Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1911-06-29

knighted, who were the backbone and
of the community.
Col. HOfer Has a Dream.
There were several professors of
the Agricultural college present and
Col. HOfer asked them some ques-
tons that entertained the crowd. He
said he had a dream and rode up the
valley and saw the farmers college,
and hundreds of acres were laid off
like a checkerboard, and every young
man there raj tilling and planting a
quarter of an acre, and some had
produced as high as a thousand dol
lars an acre in vegetables and small
They supplied all the college
used of cabbage, Strawberries, let
tuce, asparague, onions, potatoes
and shipped and sold a lot besides
and the college had become self-sus-
tanning, and all the young fellows
made a little money for themselves
by becoming skilled c%ultivators of
the soil. Instead of shipping in near
ly all this stuff as had been done in
the past from California, the station
was shipping tons of stuff to Port
land. But | awoke and it was only
a dream. But 1t is a dream that must
be realized some day. Agriculture,
horticulture, dairying, cattle growing
and domestic science are plenty to
occupy that institution. 1t will be
said the act of congress requires that
it be conducted as a scientific school
and the professors say instead of
planting and c%ultivating we are do
ing research work. There is no re-
search work so searching for an
educational system as actually doing
things. The fact is, it is so much
easier to do textbook work than to
do actual work, that the average pro-
fessor would be lost in the shuttle if
industrial education ever took the
place of class room theorizing.
Asks Some Hard Questions.
The college people ask me, do you
want us to do the work of secondary
education? That work should be done
at the high schools. We want to
educate experts who shall become
leaders in the community. Our young
go out and get high salaried DO
sitions as managers of orchards,
creameries, and other industries
That is exactly the objection to the
system that turns out a professional
class that must have high salaries.
Do you turn out actual producers?
you take a large class of young
and teach them to become DO
tato growers, to produce a crop of
early potatoes, and a crop of fall
potatoes, and sack them and grade
them and put them on the market?
Do you take a class of young men
and teach them to raise early and
late cabbage and caulihower and
broccoli, that we ship in carloads of
from California? Do you take a class
and teach them to become practical
celery growers and put it up ready
for the market?
Some Research Questions?
Do you have the young men go out
and make lists of the varieties OF
grapes that do well in western Ore
gon, note the soil and locations where
they do best, learn how to propagate
cuttings so they will not pay some
tree peddler so cents to two dollars
a plant, learn to set them out, learn
to prune them, and train them and
turn off a good table grape for which
there is an unlimited demand? Do
you do any of these things thorough
ly and everlastingly and successfully
and with enthusiasm at the Agricul-
tural college? If you do the people
are not hearing much about it. You
do the s~o-called research work, and
write bulletins and print pamphlets
but do you carry on industrial edu-
cation on a large scale? Is not mere
textbook learning the accumulation
of undigested and unassimilated in
formation? Industrial education
means more of actual doing things
and less of merely talking about it
to other people.
What the Reform Means.
Industrial education means equip
ment for the masses, development for
the democracy, and an end of appro-
priating public money for the fur
Their advancement of the already fav-
ored class, the big land holders, the
timber land owners or any special
class of interests. 1t stand to reason
that educators who have no equip
ment for anything but classroom
work are not going to favor a reform
that requires men to go out and show
what they know by actually doing it
before critical and inquiring young
and women whose minds expand
with each days work, instead of be-
ing mystified with textbook science
that is not made practical and avail
able, but leave the mind confused
with rules and glittering generalities
to write still more confused examin-
atoms about. Here is the great grow
ing, producing world at our feet,
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