The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-08-11

building and home keeping features
Of rural life. constitutes, in it's intro
duction into North Carolina perhaps
the most si~ngularly promising and
constructively valuable forward step
in educational policy and practice
which the State has taken in the past
decade.
The county farm-life school has
come to North Carolina to stay. 1t
is the biggest movement in rural edu-
cation, it has the approval and sup
port Of the country people and they
will not be satisfied until one SUCH
school is established in every county.
Beginning rather experimentally with
three schools in Guilford in 1911, the
idea has grown until three others
were in actual operation during the
school year 1924, ten more nave
completed preparations and will open
next fall, at least five other
have campaigns On foot, and every
few weeks a new county starts a cam
paign. .
A School That Trains for Country
Life.
The farm-life school goes to the
root Of our educational deficiency. 1t
trains the country child for country
life. North Carolina is an a%gricul-
tural State primarily. E~ighty-two per
cent and more of our population is
rural. Our future lies in the building
up of a great farming State. Edu-
cation is preparation for life, and
II eighty-two per cent of our life is
"farm-life," We must have farm
life training in our education.
Being first id historical develop
ment, the city schools first worked
out >well-defined courses of instruc-
ton. their curricula being fashioned
with the purpose of training city
youth for it's environment, city life.
These curricula, however, became for
ma and ramified not only in the city
schools but in the rural as we'll, and
our country boys and girls have been
receiving virtually the same educa-
tional training as that devised for
the city child.
The ~palpable result of this has been
h educating of the country children
away from country life. The schools
taught them nothing of practical
value which they could put to use on
their fathers farms, nothing about
how to plant and fertilize crops, moth
ing about scientific crop rotation, live
stock raising, and fruit culture. And
so they left the farm n went tC
the city to be clerks, laborers, pro
fessional men, anything but what they
should have been by heredity anC
Observation-Disclosures
The farm-life school throws Itself
squarely in the path of this tendency
to de-ruraliZe our rural States. /
checks that exodus of our best cot
try blood to the cities which wOul(
in the long run ave entirely sappet
the vitality of an agricultural State
IL interests the boy in farm-life b.
teaching him aboU it. And it no
only teaches the country boy to rails
better crops and herds and to eXtrac
n better s~OStenance from his nativ'
soil, but 1t teaches him the ~eSsentia
dignity and nobility of the life of tn,
farmer, n shows him how to max
that life pleasant and satisfying a
we'll as profitable.
What the Farm-Life School Is.
The farm-life school, in this State
is a first-class rural high school, i
which the regular prescribed hig
school course of study is followed
with the addition Of faculty and equip
ment necessary for giving efficient an
practical instruction in farming an
general farm management to tn
boys and courses in sewing, cOokins
domestic science, and country home
making to the girls. The essentials {
II cultural high school course az
taught, but with them are blende
practical courses of life utility.
The school has a male principa
and he, or another specially traine
man, is the head of the farm-life d,
y partment Of the school and gives il
struction to h boys in practic;
scientific farming. A we'll trained W.
man is the head Of the farm-life i,
struction for the girls. In connectio
with the school is a school farm,
not less than ten, usually twenty-f'
or more, acres. This farm is the la
oratory and the boys work on it
study agriculture as a chemist studi
chemistry with his test tubes al
pitfalls.
But the farm-life school is niue
more than an institution for the i
struction of youth, though this is
prime intention. 1t is the cleari
house for agricultural ideas for t
community. The school farm becon
the demonstration farm for the e
tire community and county. The Il
ulty expert does extensive demonstl