The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-08-18
STILL PIONEERING HERE
DEPENDENCE ON DAD" NOT
NECESSARY TO GET A COL
LEGE EDUCATION IS THE
REASON FOR THE PRO-
JECT METHOD AT
NORMAL SCHOOL
Matthew Puts Western Kansas Spirit
Back of it.
{ By P. Caspar Harvey)

{ By P. Caspar Harvey.)
The last frontier is gone. It's plains
are now sending the first native gen
Grafton to college. In the heart of the
famous 'short grass" country where
in. the near distant past roamed the
last Indians and wallowed the last
buffaloes, the last battles for the pres
ent civilization were fought.
Now the preliminary skirmishes
for the next dispensation for Western
Kansas are being engaged in. The war
has intensified the need.
On the very ground where Col w
+. Cody won his sObriquet of "Buf-
falO~ Bill" where Custer, Sheridan,
Hancock and Miles were stationed
when quelling the last savage upris-
ings on the western plains, now is the
campus of a Kansas state school
where the science of increased food
production, made so necessary by the
war, is handled in such a way that
the boys and girls of the ''short
grass" by actually practicing it can
earn enough to get their college edu-
cation at the same time.
Family after family from the east
came to Western Kansas in the early
days. Most of them lost all they pos
sessed and went back. A few had the
nerve, grit, and spirit to stick it out
The faith of these pioneers overcame
grasshOppers, drOuths, one crop
farms, and no markets. The sons and
daughters who were born after these
people won foothold are now old
enough for college education.
The children these pioneers
brought with them or who were born
in the struggling years are on the
farms of Western Kansas. But the
new generation bankers after a col
lege education. However the stuff
from which they spring causes them
to yearn for type of college differ
ent from the one their fathers and
mothers knew in the east.
1t is but natural that the only state
college in the western half of Kansas
should offer them the three incentives
of the project method of teaching agri-
culture managerial experience, de-
velopment or initiative, and economic
independence along with the regular
college training. The sense of depend
ence on dad" keeps many a Western
Kansas boy and girl from a college
cOurse-not that dad" is not able
and willing to give them a twin-six
roadster as a college textbook to stu
dy human nature. The big families
are hindrance in many cases,-one
son or daughter will not take the
chance the others cannot have. West
ern Kansas has, of course, its full
share of ambitious young folks with
slim pocketbooks.
No other normal school in the Unit
ed States has the project method in
the complete form the Fort Hays Kan
sas Normal School. 1t is pioneering on
the last frontier.
prof
department of agriculture and direct
or of the project work, says that he
wants to soon be able to say to every
boy and girl in this part of the state ::
Have enough money to get on the
campus and if you will farm, garden,
milk cows, churn butter, raise chick
ems, slOp pigs, or keep bees, you can
get your college education"
He said it last year to seven boys
and this year to almost fifty boys and
girls.
This project system swats the per-
nicious propaganda which teaches
toward the farm" The right idea
is within the farm"-having in it
no lost motion or the transplanting of
misfts, but the teaching and realiza-
tin that the staying of the farm of the
college trained man and woman is the
biggest lesson so far of the war and
should be of our educational system
as we'll.
The project system of teaching ag-
riculture is simply this: A boy or
girl enrolls in class and is assigned
to certain plot of ground, he studies
IN class what to do with the plot,
plants and cultivates and markets
/ under the direction of Prof Mat
thew and his assistants, the returns
L 1,1- Eo,.
poultry, chicken, pig, and bee projects
are maintained along similar lines.
| The other traditional college subjects
are taken in class attendance along
with this work. There is no interfer-
ence.
The seven boys of 1916 marketed
S2,70O Of products. They had only
ten acres. This year there are fifty
acres under irrigation. There are from
| 100 to $50 more acres available De
spite the notorious hot winds of West
ern Kansas and the drouth of this sea
son the, gardens were not materially
| damaged. Two irrigation stations
pumped 800 gallons of water per min
! ute from the Normal lake into the
| rows of vegetables when 1t was most
needed. The crops this season in the or
der of extent of cultivation are: white
potatoes, sweet corn, cantaloupes, to-
matoes, onions, sweet potatoes, celery,
beans, watermelons, cabbage, radish-
es, lettuce, turnips, spinach, pump
kins-
Professor Matthew estimates from
the fifty acres of his classes will have
gathered by the close of the season
between $1,000 and $4,000. The
state of Kansas Is at no expense as
the students pay land and water rent
| ais Economic independence while
in college" is the motto of Matthews
work
Matthews favorite project is the
dairy. A new dairy barn for forty
two cows will be ready when school,
opens. The new creamery has Just been
completed and viii have a maximum
capacity for forty-eight girls to work
their way through college.
| 1t viii run as a cooperative cream
iery,-the farmers within 100 miles OF
Hays by getting butter prices for but
ter fat and girls by taking the over
run for their share. This was tried
out on a small scale last year anC
justified the erection of the creamery
building on the campus.
The boy scouts under Britts Harris
of the faculty have tenth acre rSro-