hoak] outlook for NATURE-STUDY IN CALIF. I.S9 



The economic welfare of California has long centered and will 

 center in the future around the rural industries, the basic ones 

 being agriculture and horticulture. In spite of the fact that 

 California's fame has gone forth as "the land of gold" in a literal 

 sense, the following statistics prove something very contrary. 

 Annually for the last few years the total value of the farm pro- 

 ducts has been over $132,000,000, while the mineral production 

 has only amounted to $30,000,000. 



The rural school has in no wise kept pace with this rapid devel- 

 opment of rural industry. California has been strangely indif- 

 ferent to the welfare of her country schools. Dr. True of the 

 Dept. of Agriculture writes thus of our astonishing indifference: 



"The writer went not long ago to a flourishing agricultural community 

 in the midst of which was a fine and wealthy city. On invitation of lead- 

 ing citizens he went to a splendid high-school building in that city and ad- 

 dressed the teachers and students. In that school were gathered some six 

 hundred active and intelligent American boys and girls. They were pur- 

 suing courses in English and other languages, mathematics, history, 

 political economy, and a number of natural sciences. With much justifi- 

 able pride the principal of the school showed his visitor the good equip- 

 ment for carpentry and wood carving. There was also instruction in 

 various forms of commercial business. But agriculture and horticulture 

 were entirely neglected. The farms and horticultural plantations sur- 

 rounding that city aggregated millions of dollars in value. The prosperity 

 if not the very existence of the city depended on the success of the agri- 

 culture in its vicinity. Grave evils afflicted that agricultural region, the 

 removal of which required much intelligence and expert skill. Hundreds 

 of the pupils attending that high school would naturally, if not necessarily, 

 make agriculture in that region the business of their lives. Yet no pupil 

 was learning anything about the requirements of successful agriculture or 

 the aid science may give the farmer in his struggle with the forces of nature 

 vitally affecting his business. The whole drift of the education given in 

 that school was away from the farm. Could anything be more unwise? 

 Is it not absolutely certain that, considering it merely as a matter of business 

 policy, the taxpayers of that city could well afford to pay all the additional 

 expense which would be required to maintain courses of agriculture in that 

 school? Undoubtedly the farmers of the vicinity ought to share in this 

 expense, and there is good reason to expect they would do so. There are 

 hundreds of American communities where a similar state of things exists. 

 The enduring prosperity of the city is inextricably bound up with the suc- 

 cess of agriculture. Technical education has proved a sure road to com- 

 mercial development and greatly increased wealth in connection with 

 every industry which has received its benefits. It will prove equally so 

 with agriculture." 



