The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1914-04-03


to the whole people, to efficiency.
Our own unitarian age has remod-
eled all else but the schools; we pro-
vice them for the people but teach
only scholarship.
Our mission is not to revolution
ize, but to adjust. We want to dis
place Latin and Geometry with Ag-
liculture and household affairs. We
want to train all the people for Elf
cheney and citizenship, not few Tor
privileged positions. We want to
make staiwart men who prefer the
l.cw and the cross-cut saw to the
.,&ro st:cl: or the railroad brake or
the bar-either kind. We want to
dignity manly labor, not simply write
and talk about it and try to escape
eve use the school machinery for
what it is worth, just as we may the
Church, and political and other class
es of machinery. But we try to turn
it ali t, efficiency, self-raliance, good
will and cooperation. We want to
make the school house a social cen
ter, make the teaching applicable to
rural life. We want to bring the
people, old and young, together for
sociaoility. We want the farmers to
know and believe that they can farm
as we'll as the Westerner, and can CO.
operate as vel as the Danes.
The farmers products bring more
than twice the price they brought
when | farmed before the war. Stock
breeds and implements have improved
but the income is less and the coun-
try life inferior. We raised almost
everything else we ate. We got only
2 1-2 cents a pound for steers and
hogs, 8 cents for eggs, 10 cents for
butter, 10 cents for big watermelons.
Farmers get more than double that
new. We lived high and had lots Of
social life. l believe in the old
schooling, the steady work and strong
team, diversified crop, liberal home
living and some to sell, and out ot
icht.
"ll school must point to the farm.
it must warn against the primo sc
path which leads away from farming.
1t must educate for the work and the
living on the farm, not by words and
texts alone but also by practical ap-
plication.
eve must get ourselves away from
cramped curriculum, and take a
larger view, take in the whole of ru-
raj activities and rural life. Only so
can we hope to stem the downhill turn
and gain Roadway toward the top.
Rural social life has fallen into
decay, it has come to depend on near
by towns. That is one among the
reasons for families moving to or near
town, and for the young people
leaving the farm. Organize clubs of
all sorts, make the school-house a
meeting place, cultivate singing, spell
ing matches, debates and entertain
ments.
"There must be more corn, more
acres and more bushels to the acre,
more stock and heavier pillow teams,
if the country is to come to its own
and hold it's own. Cooperative AS
sociations are the most effective
means to increase quantity and to i'm
prove the quality, sell to best ad
vantage and double the income and
consequently the living and life.
High schools and those teaching
high school studies are educating for
town and college, while we want to
help educate for the farm, and rural
life. In departing from the tradi-
tional teaching we depart also from
traditional tacher.
"The poor we have always with US,
so it has ever been in the history OF
the human race, but it is an irrever-
ent perversion to assume or allow
that we always must. All men may
be made intelligent, efficient, indus
rrious and honest, and with these nor,
NAL elements of character, none need
to be poor.
"On the land no man need be poor
nor have any master. Let US set
ourselves the task of maxine every
southern farm doubly productive and
the seat of hospitable home, every
farmer and his family Independent
citizens. Mr.. Ingersoll said man
will not fight for his boarding house,
neither will tenants or hired men
make a high grade community.
at was the deep poverty of the
French peasants that made the Rev.
olution possible, yet within fifty years
after the land had been taken from
the nobility and the church and sold
to the farmers, they had become the
most efficient and prosperous of any
il the world. They paid for Suez Ca
nal, the German indemnity and re-
Gently they subscribed 80 times the
40 million Paris loan. What they did
| in so wears shows what can be done.
Until rs years ago the Danish peas
ants were small and poor. Cooper
alton was introduced and now they
export annually almost 100 million
dollars of butter, bacon and eggs.
"The South can repeat the story OF
France and Denmark, and ours is the
mission to start the movement. 1t
needs inspiration, organization, intel
ligence and industry. The capital can
be made or it can be borrowed when
there is a premise of safety. , u.'
every schoolhouse is neighbor-
hood center, it is for you to see that
it is put in order inside and out. the
grounds cleared, beautified and plant
ed, that there is shed for animals
if any children come horseback, that
farming subjects are taught and dis
cussed, that some attempt at indus
rial work is made, that the children
and teachers get persuaded that these
subjects are authorized by the state,
are useful and interesting. You may
give a broader view of the textbook
subjects and throw life into reading,
writing and arithmetic"
Frank Clark has given out the
opinion that President Wilson is a
great man and one of the country's