Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-11-12
precious neutrality" Away with zen
envy aliens" upon our book shelves.
For the Children and for France

/ How to educate the children, how to
! feed herself after the war-these are
two great problems of France. Amer
lean ingenuity found a way Of solving
them both at once.
! Ernest w Bysshe in the World Out
look for November writes:
! The beginning was very simple. AL
first the Methodist Mission decided to
take about one hundred girls and boys
who were worth special care and edu-
cation and give them the very best
that money could buy, training them
up to help in the reconstruction of
! france after the War.
! The University of GrenOble donated
temporary home in Grenoble. which
the Methodists fitted up, and the hrst
Inmates arrived in the shape Of fam
lily Of six little Alsatians, between two
and four years of age. Their town
had been right on the battle lne. A
! bomb had struck the house when one
| of the little boys was sleeping with MS
father. killing the father and woundinS
the little fellow in three places. Ihen
the mission decided to IND a place III
the country. where the children might
grow up healthy. with all out-ot doors
to play in, and where there would De
sufficient farm land on which to grow
| food for the children.
France is divided into little farms
which the peasants have cultivated in
I tensiyely by sheer grit and muscle.
Their little farms are now depopulated.
I
and will not return. Others are work
ing in the munitions factories and can
not be persuaded to return. 1here
never will be man power enough TO
cultivate the farms iii the OLD way.
! France must learn a new method or go
under. The solution lies in the SUBJ
stitut on of American sclentlhc farm
1 ing. where one men with a machine
does the work done by twenty men by
! the former system.
Realizing this, the French Govern
ment has ordered many thousands or
tractors. But there must also be men
who can work the tractors. The French
peasant sits forlornly on the new ma
, chine stationary in the middle of a field.
while a woman and a yoke of oxen in
the next lot go placidly along, turning
up the soil. Between the tractor that
won't work and the oxen that will.
says the peasant. give me the oxen.
He is right But the real solution is to
show him how to work the tractor.
/ This necessitates the development of
a school of agriculture in France on the
! American plan. to train experts who,
after the War. can go through the
country side teaching more efficient
ways of farming by machinery. Here
was the work for which the Methodlsts
were looking Their select group of
orphans on a farm might become the
nucleus for great new agricultural
and industrial school, paving the way
for the social and economic reorgani-
cation of France after the war.
The practical advantages of their
plan are obvious:
Il. 1t provides beautiful and happy
home for the children in the country.
/ .. The produce of the farms will
make the school largely self-support-
ing.
! ). 4 property will be developed
which, after the war, will be worth on
the market all that is being put into it.
| 4. 1t is permanent contribution to
the work of reconstruction.
, D 1t is distinctly American contri-
button.
Such in brief, is the Methodist con-
trbution to the great need of the chill