But little created wealth thai
does not directly or indirectly originate
with the soil. Those, therefore, who
from choice or necessity undertake the
management of the soil--the farming
class-should be aided by all the knowl
edge that science affords as we'll as by
all the experience that eminent exper-
imenters and practical agriculturists
have put upon record The best there
| is in technical training lis none toe
good for them.
AS an aid to and for the encourage
ment of this type of education, the
federal government has spent millions
of dollars upon original research and
investigation along all lines affecting
agriculture, horticulture, dairying, ami
NAL husbandry, ETC., etc. The vast and
useful body of knowledge thus accum-
ulated by thousands of scientific gov
eminent experts has been or is being
reduced as rapidly as possible to peda-
gogical form and made available for
instructional purposes.
The Dolliver- Davis bill now pend
ing before congress, and which should
speedily be enacted into law, makes
cultural high schools, with experiment
tai teachers or elementary agriculture
in established normal schools and for
| conveying to the adult farmers of each
state agricultural information by
means of an elaborate system of col
lege extension work to be inaugurated
by the agricultural colleges
Congress, therefore, by laws already
enacted and by new legislation in pro-
sress is thoroughly alive to the import
ance and necessity of charging and in
tensifying the scope of agricultural ed :
ucation. This body of agricultural
knowledge now available for the chill
dren Of the rural districts is too pre-
cious to be neglected, too useful to be
ignored. Somehow it must be convey
ed to them.
The agricultural college cannot reach
the masses. 1t trains the exceptional!
man for exceptional service, as well as
many skillful farmers and engineers
who also render silent service in their
several communities. Its mission is to
the industrial classes" and the pub
lie schools must, of necessity, there
fore, become the purveyors of the ele-
mentary instruction in agriculture and
subjects closely allied to it, If the great
majority of our children are to be
reached and benefited. In other words,
the public schools must supplement the
work of the agricultural colleges if that
vast and useful body of knowledge COL
lected and arranged for the children
of the industrial classes is ever to ben
eft them.
q AfwynI~
our young people, and especially of
those country bred. can ever hope to
enjoy the advantages of a college edu-
cation. The educational statistics for
the year 1906 show that only a trifle
over one-tenth of one per cent of our
total population was enrolled in COL
leges and universities. For the same
year, less than one per cent of our pop
| ulation was enrolled in high schools,
while almost twenty per cent of our
total population was enrolled in the
elementary schools. Moreover. IL is
estimated in the middle west that 90
per cent of those enrolled in the coun-
try schools begin and end their edu-
cation in the one-room school house.
Broadly speaking, then, for the vast
majority of the 100000 school chill
dren comprising our pupil population,
efficiency for citizenship rather than
popular scholarship or literary culture
should receive paramount considera-
ton. These children rarely expect to
become professional men or women.
hence the folly of training them ex-
clusively along the road that leads
to the professions. They do expect.
however, to become useful citizens, the
vast majority of them industrialists of
one character and another. therefore,
what training the public schools can
afford should fit them for the sphere of
activity they will occupy.
The public schools should teach per-
sons how to live even If IT becomes
necessary to discard some OF the cher
ished ideals entertained by reaction
airy educators. The material welfare
of the many must not be sacrificed for
the benefit of the favored few. Those
who are destined to perform the
worlds work, create the worlds wealth
and bear the chief burdens of the gov
eminent. but who will be in position
to enjoy fewest of the luxuries of life.
are entitled to the most direct and ef-
ficient educational aids that money or
genius can provide for them.
The short courses in elementary
agriculture and domestic science which
the agricultural colleges have arranged
for farmers children-courses that
could readily be adopted by the high
schools-have been more than justified
by the eagerness with which the sub
Ject matter has been pursued, the in
terest it has awakened and the added
| enthusiasm with which boys and girls.
after completing these courses, look
forward to their Network
We cannot expect the best training
! on the part of public school teachers.
at least not for considerable period,
but those who attempt to prepare
them for their duties should be not
only agricultural graduates, but filled
with sympathy and enthusiasm for the
cause. Nothing can retard or bring
this propaganda into disrepute more
surely than to have 1t administered by
| incompetent hands or directed by those
not in hearty sympathy with its pur-
poses.
| That which is most vital to COM
monwealth-to its prosperity and very
existence-cannot with safety be ex-
cluded from the purpose for which its
educational energies are expended. The
farmer and his mode Of life are vitality
essential to the existence of both state
and nation. The soil Gods beneiic-
ton to humanity-over which he is
lord, will soon descend to his children
| The country demands that they be not