River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1916-09-14
Farm Education
Just Beginning
From the Corvallis, Ore, Daily
Gazette

at Oregon Agricultural College re-
turned Saturday from the Middle
Northwest where he had spent his
summer vacation.
Much of Mr.. Reeds time was spent
In Wisconsin where he had the oppor-
t,1nity of investigating fully the IA
nous Wisconsin system of farm train
ing.
Horticultural education is just at
orr homogeneous people, what splen-
declared Mr.. Reed, in discussing his
visit to the Middle Northwest. 1T
has not vet reached the crest OF It's
onward sweep, by any means. All the
more progressive educational lnst1tu-
tions of the Middle West are placing
emphasis on the agricultural and IN
dustrial work. They are doing this
in honest recognition Of the service
they find it possible to render to the
neople that look to them for leader
ship.
1.-The most remarkable instance that
I came in contact with, the one that
inopressed me most distinctly, because
/ have known the school all my life,
II that Of the introduction of Educa-
tional Agriculture in the State Nor
NAL school at River Falls, Wis. The
introduction of agriculture in 1912, is
the most dynamic event that has hap
pened to the River Falls Normal since
its founding in 1875.
Until approximately four years
ago the River Falls Normal trained
teachers for city schools, like the rest
of the Wisconsin normals. 1t was 10
Gated in one of the richest agricultur-
al districts of the great st. Croix Val
ley, yet the only graduates of that
school that reached the rural districts
we're those that lost out in their hunt
for city jobs. The school was the
smallest in Wisconsin; it had no dis
tinctive mission, no essential lndlv1d-
uaIity and the community was chiefly
concerned in it because of the politics
incident to efforts to GUST this or that
member of the faculty.
'"The introduction of a special
course for rural teachers and of the
school of educational agriculture has
revolutionized not only the school but
the community along with it. The
school has doubled it's enrolment in
four years. 1t enrolls more men stu
dents today than it had total enroll
nlent four years ago. 1t enrolls more
men, in fact, than all the normal
schools of Minnesota combined and
many of these men are high school
graduates. From a position at the
bottom of the enrolment ladder
among Wisconsin normals, it has now
jumped to second place, with Milwau-
kee the only normal in the state sur
passing it.
'But the effect of the agricultural
and industrial work has had even a
more magnetic effect upon the COM
munity The people are no longer in
different; they are aggressively loyal.
They cooperate with the school. They
take note of the work on the 50-acre
school farm. They welcome the ar
rival of the Normal auto passenger
truck at their farms, their dSiries,
their cheese factories, their rural
schools and their homes. They are
[,oI 10 10 hn Of 40
school efficient, practical, resourceful.
They take their livestock to the annu-
al Normal Stock Show, which has be-
come an event of interstate impor-
lance and they covet it's blue ribbon as
eagerly as a state award. They buy
the handiwork of the students on sale
at the Normal Project shop-furni-
ture, kitchen ware, farm devices
and they hire its graduates to teach
their rural schools and pay them the
salaries that their expert preparation
deserves.
"These rural teachers have actually
taught in rural schools as part of
their normal training, ten rural
schools in the vicinity of River Falls
being available for practical teaching
under normal supervision. This is
another use of the Normal passenger
truck. which enlarged the laboratories
of the school so that, instead of hav-
ing under its survey one farm of fifty
acres, it includes within its scope of
observation sixteen hundred farms
with million acres. In place of see
ing the work of one expert farmer, its
students absorb the spirit and ideas of
all the expert farmers who live along
the six thousand miles of road that
may be covered in the school auto
Hence the skill of its stock-judging
teams, which have taken laurels from
the universities of the northwest.
Hence the demand for it's graduates,
who know actual farming conditions