Norwich bulletin., 1912-05-25

NT4HteA Specially For the Bulletin.)
 TAey,a eg,e either thirteen or thirty stI7a s,eazsHs why young folks leave. the hs4ss fsl the eitp-1ve forgotten JuSt &AFeA. And 1 aHa Inclined to think, l4~s77s Nvlsas i Rave read and heard, that tResa asa about hundred and thirty A7{s,a y~pFss~sse-s patented to cure or pre- Nest sha evil Thus far their value Sseel,ss tA have been confined mainly tA advertisements and testimonials. TbeJ haven't ''paARed out any striking sHeeesSes.
 Personally, l suspect that there are about As many varying reasons as tbeTe are dIFereat victims of the town hunting disease don't suppose everybody WAe shakes off the farm dust to seek the city asphalt does IL for the same reason. If this be so, then there isn't nauch use in trying to Ind any nostram which will cure all eases The treatment will have to be individual based eA individually diff feriRg Synptoma
 But there will always be possible Rarae dearee of olassiGca tion, neverthe- less While no two may be actuated by exactiue the same desires or mo- tives, a a~eat many will show similar even 1T not perfectly identical symp- tens, ! think that a good many boys and girls are lnsensibly prejudice ed against the country and in favor of the city by mistakes in cur school methods mistakes in the pTepara- tiun of text-boukss mistakes in the se- lection of subjects taught; mistakes in methods of teaching, This particu- lar phase of the disease can be com bated only in the schools themselves. And I want to suggest to farmers gen. erally the wisdom of looking into this matter q little more than they are apt to. If 1t be true that our farm boys and girls are being trained, however insensibly and however unintentional- ly, into tastes and mental habits which will later tend to draw them city-ward, it might be well for us to lend our aid to any intelligent movement CalCulat- ed to correct that erTor
 As understand it, the new demand for Nature-stUdy in the common schools is a step in exactly that diree- ton. When ] was a boy and took my punishments in the little old red school house, the text books we used were all the work of city men, written from the city mans standpoint and filled with examples chosen from city, at least from business life. Practical ly all the sums" in the arithmeties, for illustration, were drawn from mer- cantile or banking or allied businesses. We were asked to find out how much profit we should make if we sold ten yards of calico which cost us seven and three-tenths cents per yard for len a N n tp 4a1 culate the discount at six per cent on a note for S14,7ST39 given to the bank for ninety days. And so on and so on. As if a farmers boy was interested in the price of calico. Or as if he was ever likely to find any bank to take his note for y14.7S7.S9.
 We were taught a whole lot about percentages of mercantile profits, but never anything about calculation of farm profits. we were put through a whole course in per mutation of numbers. but never brought to consider the pernutatiun of weather and seasons. We were birched into parrot-like knowledge of the boundaries. area and chief products of Afghanistan, but never anything about the capacities of our
 
 corn and the potato and grass belts in our own state. We learned how peo- pie in Cyprus or Asia Minor fought locust pests, but nothing about our own potatObugs and cutworma. We were taught how somebody else, in some other part Of the world. raised cotton or mined coal, put not how fancy apples and premium peaches were grown right in Connecticut.
 The great business of Farminu, which is the oldest, the biggest, the most honorable and the most imDort- ant business in all the world, was not, fin those old textbooks, considered worthy of furnishing even an occasion al example for HIS to work out, nor af supplying a single item of instruction for us to carry home and treasure uD.
 We youngsters were taught what teachers found in q set of perfunetarv textbooks, dished over by cheap hack writers out of other books which, in turn. were made 1p of observations or reasonlngs by city specialists.
 We were never encouraged nor even allowed to go for ourselves to the great original universe wide zart-bc0k of nature herssif, ETc were never shown how to read for ourselves. even the Na-o-' abs in the first primer pagss of that which some one has imprss- stvely called natures infinite book af secrecy
 Is 1t any wuuder that children grew up, warped and twisted out of thetr true tendencies under such training
 That the mara sar-sfqhesd -nG prophetic of cur educators hare at last seen the lnw4se60za of Shas sort 0k thing IS shGWn by the way IheT are all now preaching tlte &@vantGges of Sature-stNdy. SeeCms to l1e We, ferrrr- CTS, of all people on earth ought to be most eager and zealS1s in hot@fng ttu then hands in the new movement. We don't want al our boss and sil-la to be