i8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



text-books they used. These books, in general, are quite in a foreign 

 tongue. They possess literary value enough ; the arithmetics contain an 

 abundance of problems for training in railroading, manufacturing, 

 brokerage, banking, insurance, the grocery business, what not, but only 

 now and then an example on surveying, or measuring wood, and nothing 

 whatever on mechanics and agriculture. The vocabulary contains some 

 words that are in use in the district, but not the terminology in which 

 the community is thinking and exploiting its hopes and fears, its ambi- 

 tions and ideals, especially its practical life. 



A light-keeper on one of the Maine islands, years ago, as I landed 

 from a lobster smack to teach the winter school, said to me : " I am glad 

 to see somebody who can talk something besides lobsters and mackerel." 

 This island was engaged in those industries, and had one of the largest 

 fleets along the shore, and was becoming a prosperous community. 

 Naturally they talked " mackerel." In the schools, however, mackerel and 

 lobsters were tabooed. They used the common text-books, .containing 

 about everything except what nine tenths of the pupils needed most to 

 learn. I tried to obviate this omission by making problems directly 

 related to their home industries, by teaching something about the re- 

 sources of the ocean, the habits of its denizens, and kindred subjects, but 

 to no purpose, for, immediately, I was overwhelmed with curt notes from 

 irate mothers, saying: "We get enough talk about 'mackerel and 

 lobsters' at home, without having it taken into the schools. Our men 

 talk ' mackerel ' all day and half the night, and we can't stand it to have 

 the children take it up." Yet I had taken up the theme in a very differ- 

 ent way, trying to cast about it enough of science and romance to take 

 away the odors of familiarity, but they would have 7 none of it. Fathers 

 said to their boys : " Don't follow the sea. Its a dog's life." Mothers 

 taught their girls to seek life in the larger towns and cities. Anything 

 but the life by which they were winning their bread. They discouraged 

 the hope of finding a larger life in their island wealth and the resources 

 of the surrounding sea, and sent their boys and girls to the city. 



The rural communities hitherto failing to row their weight in the 

 economics of the world, now finding themselves dropping astern, are 

 entering complaint of unfair treatment in the social and industrial dis- 

 tribution. This however may be a hopeful sign, for men are thus com- 

 pelled to turn their attention to the conditions underlying the situation. 

 In such an examination they can not fail to discover that there is great 

 waste in these country districts, not only of land, but more striking and 

 important, great waste of human energy. The girls and boys are not 

 educated. The rural community has never made a just estimate of 

 human values. Its values are in land and cattle, boys and girls are a 

 kind of necessary nuisance. At the most, after twelve or fourteen years 

 of age, they are left to train themselves. The community has never been 



